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How would you evolve the adventure genre?

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I think that the way it’s evolved is that there a helluva lot more competent developers making all different kinds of adventure games to suit various tastes; some tastes criss-cross, some don’t.  But if you look at the sheer number of competent developers (and successful developers, that number seems to increase every year) the genre has evolved to include more people making more awesome games.

So, I hope it increases along that trajectory - competent developers making good, and different, adventure games.


Bt

     
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I think some of the newer games are finally starting take the right approach.

A lot of what the genre needs to feel modern is presentational more than mechanical. Most third person adventure games still feature these fixed or scripted camera angles, with small sets and in many ways still feel like those early Sierra games. Games like Dreamfall Chapters and Life is Strange are doing a good job of making larger environments and modern camera systems work for the genre and that’s a huge step.

I do think that a lot of modern mainstream adventures have gone too far in simplifying gameplay. While I can enjoy Telltale’s games, they’re barely even games anymore as much as vaguely interactive shows where I can make choices that mostly don’t matter. I think there’s a middle ground where games can be fair in a way many old school adventures weren’t but still require some thought. Portal 2 is a good example of a game that balanced challenging puzzles perfectly, and although I don’t consider it an adventure game, it’s a shining example of well balanced challenge that adventure games should follow.

     

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If we’re talking about evolution, then Life Is Strange and Dreamfall Chapters are hopeful monsters Smile. I think adventure games can borrow even more open world elements. NPCs don’t have to just stand there waiting to be interacted with. Suppose you need to talk to a character. You know that at these hours he can be found at one place, at different hours at another place, unavailable at other times. It’s up to you where you find and approach him. It’s simple but already it creates a rewarding experience when you navigate around the city and locate him yourself.

I just hope the trend won’t be to get even more shallow on the puzzles. LIS and DC are quite creative and original with the puzzles they do have, but I think they don’t have enough. I think Myst damaged the adventure game genre because people started to apply the term adventure game to collections of logical puzzles. I hope that adventure genre will not transform to mean those games where you only choose between mashing button A and mashing button D and listen to lots of taletelling.

Also, I think LIS and DC are moving in the right direction with the puzzles they do have. 90% of all the puzzles in all adventure games can easily be implemented in a text-only game. The player goes by what he’s told in the description of the environment’s hotspots and of the inventory items and in the dialogue. The Secret of Monkey Island had a couple of great examples of a different kind of puzzles, where the player needed to observe and to interact with the environment (watching the shopkeeper open the safe; tailing the said shopkeeper over several locations). And LIS and DC try to do exactly that kind of non-verbal puzzles, which I think is great. Also kudos to Daedalic for doing something fresh in Memoria.

Speaking of the evolution of graphics, for me LIS and DC (and probably the last two Sherlock Holmes installments) are the first adventure games where I have to admit that a hand-drawn game isn’t going to look that good. First there’s a feeling of immersion, the ability to take a look at a scene from different angles, to go through the scene while casually chatting to an NPC, to observe the events happening around you. And it would likely be an impossible amount of work to draw all that by hand: all the lighting effects, shadows, other effects created by shaders, animations. One thing I noticed is that now it’s rather difficult to estimate the graphics quality by just looking at a screenshot, because the huge difference is in whether the environment is static or enlivened by shaders, animations, the use of depth of field, etc.

All that creates a unique atmosphere as well.

Character animation is probably the only area where hand-drawn games still have an edge. It might be easier to do animation in terms of polygon vertices, but the result is still somewhat unnatural and even using motion capture doesn’t quite help. It might be subjective. What may seem OK in a cartoon-style game, in a 3D game comes across as being not quite right, because characters resemble dolls (uncanny valley?). But LIS and DC are moving in the right direction in this department as well.

     
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I believe the correlation between hand drawn backgrounds and animation and adventure games is so strong that they’ve been likely supporting and carrying each other through these not so promising years, and proven each other to be gaming mainstays. It also has a lot to do with the paradigm people have gotten so used to through the years, mainly that 3rd person 3d = actiony adventures, 2d hand drawn = story and puzzle-oriented. To me, point and click is one of those weird genres where, other than minor tweaks (more shortcuts than anything, streamlining) are the most you can tack on and still keep it attractive to the core audience.

