Adventure (philosophy) [Archive]

James

09-11-2003, 03:26 AM

My feelings on this were well documented on latterday forums, but here we go again.

The advent of the SCUMM engine gave us some truely fantastic games. From LucasArts we got Sam and Max, the Monkey Island Series, The Dig (ahem), Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and so forth. At the same time, Sierra were producing some great games as well, the Gabriel Knight Series, the Quest Series, Leisure Suit Larry, and all those. Revolution interjected with the fantastic Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, the solid Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror, and the classics Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky.

The technology at this time was of a certain standard, but was nothing earth-shattering. By the time of Curse of Monkey Island and Broken Sword II, the polygon had reared her pointed head. The advent of Quake and Quake II brought forth a third dimension as the saviour of late 90s gaming, culminated in Half-Life. 3d gaming was seen as the way forward with this advance, coupled with the introduction of the groundbreaking PlayStation console. Adventure gaming reluctantly took this up, in the form of Grim Fandango and Gabriel Knight 3. A lot was riding on these games. Grim Fandango is an outstanding title and remains my favourite adventure game ever. Gabriel Knight 3 brought critical scorn from all but the most dedicated, and did not fulfill commercial expectations.

At the turn of the millenium the adventure scene was grim. The only titles on the horizon were Escape from Monkey Island, a let down in my opinion, and the excellent if underrated and unappreciated The Longest Journey.

So to present day. With Charles Cecil proudly declaring "the point and click adventure is dead", with a wry smile, now is the time to examine what makes an adventure. The past have given us some great examples of what make an adventure - the Monkey Island series is, for many, the epitome of adventure gaming. The series combines puzzles, dialogue, character interaction and wit in a urbane situation comedy. Second to this, one looks to the Broken Sword series. More serious in tone, Revolution focus on historical intrigue in presenting a compelling adventure for the player. With their soon to be released close of the trilogy, Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon, Revolution take the genre in the direction I believe it must take. Here we see wholly integrated 3d graphics, so much so that the genre can finally be compared favourably with others in the visual stakes. It is being developed without the point and click control system, so making it accessable to cross format development, and indeed a wider audience. Yet I would wager a small fortune that the game will retain the essence of what makes a good adventure, and will be heralded by many here as one.

This is not because of 2d, pre-rendered backgrounds. This is not because of point and click interface, because BS3 will have none of these. It is because of (hopefully) a good, interesting narrative, challenging puzzles, yet ones accessable to the everyman, realistic and humane characters.

Look to the horizon - Broken Sword 3, Sam and Max 2, The Longest Journey 2. Turn your head - Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief 3, Uru. Turn around - Half-Life2.

These are the games that will include elements traditionally associated with adventure games. How many can be classed purely as adventure games? All of them, or none of them, depending on how open your mind is. If you believe adventure games are purely 2d, should never contain action, and ought to contain purely scripted interaction - you are living in the era of SCUMM gaming. I'll see the rest of you in the future.

Wajus

09-11-2003, 03:29 AM

Okay, without semantic and technical ado:

For me "adventure game" is a game where the story is superior to any other elements. I'm even eager to qualify Planescape&Fallout to adventure genre to some degree. Not to mention games like LBA, Omikron and Outcast. Story above all...

The Poisoned Pawn

09-11-2003, 03:31 AM

I certainly wouldn't call an adventure a game one with "2D painted graphics", and technically it doesn't need to be any more point-and-click than most FPSs out there (though with the exception of Grim Fandango, and EMI every adventure game I played had some point-and-click element to it).

My favourite adventures, the Tex Murphy series, don't involved 2D at all (with the exception of some of the "flat" objects in UAKM and Pandora), though they do involve point-and-click.

As for violence/action, I don't think it should be a BIG part of an adventure game, but a little doesn't hurt. Blade Runner comes to mind. And there's some mildly violent scenes in the Tex games as well.

I like to think of adventures as being those that primarily require puzzle solving in order to advance. Sure, games like No One Lives Forever and Tomb Raider require puzzle solving to some extent, but there's a huge emphasis on the action elements in these games.

Kode

09-11-2003, 05:03 AM

Is adventure game really the one where you have 2d painted graphics, with no or minimum amount of fighting/violence, or is it simply a game with a true sense of adventure and exploration and pure fun.

You put forth a good question. While the words "adventure games" are generally referring to games with the former (2d painted graphics, with no or minimum amount of violence) I have always considered a game with a true sense of adventure and exploration to be a real adventure. If the latter definition were used to define games, every single game would be an adventure game. Every game puts the character through an adventure, a story, and a sense of danger and a sense of the unknown which automatically induces exploration.

The way I look at it is, if a game's point is less exploration and story, and more shooting, strategizing or something else, then it may fall under another category. But a game that truly emphasizes the concepts of story, character, and exploration in its gameplay is what I would dub a real adventure game. It's trying to be more adventure and story, than action or strategy or simulation or RPG or anything else. I've always thought of adventure games as movies, except you get to decide what the hero does next :7

Crunchy in milk

09-11-2003, 07:08 AM

I'm even eager to qualify Planescape & Fallout to adventure genre to some degree. Not to mention games like LBA, Omikron and Outcast. Story above all...

I'm less willing to go that far. If a game requires your character to level up in order to progress the story, then its an rpg for me, where as traditional 'true' adventure games require only your will to explore and solve puzzles from start to finish. You're not required to exploit an experience point system in order to progress further. I wouldn't classify fallout as an adventure game, its an rpg with good 'adventure elements' :)

I love all the games you've listed, but they never for a second fell under my classification of adventure game. Its not like they had to for me to enjoy them. Of those you mention, Outcast might sneak in under my definition. I don't mind 'shooter elements' in adventure games, as long as there's a majority of problem solving elements beyond the shooting, jumping and dodging (and goddamn key finding, I mean seriously, enough with the fucking keys to open doors to exit levels already... but that is fuel for another thread).

Wajus

09-11-2003, 07:27 AM

I'm less willing to go that far (...) I wouldn't classify fallout as an adventure game, its an rpg with good 'adventure elements' :)

I said that Fallout is an adventure game to some degree which can be translated like this: While I wouldn't say that Fallout is adventure game I think it has some elements of adventure game. It's not adventure game however. I would rahter call it "Post Nuclear Role Playing Adventure Game" instead.

But other games I mentioned can be and should be easily, smoothly and seamlessly clasified as "adventures" due to what I already mentioned. Adventure game is a game where story is superior over other elements - be it shooting, running, jumping etc. Note that I do not consider them classic adventure games but adventures they are nevertheless.

remixor

09-11-2003, 07:40 AM

I'll probably post more in this thread later, but on the topic of the term "adventure":

I believe the word "adventure" as it relates to games has become simply a classification, not to be used literally as an adjective. Adventure games were originally titles as such because they were really the first games in which you COULD embark upon an adventure, first with text and later with graphics, as opposed to simply playing a game without an actual story and goal (Pong, for example). As technology increased, however, it was possible to make games that were rather more "adventurous"--adventures themselves, however, didn't change much. They still haven't, at their core (but then again, neither have many other genres), so the label has stayed the same. However, I don't expect an adventure game to be "adventurey." I'd be just as happy playing an unorthadox adventure game with a plot that is just the opposite, as long as it's engaging and well-made. Language quite often evolves in this way. There are many phrases we use which, when taken literally, really don't mean what they say. If we were starting over with genre names, games like Tomb Raider would probably be labeled adventure. There's no need for that, though, since adventure has already come to designate the genre we all know and (mostly) love.

Wajus

09-11-2003, 07:43 AM

*Whispers* Ekhm, Tomb Raider is in fact platformer sire.

emma

09-11-2003, 07:46 AM

I once was going on endlessly about how I felt the word "logic" being one of subjective feelings, rather than being precise as the word would seem to mean. What's logical to one, is completely off the wall to somebody else.

I don't think there are many possible ways to logically explain what an adventure game is. It's completely subjective, and quite frankly a thing that's so nice with adventure games, the not knowing exactly what you're going to get. Sometimes it works other times it doesn't.

I feel that adventure gaming is brains, not brawns. Contemplation not reaction. But I have also realized that one isn't ruling out the other to make an adventure interesting as a whole. Sure, I'd like it it have puzzles, but have enjoyed Black Out, where there's not one single puzzle in it, except for the conundrum of the story that was unfolding depending on how you approached the game. I'd like it to have a nice juicy story, but truth have it, I can enjoy a weak story if there are good, entertaining puzzles in it. I enjoy both third person as well as first person view. I loath lots of talk, but, heh, just because I don't like that aspect it doesn't rule out being something that makes an adventure. So when I think adventure, it's completely subjective. Story and/or puzzles in various degrees. Keyboard or point/click, 3D/2D is all just tools to use, doesn't make or break an adventure per se.

remixor

09-11-2003, 07:46 AM

*Whispers* Ekhm, Tomb Raider is in fact platformer sire.

I know what it is now ;) I'm just saying if we were to go and wipe everything clean and come up with names for all the genres, I think I'd call Tomb Raider "adventure", since I think the name suits it pretty well. I'm not much of a Tomb Raider fan, but it seems more like an actual adventure than, say, collecting a bunch of inventory items and talking to people. :D

pleto4_ryan

09-11-2003, 08:21 AM

What is an adventure game?

A really good interaction book. :P

ragnar

09-11-2003, 09:05 AM

I once was going on endlessly about how I felt the word "logic" being one of subjective feelings, rather than being precise as the word would seem to mean. What's logical to one, is completely off the wall to somebody else.

The problem here, I think is the use of the word logic which doesn't at all describe what is going on. It is more of an associative work to solve adventure game puzzles, rather than logic work. To solve puzzles you most often need to take a good guess at how the designer of the game thought while doing the game. So, it has very little to do with logic.

twifkak

09-11-2003, 09:39 AM

I think she was getting at the inability to logically (objectively) derive "adventure game." IMO, "logic" means the application of deductive, inductive, reductive, and conductive reasoning to agreed upon facts, but people often tend to start assuming things without realizing it (2*2=4 is dependent on how we definite the numbers and operators, for example), and that creates lots of trouble. The exact same arguments can often be used to support two sides of a coin.

And FWIW, I agree that the name "adventure" is better suited to Tomb Raider. Of course, what should we call Grim Fandango and the like? Drama games? (Err.. Monkey Island?) Story games? (Err.. Deus Ex?)

ragnar

09-11-2003, 09:50 AM

Drama
Comedy
Thriller
Romance

Those work in other medias, I think they would apply here as well.

twifkak

09-11-2003, 09:56 AM

Actually, yes, I would prefer we dropped the RTS/RPG/FPS tags and use those instead. Of course...

Not all games have stories.
Not all games want to be judged by their stories.

It's complicated.

ragnar

09-11-2003, 10:09 AM

Not all movies have stories either, at least not very obvious ones. :P

But I agree that games need another class to define the type of interactivity you do in the game.

So, these show examples of what might be a better genre naming system:

Comedy adventure game (Monkey Island)
Strategy documentary game (Civlization etc. they are almost like a history documentary if you take away the interactivity).
Roleplaying Drama game (Deus Ex would fit here I think)
Action platform game (The tomb raider games would fit here I think)

Jake

09-11-2003, 10:11 AM

we love "adventure" vs "graphic adventure" discussions. :9

ragnar

09-11-2003, 10:14 AM

we love "adventure" vs "graphic adventure" discussions. :9
You mean "graphic point & click adventure with lots of pixelhunting", surely. :P

Dylan_Dog

09-11-2003, 12:40 PM

Let's take a look at one example (by the way, this is for the pure "adventure gamers" only). You are in a computer store and on one of the shelves you have two games - Half Life 2 and a new point and click adventure game that just came out. Lets assume that you have a nice computer that can run both games easily and that you only have enough money to purchase one of these games. You look at the back of the box. For one game it says "beautifully painted graphics, over 40 interactive characters, 'n' amount of locations, intriguing storyline" etc. on the other (obviously Half Life 2) you have something like "superior 3D graphics, high level texturing, new realtime 3d engine" etc. Now here comes the dilemma - which game do you purchase? Well, like I said at the start, if you are a pure "adventure gamer", obviously you will go for the point and click. Yet how do you know that that point and click game will have a better "adventure"? How would you know that it is a more enjoyable game? Because it says that it has intriguing storyline? Because on the box it has a picture of our hero standing on top of the hill while a beautiful pre-rendered sky hangs in the background, and a sleek looking mouse cursor is pointing in the direction of neverwhere? Perhaps. But surely, those things don't make it a good adventure game.

Dylan_Dog

09-11-2003, 12:59 PM

There appears to be a conflict in terms of defining the adventure game. Perhaps this is the reason why the proclaimed "genre" hasn't evolved at all over the past 5 or 6 years. Only the quality of the graphics, game sequances, and voice overs & music has improved. All other aspects remain the same. That is also the reason why attempts to extrude the 2d point and click pre-rendered "adventures" have failed and will continue to fail. I for one am eagerly anticipating the release of BS3 - The Sleeping Dragon, not because it is 2d and looks like it can rival the likes of Gabriel Knight and early Broken Sword, but because it has one foot in the future and is promising to send the adventure games in a completely new direction.
Anyway, back to the term "adventure", I think almost every game (with few exceptions) has some sort of adventure or sense of adventure in itself. So another question springs to mind (after all we are in 2003 now, so lets re-evaluate our perception of the gaming world) - does "adventure" deserve to be categorized as a stand-alone genre?
Look at movies, a swashbuckling pirate movie has adventure elements but also has action, perhpas romance, and sometimes horror and gratosque violence. Smilarly when we look at sci-fi movies especially the ones with bits of deep space and aliens and all that kind of stuff, they are sci-fi, action, mystery, horror, but also adventure.

remixor

09-11-2003, 03:17 PM

One big thing that keeps us from naming genres by subject matter is interactivity. Movies are not interactive (at least, not in a physical way), so our role is simply to watch. We are SHOWN an adventure, or a comedy, or a drama. Games have that, but they also have gameplay (obviously). In almost all games, subject matter is subservient to gameplay. Even adventure games usually (not always, but usually) fall into this category. Very few of the "great" adventure games have characters, dialogue, and story that compare with the best films or novels. Rather, they succeed in those elements (but generally do not excel by the standards of cinema and literature) while containing hopefully excellent gameplay. If we simply wanted a great story, we'd read a book or watch a movie, which is why books and movies are categorized the way they are. However, there is a HUGE difference between a science-fiction strategy game and a science-fiction platform game, so it really doesn't make much sense to put them in the same category.

