The Best Adventure Game Ever [Archive]

Dylan_Dog

09-12-2003, 03:27 AM

This thread is for anyone who wants their creativity to go wild and write what they would like to see in a perfect adventure game. What do you think would comprise a perfect adventure? We all could learn a few things.

Let me start:

The perfect adventure game is the one in which, upon its completion, you ponder about it for days to come, and you cannot wait for a release of the sequal or something similar to that game.

custard

09-12-2003, 03:32 AM

Let me start:

The perfect adventure game is the one in which, upon its completion, you ponder about it for days to come, and you cannot wait for a release of the sequal or something similar to that game.

well, that works for me, but years instead.. just like monkey island 2 :D

Wajus

09-12-2003, 03:35 AM

MacGyver - the game adaptation!!! :9~

ragnar

09-12-2003, 04:02 AM

The perfect game shouldn't have a sequel. You would get disappointed with the sequel. By definition.

Kolzig

09-12-2003, 05:23 AM

MacGyver - the game adaptation!!! :9~

You said it. That would be a marvellous game!

Tyler Durden

09-12-2003, 05:40 AM

MacGyver - the game adaptation!!! :9~That would be PERFECT! Like the movie...

As for the topic, I think that the pefect adventure game is already released! The Longest Journey....THE adventure... 8-)

Garyos

09-12-2003, 07:46 AM

The perfect adventure should have true impact on you as a person - it should somehow change your view on the world, make you see things clearer, gain new insights, and apply it in your daily life. And it wouldn't hurt if it made you laugh, cry and scream with horror along the way. In short it should combine the best elements of books and films and music and art and so on, and MOVE you.

/blather

Ninja Dodo

09-12-2003, 08:02 AM

It should allow you to deal with problems in every logical way.

bigjko

09-12-2003, 08:22 AM

*waits for Trep's looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong reply* :devil:

twifkak

09-12-2003, 08:24 AM

The perfect adventure game should get me laid.

AGA

09-12-2003, 08:59 AM

Meh, quit wingeing and make it yourselves - www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk :P

Ginny

09-12-2003, 09:11 AM

Heh, well said AGA.

I'd say the perfect AG would make you feel so immersed, you forget where you are and think you're on the adventure, making you react to everything, wether it be with surprise, anger, horror, happiness, laughter (a game needs at least some humor, even a very serious one IMO) etc. Like garyos said, it should move you and affect you, and you should think about for long after you played it, and see it's connection to your own life.

In more technical terms, it should have a compelling and intriguing story and characters (after all, all this immersion stuff makes us forget the basics), it should have fun and diverse puzzles (both in type and in difficulty), great witty and interesting dialogs, it should be inventive and/or innovative in some way, the gameplay needs to be intuitive...

After all the basic stuff, a game should also be very attentive and well executed down to the tiniest details. A great example of this is GF, which uses little slips of tongue in dialog to make the characters wonderful, and which gives hints for the end of the game right in the very begining. Everything is connected and that what makes it so great. So details, details, details. :)

twifkak

09-12-2003, 12:17 PM

On a more constructive note than my last post, a great adventure would not only make me think about it when I'm not playing, but make me live it when I'm not playing. A quick example from a non-adventure: When I was really hooked on Worms for a few months, I started mapping out every place I went to for how the best way to navigate it via ninja rope would be; I wondered if the wind speed would affect my ability to bazooka the carrots in the farmer's market; etc. With a great adventure, I'd be having imaginary conversations with the characters about my surroundings, wondering what tools Glottis would need to fix my car, etc.

SamandMax

09-12-2003, 12:34 PM

MacGyver - the game adaptation!!! :9~

The whole game would be inventory puzzles. Creating grenades out of toothpicks and carrots, building a vehicle out of some rocks and a piece of paper, stuff like that.

Wajus

09-12-2003, 08:41 PM

The whole game would be inventory puzzles. Creating grenades out of toothpicks and carrots, building a vehicle out of some rocks and a piece of paper, stuff like that.

Only if YOU were to make this game :rolleyes:
I have other vision. Story development not only through inventory puzzles, but also enviromental. From what I know MacGyver also used stealth technics and some mild violence (though he was extremely good with knocking out his enemiess with one punch only!) - just like George in BS3 will do i guess. I would make the puzzles a little bit more believeable and intuitive(easier) by adding Gyver's comments to elements of environment - just like in series. Of course I would hire Richard Dean Anderson to do voice of MacGyver - but this is more than obvious. I would love to make this game so much - with a "LITTLE" ;) help from Revolution Software.

