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Originally Posted by thedigitalmonkey
So I think, the point and click, puzzle solving aspect of an adventure game can't make it great on its own, even if done well. Its about the story, the characters, the world, the humor.
And then I started thinking about what just might be a new way of looking at the whole problem. In adventure games, and it's key that they are GAMES, plot, character development, world, dialogue, all come FIRST, and gameplay comes second.
What other genre is like this? None. Everywhere else, GAMEPLAY comes first, graphics are the close second, and then all that other stuff. Sure, stories and characters are greatly lacking in most modern games, and I'd love to see more, but they aren't essential.
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I can name two other genres where gameplay comes second: Interactive Fiction and Educational games.
Frankly, with advancement in technology, just having simple gameplay is just not enough to capture new audience. To us, players who are not at all unpleased that AG have become a niche market, gameplay is definitely not as essential as the story and character development. However, to people who have not had the luxury to play AG in the good olde days, their concept of adventure is pretty much define by the more renown games like Myst or the other action adventure games like Tomb Raider and whatnot. I'm not saying that these ain't adventure games of course (Laura Croft is an adventure game heroine in my books!
), just games that have gameplay being more important than the story.
At the end of the day, most publishers ain't interested in releasing games with a great story; they are interested in releasing best-sellers, in order to feed their families. Economic wisom dictates that the most stable way to bring in a constant stream of liquid asset, is to conform to the mass market. Consequently, a situation where the games dominating the markets are first-person shooters or action adventure games. Once in a while however, big companies like Atari, will opt for a bit of diversity by supporting games with different (preferably innovative) gameplay. Hence we have games like Fahrenheit, which are like lottery picks for the publisher. You won't know for sure whether it'll float or sink. You just throw in the excess money you have, and hope that you'll strike jackpot.
And to prove that people nowadays are more concerned with gameplay than the story, just look at Fahrenheit. It's precisely because of Fahrenheit, where there's a sudden influx of people into this humble forum. Does Fahrenheit boast exactly a great story? Maybe. But the main attraction to the game ultimately (which is more of an interactive fiction game than an adventure game after all...) is the gameplay, not the story. Gameplay is king. It's the reality.
Just look at the other recent release, Bone. It could easily be yet another traditional adventure game, that focus more of the story than the gameplay. Yet, to my dismay, they have to add in action sequence in it, to attract new gamers.
Dreamfall similarly will have action sequences as well, though they claim that these could be prevented if you make certain choices. Still, it proves the point that gameplay is important, to have such sequences in the first place.
There will bound to be many more adventures games to come that will have "better" gameplay to attract new gamers. As much as it is to the dismay of a number of us, it's a reality a-coming.
