[Marduk]

Originally Posted by AndreaDraco83

My answer is clear (at least in my mind ): by giving the player an actual freedom of choice. Are you familiar with the old Quest for Glory series? Let's say that you are in front of a locked door. Perhaps, you want to knock it down; perhaps, I want to find an alternate route inside (maybe breaking a window) and perhaps another player want to actually retrieve the correct key.

I'm afraid I haven't played that game. I must confess that the number of AGs I've ever played will probably seem extremely limited in comparison to many players here.

It certainly think that there is potential for more games of that nature, however I don't think that really makes the story itself much more challenge it, only the way we have the character fulfil his (or her) role in it.

In literature, the character is a complex amalgam of traits (psychological, emotional, historical - all things that the superior narrative of adventure games, if done well, perfectly conveys) but also of actions (choices, actual actions, decisions).

Because we're all amalgamations of these traits in reality. Even the most poorly told stories in any particular medium you care to name occasionally have characters who had potential. Take "Two and a Half Men", the US TV SitCom. It's yet another run of the mill show with little artistic merit except when you watch it you find that the 2 main characters have a lot opposing personality traits that verge on disorders in spite of being raised in the same environment by the same parents. This should be fertile ground for some truly intriguing narrative. So why isn't it? That's a rhetorical question, I have a pretty good idea as to the answer.

Now, I stand by my point that - no matter how elaborate the story of a FPS or RPG (I played Oblivion, Morrowind, The Witcher, Fallout 3 - just to name a few recent ones) can be - adventures, if done well, have a superior narrative, more intimate, more deep and poignant, thanks to their meditative (and sometimes breath-taking or heart-pounding) pace and to their focus on character, plot, Spannung, dialogues, etc. If adventures can incorporate in this narrative multiple paths, even in the form of optional tasks (like GK3 or Under a Killing Moon, or Conquests of the Longbow), they will succeed in bring the story to the next level.

The weird thing is that I agree with you and yet I still can't see why or how any other genres can't have that.

Would we need to answer this question within the perceived and historical constraints of the adventure game per se? Or should the answer also be in respect to how other types of games handle the intellectual and experiential challenge of narrative? Because if we answer it only in terms of how adventure games have been doing it, we'd be back where we started, because it's very possible that other games types have already gone well beyond how adventure games habitually handle narrative, and they have gone beyond in great part because they were not constrained by the conventions of the adventure game canon.

Well at risk of answering my own question I wouldn’t even answer it from a gaming point of view, or at least not until I had the basis for a story that believed was worth telling. Something that would force the audience to ask questions, provoke strong emotions and examine and re-examine possible meanings within its context and sub context. Then I would ask myself how I’d do this through the medium of an adventure game. Presumably this would be easier to do with an AG because it’s [supposed to be] a far more narrative driven form of game play than most.