Adventure Gamers - Forums

Yet interestingly, the casual playthroughs here have had a lot of discussion about the story.

Heck, I’d like to point to Enigmatis: Mists of Ravenwood as a solid game where treating the story seriously is not showing the game’s weaknesses, but enhancing its strengths instead..

TimovieMan - 06 February 2015 04:09 PM

I agree with Iznogood: our genre’s being influenced by general gaming trends, not by casuals.

Yes, but still - while every genre has its own “casuals”, are adventures, more than any other genre, being influenced, not only by the general gaming trends, but also by the casual adventures as the prevalent casual sub-genre in the last 5 years? And so, will the two co-exist or “blend” into one? Again, you can contradict the notion saying that casual adventures are being influenced by general gaming trends , and even if adventures ARE influenced by casuals, it’s because of the trends. But let me repeat - none other casual sub-genre experienced the boom and hyper-production like casual adventures/HOGs. There always be diversity (like in difficulty, puzzles/story ratio, game length…) and we’ve agreed many times that’s one of the key reasons adventures are indestructible, but if it’s a two way street:

and adventures ARE becoming more like casuals, and casuals are becoming more like adventures, will “majority” of games of both become the “same” - the very same market? (as Jack noted in the article)

Jackal - 06 February 2015 06:01 PM

Incidentally, this is a totally random observation, but I personally find that the more casual games are becoming adventure-like, the worse they’re getting. 

Well, like already stated, with every new bit of a story, puzzle… here and there, they’re losing a piece of the main strength people (mainly) love to play them for (or love to play them for WHILE taking a break from the full-fledged adventure), its effectiveness and accessible gameplay. But when I played Royal Trouble, and for the first time realized casuals are seriously “influenced” by and going into the adventure game realm direction, I enjoyed both the game and that revelation very much (the two playable characters exchange inventory objects while being on different locations, for Christ’s sake!) that I kept wondering “what if” authors let you actually choose what to say in a conversation, let you walk freely through multiple screens instead of couple of them, if the game was a little bit longer…

diego - 07 February 2015 07:08 PM

And so, will the two co-exist or “blend” into one?

Well it is hard to predict the future, but what I can say is that at least to me Casuals and Adventures feels very different. It can be hard to describe in a few words what the difference is, though Jackal mentioned some of those differences. Even Casuals that have a lot of story or aren’t based entirely on HO still doesn’t fell like playing an AG, and even the most “casual” AG’s doesn’t feel the same as playing a Casual.

In fact I don’t think of Casuals as casual adventure games, but instead of them as a different genre, that just happens to be closely related to adventure games. It is kind of similar to how playing Mass Effect is still very different from playing L.A. Noire, even though ME is also a very story heavy game and LAN also have action parts.

I don’t think… Well I don’t hope that AG’s will become anymore casual then they already are, and loose what makes them special and differentiates them from Casuals, and I don’t think that Casuals will ever loose what makes them special and become fully fledged adventures, though there might be a few games here and there that are so close that it can be hard to tell which genre it belongs in.

So my guess/hope is that they will continue to co-exist.

Casual games make a good gateway into the hobby. Some people will start with casual games then move into the more traditional ones.

Iznogood - 08 February 2015 04:46 AM

Well it is hard to predict the future, but what I can say is that at least to me Casuals and Adventures feels very different.

Yes, and 2015. is full of incoming “big shots”, but there could be some examples where it’s hard to tell the difference. For example, take a look at this upcoming game - Herald:

Of course, it’s an indie studio, but it’s not listed as “casual” like other games, but I get that “feel”.

kaicooper - 08 February 2015 03:41 PM

i need the real classic games to come back like these:

Gabriel Knight

Then VOTE!