(ok, I just scrolled down and realized ragnar already sort of posted about this. whoops...)

And to Dylan_Dog's second post: If you are a "pure adventure gamer", as in your scenario, you might buy the adventure game not just because you think it has a good story, but perhaps because you don't like action games, even those with good stories. Perhaps you like solving puzzles, or you like a more relaxed game. There are more possibilities, many of which relate to gameplay. This is basically what I was writing about above.

Intrepid Homoludens

09-11-2003, 04:18 PM

...I started to reflect on some comments which I see appear in numerous locations, eg. "a true adventure", "good storyline", "point and click interface" and then I noticed that most of these comments applied to same kind of game - still backgrounds, one or two characters on the screen at the same time, pick up this, use that, talk to him/her, and so on. Furthermore, there seems to be some kind of radical or leftist wing within the gaming community, specifically, adventure gaming community, who think that adventure games are only those such as Broken Sword, Monkey Island etc. and that games such as Vampire The Masquerade, and tons of RPG's and "action" games on the market are not even close to being an adventure.....Is adventure game really the one where you have 2d painted graphics, with no or minimum amount of fighting/violence, or is it simply a game with a true sense of adventure and exploration and pure fun. So the big question my dear adventure gamers is, are we really after a good adventure game or are we after something that will LOOK LIKE or something that will FEEL LIKE Gabriel Knight or Broken Sword or Monkey Island?

You are absolutely right about the hardcore adventure gaming snobs. They exist, just as tangibly as the bleeding edge graphics FPS whores exist. Too many times they mistakenly define the adventure game by its details, i.e. p-&-c, 2D hand drawn worlds, inventory, etc. They alone are not guilty of this, the developers and the media have conspired with them to perpetuate such a stupidly limited categorization. It's our collective fault that this genre has become stale and downright boring, an incestuous cannibalism with very little progressive imagination. How has your own definition of the adventure game been coloured by the prevailing stereotypes? How have you contributed to carrying on this practice, thereby preventing the adventure game genre from becoming as multifaceted and diversified as it possibly could be, so that in effect it could never be exhausted?

Case in point. Two recent games and one soon to be released, feature the exact same puzzle! Post Mortem, The Black Mirror, and Dark Fall all include the 'poke-stick-into-keyhole-to-push-key-out-of-other-side-onto-paper-on-floor-to-pass-under-the-door' puzzle. This is outright emarrassing and proves the lack of cryptological creativity of many game developers who are too incompetent to think outside the little box. I mean, come on, you asinine tools! Would you please do your research and create brand new challenges we've never seen before? This is what I mean by incestuous cannibalism.

For me, the adventure game is a delicately balanced cocktail of critical elements: story, challenges (puzzles), character development, and exploration/discovery. These are the four cornerstones that define the genre. But that's not all. There must be a proportional presence or absence of other elements, such as action and roleplaying. For example, a little action adds suspense and thrills, but too much of it upsets the premise the of game. Categorically, traditional adventures rarely feature player controlled action sequences where quick reflexes are rewarded. GK3 tried to do this, I thought the results were horrible, not so much the clicking itself, but more for the fact that you were never given clues as to what, where, and when to click, so you died several times feeling stupid or screwed over. Bad puzzle design.

Notice that I never mentioned details like point-&-click as part of my definition. These are simply standard conventions attributed to the adventure game, much in the same way that hit points are attributed to shooters. They don't define the genre.

Crunchy in milk

09-11-2003, 05:55 PM

For me, the adventure game is a delicately balanced cocktail of critical elements: story, challenges (puzzles), character development, and exploration/discovery. These are the four cornerstones that define the genre. But that's not all. There must be a proportional presence or absence of other elements, such as action and roleplaying.

You highlight (well I did but you mentioned it) character development, but then dismiss roleplaying?. Did you mean the tongue in cheek 'roll playing' that relies on random number generation to pass obstacles? Role playing is a much under utilised element in adventure games. In Syberia, we're left to just watch the main character react to her situation emotionally (and boy does she let us down) rather than given the option (choices) to role play her reaction ourselves. Where are the choices that effect how others treat the main character and thus the entire story?. Role playing as puzzle and/or story shaping element is something I welcome more of in adventure games. 'Roll playing' is something that keeps RPGs from being focused adventures.

Character development is integral to good story, I just wish it was more interactive.

remixor

09-11-2003, 06:47 PM

Character development is integral to good story, I just wish it was more interactive.

This is definitely a valid point, but not necessarily a universal one. I have never really thought of myself as "playing" the character. I see myself rather as observer into the world, just with a very detailed understanding of a particular character. For me, it's comparable to a novel in which you do not actually take the PLACE of a character, but (in almost all fiction) you have greatly heightened awareness and understanding of a certain character's thoughts. That's the main character. I understand that this is not how all people play adventures though--if it were, we wouldn't have first-person adventures. It's just how I look at it.

Dylan_Dog

09-11-2003, 07:45 PM

To "Intrepid Homoludens":

Yes, I agree with you there. Quite well put.

ragnar

09-11-2003, 10:47 PM

Many good points have been raised here.

As have been said, I think many people look at the _form_ before looking at the _content_ which imo is a rather strange way to look.

James

09-11-2003, 10:50 PM

In the best of games form=content, there are no defining boundaries to the game, it is defined by the experience one gets from playing it.

Zanthia

09-12-2003, 03:16 AM

Yes, but you knoe it only after u play it. And if u have for example to choose wheach game to buy you can only rely on what is written on the box/what you see in promotion movie/what your friends say. And its never objective.

Dylan_Dog

09-12-2003, 03:37 AM

Exactly.

At the end of the day, you will be buying a game based purely on 3rd party advice (unless, somehow, you ended up with a demo of the game without anyone telling you anything about it). You will most likely read previews/reviews and they all vary from person to person. You will see screenshots. You will talk to people and visit forums such as this one and ask about the game. At the end, you will pick up the packaging, read the back and then and there decide if you want it or not.

Dylan_Dog

09-12-2003, 03:57 AM

Actually, quite a few years ago I was a self proclaimed adventure-gaming-maniac. I would go into a software store and simply ignore anything that seemed like a strategy, RPG, or action, and simply "smell" a good adventure by turning boxes around and seeing a cursor with a label over something that says "pick up". That was years ago. This is now. And now I am totally different when it comes down to choosing a good adventure. It doesn't matter if its 1st person shooter, or a real time role player, or a 3d adventure or a 2d adventure. And this is simply because I allowed myself to experience something more - to look beyond the square.
As I mentioned before, adventure games, if they want to be identified as being "unique" or "pure" need something new. A new approach, something that will once again put them on the map. Ideally, we would want an adventure game that has a bit of everything - everything that every gamer desires i.e. good plot, complexities/twists, good puzzles, some kind of combat/violence to create a sense of realism, good and believable graphics, great sound (music + voice overs) etc. In fact, to describe these things properly, a gamer wants to be immersed into the virtual world of the game, he/she does not want to get irritated by the game but they want a sense of challange and not have their intelligence insulted. They want to think about the game long after they its completion, and they want a sequal or something similar to this game after they play it about 100 times. In ideal world, this is the game that is in a true sense of the word, a pure adventure. This is what we need now. Perhaps BS3 might be THE ONE.......

Wajus

09-12-2003, 04:03 AM

Yesssss.... I think that Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon will redefine and revolutionize not only adventure games genre but whole gaming - I mean the part that is focused on story-telling.

:spam: BS3 will prevail - I'm certain of that. :spam:

Zanthia

09-12-2003, 04:17 AM

:rolleyes: Lets play it and THEN make conclussions?
The same thing we were told about tlj2.

Wajus

09-12-2003, 04:21 AM

Yeah, the infamous TLJ2 - now that was a dissapointment. I see your point :rolleyes:

As for the BS3... no, really!

Dylan_Dog

09-12-2003, 04:29 AM

All this talk about game genre and what comprises it has made me create another thread running parallel with this one. So check it out. Go here:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=976#post976

and express yourselves. Let your imagination go wild.

Zanthia

09-12-2003, 04:47 AM

Yeah, the infamous TLJ2 - now that was a dissapointment. I see your point :rolleyes:

As for the BS3... no, really!
I ment there are too many redefining and revolutionizing games?

Wajus

09-12-2003, 04:56 AM

??
There's only ONE.

twifkak

09-12-2003, 06:37 AM

Case in point. Two recent games and one soon to be released, feature the exact same puzzle! Post Mortem, The Black Mirror, and Dark Fall all include the 'poke-stick-into-keyhole-to-push-key-out-of-other-side-onto-paper-on-floor-to-pass-under-the-door' puzzle. This is outright emarrassing and proves the lack of cryptological creativity of many game developers who are too incompetent to think outside the little box. I mean, come on, you asinine tools! Would you please do your research and create brand new challenges we've never seen before? This is what I mean by incestuous cannibalism.
Problem is: lazy developers hear this and think, "OK! Duck-shaped innertube + oversized tweezers = coffee brewer it is!"

twifkak

09-12-2003, 06:41 AM

In the best of games form=content, there are no defining boundaries to the game, it is defined by the experience one gets from playing it.
Can you explain what you mean by "In the best of games form=content"? Examples?

Ninja Dodo

09-12-2003, 09:58 AM

Case in point. Two recent games and one soon to be released, feature the exact same puzzle! Post Mortem, The Black Mirror, and Dark Fall all include the poke-stick-into-keyhole-to-push-key-out-of-other-side-onto-paper-on-floor-to-pass-under-the-door' puzzle. This is outright emarrassing and proves the lack of cryptological creativity of many game developers who are too incompetent to think outside the little box. I mean, come on, you asinine tools! Would you please do your research and create brand new challenges we've never seen before? This is what I mean by incestuous cannibalism. That was also in King's Quest 2 VGA and Alone in the Dark 2. It's a fun puzzle though... that's probably why it's used so much.

Anyway... for me Half Life and Deus Ex are as much adventures as Grim Fandango and King's Quest 6... and (American McGee's) Alice which I just finished today I would also definitely consider an adventure. For me it's anything that gives you a good story, compelling characters and an interesting world to explore. The only thing that's keeping me from calling Starcraft an adventure is the fact that the actual gameplay doesn't involve any story or character development. :D
Warcraft 3 is definitely on the right track though...

Garyos

09-12-2003, 11:35 AM

Hey, Starcraft's got character development! In fact, I think it's one of the most dynamic and unpredictable RTS stories I've seen...

Wajus

09-12-2003, 09:27 PM

Anyway... for me Half Life and Deus Ex are as much adventures as Grim Fandango and King's Quest 6...

Nah, I don't think so. F.e. There's really not much of a story left in H-L during this big middle-chapters chunks where all you do is jumping and so on. H-L begins like an adventure but then the story development sums up in just one sentence "You have to reach the Lambda complex Gordon!".

James

09-13-2003, 04:30 AM

twifkak

09-13-2003, 06:02 AM

OK, I see what you mean, now.

ragnar

09-13-2003, 07:40 AM

In Deus Ex, the form is gameplay freedom, choice and individuality. The content reflects this, by the player JC Denton, being forced to make choices and decisions. Here we see how the form impacts on the content, and how the content reflects upon the form.

I couldn't make the choices I wanted in DX. I really would have liked to join Majestic 12 (at least some time). DX is as almost linear as most adventure games.

James

09-13-2003, 07:46 AM

I couldn't make the choices I wanted in DX. I really would have liked to join Majestic 12 (at least some time). DX is as almost linear as most adventure games.
It offered unprecedented gameplay freedom, coupled with a compelling narrative. Any story has a beginning, middle and end, therefore it most contain some degree of linearity.

Deus Ex: Invisible War looks to reduce the narrative length, while also increasing the gameplay freedom.

twifkak

09-13-2003, 07:56 AM

Any story has a beginning, middle and end
Have you seen (for example) Six Feet Under or The Sopranos?

ragnar

09-13-2003, 08:08 AM

It offered unprecedented gameplay freedom, coupled with a compelling narrative. Any story has a beginning, middle and end, therefore it most contain some degree of linearity.

Deus Ex: Invisible War looks to reduce the narrative length, while also increasing the gameplay freedom.

I would have liked to be able to outwit the bad guys to a much greater extension. There are some ways to solve the problems presented to you. But all of them requires your physical strength and requires the player to be good at sneaking/shooting and things like that. None of them requires that the player has intelligence.

James

09-13-2003, 08:09 AM

Henke

09-13-2003, 08:13 AM

What Dylan_Dog is saying here is what I also talked about (before the forum went down the drain). The typical adventure gamer is to narrow minded regarding the definition of an adventure game.

I want to interactivly play through a good story. It should be just like playing a movie, book or a comic. The story should have intense parts of action, gripping drama, humor and all that these three other artforms have all mixed. That is the games I want to play and that is what I like to call an adventure game.