There are a few relic mechanics we could probably do without, but they fall into the category of “heck of a lot of work and most people won’t notice / be very affected” such as e/g. not having NPCs be as static as we’ve grown accustomed to, etc.

Bottom line is, I’m not ruling any evolution out, but to me they’re perfect just the way they are Laughing

     
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Today, almost all forms of adventure games are supported - cartoon graphics, rendered graphics, FMV, even text adventures.

I’d love to played rendered games with graphics that are FMV quality - but the cost would be huge.

2D Backgrounds with rendered 3D characters is the norm - and for good reason - they look and play great.

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I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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There is one style of presentation within adventure games that basically stopped evolving in 1997, namely hand drawn, frame by frame animated adventures. To this day, the now ancient Curse of Monkey Island stands as the very finest example of such a game (the Whispered World being a notable mention as well), and it barely scratched the surface of what could be done within the medium - if money wasn’t an obstacle.

I remember my vivid dreams of what kinds of awesome games of impressive draftsmanship that would follow CoMI… but then the world went completely bonkers and out came MI4, BS3, Simon 3D, GK3, Kings Quest 8 etc… one visual abomination after another. Just about every single one of my favourite gaming franchises replaced their traditionally animated characters and beautifully hand painted backgrounds with lifeless puppets and blocky blockorama. I cried. My eyes bled. I’ve still not quite recovered. Strangely, everyone else seems unscathed by this horrid devolution. Today, 2D animation is all about stick figure planks and paper doll cut outs… it makes me cringe.

There’s nothing I’d like to see more than a AAA-budget full fledged hand drawn and animated adventure game, a playable cartoon with animation done by a team of Bill Tytla’s skill level (imagine that!). And that’s not slang for Bill Tiller. Vladimir Peter “Bill” Tytla was one of the greatest Disney animators in the golden age of traditional animation (responsible for animating Grumpy in Snow White, among others). His ability to breathe life and emotion into cartoon characters was second to none, their movements more fluid and convincing than anything ever produced through motion capture, he revolutionized Disney’s animation with his unmatched instinct for drawing movement. In a perfect world, such draftsmanship would be what to expect from adventure games and cartoons alike.

Sadly, traditional animation is a dying art, not just within the gaming industry, and it’s extremely unlikely that the kind of adventure game I’m envisioning and hungering for will ever get made Sealed Lips

Sorry about that wall of text Confused This subject tends to get me fired up Tongue

     

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Yeah, I wish we had the skill of the Nine Old Men making adventure games today, too.  I hear ya, Dag.


Bt

     
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What is your opinion on BS5, Dag?

     
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Blackthorne - 19 April 2015 03:00 PM

Yeah, I wish we had the skill of the Nine Old Men making adventure games today, too.  I hear ya, Dag.


Bt

Yes indeed! That would have been beyond amazing. True legends. May they rest in peace.

 

Origami - 19 April 2015 05:29 PM

What is your opinion on BS5, Dag?

I quite enjoyed it. Though I disliked how they linearized the game by having self contained puzzles, reducing the freedom to explore by locking one location if you enter another, which in turn reduces the number of possible variables, making the game easier. Still, in my book it’s definitely the best installment in the series since The Smoking Mirror and possibly my favourite adventure to come from kickstarter so far.

Of course, I’m also very happy that the series returned to its 2D roots. The backgrounds were absolutely beautiful, the layouts done by skillful artists from Disney and other gigant companies, but the character animations, while not bad by adventure game standards, left something to be desired. They’re not hand drawn, but animated skeleton models which are then pre-rendered and cell shaded to create a cartoony look. It saves an enormous amount of time (and money), since you wont need to redraw every frame for an animation, but in my opinion it’s also a notable compromise on quality. Still, it’s a better option than using pure 3D models on hand drawn backgrounds, which I’ve yet to see anyone pull off successfully.

