Adventure Forums - View Single Post - Design-thoughts on open-world adventure-games?

mrLOL · 02-15-2011, 12:05 PM

I think we've all thought at some point about how would an adventure-game be like if it was more like Baldurs Gate 2 and/or GTA,
it's one of those things that sounds like the perfect genre on paper, but as soon as you go into details it's really difficult to think of how such a game would be like.

What's your theory?

IMO I don't think you can make a good adventure-game plotless (like you could with a GTA-style game) so I think it would be a bit like Baldur's Gate 2 in that it starts by a plot (Aomen your party-member is kidnapped, you need to get her back) but very quickly it's made obvious that in order to get to the next chapter of the plot (to get to the island where she is held kidnapped) you need X# of gold-pieces, and that sets in motion a rough 20 hours of general quest-solving,
that may sound boring but since the city is so detailed it's actually really fun, and the idea of a higher reason (rescue Aomen) in the back of your mind gives the game a bit of direction (as opposed to the morrowind games that usually makes you feel like you're missing a direction other than just leveling up).

So in an adventure-game that would look like:
You get the plot inciting incident (preferably a mysterious question, rather than a exact description what you need to do), but then you realize you can't solve it yet because you need X# money, so then for first 10h of the game you just walk around the city picking up general quests that you solve by adventure-game-style-puzzles.

I think many might think Adventure-game/RPG hybrid and immidiately think of a adventure-game with added stat-based combat, but IMO I'm more interested in the open-world aspect of RPG's.

02-15-2011, 12:05 PM	#1
mrLOL Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 95	Design-thoughts on open-world adventure-games? I think we've all thought at some point about how would an adventure-game be like if it was more like Baldurs Gate 2 and/or GTA, it's one of those things that sounds like the perfect genre on paper, but as soon as you go into details it's really difficult to think of how such a game would be like. What's your theory? IMO I don't think you can make a good adventure-game plotless (like you could with a GTA-style game) so I think it would be a bit like Baldur's Gate 2 in that it starts by a plot (Aomen your party-member is kidnapped, you need to get her back) but very quickly it's made obvious that in order to get to the next chapter of the plot (to get to the island where she is held kidnapped) you need X# of gold-pieces, and that sets in motion a rough 20 hours of general quest-solving, that may sound boring but since the city is so detailed it's actually really fun, and the idea of a higher reason (rescue Aomen) in the back of your mind gives the game a bit of direction (as opposed to the morrowind games that usually makes you feel like you're missing a direction other than just leveling up). So in an adventure-game that would look like: You get the plot inciting incident (preferably a mysterious question, rather than a exact description what you need to do), but then you realize you can't solve it yet because you need X# money, so then for first 10h of the game you just walk around the city picking up general quests that you solve by adventure-game-style-puzzles. I think many might think Adventure-game/RPG hybrid and immidiately think of a adventure-game with added stat-based combat, but IMO I'm more interested in the open-world aspect of RPG's.