BTW I have great doubts about "the new generation of adventure games" called Broken Sword 3. The trailer I have seen of the game was only a technical show off targeted to console buyers if you ask me (and the music was awful in my opinion). I saw a bit more from the game on a TV-show called Gameplay. One of the scenes I got a glims from looked kind of corny. I hope the game is great though since I really liked the first two and I even more hope it will truly revolutionise the genre as it claims.

BostonLow

09-13-2003, 08:20 AM

In my opinion, what defines a genre is what motivates the player to continue playing. If it's exploration, character development or story that motivates you to blast the aliens' heads in Half-Life, fine, to you Half-Life is an adventure game. On the other hand if you're shooting the aliens for the sheer thrill of engaging in a battle, then it's action.

twifkak

09-13-2003, 09:20 AM

I don't watch television. even things like resevoir dogs and fight club, have a beginning middle and end - all stories do, otherwise they're not stories. Television series work by presenting short narrative arcs (an episode) set amid larger ones (a season).
Several shows, however, are attempting to make these story arcs blur and overlap in such a way that the end of one arc coincedes with the middle of another, and some story arcs don't really have an end, such as the on-again-off-again relationship between Elaine and Putty, or Jeremy and Natalie, or Ross and Rachel (ha! TV references galore.. oh well). It's true the seasons end with cliffhangers, but that's not a necessity to an interesting story. Maybe we're arguing over the semantics of the word "story" in which case, I'll concede whatever, but I'd argue that I don't need a beginning/middle/end to make me happy. Just some interesting characters and interactions.

James

09-13-2003, 09:34 AM

I'd argue that even those interactions have a beginning middle end, though not obviously apparent, if written well. Indeed, a well written story will blur the lines of beginning middle and end, until the point where the reader/viewer finishes the piece and wants more!

twifkak

09-13-2003, 12:46 PM

Oh, come on. Be imaginative here. What about infinitely long stories? No end there. Wasn't it some person famous who said something profound about art being in a continual state of revision or construction or something? :D

Dylan_Dog

09-13-2003, 01:48 PM

Some people seem to be saying that a genre (especially adventure genre) is subjective and depends from one person to the next on how it is perceived. Why then, do we have defined genres in the first place?

Intrepid Homoludens

09-13-2003, 02:56 PM

I couldn't make the choices I wanted in DX. I really would have liked to join Majestic 12 (at least some time). DX is as almost linear as most adventure games.

This is when it becomes difficult for the game designers to cede that much freedom of choice within the gameworld for the player, while retaining the story's integrity. If you're talking about a story driven game, Deus Ex being one, the player's freedom is proportional to the story's importance. GTA3 allowed us to do pretty much whatever we wanted, set our own goals within the limits of the gameworld. However, it was impossible to progress from one major level to the next (from Liberty City to Staunton Island to Portland) - thereby finishing the game - without accomplishing all the respective required missions. In DX, if you had been allowed to join Majestic 12 that could have easily had consequences affecting the dynamics of the plot, and the designers would have had to add more content than what was sufficient to tell the story. You couldn't make the choices you wanted because, according the story, you're not supposed to make those choices. That would have been another game.

I wouldn't even say that DX is 'almost' as linear as an adventure game. Please, ragnar, that's underestimation. You had multiple pathways and multiple resources and multiple strategies to work with to accomplish a mission goal, and you had to combine them properly to get the right results for what you intend. Try doing that in Syberia or Grim Fandango.

I would have liked to be able to outwit the bad guys to a much greater extension. There are some ways to solve the problems presented to you. But all of them requires your physical strength and requires the player to be good at sneaking/shooting and things like that. None of them requires that the player has intelligence.

Ragnar, that was a damn shallow statement, and shows how much you tried to force DX into your own paradigm. That's really unfair of you to say. In theory, I agree with your idea of having as many different options as possible. In reality, it doesn't work that way, given such considerations as development time, available technology, and most importantly, the concepts of the game designers. If you place DX within the historical arena of games, you'll find that it is one of the very few games that offer an unparalleled level of interactivity, matched only by such titles as Duke Nukem and GTA3. To demand more of that is just simply unfair.

As far as you saying that none of the challenges require intelligence from the player, that is utterly stupid and unjustified! Come on, ragnar, I thought you knew better than that! I bet that you were forcing a particular state of mind on DX that had nothing to do with what DX was all about. You played it not on its own terms (which is how we're supposed to be experiencing games - we enter any game's vision and play by its rules), but in a way that stained it in another light. It actually insults me that you blurt out how the game requires no intelligence of the player. I played the game all the way through, I was damn proud of being able to figure my way out of such places as the VersaLife labs in Hong Kong. I wracked my brain trying to succeed through Hell's Kitchen and navigating through the cathedral levels outside Paris. How many times did you die trying to sneak out of the Majestic 12 prison because you didn't use your required intelligence? How many times did you get stuck because you didn't check your sources and talk to the right persons? How many times did you die because you didn't use your intelligence to strategize, timing your moves according the guards' patrol patterns and using objects to distract them or weapons to incapacitate them so you could move on?

Come on, rags! Many of the situational challenges in DX rival those of the finest adventure games, but in a different way. Whereas a puzzle in Myst demands nothing but pure logical deductions, the situational challenges in DX demand lateral thinking, strategizing, balancing one's skills, resource managment, and perfect timing. You tell me how hard it is to balance all those elements and then tell me again that it requires no intelligence of the player. Wait a minute.....what difficulty level did you play it in?!! http://smilies.networkessence.net/s/contrib/blackeye/hihi.gif Ha!

If Deus Ex didn't require intelligence of the player they would have just made it into another Postal 2 and market it us gamers who have sh!t for brains.

Ninja Dodo

09-13-2003, 10:49 PM

Garyos: Maybe I should have phrased my comment a bit better. Yes, Starcraft has what is arguably the best story in a strategy game ever and highly interesting characters... BUT, and this was my point, all the storytelling is done in the briefings, cinematics and the odd ingame-cutscene. The actual gameplay is only about managing your resources and using good military tactics. Warcraft 3 however has integrated the storytelling more.

Nah, I don't think so. F.e. There's really not much of a story left in H-L during this big middle-chapters chunks where all you do is jumping and so on. H-L begins like an adventure but then the story development sums up in just one sentence "You have to reach the Lambda complex Gordon!".I think with Half Life it isn't about the plot, because there barely is one as you point out, but it's how that barely existant plot is told. It is told so incredibly well, that it doesn't matter how thin the plot is. To me this makes it an adventure.

Wajus

09-13-2003, 11:07 PM

I think with Half Life it isn't about the plot, because there barely is one as you point out, but it's how that barely existant plot is told. It is told so incredibly well, that it doesn't matter how thin the plot is. To me this makes it an adventure.

The plot is "amazingly" told through jumping, shooting and "finding lambda complex" frankly said.

np APC-13th Step

Erwin_Br

09-14-2003, 12:02 AM

I think there is no way we can define the 'adventure genre'. It's so much broader than most of us think.

I think people who are saying the adventure genre is dead are actually saying that games like e.g. Monkey Island and Kings Quest are dead. Thus, the elements that defined those mentioned games aren't very commonly used anymore or mixed with new elements.

Personally I wish the market could be more diverse. I mean, most developers are playing it safe and base their projects on established facts. I'm sure there's still room for a 'classic' adventure amongst all the latest games. Developers such as Pendulo fortunately seem to share that opinion with me.

--Erwin

Marek

09-14-2003, 12:15 AM

I believe adventure games are defined by puzzle-based gameplay over manual dexterity. Within a narrative, of course.

Civilization, Warcraft, Half-Life, etc. are all great games but we already have different names for those.

That is not to say that an "adventure game" can only be something that resembles Myst or Monkey Island. I'm hoping our perception of adventure games will change a lot in the coming years.

Erwin_Br

09-14-2003, 12:22 AM

That is not to say that an "adventure game" can only be something that resembles Myst or Monkey Island. I'm hoping our perception of adventure games will change a lot in the coming years.

True, but those were the games that started the interest for the genre for many people here. So those games became the benchmark for these people.

With that in mind, younger gamers started playing other games thus their definition of the genre would be different from us 'oldtimers'.

It's a timeframe.

--Erwin

remixor

09-14-2003, 12:24 AM

Not to be Mr. Cynical here, but I think that no matter how broad an interpretation of "adventure" you take, within reason, it's hard not to think they're at least a little dead. I know that we can say "Look at BS3, TLJ2, S+M2, Syberia 2, etc.!", but fans of basically ANY other genre could just say, "Oh yeah? Look at the new releases list for this week" (substitute any week of your choice). I hope that the release of some big-name adventures will make steps towards revitalizing and evolving the genre, but at the moment the genre is pretty stagnant, albeit not actually dead.

Marek

09-14-2003, 12:29 AM

I think publishers like the Adventure Company have found a new market for adventure games. So they're not commercially dead like many people think. However, I would agree that creatively speaking there's at least a lot of inactivity going on. I really hope that will change. In this sense I believe remixor is right.

pleto4_ryan

09-14-2003, 12:43 AM

"Oh yeah? Look at the new releases list for this week"

I would tell them An adventure needs far more work that your little genres, because they are far more better :P

-------------------------

seriously, i agree to you to some extent. Actually i believe that happened the years before when only 1-2 adventures we had in a a year ;) . I believe we are walking towards a way better future... :)

ragnar

09-14-2003, 02:20 AM

This is when it becomes difficult for the game designers to cede that much freedom of choice within the gameworld for the player, while retaining the story's integrity. If you're talking about a story driven game, Deus Ex being one, the player's freedom is proportional to the story's importance. GTA3 allowed us to do pretty much whatever we wanted, set our own goals within the limits of the gameworld. However, it was impossible to progress from one major level to the next (from Liberty City to Staunton Island to Portland) - thereby finishing the game - without accomplishing all the respective required missions. In DX, if you had been allowed to join Majestic 12 that could have easily had consequences affecting the dynamics of the plot, and the designers would have had to add more content than what was sufficient to tell the story. You couldn't make the choices you wanted because, according the story, you're not supposed to make those choices. That would have been another game.

In DX there is lot of more freedom in that you can choose how you should accomplish each task given to you than in adventure games. There is however almost as few ways to choose what you should do in terms of setting your own goals. I don't say this is a bad thing, because as you say, there would be too much alternative paths and the game development would grow completely out of proportion. The only (well, not that much, but anyway)) important thing you can choose is to try to save your brother or not.

I wouldn't even say that DX is 'almost' as linear as an adventure game. Please, ragnar, that's underestimation. You had multiple pathways and multiple resources and multiple strategies to work with to accomplish a mission goal, and you had to combine them properly to get the right results for what you intend. Try doing that in Syberia or Grim Fandango.

Now Syberia and GF are very linear. Take instead an adventure game like The Last Express where you have very much freedom in what you want to do and there are a heck lot of more pathways than in DX. Although just one path leads to the supposed end, all paths lead to a sensible end. The choices in DX are minor imo. They are like "go right or left", "sneak past a guard or shoot him", etc. But it really doesn't matter which way you choose, because they lead to the same place (and when I played I always tried to take all possible paths).

Ragnar, that was a damn shallow statement
Yes, it was a too rash statement. I hadn't thought it through enough before I wrote that.
, and shows how much you tried to force DX into your own paradigm. That's really unfair of you to say. In theory, I agree with your idea of having as many different options as possible. In reality, it doesn't work that way, given such considerations as development time, available technology, and most importantly, the concepts of the game designers. If you place DX within the historical arena of games, you'll find that it is one of the very few games that offer an unparalleled level of interactivity, matched only by such titles as Duke Nukem and GTA3. To demand more of that is just simply unfair.

Again, I find that The Last Express offers a lot more of freedom than DX.

As far as you saying that none of the challenges require intelligence from the player, that is utterly stupid and unjustified! Come on, ragnar, I thought you knew better than that! I bet that you were forcing a particular state of mind on DX that had nothing to do with what DX was all about. You played it not on its own terms (which is how we're supposed to be experiencing games - we enter any game's vision and play by its rules), but in a way that stained it in another light. It actually insults me that you blurt out how the game requires no intelligence of the player. I played the game all the way through, I was damn proud of being able to figure my way out of such places as the VersaLife labs in Hong Kong. I wracked my brain trying to succeed through Hell's Kitchen and navigating through the cathedral levels outside Paris. How many times did you die trying to sneak out of the Majestic 12 prison because you didn't use your required intelligence? How many times did you get stuck because you didn't check your sources and talk to the right persons? How many times did you die because you didn't use your intelligence to strategize, timing your moves according the guards' patrol patterns and using objects to distract them or weapons to incapacitate them so you could move on?

First, that statement made it look like I played DX in a somewhat strange manner. When I played it I tried to do as much as possible, to see everything. And yes, I died an awful lot of times in different places, since I want to do the things cleanly (don't want to waste ammunition on non lethal shots ;)). And I take back that it doesn't require intelligence. It requires intelligence, but it is more of a military strategic kind of intelligence than the more creative intelligence I would like, so I could come up with very different kind of solutions to my problems (I thought it would be interesting to let the MJ12 think I was with them and working more undercover for example). Don't take me wrong here. I quite like the strategic way of thinking. Of course there could be some strategic puzzles in an AG and I would like that, but it would require more of RPG elements to be used to give your character different skills to be applied (something I have advocated for years).

Come on, rags! Many of the situational challenges in DX rival those of the finest adventure games, but in a different way. Whereas a puzzle in Myst demands nothing but pure logical deductions, the situational challenges in DX demand lateral thinking, strategizing, balancing one's skills, resource managment, and perfect timing. You tell me how hard it is to balance all those elements and then tell me again that it requires no intelligence of the player. Wait a minute.....what difficulty level did you play it in?!! http://smilies.networkessence.net/s/contrib/blackeye/hihi.gif Ha!

