Adventure Gamers - Forums

Jackal - 13 February 2016 04:13 PM

Can always count on the Aggies to generate yet another “what is an adventure game” debate.

To be clear, our site definition is, and has pretty much always been: a game that focuses on puzzle solving within a narrative framework, generally with few or no action elements.

Exploration is actually an optional element (and is just as relevant in pretty much every genre as it is to most adventure games).

Telltale was on the bubble already with TWD2 and TWAU last year, but there were at least some remnants of adventure game elements remaining. This year there really isn’t even that in their games. It’s not that we’ve changed anything; Telltale just kept pushing the envelope away from puzzles and exploration to pure story.

Personally I don’t care too much about definitions. However, in this case, games reviewed by adventuregamers were in general often colliding nicely with games I care about (mainly, anything that focuses on storytelling, preferably not having much focus on action elements) so for years I’ve been coming here for reviews and opinions on these kind of games. Excluding telltale games, firewatch, and until dawn from the site’s definition basically means me and adventuregamers’ path is starting to diverge which makes me a bit sad.

giom - 13 February 2016 02:08 PM

I wonder if it would make sense to have an aggie category for “atmospheric” adventures without puzzles… It’s of interest to a subset of people in here….

I agree with that. And Adventure Gamers is already covering that category of games (they just don’t receive a score), so it kinda makes sense from multiple perspectives. EDIT: Or at least if you combine the different perspectives.

Matan - 14 February 2016 01:31 AM

Excluding telltale games, firewatch, and until dawn from the site’s definition basically means me and adventuregamers’ path is starting to diverge which makes me a bit sad.

The ONLY thing you’re not getting from those games is a score. Everything else is exactly the same. (Well, and year-end award eligibility.)

We understand how important these games are to people. They’re important to us too. And we really enjoy them. So we have no intention of stopping covering them. This one small difference is simply a way to distinguish the one type of game from another.

If you’re that upset about losing out on a score, then ask developers to start putting more gameplay back into their games.

EDIT: Missed this earier.

giom - 13 February 2016 02:08 PM

I wonder if it would make sense to have an aggie category for “atmospheric” adventures without puzzles… It’s of interest to a subset of people in here….

We might do something like that more specifically down the road, but it would be a “Silver” Aggie thing. We already have a category for best “almost” adventure, and will again this year. All those games will be eligible for that.

im going to guess that the reason a game like until dawn was excluded is simply because nobody on staff has had the chance to play it. Theres no feature on it, and its ps4 exclusive so very limited options to obtain it.

You mean this no feature?

Jackal - 14 February 2016 03:37 PM

You mean this no feature?

oh there it is, i kept expecting to see it somewhere else in the search
well, just a poor choice not to include it then
it has much more exploration than telltales recent entries, and its puzzles and interactions may be easy and not especially inspired, but they are there.

Well, our reviewer didn’t think so at the time.

I haven’t played it, but I will say that even Duke Nukem has find-keycard-to-open-door “puzzles”, so if that’s the extent of a game’s intellectual challenge, that probably isn’t going to cut it.

br305893 - 14 February 2016 03:16 PM

The fact that Tales From The Borderlands wasn’t included in this year’s Aggies is a disgrace, in my opinion.

So, to be clear, you think it’s a disgrace that we actually adhere to the definition of adventure this site was founded on? Mmmkay.

i do have to say im glad the site is drawing a line, since things have gotten increasingly blurry, and it seems like games with the adventure label keep testing how little gameplay is possible to have. But as is the way with drawing lines, it makes things tricky

It’s a headache, for sure. It’s like trying to hit a constantly moving target with a very imprecise instrument.

I don’t concern myself with the endless public debates about genre definitions, but absolutely every game we cover is filtered through our own definition before reaching a decision on how to cover it, and to what extent. Every single one. For those who say that our standards are applied inconsistently, I’d counter instead that no two games are exactly alike, and every decision comes down to a matter of often minimal degrees. We won’t go down that slippery slope of “you accepted X, and X is almost like Y, so you should accept Y too.” The line always has to be drawn somewhere.

Anyway… Anyone have any actual feedback on the Aggie nominations?

Oh, and to answer an earlier question, the Broken Age concept in question would be the relationship between Shay’s ship and Vella’s world. You know, the whole point of the big reveal at the end of Act 1.

zane - 14 February 2016 03:40 PM

it has much more exploration than telltales recent entries, and its puzzles and interactions may be easy and not especially inspired, but they are there.

I’d go further and say it probably had more interaction then either heavy rain or walking dead season 1, and about the same as the recent life is strange.

Also, there’s the “meta puzzle” of trying to keep everyone alive by keeping track of the chain reactions that happen throughout the story which was actually pretty cool.

I say Broken Age might take voice acting, writing and maybe music. Graphic design no chance against Stasis and animation against Armikrog