Quote:
Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens
Monsieur Cage did Omikron: The Nomad Soul back in the 1999 and received some fame for that, partly so in that the game featured the voice acting of David Bowie. But I agree with you, he broke into more mainstream renown with Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. |
Yeah, I know, I'm actually a fan of Omikron, broken as it was. But outside of France, I don't think people paid all that much attention to David Cage himself at the time. That's the impression I got, at least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens
It may be a bit more complicated than that. Maybe some of them do have new ideas but they're locked into a part of the industry that may not have the resources - and the vision themselves - to try those ideas out. It's always a big risk, and it really is still a source of income, a job. Those developers have family to feed, mortgages to pay, a life outside work to support. And today, because fewer people buy adventure games compared other kinds of games, the risk is that much more pronounced.
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There are, of course, a lot of reasons why things are the way they are, but I sincerely believe that AG developers
in general are being unneccessarily conservative. (I haven't really played each and every game the last years to come out in the genre, so I'm basing my opinion on those that I have.)
That said, I myself don't even really
need all that much innovation—I'd be glad if people just stopped doing amateur game design mistakes and read up on basic drama theory. There's no reason why modern adventures can't be better designed from a usability and friendliness standpoint than the old ones, but often, in my experience, they're worse. I'd take Gabriel Knight 2 or 3 over Overclocked any day, and GK2/3 had some relatively (and unneccessarily) obscure puzzles. Good usability, good script and a helpful attitude is not primarily a question of budget, but of game design and scriptwriting knowhow, in my opinion.
I'm actually relatively excited about the way I see games such as Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child and Pahelika: Secret Legends go. Do you guys know when this trend of incorporating tricks from "casual games" came from? I rather like the efficiency and helpfulness of this new Myst/hidden object offshoot genre, when done well.
