Adventure Gamers - Forums

wilco - 02 March 2014 08:29 PM

To the Moon is a romantic tearjerker

^ This.

It’s probably the most life- and love-affirming game I’ve ever played. If you can stomach the 16-bit RPG Maker graphics, you should definitely play this one!

Lambonius - 02 March 2014 08:57 PM

a bunch of nerds on an adventure gaming internet forum.

Hey!

I’m a geek, not a nerd. There’s a difference.

I’ve always thought one could work as an adventure game.

Watch the movie Amelie and you could practically see where the puzzle parts could go.

Or maybe a Telltale style moral choices type game, light on puzzles big on conversations, could work with the Romance genre.

I would be hard pushed to think of any game that did romance well. Just because there is a female character in it doesn’t make it romantic. Broken Sword has had 5 games, had George even made a move on Nico, he always seems to bump into her after extended periods apart and never really on purpose.

Mass Effect seems to think stringing along every female character and bedding all of them is Romance so games. In Skyrim you seem get a magical amulet that allows you to “Chat up” strangers a couple of times before getting married where they seem happy to just sit in your house while you wander the wilderness. Not exactly Dr Zhivago.

Uncharted is probably the closest, but even in that one is very movie style romance.

Lucien21 - 03 March 2014 05:13 PM

Watch the movie Amelie and you could practically see where the puzzle parts could go.

 

You are right, the world of Amelie is like made to be turned into a game. Someone should give Junet a call and he might even go for it, given that City of the Lost Children was turned into a (apparently not so great) game.

Lucien21 - 03 March 2014 05:13 PM

Watch the movie Amelie and you could practically see where the puzzle parts could go.

Wow! Great idea! Too bad we already know the story, but for those who haven’t seen the movie it would be a perfect FMV game.

Plundered Hearts is an actual Romance Novel adventure game.

I had it on the Mac and loved it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plundered_Hearts

Cheshire Cat - 04 March 2014 11:53 AM

Lucien21 - 03 March 2014 05:13 PM

Watch the movie Amelie and you could practically see where the puzzle parts could go.

Wow! Great idea! Too bad we already know the story, but for those who haven’t seen the movie it would be a perfect FMV game.

Yes. it WOULD make an excellent game! Funny that I didn’t think about that; it’s one of my favorite movies, and I think part of my love for it lends itself to the fact that subconsciously, I’ve always loved the film’s visuals, story and characters, which are much like the same in my favorite adventure games. But I think FMV would ruin it. So much of the magical realism would need animation to really bring out the movie’s charm. And the rich colors? The developers would do well having an artist craft beautiful, hand-painted backgrounds. And the characters are so animated. Creating beautiful-looking sprites to represent them would bring out the animation even more. You have to admit: The film is very cartoonish.

Dont forget the appalling beautiful romance part of Torin’s Passage.

Re-live some of the greatest romantic dialogue ever written* at around the 7:00 mark.

*In the eye of the beholder and all that!

DustCropper - 05 March 2014 02:06 AM

I agree, it’s a shame that there aren’t more romantic adventure games. I would say that most adventure games incorporate romance in much the same way as an Indiana Jones movie. In Indiana Jones, there may be a few romantic scenes sprinkled in, but they aren’t the primary focus of the films, and I wouldn’t call Indiana Jones “romantic”. It would be nice to see more games that focus primarily on relationships, and not on saving the world with a little love on the side.

I think game designers are actively scared of handeling romances in games anything more as a sort of a minigame ala what Bioware is doing with their games, which is a shame as deep, involving and well written romance can work nicely even in an action packed story. Like for an example it does in Farscape, which is crazy, action packed series, but also investes deeply in the birth of a relationship between Aeryn and John, which later turns into one of the best modern romances I can think of.

I feel some designers at the moment are bit too scared of that vocal group of gamers who actively cry if some game announces that they have romance options.

I do think that in general level the current game devs are afraid of tackling actual romantic plotlines. There’s nothing that prevents including a well written and well thought romance plot in any story in any genre, be it an adventure game or a hardcore action game. You can have an adventurous Indiana Jones story that also has a strong romance in it, but from some reason the game devs just seem unwilling to go there.

Larry 7 is a sunny romantic comedy. Nothing wrong about it being full of sex jokes
King’s Quest 6 has all the romanticism of an old fairy tale.
Also Pandora Directive is a mix of noir, post-apocalyptic world and a date sim where choices matter.

Lucien21 - 03 March 2014 05:13 PM

Mass Effect seems to think stringing along every female character and bedding all of them is Romance so games.

Can’t say I agree with this. It all depends on your choices. I remember I stuck by my choice in Jack and got rewarded with a very good “arc” where Jack mellowed down and started talking about herself more and showing need which is totally unexpected of her from the impression you get when you fist see her.

Sometimes you might end up saying respectful or complimentary things to other characters that can be misinterpreted for flirting but it all comes down to the choices you make.

You just have to learn to say No when it counts .