The first time I played I played on the hardest (realistic it is called or something like that). The second time I thought it was enough with the next hardest level (hard).

If Deus Ex didn't require intelligence of the player they would have just made it into another Postal 2 and market it us gamers who have sh!t for brains.
Now, I don't know what Postal 2 is, but that is another matter.

I really feel that we haven't views that differ that much. My too rash statement led to this.

Intrepid Homoludens

09-14-2003, 04:50 AM

In DX there is lot of more freedom in that you can choose how you should accomplish each task given to you than in adventure games. There is however almost as few ways to choose what you should do in terms of setting your own goals. I don't say this is a bad thing, because as you say, there would be too much alternative paths and the game development would grow completely out of proportion. The only (well, not that much, but anyway)) important thing you can choose is to try to save your brother or not.

Hopefully ISA will give us even more ways to be constructively deviant in DX: Invisible War. I'm sure Warren Spector himself would love to see you or me or anyone figure out some particularly wicked ways of accomplishing a mission. Tell you what, when we finally get our grubby little hands on DX:IW we can start a thread in General Gaming about how we met our goals.

Now Syberia and GF are very linear. Take instead an adventure game like The Last Express where you have very much freedom in what you want to do and there are a heck lot of more pathways than in DX. Although just one path leads to the supposed end, all paths lead to a sensible end. The choices in DX are minor imo. They are like "go right or left", "sneak past a guard or shoot him", etc. But it really doesn't matter which way you choose, because they lead to the same place (and when I played I always tried to take all possible paths).

As I said (and as you also touched on), the more freedom you give the player, the longer the development time, the more content must be added, the more it costs to make.......

Again, I find that The Last Express offers a lot more of freedom than DX.

I don't think so, bud. The quantity of freedom in TLE is mostly limited to character interaction and exploration. You have that in DX, but then you also have the advantage of upgradeable skills, a sophisticated inventory system where you can mix and match or discard unneeded items, a 'notebook' that holds every single piece of info and conversation you come across (with the exception of all those books and newspapers you find along the way). Depending on how you combine these elements you can gain access to areas and/or characters you would never even have known existed otherwise. Try doing that in TLE. TLE may have been innovative in that sense of offering the illusion of much freedom, but compared to other genres, particularly RPGs, hybrids, and Action/Adventures, it's practically a drop in the bucket. Besides, how many adventure games since have been inspired by TLE's innovation? This question is more to point out the lameness of how the typical adventure developers work, not a criticism of TLE. I intently want to spotlight the asinine ineptitude of the typical adventure genre's lack of creativity, a spotlight they very well deserve. :P

First, that statement made it look like I played DX in a somewhat strange manner. When I played it I tried to do as much as possible, to see everything. And yes, I died an awful lot of times in different places, since I want to do the things cleanly (don't want to waste ammunition on non lethal shots ;)). And I take back that it doesn't require intelligence. It requires intelligence, but it is more of a military strategic kind of intelligence than the more creative intelligence I would like, so I could come up with very different kind of solutions to my problems (I thought it would be interesting to let the MJ12 think I was with them and working more undercover for example). Don't take me wrong here. I quite like the strategic way of thinking. Of course there could be some strategic puzzles in an AG and I would like that, but it would require more of RPG elements to be used to give your character different skills to be applied (something I have advocated for years).

*gasp* You weren't playing DX with the mentality of a hardcore adventure gamer, were you?! http://www.stupid-boy.com/smilies/otn/angry/nono.gif Ragzilla!! That's so limiting of you!!

But seriously, I wish adventure game devs would get off their lazy asses and create jawdroppingly new challenges that go far beyond the stupidly tired Rube Goldberg puzzle (http://www.laventure.net/tourist/rube350a.gif). Why not introduce an element of strategy in the puzzle? Why not introduce A.I. and have the player try to outsmart a character instead of a mechanical device? Why not use a physics engine to design a puzzle dependent on physics?

I really feel that we haven't views that differ that much. My too rash statement led to this.

:D Yep, you basically pissed me off. I apologize for my harshness, but then you already know by now that Deus Ex is held in highest esteem by me, I consider it one of the most sophisticated and advanced games ever, alongside other titles like Thief, GK3, Half-Life, and ICO.

Zanthia

09-14-2003, 05:10 AM

Non linearity often ends with player stuck after solving puzzles from different story lines.

Intrepid Homoludens

09-14-2003, 05:47 AM

Non linearity often ends with player stuck after solving puzzles from different story lines.

That's only when the game is badly designed, Zanthia. In the context of adventure games, very very few developers understand the advantages and mechanics of non-linearity, if they even consider them at all, which means that it is rarely ever used well, if at all. If you want some good examples of non-linear gameplay within a story, play some demos of RPGs and hybrids. Neverwinter Nights comes to mind, as well as the aforementioned Deus Ex, Gothic, Anachronox, and Neocron.

ragnar

09-14-2003, 07:17 AM

Hopefully ISA will give us even more ways to be constructively deviant in DX: Invisible War. I'm sure Warren Spector himself would love to see you or me or anyone figure out some particularly wicked ways of accomplishing a mission. Tell you what, when we finally get our grubby little hands on DX:IW we can start a thread in General Gaming about how we met our goals.

I would love to, but unfortunately it is a question of me getting a new computer first. I really should get that, but I have no problem waiting playing games, so it might not happen that fast.

As I said (and as you also touched on), the more freedom you give the player, the longer the development time, the more content must be added, the more it costs to make.......

I know. I am hoping that AI development get better to utilize (note, not be completely in control of) the computer in creation of paths along the way. There should be some way of the designer creating the basic story. I don't want another Sims clone here.

I don't think so, bud. The quantity of freedom in TLE is mostly limited to character interaction and exploration. You have that in DX, but then you also have the advantage of upgradeable skills, a sophisticated inventory system where you can mix and match or discard unneeded items, a 'notebook' that holds every single piece of info and conversation you come across (with the exception of all those books and newspapers you find along the way).

You sound like upgradeable skills are the best thing ever invented in gaming. :) I would like if there are skills in AG:s, but I don't think it should be so visible. There should be skills that is used internally within the engine, but the player should only notice it as the player getting better at what he does most. If you shoot with rifles a lot, you get better at it (and I always wondered why they didn't make sure that JC:s training was so good that he already had all those skill upgrades, had UNATCO:s training program a shortage of money?), it shouldn't be something you suddenly "upgrade" imo.

Even though I think what mostly makes the effect with TLE is the fact that there exists time. Eyerbody around you does their thing regardless of what you are up to, which gives you freedom to snoop around and listen to people. I felt I were in a dynamic world more in TLE than in DX. Unfortunately almost all adventure games have rather static worlds.

Depending on how you combine these elements you can gain access to areas and/or characters you would never even have known existed otherwise. Try doing that in TLE. TLE may have been innovative in that sense of offering the illusion of much freedom, but compared to other genres, particularly RPGs, hybrids, and Action/Adventures, it's practically a drop in the bucket. Besides, how many adventure games since have been inspired by TLE's innovation? This question is more to point out the lameness of how the typical adventure developers work, not a criticism of TLE. I intently want to spotlight the asinine ineptitude of the typical adventure genre's lack of creativity, a spotlight they very well deserve.

It is a pity that not more AG developers have taken after TLE. And of course I would like adventure game designer to be inspired by rpg:s. Another thing I would like to is a RPG that where you don't kill people, but where you characters might have social skills and other things.

*gasp* You weren't playing DX with the mentality of a hardcore adventure gamer, were you?! http://www.stupid-boy.com/smilies/otn/angry/nono.gif Ragzilla!! That's so limiting of you!!

*shhh* Don't say that aloud! ;)

But seriously, I wish adventure game devs would get off their lazy asses and create jawdroppingly new challenges that go far beyond the stupidly tired Rube Goldberg puzzle (http://www.laventure.net/tourist/rube350a.gif). Why not introduce an element of strategy in the puzzle? Why not introduce A.I. and have the player try to outsmart a character instead of a mechanical device? Why not use a physics engine to design a puzzle dependent on physics?
[quote]
Now that would really be amazing. Gimme already!
[quote=Intrepid Homoludens]
:D Yep, you basically pissed me off. I apologize for my harshness, but then you already know by now that Deus Ex is held in highest esteem by me, I consider it one of the most sophisticated and advanced games ever, alongside other titles like Thief, GK3, Half-Life, and ICO.
Actually, the biggest drawback for me with DX is that it is slightly too long. I got rather tired at the gameplay towards the end. But that can have something to do with that I manically want to do everything in the games I play.

If you miss the odd smilie in this post, it is because the forum wouldn't allow me so many of them.

ragnar

09-14-2003, 07:19 AM

That's only when the game is badly designed, Zanthia. In the context of adventure games, very very few developers understand the advantages and mechanics of non-linearity, if they even consider them at all, which means that it is rarely ever used well, if at all. If you want some good examples of non-linear gameplay within a story, play some demos of RPGs and hybrids. Neverwinter Nights comes to mind, as well as the aforementioned Deus Ex, Gothic, Anachronox, and Neocron.

The most non-linear game with a good story I have ever played is Geneforge (http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com).

Val'Gahk

09-14-2003, 10:40 AM

Because I don't know every games and all your conceptions of adventure games I thought I would post here this idea. The best thing to do to put a definition on the object "adventure game" is to find particularities about it. One of the ones I thought about while reading the thread is as so:

The character of an adventure game has it's own biography, it's own mind and feelings. He can judge and react to anything you want him to do. Unlike characters you play in other games. In other words: you are playing him in your world but you are someone else in his world.

What do you think about that? Maybe it's a good start maybe not. Hope we can advance by choosing wether it's right or wrong.

Dylan_Dog

09-14-2003, 11:42 AM

Hmmmm. You are talking about simulating human behaviour within a limited computer environment. I wonder how many years that would take to create.

Dylan_Dog

09-14-2003, 11:51 AM

Val'Gahk

09-14-2003, 12:25 PM

Hmmmm. You are talking about simulating human behaviour within a limited computer environment. I wonder how many years that would take to create.

No, I was talking about the character in the game environment. More precisely a character invented by some people, with no AI. But the fact is, when you are playing the game, this character has it's own feelings and if he doesn't like your ideas he won't act... but beeing more precise isn't a good idea because it would change the meaning. I would love to be more precise on this but I lack of knowledge in philosophy and thus I can't talk freely of my thoughts. But maybe the idea is clear to other persons. Sorry.

Val'Gahk

09-14-2003, 12:38 PM

I'll go further and post an exemple.

In Deus Ex, when you click on an item in the inventory and try to combine it with something else, the game will tell you "you can't do that". But in an adventure game, there will be a narrator or simply the hero that will tell you "no way, it's of no use". Because he virtually knows you ain't him, but in Deus Ex there is no difference, you are the hero. Even if there's a predifined name and biography, unlike RPGs they want you to identify yourself to the hero but in adventure games they show you a story, with a hero, and you move him around. That maybe is a better way to explain my point of view.

So as I said, it's maybe wrong and can't be used for every game but it's a supposition, a beginning if we want to separate "adventure games" and other genders.

Intrepid Homoludens

09-14-2003, 01:14 PM

To those who are providing good points on character freedom and non-linearity within a computer game: nice arguments, but I have one question - What does non-linearity have to do with adventure? Postal 2 is very non-linear, in fact, you don't have to follow the plot (hehe, what plot?) at all.

I dunno if you caught my comment up above, Dylan, but:

If you're talking about a story driven game....the player's freedom is proportional to the story's importance. GTA3 [Grand Theft Auto 3] allowed us to do pretty much whatever we wanted, set our own goals within the limits of the gameworld. However, it was impossible to progress from one major level to the next (from Liberty City to Staunton Island to Portland) - thereby finishing the game - without accomplishing all the respective required missions. In DX [Deus Ex], if you had been allowed to join Majestic 12 that could have easily had consequences affecting the dynamics of the plot, and the designers would have had to add more content than what was sufficient to tell the story. You couldn't make the choices you wanted because, according the story, you're not supposed to make those choices. That would have been another game.

To answer your question, i.e. "What does non-linearity have to do with adventure?", it can have a lot to do with the adventure, even though it's not absolutely required, it doesn't define the adventure necessarily, at least not in a traditional sense. The idea is to imbue the experience with a different sense of immersion, spontaneity, and - particularly important - an overall feeling that anything could happen, thus revealing another dimension to the player's experience of moving through the gameworld.

Non-linearity for the adventure game is not just limited to messing with the order of puzzle solving. Many of us here who ask what the point of it is are asking simply because we haven't seen any viable examples of it at work in an adventure game, just like many of us here who couldn't understand how real time 3D could work in an adventure game and so why bother. Well, it does work - Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, realMYST, The Westerner. Beyond jumbling the order of puzzlework, non-linearity can also be achieved successfully in other, more creative ways:

Artificial intelligence - imagine a puzzle where you must outwit a character for information.
Random map/character generator - already in use in Soldier of Fortune II and the upcoming action game Nosferatu, imagine playing an adventure where brand new characters with brand new attributes are generated in real time when you backtrack. Or a room/building/area that becomes affected by your action, that you return to later in the game and must accomplish a new goal in that newly unfamiliar place.
Dynamically shifting storyline - it's happening now as we speak (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2708995.stm), research is being done on a kind of story that is organically affected by the player's actions.