"I have a dream!"

hagstrumpa

09-12-2003, 08:53 PM

a great adventure would not only make me think about it when I'm not playing, but make me live it when I'm not playing.

...I fully agree, but I want to add, dream about it.
I remember when I played Grim Fandango. I couldn't let it go even when I wasn't playing it. When I was awake I thought about it and when I fell asleep I dreamt about it.
Me and my husband played it together and different solutions to puzzles where our constant topic those weeks. :)

saucyminx

09-12-2003, 08:57 PM

Ariel Type

09-12-2003, 09:58 PM

The exellent advneture game should have great, interesting story, good and logial, but not obvious (like in Syberia) puzzles, big lengh, enough freedom for interection with game world (I mean like the one we have in IFs and Legend games) and it is first concerned of controls - maybe it even needs smth like in Larry 7. It also must have a great atmoshere and part of the puzzles should be non object-oriented.

Ginny

09-12-2003, 10:11 PM

Oh yeah, how could I forget, interacting with the world you're in with no connection to puzzles, talking to people to get background and such, optional things that are sometimes easy to miss and thus make the game tons more replayabale. Replayability is great. Oooh, I feel like starting a discussion about wether or not it's a good idea to have mustiple endings, how can it do harm to the story and game, and how it can enchance/improve the game.

Also, length is important too. A great game that is too short will make you want a long one so badly. Trust me, I know. That's how I felt about Apprentice, so imagine my joy when the authors decided to make a new, longer part in the Apprentice series (which could amount to 3-4 parts). And of course there's the other game they're developing, The find. But anyway, off topic..

If I do start a discussion about multiple endings (and possible multiple puzzle solutions aswell, and replayability), do you think it belongs in the Adventure forum or the Underground?

Tamara

09-13-2003, 12:32 AM

The perfect adventure game (in my opinion ;) ) is when even after you've played it, you go to bed and dream about it, you eat and drink and you think about it, you work/go to class and you see it dancing across your mind, you wanna think about your bf/gf but you see the characters in your head instead, you wanna memorize formulas for a problem but instead you utter out the most memorable line from it... yeah like that.
mmmh, the only game where that *totally* happened to me was Planescape:Torment, absolutely! And, uh, Minesweeper *shamefaced* http://www.homestead.com/cartoonystuff/files/icon_redface.gif. And MI2 to a lesser extent.

Ginny: In the Adventure forum

Starflux

09-13-2003, 12:38 AM

Shite, I STILL have to play Planescape Torment. Heck, I still have to BUY it. How long has it been since I first said this? Two years ago, somewhere in the General forum?

Dylan_Dog

09-13-2003, 02:17 AM

pleto4_ryan

09-13-2003, 02:55 AM

The best adventure ever must have all the above...and

It must have a perfect plot, as Grim and Journey, a wonderful control that gets you inside the action as Gabriel Knight 3, medium difficulty riddles so as to not keep the gamer outside of the flow of the story, grafics and sound of Half life 2(or anyway the new games), interactivity of a maniac, you could interact with everything and everyone, and everything would have different reactions...
Also the time-thingy of The last express....and i want it to be EXTRA LARGE. To play it every day for a month and still playing... :P

em....maybe i'll add something later :P

Ginny

09-13-2003, 04:09 AM

Rofl! Don't forget the game world being alive on it's own, things happening that don't affect you, aswell as some that do, and thus cause the game to change completely. You could play this game forever, billions of times. Yeah the time thing like TLE is great too. The game should be controlled (in the faraway future this could even be possible) using thoughts, and be a highly detailed virtual reality.

However, to leave the futuristic dreams for now, it should just be very very memorable in every aspect. The dialogs would be so good you remember them all by heart ;) You'd talk to the characters in your mind after finishing it too.

The begining should be perfect, mysterious but informative, and the ending should be stunning, emotional, moving...

Also, it would be nice if after the game you could return to where all the characters you got to know are, and the game could continue there forever, with things still happening etc...

Such a game would take two thousand years to make, but at least it wll be endless... People would play it and never live to see an actual end.. :P No, that's a bad idea rofl..

etc etc etc............................

Well, like AGA said, we can *always* make it. :P

twifkak

09-13-2003, 04:50 AM

Perfect adventure is the one which gives the player ultimate freedom. So it doesn't seem like you are playing by a script, so you cannot recognize the source code that is involved in producing the sequences within the game. Player should be totally enchanted by it.
Impossible!