     

Duckman: Can you believe it? Five hundred bucks for a parking ticket?
Cornfed Pig: You parked in a handicapped zone.
Duckman: Who cares? Nobody parks there anyway, except for the people who are supposed to park there and, hell, I can outrun them anytime.

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I see no indication that 2D animation is dying out, with Daedelic churning them out like there’s no tomorrow, but there’s no doubt the quality has plummeted. I think that is felt by fans of every style. 3D slideshow lovers haven’t been treated to a 1st class presentation for a long time. In all styles of adventure the ante was raised towards the late 90s then we were back in 1993 with low-budget animation. Even the latest Tex Murphy with its ultra-HD feels cheaply done without the thought or detail behind it.

The only fans who can’t complain are lovers of puzzle platformers (Portal) and Telltale style games. Luckily graphics don’t affect my enjoyment as much as good writing and puzzles do.

     
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Oscar - 20 April 2015 12:52 AM

I see no indication that 2D animation is dying out, with Daedelic churning them out like there’s no tomorrow, but there’s no doubt the quality has plummeted.

2D animation is very much alive, I’m talking about frame by frame animation, which is indeed dying out, and is the very reason the quality has plummeted. Games like chains of satinav uses cut out and a bone tool, which is why the characters looks like puppets on a string. Compare the animations in Chains with those of The Whispered World, which is drawn frame by frame, and you’ll probably see the enormous difference. It takes a whole lot more time doing animations in this way, but it’s well worth the effort (visually that is, maybe not economically).

     

Duckman: Can you believe it? Five hundred bucks for a parking ticket?
Cornfed Pig: You parked in a handicapped zone.
Duckman: Who cares? Nobody parks there anyway, except for the people who are supposed to park there and, hell, I can outrun them anytime.

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Dag - 19 April 2015 08:05 PM

Still, in my book it’s definitely the best installment in the series since The Smoking Mirror

Is that a typo or a very unpopular opinion?

I thought the general concensus was that Shadow of the Templars is one of the best adventure games.

     
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Origami - 20 April 2015 11:42 AM
Dag - 19 April 2015 08:05 PM

Still, in my book it’s definitely the best installment in the series since The Smoking Mirror

Is that a typo or a very unpopular opinion?

I thought the general concensus was that Shadow of the Templars is one of the best adventure games.

I’m a little confused by your answer Origami! Why would you consider Dag’s reply as a typo or unpopular opinion???? & along with your following comment seems completely out of touch & irrelevant to his reply which I completely agree with BTW! If English is not your 1st language maybe you don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘since’?  Laughing

     
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Origami - 20 April 2015 11:42 AM
Dag - 19 April 2015 08:05 PM

Still, in my book it’s definitely the best installment in the series since The Smoking Mirror

Is that a typo or a very unpopular opinion?

I thought the general concensus was that Shadow of the Templars is one of the best adventure games.

Chrissie is right, you’ve misunderstood what I meant. BS5 being the best game in the series since BS2 simply means that BS5 is better than BS3 and 4, so I didn’t really say anything about how I feel about Shadow of Templars Smile

That said, while both of the first two BS games are among my favourite adventures of all time, BS2 is actually (but just slightly) my favourite of the two, and you’re right, that is indeed an unpopular opinion. I think it comes down to the fact that BS2 was the first game from the series that I ever played, first impressions are always more powerful, but I can see why some see it as less ambitious and polished than the first, and as such I understand why it may have disappointed some fans.

     

Duckman: Can you believe it? Five hundred bucks for a parking ticket?
Cornfed Pig: You parked in a handicapped zone.
Duckman: Who cares? Nobody parks there anyway, except for the people who are supposed to park there and, hell, I can outrun them anytime.

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I never understood the lesser opinion of BS2 as it took me such a long time to get hold of after wanting more after finishing BS1 & when I finally did get to play it I was so pleased to find that the game was just as good for me as the 1st & didn’t disappoint at all as a sequel!

     

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