Postal 2 is a weak example to use to argue the invalidity of non-linearity for the adventure game. This is because Postal 2 has no story to motivate the player, it only has mission goals, therefore it's much closer to being of the arcade genre, not the adventure genre. In Postal 2 the player's murder spree is its own reward; in a game like Syberia the story is the reward. Non-linearity in the context of an adventure usually means being allowed a quantity of freedom in the order of successfully fulfilling mission goals within the constraints of the story or plot. The player is given the choice of which action to do, which puzzles to solve, where to go first, etc., placing the emphasis on freedom and ultimately a deeper sense of immersiveness and personalized gameplay experience, which in itself is a kind of adventure, in order to earn the final reward of discovering the story's resolution.

To be realistic, I truly believe that eventually more and more adventure game developers will painstakingly re-assess the conventional design of the adventure game, no matter how traditional. This is absolutely necessary, it's the natural evolutionary step. If LucasArts or Microids or any other of the established houses don't do it, then the new, younger developers will. Already Charles Cecil and his team at Revolution, and Robin and Rand Miller at Cyan Worlds, are setting themselves up as leaders in a genre otherwise populated by spineless sheep. In an age where games are taking on more the characteristics of movies and even episodic television shows, it's inevitable that the defining elements that make up the adventure game will shift and change too.

Intrepid Homoludens

09-14-2003, 01:47 PM

No, I was talking about the character in the game environment. More precisely a character invented by some people, with no AI. But the fact is, when you are playing the game, this character has it's own feelings and if he doesn't like your ideas he won't act... but beeing more precise isn't a good idea because it would change the meaning. I would love to be more precise on this but I lack of knowledge in philosophy and thus I can't talk freely of my thoughts. But maybe the idea is clear to other persons. Sorry.

http://www.planetblackandwhite.com/blackandwhite/screenshots/creatures/thumbs/0029.jpg http://www.planetblackandwhite.com/blackandwhite/screenshots/creatures/thumbs/0040.jpg

:) Val'Gahk, have you ever played Black & White (http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/april01/blackandwhite/)? Imagine an adventure game - murder mystery, for example - filled with non-playable characters with the same quality of A.I. as the creatures in B&W. Their individual intelligence is already established at the start of the game, but it develops further organically and concentrically based on your interactions with them and their observations of you. This would be especially cool as one of them is the actual murderer and the others are suspects with hidden agendas. Not only would this make an awesome adventure game, it would play variedly different each time, especially if combined with a random game generator. Of course, realistically, I don't see this happening any time too soon, but it's definitely a possibility in the future!

Dylan_Dog

09-14-2003, 05:00 PM

These concepts are fascinating Val. Do you by any chance know the underlying technology required to make such advanced games become reality?

Dylan_Dog

09-14-2003, 08:54 PM

Wajus

09-14-2003, 09:09 PM

When you play a game, and in it you are required to play another character (eg. 3rd person), do you feel like you are playing as yourself i.e. do you not notice that this is a 3rd person, or do you feel like you are actually ordering that character around? If not then would you rather prefer to feel like you are an actual protagonist, and that YOU are inside the game and have assumed the characteristics of the hero you are playing?

I actually try to play as it was a traditional protagonist. I just set myself in a mood and atmosphere the game creates, try to get to know the character better and if game allows more interactivity than your average adventure (especially in a morale kind of way: Deus Ex or Planescape) I try to play the story most convincingly.

When the story (with characters behaviuor and dialogs) is pretty linear there is really no other way than to pretend you're the narrator or "event creator".

Val'Gahk

09-14-2003, 09:51 PM

When I play 3rd person games were I follow the character from behind I feel like I'm the character to a certain degree and that's why I can't do bad things and my character will reflects my personality (and those games are called RPG) but when I watch him from another side, like in most adventure games I see it as another one (and then I can't give my personality to the character because the actions are his). But there is an exception to that: when I was playing Normality which was in 1st person I didn't feel like I was the character because it was responding to me like he knew I was someone else (according to developers and not because of any super developed AI). This exception gives another exemple of what I said before about the difference between adventure games and others.

As for 3rd person in adventure games I think I search for common facts between me and the character. And it becomes more than a simple pixel form, it's the same for books and movies with many people I guess. But it's a totally independant person that I control by mysterious meanings. Like Wajus said, I'm just an invent creator.

(and for the technology thing):

If that were to be used, it would take ages to create characters because an AI can't be pre-programmed. We would need to learn things to it and the memory has to be built upon true experiences. Maybe that could be accelerated in a virtual environement which would be the game univers. But it's much too complex and games would cost alot, it wouldn't have a price I prefer to say. Do you see my point? Because other way it wouldn't be AI but just more complex logical code for the NPC to choose, and if that was to be made, there would be no assurance that the game has an end. That's an interesting subject.

remixor

09-14-2003, 10:18 PM

I think I know what you are getting at Val. I have another question - and this is in general for everyone:
When you play a game, and in it you are required to play another character (eg. 3rd person), do you feel like you are playing as yourself i.e. do you not notice that this is a 3rd person, or do you feel like you are actually ordering that character around? If not then would you rather prefer to feel like you are an actual protagonist, and that YOU are inside the game and have assumed the characteristics of the hero you are playing?

In a 3rd-person adventure game, I see myself as simply an interactive observer, not actually the protagonist. There are many reasons for this, some of which are more often specific to the adventure genre. For one thing, 3rd person suggests to me that the character is separate from the player. Also, many (though certainly not most) adventure games allow the player to control one or more other character besides the one with whom they start, if only for just a little while. There's also the matter of "Meanwhile..." screens, which are definitely not uncommon in adventure games (think MI2 here ;)). Next, in just about all adventures, the player can see much more on the screen than the character can (since the player's line of sight is less obstructed than the character's). These all seem to indicate to me that the player is not the protagonist, but merely an observer with greater insight into the emotions and motives of one character over the rest. Hopefully, the player will sympathise with the character in a well-designed game, but it is not necessary for the player to BE the character (I'm certainly not much like April Ryan). I do believe that looking at it this way is a benefit rather than a hindrance from the developer's perspective. If they do not have to limit the player to knowing or seeing only what the character will know and see, I'd think that they would be free to make a much more engrossing story and well-developed world.

Dylan_Dog

09-14-2003, 11:57 PM

Lot of good points raised.
I think the story is also perhaps one of the most important aspects of games, and sometimes it is the story that really makes a game into an adventure. However, there are quite a few "adventure" games that I have played, but their stories really haven't given me any prospects of an adventure. What do you think about this adventure-story relation, and what kind of story (or what elements) seperates an "adventure" from something else?

Erwin_Br

09-15-2003, 01:41 AM

I tend to see myself as the consciousness/mind of the protagonist. You know, that little voice inside your head that tells you (not) to do certain things?

--Erwin

James

09-15-2003, 02:37 AM

twifkak

09-15-2003, 05:03 AM

I tend to see myself as the consciousness/mind of the protagonist. You know, that little voice inside your head that tells you (not) to do certain things?

--Erwin
FWIW, this is also how Tim Schafer sees it (http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/pearce/). But The Church (http://timisgod.mixnmojo.com/) covered this, so you probably already know that. :D

twifkak

09-15-2003, 05:08 AM

A first person viewpoint suggests a closer reality between the player and the game, and removes the barrier of an avatar. In Half-Life you "are" Gordan Freeman. A third person viewpoint distances the player from the protagonist, but also allows greater character development and interaction, as it allows the avatar to develop, usually via a narrative voice or monologue.
I might be the lone soul to disagree, but I think without the ability to know what faces I'm making, whether my muscles are tensing, etc. (things that are usually conveyed subsensorally [yes, i made that word up]), and without an extensive intro cutscene for main character development, I don't feel like the character one bit.

Yes, I'm supposed to be the character, and I'm supposed to act as *I* would in that situation, but

Gordon did have a face and a few lines of dialogue
If I were really in that situation, I'm pretty sure I'd cower in fear, and let someone else bother saving the world. I guess that means a great deal of roleplaying is involved, and I suppose that means that I'd rather my role be spoon-fed to me :P.

Intrepid Homoludens

09-15-2003, 05:22 AM

If I were really in that situation, I'm pretty sure I'd cower in fear, and let someone else bother saving the world.

http://216.40.249.192/s/ups/chaos/smile2.gif Spineless craven wuss.

twifkak

09-15-2003, 05:40 AM

*orders 50 angry wolverines to be delivered to Trep's apartment in Chicago*

Intrepid Homoludens

09-15-2003, 05:43 AM

:D Wolverine = Hugh Jackman + 50 of them = huge orgy. http://burns.thefinaldimension.org/contrib/splarka/as-drool.gif

[dies from being overwhelmed with lust]

twifkak

09-15-2003, 05:44 AM

On another note:

Consider how many times you die in a playthrough of Half-Life or whatever.
Consider how hard it is to complete the game in one sitting, one life, no saves.
Consider what it'd be like if they took away the safety of that "100" bar you get. If, for non-fatal hits, you actually saw yourself bleed, felt the pain, worried about the looming death, how well well could your divided attention spend on the actual survival/killing part?
When you're playing an action game, and your character's about to die, does the character's life flash before your eyes?

twifkak

09-15-2003, 05:46 AM

:D Wolverine = Hugh Jackman + 50 of them = huge orgy. http://burns.thefinaldimension.org/contrib/splarka/as-drool.gif

[dies from being overwhelmed with lust]
*sigh*

:D LOL, OK. I tried. ;)

eriq

09-15-2003, 12:40 PM

For me, a graphic adventure is a game where I get to put fun little things into my inventory and use them with other things to save the world and such.

remixor

09-15-2003, 02:38 PM

For me, a graphic adventure is a game where I get to put fun little things into my inventory and use them with other things to save the world and such.

What about Blade Runner?

Intrepid Homoludens

09-15-2003, 04:33 PM

For me, a graphic adventure is a game where I get to put fun little things into my inventory and use them with other things to save the world and such.

See, this is just one of a number of definitions I find erroneous. It illustrates some people's delineation of the genre on attribute, not conception. It's just like saying 'An adventure game is a game that has a hand drawn 2D background, animated characters, and cursor to point and click.' [shrug]

twifkak

09-15-2003, 04:53 PM

See, this is just one of a number of definitions I find erroneous. It illustrates some people's delineation of the genre on attribute, not conception. It's just like saying 'An adventure game is a game that has a hand drawn 2D background, animated characters, and cursor to point and click.' [shrug]
What, you're telling me hand-drawn 2-D point-and-click games with animated characters, aren't adventures?

*runs*

Look at the silly monkey.

remixor

09-15-2003, 05:15 PM

I suppose it's like that quote by some famous judge fellow (replace "pornography" with "adventure games"): "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it!"

Dylan_Dog

09-15-2003, 05:32 PM

What, you're telling me hand-drawn 2-D point-and-click games with animated characters, aren't adventures?
No, what Intrepid is saying is that hand - drawn 2-D point-and-click games with animated characters do not necessarily have to be adventures. Because the reality is, some of them don't even deserve to be called a "game" due to their horrific display of technical, artistic and story-telling attributes. I find Half-Life more of an adventure than hundreds of games that have the same style as you mentioned before.

remixor

09-15-2003, 08:43 PM

I find Half-Life more of an adventure than hundreds of games that have the same style as you mentioned before.

I know what you're getting at, but I don't think this is really an accurate statement. One could say that Half-Life has a more engrossing story and better developed characters than many adventure games, but it really can't be called an adventure. This isn't a bad thing, it's just a distinction to be made. Half-Life is an action game. As I said in one of my earlier posts, "adventure" has come to mean something different in the context of gaming; it no longer connotes its dictionary definition when speaking of games.

Dylan_Dog

09-16-2003, 02:30 AM

remixor, you have proven my point.

twifkak

09-16-2003, 03:28 AM

No, what Intrepid is saying is that hand - drawn 2-D point-and-click games with animated characters do not necessarily have to be adventures. Because the reality is, some of them don't even deserve to be called a "game" due to their horrific display of technical, artistic and story-telling attributes. I find Half-Life more of an adventure than hundreds of games that have the same style as you mentioned before.
Ho' min'.
*runs*

Look at the silly monkey.
was supposed to signify I was joking. What Trep meant is that
Grim Fandango is an adventure, and it's neither hand-drawn, 2-D, nor point-and-click.
Broken Sword's are adventures, and they involve action.
Boundaries are never cut and dry.
Better to loosen our cut and dry labelling systems, to encompass all adventures (and probably, peripherally, some games from other genres), than to restrict it to a small set of games which are obviously adventures, and exclude a bunch of adventures "at heart" in the process.
(Yes, Trep, you've managed to convince me on the matter.)

Of course, it looks to me like eriq was joking, but I Could Be Wrong.

Dylan_Dog

09-28-2003, 04:37 PM

Action Sequences in Adventure games

Lot of adventure gamers don't like playable action sequences. Eg. player has 10 seconds to diffuse the bomb by pulling out right wires; player has to quickly hide in the cabinet and wait for the baddie to go away then quickly make a dash for the nearby window and jump out; while being held at gun point by two bad guys, player has to do a combat style twist and smack the gun out of baddie's hand, then turn off the light switch so they can't see and make a run for the ladder and exit through the rooftop; or simply shooting a baddie.

If we look at movies, most adventure films contain some level of action, even the small budget psychological thrillers contain action. Come to think of it, all adventure games these days (well, all commercial ones) are made of simple action events - walk, run (sometimes), pick up, give, talk. Why not go another step further and just add a bit of fighting, a tense time-limited situation, or something that would resemble an "action sequence". I mean, why limit the character freedom?

Writing this, I briefly remembered from other forums that people who enjoy playing adventure games often play them to relax. I know I do. If i wanted to go on a killing spree I would play Max Payne and kill as many baddies as I could. If I wanted "competitivness" and something that desired quick thinking and concentration then I could play a sports game (such as FIFA 2003). Then there is also this age and genre factor in which people at some age prefer slow paced, undemanding, relaxing adventure games. That'a all fine. Or at least, it used to be.

