Adventure Gamers - Forums

In today’s age you can’t say the word SCUMM without being smacked in the face maliciously by someone who should know better. Everywhere you look you can behold the past. We hold onto the past like we hold onto our tablets and mobile devices. We seem to do this because we fear to forget who we are and what was important to us. However in the world of gaming we seem to leave the past behind and we are happy to embrace the latest evolution in graphics and gameplay. We bow down and worship 1080p with a passion that could only be surpassed by our love for pictures of cats on the internet.

Even though adventure games in general are seeing a rise in popularity, I still feel that these great games do not get the love they deserve. We seem to forget that before mind blowing cinematics we had to get by on beautifully hand drawn scenes and well written story. The games we see today would not be without the pioneering work of games such as Monkey island, day of the tentacle, the dig, grim fandango and much more.

I touch upon this topic because it really upsets me when I see great pioneers, pioneers that worked on these games of old, find it difficult to continue there work because there is not enough demand. I appreciate that Telltale, double fine and crimson cow have managed to modernise and keep alive the adventure game genera but there have been other worthy developers that struggle. A good place to see this struggle is on kickstarter. I have seen a good string of adventure games fail on kickstarter. Adventure games that look incredible and have very intriguing plots. I do not know if this is due to promotion or the lack of demand. What I can say is that I am very saddened when I see brilliant talent struggle to bring us that great adventure experience due to not finding enough funds. As a current example, Duke Grabowski on kickstarter, from the talent of Bill Tiller and Gene Mocsy, have not reached half way yet with their funding. I would have expected that the man who brought us the art for curse of monkey island to easily find the support he needs. Are adventure games really coming back? Or are they only just creeping through the woodwork? I would love nothing more then to see adventure games get their day again. The day when people put down their machine guns, exit their MOBA’s and MMO’s and actually find a point to their clicking.

I think the enthusiasm level for these projects has waned considerably since two years ago. Some kickstarters from veterans than have either not been released, been incomplete, or haven’t been what people expected.  I thought some have been quite good, but I think two years ago, we had unabashed enthusiasm which has been tempered with time.

Bt

I think its other way around, current demographics are rapidly changing, with fads like tablets and other stuff. Moreover Devs of AG themselves are confuse where to strike for best results, like both Tim and JJ had some share of casual base in their mind to streamline the game into tablets. The Return of emotional investment is also low in case of games by Legends like Tim and JJ, their KS games are weakest in their careers.

Plus AG is a niche genre like Survival Horror, if it goes totally hardcore, it becomes even more hard to please more people, meaning less ROI for Devs , so there are lots of factors.

We need old/new AG Devs to reinvent the enthusiasm by making a breakthrough game, like
Quantic Dream who inspired TTG and set the chain in motion. Some Dev with kickass
Adv game that can force other devs to copy and start the craze. Untill then we will have
random quality with random results.

Are they making comeback??

Yes they already have, pointed out earlier but if you look at the list,
Witness, EthanCarter, EGTRapture, TTGs, Armikrog, DreamFall, Firewatch, Qdream next project, SOMA, Draugen, Life is strange, KZO Vane, Rime and Obradin etc.

I am more than happy than i ever was. I think people will do fine as long as they keep
their definition of AGs more broad.

I played 2 best AG this year, KZ0 and P.T, DRonpa2 will be third for sure .

tl;dr = Legends of PnC oldschool need to do what TTG or Kojima did. P.T should be case study for budget and other excuses.

It is a comeback of sorts, but mostly for the lover of 3rd person traditional point & clickers. Several years ago you could have said we were having a renaissance of Myst-like exploration in solitude games, especially of the horror variety. If you are the type of person who loves those games, I imagine you would be pretty depressed with what is being offered in the way of new material. I doubt Bracken Tor will ever be released.

Dean&Kate; - 02 September 2014 04:27 PM

In today’s age you can’t say the word SCUMM without being smacked in the face maliciously by someone who should know better. Everywhere you look you can behold the past. We hold onto the past like we hold onto our tablets and mobile devices. We seem to do this because we fear to forget who we are and what was important to us. However in the world of gaming we seem to leave the past behind and we are happy to embrace the latest evolution in graphics and gameplay. We bow down and worship 1080p with a passion that could only be surpassed by our love for pictures of cats on the internet.

Even though adventure games in general are seeing a rise in popularity, I still feel that these great games do not get the love they deserve. We seem to forget that before mind blowing cinematics we had to get by on beautifully hand drawn scenes and well written story. The games we see today would not be without the pioneering work of games such as Monkey island, day of the tentacle, the dig, grim fandango and much more.

I touch upon this topic because it really upsets me when I see great pioneers, pioneers that worked on these games of old, find it difficult to continue there work because there is not enough demand. I appreciate that Telltale, double fine and crimson cow have managed to modernise and keep alive the adventure game genera but there have been other worthy developers that struggle. A good place to see this struggle is on kickstarter. I have seen a good string of adventure games fail on kickstarter. Adventure games that look incredible and have very intriguing plots. I do not know if this is due to promotion or the lack of demand. What I can say is that I am very saddened when I see brilliant talent struggle to bring us that great adventure experience due to not finding enough funds. As a current example, Duke Grabowski on kickstarter, from the talent of Bill Tiller and Gene Mocsy, have not reached half way yet with their funding. I would have expected that the man who brought us the art for curse of monkey island to easily find the support he needs. Are adventure games really coming back? Or are they only just creeping through the woodwork? I would love nothing more then to see adventure games get their day again. The day when people put down their machine guns, exit their MOBA’s and MMO’s and actually find a point to their clicking.

Nice post Dean & Kate! There are currently so many adventure games on the way that it is difficult to keep track. That was not the case even a few short years ago. I’d say they are definitely making a comeback, and I am happy to be around to witness it!

P.S. ‘Tis I, Typhoon McTaggart. Good to see you around these parts Red Beard, ya braggart!

ARRRRR Typhoon McTaggart my mortal enemy! However due to your contribution to this thread I would allow you to Parlay!

I have no doubt adventures games are making a comeback (once more).
The focus shifted for a while to the old designer legends and this development was obviously kickstarted by Tim Schafer. But it has also become painfully obvious that many of those old legends saw an opportunity and grabbed it without being prepared. I think it’s a huge difference between working in a specific role in an established company and running your own. Also the world has kept turning and you can see exactly who of those people kept up to date and who was left behind or did nothing at all. It’s no surprise Double Fine and Revolution fared quite well while others are failing hard. The money is very important, of course, but know-how and experience are huge factors, too. And many have neither as far as their new roles go. That’s also a reason why I’m hugely skeptical about another approach we can witness right now, which is giving formerly big IPs to cheap and inexperienced teams, probably in the hope that the big names will bring in some cash anyway, and that adventure fans have become used to mediocre quality, anyway.

As for Duke Grabowsky, I think it’s mainly bad timing. Would they have run this campaign a couple of months ago, when people where still excited about KS and as the first Bill Tiller project on KS, they would have reached their goal easily by now and more. It seems like a sensible scope and they are licensing an engine this time. (I know this is a different group, but most people will not differentiate like that.)
However, taking part in the Kaptain Brawe campaign directly before his own was a huge mistake by Bill. He explained his reasoning in the other thread and it makes sense, but it was simply a bad decision in my opinion, affecting press coverage and general reception by many of those who are not avid fans.

No, they won’t until we have a Monkey Island 3/6 (whatever) made with at least 50 million $ budget.
In the Golden Age adventures were the flagships of the gaming industry with budgets that reflected that.

If we still stay satisfied with crumbs from the table, we’ll never climb from mediocrity.