Ginny -- on the length note, I think opinions are more up in the air. I really thought ICO was the perfect length, at ~10 hours. More than that, and you lose the "fairytale" experience. Of course, Grim worked too, and had that cool "epic" feel.

twifkak

09-13-2003, 04:57 AM

Also, it would be nice if after the game you could return to where all the characters you got to know are, and the game could continue there forever, with things still happening etc...
It doesn't look like we're going to see this out of the adventure genre, but people like Harvey Wallbanger--er, Smith--Will Wright, and some of the crazy academics (Frasca, Murray, etc.) seem to have this as their ultimate goal. For example, in interviews, Harvey Smith says he'd cut out the fighting if he could, and he'd like to see us move away from the "branching tree" dialogue system to something more freeform. The chance, however, of seeing an AI that can pass the Turing test* is a ways off.

*The Turing test is simple: Plonk a human in front of a computer terminal. Have him chat (like AIM, basically). Have him do it once with a human, and once with the computer, and see if he can tell which is which.

pleto4_ryan

09-13-2003, 08:47 AM

hm...have you ever plaied Starship Titanic?

Never plaied it...but from what i know you were typing at the dialogues and the answers of the NPCs where made thus way as to have different reactions everytime. They had great problems with that at the production, as the voice-actors had to record small sentences, or just words, so as the idea to come true...

Isn't that a step towards free dialogue. And imagine that was at 1997(?)

Royal Fool

09-13-2003, 10:25 AM

By definition, the perfect adventure game would have to have the following:

A puzzle that involves a monkey and a pair of pliers
Contain cutscenes that cannot be skipped, ever
A reference to either Queen or Wham
Be published on 6 CD-ROMs
Be developed by a studio that does not have the letter 'Y' in its name

You think it sounds stupid? Well, obviously you haven't the slightest clue about adventure gaming, then! :(

Erwin_Br

09-13-2003, 10:54 AM

The perfect adventure would happen in real life.

If only I could be Guybrush Treepwood for one day... Or be cuddly and naked like Max. :z

--Erwin

Kingzjester

09-13-2003, 11:03 AM

An adventuer game shoud be able to make you angry, really angry about nothing in particular - and at the same time make you continue playing and feel glad you spent your hard-earned money.

It should have a twist.

It should be Romantic in as so much that all emotions it elicits from you should be strong emotions.

It should be developed by a mind capable of enjoying (and understanding) James Joyce and Spongebob Squarepants.

twifkak

09-13-2003, 12:09 PM

What's to understand about Spongebob (save that Vincent Waller rawx0rz)? Surely you meant to say (pre-Joe) Blue's Clues, or that one with the octopus.

Kingzjester

09-13-2003, 12:26 PM

What's to understand about Spongebob (save that Vincent Waller rawx0rz)? Surely you meant to say (pre-Joe) Blue's Clues, or that one with the octopus.I really, really, REALLY want to strangle you.

Dylan_Dog

09-13-2003, 12:56 PM

Hehe, just imagine a game that never ends. A game that is done "on the fly". Just when you are about to complete the game, a developer or group of developers send out a new extension to the game. It would have to be online or multiplayer. Just imagine, Lord of The Rings that goes on and on and on....

Dylan_Dog

09-13-2003, 12:58 PM

The game will end only when the developer or publisher or whoever is in charge of the production and development goes bankrupt. Then they make one final mod, and its all over, until another compay comes along, buys the rights and continues the game, with a sequal or something.

Dylan_Dog

09-13-2003, 01:14 PM

Sorry pleto4_ryan, I didn't realize that you outlined this concept before I did.
Seriously though, what are the chances of someone creating an adventure game that actually has quite a few NPC's with some kind of complex AI (learning, neural networks), and where the NPC's can do things based on their environment and not something that's already been scripted for them. And if they can have a random and unpredictable impact on the game flow. Say goodbye to walkthroughs!

Adventure Gamer

09-13-2003, 10:05 PM

In a perfect adventure, your character should comment almost on everything. So you can understand your character's personality much more.

pleto4_ryan

09-13-2003, 11:44 PM

Sorry pleto4_ryan, I didn't realize that you outlined this concept before I did.

:confused:

Hehe, just imagine a game that never ends. A game that is done "on the fly". Just when you are about to complete the game, a developer or group of developers send out a new extension to the game. It would have to be online or multiplayer. Just imagine, Lord of The Rings that goes on and on and on....

One word

URU YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Zanthia

09-14-2003, 04:57 AM

Is it already out?

pleto4_ryan

09-14-2003, 08:11 AM

Is it already out?

nope ;(

but it WILL BE :D

twifkak

09-14-2003, 04:40 PM