Lets look at the common storylines in adventure games these days. The likes of TLJ and Syberia - although not a great deal of action, these are the true adventure games where the player stumbles onto unknown territory and where danger COULD be just around the corner. Then you got the likes of Runaway and BS. Games like this involve mafia, sinister underground societies etc. and action in these games almost looks unavoidable. And with the advancement in graphics and interface as well as AI, adventure games are slowly turning towards action elements as well. BS3 and new Indiana Jones games are just a few examples.

For many years adventure games have cotained three types of challange (we called them puzzles) - use this with that type; zoom in onto item and do something on the item to open a secret portal or get a secret key type; and maze type. Adventure games use them time and time again, and some games have exactly the same puzzles, while other have similar puzzles, or puzzles that are based on puzzles in other games etc. Time-driven puzzles, tense situations (with time limit as well), fighting sequences, extreme action sequences (climbing, jumping etc.) are all good types of puzzles that can be used. But aren't used A LOT. Some games use them, but not a great deal. I mean, how about, instead of trying to locate a key, you pick up a rock, smash the lock and enter. Or you climb on the roof, get down through the chimney. Or you knock on the door and when it's opened you shove it open and force your way in?

So, the big question is - do adventures really need playable action sequences? Why not just put action sequences into non-playable movies like cut-scenes? The best way (although not the most economical) is to make an adventure game with two options - one with action the other without it. Or even better is to give such a level of freedom within the game as to allow the character to avoid action sequences all together and use alternative means of advancing trough the story. In my opinion, story should complement the puzzles, and vice versa. So, if you have a game in which the protagonist has just woken up and suffers amnesia, not knowing who s/he is or where s/he is, and is being chased by some group of lunatics and at the same time is wanted for murder and is chased by the cops as well, I think it's fair to say that that game NEEDS action, tenseness, pressure, even violence. On the other hand, if we have a game which is directed at kids and contains a protagonist who is on a journey in Mashroom Land and is looking for a cure for his/her sick father, then why have action or violence if the plot is not asking for one.

How is this related to Adventure Game philosophy? Well, just like 2d backgrounds and cartoon style characters and point and click interface doesn't define an adventure, neither does the absence of playable action sequences.

remixor

09-28-2003, 05:59 PM

remixor, you have proven my point.

:confused:

Dylan_Dog

09-29-2003, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by remixor
:confused:

What the?????

Intrepid Homoludens

09-29-2003, 01:04 PM

:confused:

Jake

09-29-2003, 04:05 PM

This is definitely a valid point, but not necessarily a universal one. I have never really thought of myself as "playing" the character. I see myself rather as observer into the world, just with a very detailed understanding of a particular character. For me, it's comparable to a novel in which you do not actually take the PLACE of a character, but (in almost all fiction) you have greatly heightened awareness and understanding of a certain character's thoughts. That's the main character. I understand that this is not how all people play adventures though--if it were, we wouldn't have first-person adventures. It's just how I look at it.

I think to a degree Monkey Island games have a bit of role playing in them... as do most all graphic adventures that have well-done interactive dialogue. Sure you still have to stay within the confines of the character, but as Guybrush (at least in the first two games, the ones that did the interactive dialogue right) you're given a large variety of ways to respond, even at nonessential moments. Characters will often ask a (debatably rhetorical) question in the middle of some long expositional dialogue, but at the end of the question, we suddenly get to chose what Guybrush will say to them. Sometimes when they pop up they have no bearing on the storyline or advancement of puzzles or anything... you just get to act out what you'd do if you were Guybrush in that situation.

I think that's a huge, overlooked, part of the allure to the graphic adventure. I know I constantly bring up Monkey Island but it just does quite a lot of thigns right. It's so damn rewarding in Monkey 1 and 2 to have to listen to some very straight (non humorous) expositional plot dialogue and then be given the option to be curious and ask for more, to insult them in various ways, to act bored, or to just ask them to leave you alone. Youre not living their life, but you're definitely THERE, "playing along." Or something.

You don't necesarilly get to BE the person, but you do go along on the journey with them, helping them, and though they are their own personality and stuff, you put in what you think is the best thing for them to do at the time. That to a degree is role playing, even if its role playing one step removed, and I think that's part of what makes adventure games as compelling as they are. You can get far more sucked into the characters and story of a good adventure game than you can of a good film. I mean, I think that reason alone would really soften the impact of a Grim Fandango movie. Its like living a story vs having it told to you, I guess... Erm, except with some role playing in there, to continue to validate my point. ... :shifty: ahem.

remixor

09-29-2003, 04:16 PM

Jake: your last paragraph is actually exactly how I feel about adventures. I just don't think of myself as "being Guybrush", that's all I really meant. You summed up pretty well what I meant but apparently didn't communicate fully enough.

Dylan_Dog: my :confused: was meant to indicate confusion at your statement "remixor, you have proven my point."

twifkak

09-29-2003, 05:04 PM

ure you still have to stay within the confines of the character, but as Guybrush (at least in the first two games, the ones that did the interactive dialogue right) you're given a large variety of ways to respond, even at nonessential moments.... Sometimes when they pop up they have no bearing on the storyline or advancement of puzzles or anything... you just get to act out what you'd do if you were Guybrush in that situation.

I think that's a huge, overlooked, part of the allure to the graphic adventure.
Trudat.

I mean, I think that reason alone would really soften the impact of a Grim Fandango movie.
I didn't see much of that aspect in Grim, though. When you did have choices, they were usually a)tied to a puzzle, b)choices you could return to (and as the completionists we are, would return to), or c)two boring choices and one funny choice. I didn't feel like I was putting myself into the dialogue as much as I was hitting Enter to let the dialogue continue half the time. Of course, that's not to blame poor ol' Tim -- there was oodles more dialogue in GF than MI1 (and fewer head honcho writer Dudes), so adding in all that interactivity (and getting it voice recorded) would've been wacky.

Jake

09-29-2003, 05:29 PM

I didn't see much of that aspect in Grim, though.

Yeah I know, Grim wasn't as strong in that department... but as you might have noticed I sort of accidentally switched gears midway through my point and started inadvertantly talking about immersion (of which good interactive dialogue writing is just one facet). Sorry about that :)

Dylan_Dog

09-30-2003, 01:45 PM

Remixor: The statement "you have proven my point" is I believe refering to something you have said earlier in the thread and which I totally agree on. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

Dylan_Dog

10-01-2003, 02:45 AM

Getting back to what I posted earlier, what do you guys think about action in adventure games?

twifkak

10-01-2003, 03:05 AM

Getting back to what I posted earlier, what do you guys think about action in adventure games?
It's happened before, and it'll happen again.

Dylan_Dog

10-01-2003, 03:08 AM

Yeah, time and time again.

Intrepid Homoludens

10-01-2003, 03:55 AM

Hey, fine with me. I was schooled in the TombRaider/SilentHill/Half-Life methods, I can take anything. But since you're talking about adventure games, again it all goes back to the cornerstones of the genre. Conceptually, any player-controlled action sequences/challenges must be at the service of furthering and/or enhancing the story - i.e. introducing suspense, developing character, etc.

I think it's safe to say that a disproportionate amount of action - that is, too much action or a superfluousness of it - will throw the game out of whack categorically as an adventure according to what many of us have grown to accept what an adventure is supposed to be. When this happens you practically have an action/adventure on your hands, where the more action there is, the more diluted the story, puzzles, and character nuances become (because more design and conceptual weight has now been placed on action).

On another level, adventure games as many of us have come to accept them involve a more intellectual approach to problem solving as opposed to brute force, acrobatic skills, or well-timed movements. Brains over brauns is one of most emphatic differences between the adventure and the action game, further highlighted by the fact that many puzzles in adventures never force any time constraints on the player. But that doesn't mean that one or two good action sequences can't be thrown in for suspense or as a 'break' from the cerebral aspect of the game.

twifkak

10-01-2003, 04:02 AM

What Trep said (well, the last two paragraphs -- I was raised on adventures). The ideal cerebral/reflexive blend for me would probably replace "brains o'er brawns" with "brains or brawns" (the door example was a good one).

Dylan_Dog

10-03-2003, 01:20 AM

Adventure Genre Is An Art! Thats the difference between IT and other games.

remixor

10-03-2003, 01:54 AM

Well, I think that's rather unfair.

Wajus

10-03-2003, 01:54 AM

Adventure Genre Is An Art! Thats the difference between IT and other games.

Yeah it's kinda hard to disagree. This genre's well known for it's stress on storytelling with it's "literary to cinematic" approach and general aesthetics-over-technics approach also seem to qualify genre into art category. Especially true with titles like Grim Fandango, The Neverhood or Syberia.

twifkak

10-03-2003, 02:32 AM

Well, I think that's rather unfair.
I agree. There's more to art than applying conventional art techniques. New games are putting "art" in the gameplay itself. ICO does this, to an extent.

Zanthia

10-03-2003, 02:42 AM

I think we need to define a couple of things here . What do u meen when u say that some genre is art? Nice graphics? Original story? Something else?

Intrepid Homoludens

10-03-2003, 03:25 AM

Adventure Genre Is An Art! Thats the difference between IT and other games.

Unh oh, you're starting to tread on major territory here. You had better be able to explain this arbitrariness.

Wajus

10-03-2003, 03:30 AM

I think we need to define a couple of things here . What do u meen when u say that some genre is art? Nice graphics? Original story? Something else?

I will not try to define art - I'm not competent enough. But lets try to describe it :D
Hmm. Art affects both you emotions and your mind. Art tries to reach perfection in meaning (message conveying) and presentation aspects. Art also tries to be as unique as possible.

Zanthia

10-03-2003, 03:44 AM

Actually, I asked u not for definition of art on its own but more of what do u meen when u say that AG genre is art.

Wajus

10-03-2003, 04:13 AM

Actually, I asked u not for definition of art on its own but more of what do u meen when u say that AG genre is art.

I know. I'm sorry. I intented to attach some examples to it. Like Syberia for example.

:pan:
*me

I'm not the one who said that games are art. I think however that adventure games are very close to this definition.

Syberia for example. It tells a story of a women who departs her life and modern, practical, always-in-a-hurry world for something that has been almost obsolete and oblivious nowadays. It's definitly a very melancholical and inspiring story.

For a computer game it has a very unique atmposhere and concept.

It is impressive in it's presentation - more in aesthetic than technological aspect.

Intrepid Homoludens

10-03-2003, 04:17 AM

Some adventure games, I believe, do manage to cross the threshold of art, but - and this important - only in a formalistic sense.

Wajus

10-03-2003, 04:48 AM

Some adventure games, I believe, do manage to cross the threshold of art, but - and this important - only in a formalistic sense.

Are you suggesting that because games reuse known material they are not true art? But syncretic art does the same, doesn't it?

Or maybe you're sugesting there's a conflict between artistic and entertaining values? But what about craft? It can still be an art while serving some more practical purpose at the same time.

remixor

10-03-2003, 08:51 AM

only in a formalistic sense.

Explain what you mean by this, and why only in a formalistic sense?

Dylan_Dog

10-03-2003, 09:50 PM

Art in every sense of the word. Art isn't just a pretty painting or a sculpture, and it's not just a word. Art is technique, the way the pencil is held when applying the shade, art is the abstract and surreal and real, art is the emotion. Adventure games encompass all these things, no matter what adventure game it is, the genre speaks for itself. This relates to amateur games as well. I kind of find it hard to see art in games where the body count increases by second, and when my eardrums are getting busted from all the explosives and bodies evaporating like cheap plastic.

Art is just relaxing for a few minutes and enjoying the beautiful scenario in Syberia: the old rocky bridge, crystal water running underneath, clouds full of emotions, and alone on the sidewalk the protagonist stands, moving from side to side, pretending to be alive, and the whole story going through your mind, thinking what is going to happen next, and at the same time marvelling at the beauty of Sokal's work.

Dylan_Dog

10-03-2003, 10:00 PM

I don't want you guys to get my statement the wrong way (I don't want anyone trying to assasinate me or something lol) - that's just how I feel about the genre, I think that it's more art than any other genre. The way I see it: simulation, sporting games, strategy, and action games will never be art because of the too high demands that they place on the player - providing quick pace, requiring high challange, lot of stuff to be blown up, lot of baddies to get killed, lot of goals to be scored etc. Now all these games have better graphics and sounds etc. than any of the adventure games out there, and they are more realistic as well and give player more freedom, however, in my opinion, that kind of thing is called technical marvel and not art. A point on blank canvas can be considered art, if it's made to be art.

Marek

10-03-2003, 11:53 PM

What's art and what's entertainment? What's artistry and what's craftmanship? People have been argueing about this for ages. (I consider something art "when it looks back at me", which is extremely subjective.)

However, I really want to point out that art doesn't have to be something serene and beautiful. A lot of what's considered art is actually very explicit, violent, etc. Also, genre shouldn't have to matter in terms of artistic potential. (Try playing ICO or Rez.)

I do agree, in principle, that adventure games have a bit more potential for being artistic. I don't think many adventure games have lived up to that potential, though.

James

10-04-2003, 01:07 AM

The only games that I've played that approach artistic merit are Grim Fandango and Deus Ex. Grim Fandango is a beauty to behold and is a triumph of design and imagination. It maintains a depth of narrative that few games, let alone adventures have managed to integrate so entirely into their games, transceding the border of film and drama.

Deus Ex reaches out involves the entire world as a theatre, the entire Npc cast a dramatis personae, but does so very subconsciously so as not to say "look we're trying to make art". Trying, a lack of grace, is the reason more obviously art games may fall into the realm of basic pretension.

