MoriartyL: While I agree very much with your flexible point of view of the adventure genre, I think it should be underlined that a good definition of anything must list qualities that are both sufficient and neccesary conditions of indentifing it. The definition you now proposed as well as Squinky's are not good definitions for adventure games - in both cases the listed elements aren't sufficient. Although I think yours is better.
Edit: I'm starting to have secondary thoughts that maybe your definition is actually sufficient, but it all depends on how to understand the very general term "exploration". I mean, exploring what some buttons and levers do in a puzzle is a form of exploration too. Yet we want to have something more than just a puzzle game.