Intrepid Homoludens

10-04-2003, 08:42 AM

Are you suggesting that because games reuse known material they are not true art? But syncretic art does the same, doesn't it?

Or maybe you're sugesting there's a conflict between artistic and entertaining values? But what about craft? It can still be an art while serving some more practical purpose at the same time.

Explain what you mean by this, and why only in a formalistic sense?

Umm..... Wajus, could you please explain how syncretism ties in with this?

remixor, I want to annex to the my statement the term 'romantic', hence:

Some adventure games, I believe, do manage to cross the threshold of art, but - and this important - only in a formalistic and romantic sense.

Because computer/video games are a very recent phenomenon (30 years young), they naturally possess a wealth of possibilities discoverable by the designer and player. A medium so new and so flexible cannot be exhausted so soon, hence it's unavoidably necessary for it, as with other media, to go through its natural evolutionary stages as per those who work with it, and this is just as pertinent in how they're received as a medium that can carry expressiveness and communicativeness. I want to focus my argument on the whole 'games as art' issue on the historic conceptions and popular notion of the intents of games as brought forth within the severe constraints of their 'newness'.

Formalism in art stipulates that the object in question adhere to particular accepted conventions of perception and experience of aesthetic properties within epistemological boundaries generally devoid of pragmatic assocations with the tangible realities of the world - in this case, as applied to games, what we know to be in 'good' taste and what is pleasurable to look at, regardless of what the designer intended.* Therefore, we can judge a game's 'look and feel' based on conventional notions of colour, scale, line, texture, and extending particularly beyond painting, sculpture, literature, and other traditional vehicles into the realm of games - sound, time, and space.

Art is just relaxing for a few minutes and enjoying the beautiful scenario in Syberia: the old rocky bridge, crystal water running underneath, clouds full of emotions, and alone on the sidewalk the protagonist stands, moving from side to side, pretending to be alive, and the whole story going through your mind, thinking what is going to happen next, and at the same time marvelling at the beauty of Sokal's work.

What Dylan_Dog stated exemplifies a romantic** notion of aesthetic judgment and experience, a typical response to a medium so young and as of yet underdeveloped in terms of its conceptual intents and discoverable applications as a possible art form in a modern sense. This is the response most of us have to adventure games, mainly because this is all that adventure games seem to be capable of offering right now precisely because it's a new medium, because designers like Benoit Sokal and Fumito Ueda (ICO) see them ultimately as games and would have trouble developing them separately as a serious art form in and of themselves.

But that's not say that they can include elements and common traits found in romantic and formalist notions of art. Ask most game developers what they think, and they most likely will tell you that although they have high considerations for the aesthetics, they're not ultimately interested in giving you a 'form of art'. That idea is rather stupid, considering that game developers are game developers, not artists. Ask Warren Spector, and he'll probably laugh at the question. His intent, he'd probably tell you, was to give you an unparalleled gaming experience, not something to hang on your gallery wall. Any and all 'artistic' inclinations discovered by you within his game may or may not have been intended, but they certainly could not have been the goal.

Art in every sense of the word. Art isn't just a pretty painting or a sculpture, and it's not just a word. Art is technique, the way the pencil is held when applying the shade, art is the abstract and surreal and real, art is the emotion. Adventure games encompass all these things, no matter what adventure game it is, the genre speaks for itself. This relates to amateur games as well. I kind of find it hard to see art in games where the body count increases by second, and when my eardrums are getting busted from all the explosives and bodies evaporating like cheap plastic.

Man, you need to think more about this. This is such an arbitrary blanket statement and serves only to effect the adventure genre as some 'high and mighty' thang to stick on your pedestal and gawk at, while you look down on other genres without giving them a chance. As with my reactions to some other adventure gamers, I can't possible seriously consider your suggestion that the adventure genre is better than any other genre simply because it seems to aspire to some lofty aesthetic ideal. That's preposterous - they're games, as designed by game designers. Your comment also cheapens the idea of what art can encompass, it dilutes it and makes it so generic. Fine, I'll simply find some Joe on the street, give him basic training, and tell him to make a game, and you can take that game and place it on your pedestal. Is that what you meant? I find your declaration to be laughable, and rather insulting, considering that I myself was formally trained as an artist and received my degree, and I have to think good and hard about each piece I work on.

Again, I must emphasize my point that any game as we know it now - adventure, action, strategy, whatever - should not be considered a serious work of art precisely because they ultimately exist as games. The true intention of the developer is that they be experienced as games, and any aesthetic 'values' we, the players, discover in them may or may not have been considered during the creation process but is not necessarily the final goal. If you want to see actual artists using the scheme of games and gaming as a starting point, look at the works of John Haddock (http://whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/index.html) (politically and socially charged paintings in the isometric views of The Sims), play a 'game' created by Natalie Bookchin (http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/intruder/) based on a short story by Jorges Luis Borges, and read TechTV's article 'Games As Art' (http://www.techtv.com/extendedplay/videofeatures/story/0,24330,3362865,00.html). If you want to see games that only begin to blur the lines between gaming and experiencing games through the eyes of art, look at ICO (http://www.us.playstation.com/games/SCUS-97113/) (infusion of Japanese aesthetic sensibilities), Rez (http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/january02/rezps2/), and view a trailer for realMyst (http://www.mysterium.ch/real/trailer-448-e.html).

*The Roots of Modernism (http://witcombe.sbc.edu/modernism/roots.html), by Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe
**Romanticism (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/romanticism/), WebMuseum, Paris

twifkak

10-04-2003, 09:07 AM

1)If you have any interviews to back up how you claim Sokal and Ueda feel, I'd be interested. (Especially Ueda, whom I haven't seen any interviews of.)

2)Are performance art and street art something you hang on your gallery wall? (Not that I think you don't believe those are art -- you're smarter than that -- but I'm having trouble understanding what you do mean.)

3)I thought that one of those properties of art was that it transcends its author's intentions... :confused:

Man.. I'm having trouble agreeing with much of what you're saying, Trep (outside of that Dylan is wrong :P sorry Dylan!)... It's possible that I'm misunderstanding you greatly, or that they really do teach you something in art school! :D :7

Wajus

10-04-2003, 09:36 AM

Umm..... Wajus, could you please explain how syncretism ties in with this?

Formalism in art stipulates that the object in question adhere to particular accepted conventions of perception and experience of aesthetic properties within epistemological boundaries generally devoid of pragmatic assocations with the tangible realities of the world - in this case, as applied to games, what we know to be in 'good' taste and what is pleasurable to look at, regardless of what the designer intended.* Therefore, we can judge a game's 'look and feel' based on conventional notions of colour, scale, line, texture, and extending particularly beyond painting, sculpture, literature, and other traditional vehicles into the realm of games - sound, time, and space.

You're "blaming" gamer's approach for games not being art?
I thought that you wanted to present some different approach when you mentioned formalism. Like that games are only using the traditional arts/material - sound, space, time (GF's jazz and beebop, orchestra, Art Déco, film noir, mexican art etc). That's wouldn't yet prove nothing as syncretic art/craft is about the same thing almost.

I don't think that what you said is fair, neither for gamers like me nor developers like Sokal and Schaefer. It's not all just about "good looks" and "good taste". For example just look at the reactions on Syberia's melancholical story. It really does ask some questions about condition of modern world.

Intrepid Homoludens

10-04-2003, 09:47 AM

1)If you have any interviews to back up how you claim Sokal and Ueda feel, I'd be interested. (Especially Ueda, whom I haven't seen any interviews of.)

None. None whatsoever. All I have to offer you is the fact that Sokal and Ueda are both game designers. They do not demonstrate any background as formally trained artists, and they make games. I was never formally trained in the culinary arts, but if I happen to make some of the best soufflés in the world, are you gonna call me a freaking chef?

2)Are performance art and street art something you hang on your gallery wall? (Not that I think you don't believe those are art -- you're smarter than that -- but I'm having trouble understanding what you do mean.)

Todaythe questions What is Art? and What is an Artist? today are not easily answered.

According to William Rubin, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, "there is no single definition of art." The art historian Robert Rosenblum believes that "the idea of defining art is so remote [today]" that he doesn't think "anyone would dare to do it."

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, states that there is "no consensus about anything today," and the art historian Thomas McEvilley agrees that today "more or less anything can be designated as art."

Arthur Danto, professor of philosophy at Columbia University and art critic of The Nation, believes that today "you can't say something's art or not art anymore. That's all finished." In his book, After the End of Art, Danto argues that after Andy Warhol exhibited simulacra of shipping cartons for Brillo boxes in 1964, anything could be art. Warhol made it no longer possible to distinguish something that is art from something that is not.

What has finished, however, is not artistic production, but a certain way of talking about art. Artists, whoever they are, continue to produce, but we, non-artists, are no longer able to say whether it is art or not. But at the same time, we are no longer comfortable with dismissing it as art because it fails to fit what we think art should be (whatever that is).

We struggle with this because we have been taught that art is important and we're unwilling to face up to the recently revealed insight that art in fact has no "essence." When all is said and done, "art" remains significant to human beings and the idea that now anything can be art, and that no form of art is truer than any other, strikes us as unacceptable.

What is Art? What is an Artist? (http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/artartists.html), An exhibition exploring the perception of art and the identity of the artist through history and in contemporary society, Department of Art History, Sweet Briar College

This is unavoidably true. However, I find it cheap and inept when people conveniently lump every damn thing they see into the realm of art, especially without checking backgrounds. And it's personally insulting to me as an artist, no matter how embracing and democratic I am. If everything is art, then nothing is.

3)I thought that one of those properties of art was that it transcends its author's intentions... :confused:

Yeah? Whose theorem are you using? Ruskin? Can't possible be Clement Greenberg's. :P

Man.. I'm having trouble agreeing with much of what you're saying, Trep (outside of that Dylan is wrong :P sorry Dylan!)... It's possible that I'm misunderstanding you greatly, or that they really do teach you something in art school!

You misunderstand me greatly and they really do teach you something in art school.

Wajus

10-04-2003, 09:57 AM

Art has many faces and craft is also one of them.

Tom_K

10-04-2003, 10:12 AM

I was under the impression that Sokal was and is an artist-turned-game designer. Which is to say that he's still an artist, just with a different canvas.

But what do I know, I can't do a good stick figure.

Intrepid Homoludens

10-04-2003, 10:26 AM

You're "blaming" gamer's approach for games not being art?
I thought that you wanted to present some different approach when you mentioned formalism. Like that games are only using the traditional arts/material - sound, space, time (GF's jazz and beebop, orchestra, Art Déco, film noir, mexican art etc). That's wouldn't yet prove nothing as syncretic art/craft is about the same thing almost.

Ooh, my post definitely flew over you head. Wajus, please do yourself a favour and click those links I provided. I'm not 'blaming' anyone, I'm merely stating things: As. They. Are. And yes, I stand feckingly firm on my argument that any games as we know them today can cross the threshold into art only on formalistic and romantic terms......... Wajus, please just do some research on art history and philosophy, will ya? And go ask some practicing artists the same questions. I don't mean to be snobby if I come across as such, but I can't discuss this unless there's some common fundamental background shared.

I don't think that what you said is fair, neither for gamers like me nor developers like Sokal and Schaefer. It's not all just about "good looks" and "good taste". For example just look at the reactions on Syberia's melancholical story. It really does ask some questions about condition of modern world.

Too bad you didn't compare Syberia to D.W. Griffith's A Corner in Wheat or Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I would have paid more attention, heh heh. As I said, gamers' reactions to Syberia's aesthetic qualities are categorically romantic and formalistic because it's the only thing that game designers can convey in these games at this time in the evolution of games as a possible art form- they're designers, not formal artists; they make games. And yes, the way you responded to Syberia's melancholic story is a romantic way. But, I never stated that these qualities make a game any less possessive of artistic qualities than a bona fide art piece. I will say, however, that I personally find them less interesting beyond their romantic and formalistic values as aesthetic experiences, because I'm ready to move beyond that. I experience them as games, and whatever aesthetic merits I happen to discover is an added bonus. Because of my own sensibilities as an artist I can imagine the possibilities of the computer game beyond pretty pictures and melodramatic storytelling, beyond formalistic and romantic tendencies. Hey, sorry, Wajus, but I'm an artist, I can't help my visionary impulses :D .

I find the idea of practicing artists making interactive media pretty exciting. For example, what if you commissioned artist Bill Viola (http://www.billviola.com/) to create a computer game, and supply him with a staff of render artists and programmers? Artists, especially today's artists, possess a particular sensibility that many game designers lack. This is possible because the artist goes into the process practically free of the 'shackles' of the conventions that a game designer suffers from. If Bill Viola were to make a marketable computer game (marketable as a game), you wanna bet his theme would not involve space marines, the Knights Templars, or find-the-key puzzles? I will bet that his game would involve questions about states of being, the passage of time, the metaphors of space and perception, and the fragility of identity. And these things, I argue, will be the next target of the evolutionary phase of the computer game.

http://www.billviola.com/images/cathsroomcomp.jpg
Bill Viola, Catherine's Room, 2001, video installation

Intrepid Homoludens

10-04-2003, 10:27 AM

Art has many faces and craft is also one of them.

:rolleyes: Oh please! Art has many faces and craft is a learned skill and talent.

James

10-04-2003, 12:39 PM

I believe this applies to all forms of art - there is craft and work involved in every facet of creativity. There is struggle to become competent, dedication and practise, but when creativity becomes art it is through the grace of the individual, who takes this practise and work and transcends it into something profound and of greater meaning than the some of its own worth. This is a rarity in gaming, but is seen in the examples I previously mentioned.

twifkak

10-04-2003, 03:46 PM

Yeah? Whose theorem are you using? Ruskin? Can't possible be Clement Greenberg's. :P
Umm... yes? What James said. :P

Plus, I think you're underestimating ICO. Like Syberia, ICO started in another medium (in this case, a CG movie), but regardless, I see qualities in it beyond the romantic fairy tale and the typical "girl overcomes fragility" heart-warmer.

(As an aside, I think the fallacy in defining "art" is assuming it's a binary value.)

syntheticgerbil

10-04-2003, 04:32 PM

~````"`' '"""`' '"~"~""^^"~''

Art.

remixor

10-04-2003, 08:16 PM

I find the idea of practicing artists making interactive media pretty exciting. For example, what if you commissioned artist Bill Viola (http://www.billviola.com/) to create a computer game, and supply him with a staff of render artists and programmers? Artists, especially today's artists, possess a particular sensibility that many game designers lack. This is possible because the artist goes into the process practically free of the 'shackles' of the conventions that a game designer suffers from. If Bill Viola were to make a marketable computer game (marketable as a game), you wanna bet his theme would not involve space marines, the Knights Templars, or find-the-key puzzles? I will bet that his game would involve questions about states of being, the passage of time, the metaphors of space and perception, and the fragility of identity. And these things, I argue, will be the next target of the evolutionary phase of the computer game.

And I argue that nobody would play that game. ;)

I very much agree with a lot of your opinions on computer games as art, but I have a hard time believing that someone like Bill Viola would be able to adequately create any game, particularly a marketable one, that explored such notions without coming off as very derivative and unplayable. Certainly those are not clichéd topics in games, but they are fairly common to many people's ideas of "art" (particularly more contemporary art), and I just can't see them becoming the "next target of the evolutionary phase of the computer game".

Marek

10-04-2003, 10:51 PM

Nice discussion going on here. I haven't read the previous page in detail yet, but I really want to comment on that snippet quoted above.

I don't know anything about Bill Viola, but I can say this: artists who make video- and interactive installations DO NOT make good games by default. They'll try making an artistic statement through the gameplay itself, which with their mindset will inevitably go wrong. I've seen many attempts by artists to create games and they're all highly unplayable and unentertaining. The first thing about making games is accepting that at the very core they need to be fun. That doesn't make it lower than 'low art' as some critics seem to think. It just means that the artistic value has to come from somewhere else. The mise-en-scene, the story, the decisions the gamer makes (and for example the subsequent moral implications), etc.

I'm making a game at an art school. Although my course leader understands perfectly what games are about, I may find myself fighting against misguided ideas from our client (an art festival). Any gameplay that's not fun is frustrating and is therefore not interesting for more than a few minutes. A lot of artist or art 'connaiseurs' (blech) seem to want frustrating games, which leads me to wonder why they want it to be a game in the first place.

I think that just as with movies, the art in games lies in the deeper layers. I think current game designers have a bigger chance of finding out where those layers are, than traditional artists from other fields who try to slap other conventions onto the medium.

Dylan_Dog

10-04-2003, 11:19 PM

Intrepid, about that analysis you used on the paragraph I wrote. I never stated that adventure games are BETTER than all other games. My whole statement was directed at art and HOW I PERCEIVED ART in games. I (and I do mean I - me, not necessarily you) find adventure games in general to be more artistic. By no means are adventure games better than other games, every game is unique in its own right, and I don't want to get into this "computer game genre war" thing. I like any game that will keep me entertained, and it's only happened with adventure games that I have found myself dazzled by the "artistic" brilliance.

The concept of art is very subjective. Everyone has a different perspective. I remember seeing a painting once that everyone was staring at trying to figure out what it was - it was a dot in the middle of blank canvas. Although anyone could do that, it considered a piece of art, because behind the blank canvas, there is something incredible. (Can someone tell me who the artist was or what the painting was called, I forgot).

About that "cheapening the art" thing. I guess even graffiti is a piece of art if it's made out to be.

twifkak

10-04-2003, 11:23 PM

What Marek said minus the "games need to be fun" bit. :D

Marek

10-04-2003, 11:34 PM

What Marek said minus the "games need to be fun" bit. :D
You play games that aren't fun, and enjoy it? :confused:

Dylan_Dog

10-04-2003, 11:37 PM

There are some serious games out there.

Marek

10-04-2003, 11:38 PM

Serious games can be fun. That's the sort of fun I mean. Not funny.

Dylan_Dog

10-04-2003, 11:42 PM

Yeah, sorry, I use the word "interesting", I played some games that I FOUND neither fun (as in your sense) nor funny, but yet interesting.

ragnar

10-04-2003, 11:58 PM

Serious games can be fun. That's the sort of fun I mean. Not funny.

I think the word *fun* is wrong altogether. You need an element in a game that make you want to continue play the game and that element needn't be "fun" per se. Precisely as you need something that makes you go on read a book or watch a movie or you would stop reading or watching.

Wajus

10-05-2003, 01:48 AM

Ooh, my post definitely flew over you head. Wajus, please do yourself a favour and click those links I provided. I'm not 'blaming' anyone, I'm merely stating things: As. They. Are. And yes, I stand feckingly firm on my argument that any games as we know them today can cross the threshold into art only on formalistic and romantic terms......... Wajus, please just do some research on art history and philosophy, will ya? And go ask some practicing artists the same questions. I don't mean to be snobby if I come across as such, but I can't discuss this unless there's some common fundamental background shared.

I've got enough background from my average european middle school three years ago. Surely one do not have to be artist or critic to value art - I think that substance tells more than theories (if that's formalism for you than fine). I don't know why but there's a tendency among many critics to underestimate the artistic value of young media. First modern music and movies, than comic books and now computer games etc. There's art also outside your vernissages.

I also reccomend you read some interviews with "formalists" like Sokal to know a little bit more about their point of view. For example check this out:

http://www.gameboomers.com/interviews/BenoitSokal.htm

Marek

10-05-2003, 03:12 AM

I think the word *fun* is wrong altogether. You need an element in a game that make you want to continue play the game and that element needn't be "fun" per se. Precisely as you need something that makes you go on read a book or watch a movie or you would stop reading or watching.

In other words: fun :P
You're not going to continue reading a book if it ain't.

However, if you want a different phrasing, perhaps "player motivation" will do?

Zanthia

10-05-2003, 03:42 AM

It depends on book, you know. Some books are read for educational purposes for example and not just for fun. Also I agree that fun is what makes you play computer game, serious or not.

And I'm sorry but I still don't c what makes a game an art and why it can b found only in adventure genre.

twifkak

10-05-2003, 06:25 AM

Serious games can be fun. That's the sort of fun I mean. Not funny.
I played Shenmue. Come on.. Crate pushing! And I found one of the two bugs -- I took a shorter alternate route, and didn't trigger a cutscene for like a real-life week. A LOT of crate pushing. *eyes roll back into head* *dies*

twifkak

10-05-2003, 06:27 AM

I think the word *fun* is wrong altogether. You need an element in a game that make you want to continue play the game and that element needn't be "fun" per se. Precisely as you need something that makes you go on read a book or watch a movie or you would stop reading or watching.
This is true, but for some people, the fact that it is "art" is enough. I imagine Cremaster 3 (http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2003/05/23/matthew_barney_versus_donkey_kong.html) is boring enough to qualify as such. But yes, for it to be at all mass-appealing, it's got to have player-motivation. Sorry for being pedantic. :)

Intrepid Homoludens

10-05-2003, 06:30 AM

And I argue that nobody would play that game.

I very much agree with a lot of your opinions on computer games as art, but I have a hard time believing that someone like Bill Viola would be able to adequately create any game, particularly a marketable one, that explored such notions without coming off as very derivative and unplayable. Certainly those are not clichéd topics in games, but they are fairly common to many people's ideas of "art" (particularly more contemporary art), and I just can't see them becoming the "next target of the evolutionary phase of the computer game".

I don't know anything about Bill Viola, but I can say this: artists who make video- and interactive installations DO NOT make good games by default.....

Apparently you two glossed over the "supply him with a staff of render artists and programmers" and the "marketable computer game (marketable as a game" of my post. Never underestimate an artist's ability to adapt. Of course Viola wouldn't make an 'oblique' or 'obscure' game, you think he's stupid? I myself have some raw ideas for games that explore heavyhanded themes and issues, but because of my experience as a gamer I know what the fun factor could be as well. Like I said, tell Viola that the game must be playable (i.e. fun) and most likely he will come up with a concept far less clichéd than most games out there right now, but that is still enjoyable to experience.

Right now the only adventure game in my recent memory that 'severely' explored beyond the boundaries of thematic convention is Majestic (http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/november01/majestic/). Although this title received mixed reviews, for better or worse it at least boldly went where few adventure games - and developers - tread, specifically the ideas of public vs. private, questions of what is real and what is staged, slipping in and out of the Internet realm unravelling conspiratorial issues. Few adventure games delve that far right now. The only other two I can think of at the moment haven't even come out yet - Jane Jensen's 'Project Jane J.' (exploring meta-realities and interdimensional states of mind), and UbiSoft's upcoming In Memorium* (investigative adventuring using the actual Internet).

*I'll start a new thread about this game.

Intrepid, about that analysis you used on the paragraph I wrote. I never stated that adventure games are BETTER than all other games. My whole statement was directed at art and HOW I PERCEIVED ART in games. I (and I do mean I - me, not necessarily you) find adventure games in general to be more artistic. By no means are adventure games better than other games, every game is unique in its own right, and I don't want to get into this "computer game genre war" thing. I like any game that will keep me entertained, and it's only happened with adventure games that I have found myself dazzled by the "artistic" brilliance.

The concept of art is very subjective. Everyone has a different perspective. I remember seeing a painting once that everyone was staring at trying to figure out what it was - it was a dot in the middle of blank canvas. Although anyone could do that, it considered a piece of art, because behind the blank canvas, there is something incredible. (Can someone tell me who the artist was or what the painting was called, I forgot).

About that "cheapening the art" thing. I guess even graffiti is a piece of art if it's made out to be.

Good, I'm glad you clarified yourself :D . For a minute there I thought you were yet another one of those annoying zealots :P . As far as that painting you want to know more about......hmm, I distinctly remember seing a painting like that several years ago at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The artist's name is on the tip of my tongue - :( I hate that!! I'll get back to you once I find out.

I've got enough background from my average european middle school three years ago. Surely one do not have to be artist or critic to value art - I think that substance tells more than theories (if that's formalism for you than fine). I don't know why but there's a tendency among many critics to underestimate the artistic value of young media. First modern music and movies, than comic books and now computer games etc. There's art also outside your vernissages.

I also reccomend you read some interviews with "formalists" like Sokal to know a little bit more about their point of view. For example check this out:

http://www.gameboomers.com/interviews/BenoitSokal.htm

Thanks for the link. Reading it and typing at the same time :D .

These points strongly resonate with me:

In Europe, video games are the same as comics. They are viewed as very special. Comics are viewed as real art. These books are not simply objects. In Europe, it is a culture. I think that video games are also evolving in Europe, the same way as comics. First, they are just comic book art and only written for a child. Then in the 60’s and 70’s, came growth and they became a real artistic form of expression. Now, they contain not only political ideas, but social ideas. It also has become a historical tool for expression.

How does this relate to video games?

I see this same evolution with video games. There is a parallel to draw between the evolution of comic books and video games. I think, we are still in an early stage of this growth with games. For example, when you become an adult you are still looking for the same history you had as a kid, But, now you want to add some sense to it, some structure and logical ideas to the experience and most importantly, some emotions.

I love this way of working! I love it!! Read:

I had to learn a few hints on what was possible and what was not. As a non-technical guy, I really had to understand what were the limits of the medium I was now exploiting. I still learn new things everyday.

I’m not directly involved in the coding or programming side of gaming but, I still work really close to the people in charge of these aspects. I explain what I want to do and they bring me back to earth. *laugh* They make suggestions of what’s possible and we make a decision together. But, I also try to consistently challenge them to push back the technical boundaries they are facing.

Wajus, I'm wondering if you think I'm cutting down adventure games for appealing to the player/viewer strictly in formalistic and romantic notions. I'm telling you now, I am not. What I was saying was that because as a genre that is so young and immature (along with all other genres and the gaming industry as a whole), it's going to take a while (few years? decades?) for it to be able to convey a level of maturity and depth that includes and goes beyond the aesthetic precepts of formalism and romanticism. There's nothing wrong with that. I, personally, am simply anticipating this going beyond phase, looking forward to it. But until then the industry needs time to grow. I mean, for chrissake's sakes, Wajus, Benoit Sokal even stated so himself!! Read:

There is a parallel to draw between the evolution of comic books and video games. I think, we are still in an early stage of this growth with games. For example, when you become an adult you are still looking for the same history you had as a kid, But, now you want to add some sense to it, some structure and logical ideas to the experience and most importantly, some emotions.

I might repeat myself, but in my opinion what makes a game really good is the story that drives it and that’s the author’s job. As you mentioned it, we might have reached the first step of maturity. There’s still a place for growth and evolution in video game production.

....if you could - what do you view as your main contributions to the advancement of video games as a creative art?

It is a bit presumptuous to say that I made the games better or anything. If people think that - well it is wonderful - but I am not a precursor or a force behind new thinking about video games. What I do try very hard to do, is to push back the limits or existing boundaries. That is more of a quest or a personal goal for me than for the industry.

....there will always be a need for good games. Games that are about a true story. In my opinion, we, as game developers, have to evolve. Gaming as you know it today has to change. It cannot stay this way. Users will be asking for more as the gamers-base will grow larger and most important older. There will always be a need for First-person shooters and good RTS, but there will also be a growing demand for adventure games based on a solid scenario, attaching characters and narratives.