Grand List of Adventure Game Cliches
 

I found this;

Grand List Of CRPG Cliches

linked from Ron Gilbert's blog, and thought it was very funny;

Then I thought;

Why not do one for adventure games;

Then I thought;

Why not do it myself?

Then I thought;

Why not enlist similarly minded folks to help?

Then I thought;

Why not post it on the AG forums?

So here it is; feel free to contribute your ideas. I'll start the ball rolling;

1) The player character can carry limitless items of large size in their pockets, pants, backpack or whatever.
2) The player character will refuse to pick up certain objects on account of their size, often mocking the player's stupidity for making the suggestion.
3) The player character will then proceed to pick up objects equal or larger in magnitude to the object s/he refused to pick up.
4) NPCs, especially those which are required to be duped as to the identity of the player character as a gameplay device, will invariably forget ever meeting the player character despite having done so thirty seconds earlier.
5) Characters will repeat the same line of dialogue, on request, ad infinitum.

6) "I can't go there yet."

7) One or two hotspots per screen.

8) Running across the screen takes just as long as walking across.

9) A skeleton key is the most useful object in every adventure. Usually they are used for large, old-type locks.

10) Skeleton keys are always the most difficult to come by.

11) Even though it would seem more logical to just pick the *large* lock, it never even crosses the character's mind to do so.

12) The protagonist is without exception extremeyl kleptomanic. Also, without exception they stop being so after the world has been saved/the treasure found/the ghost pirate killed.

13) You never have money. And why should you have money? You can just take the stuff anyway. :P

14) No one let's you enter the kitchen.


- :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

15. No protagonist can ever sit down even when all the NPC's around him/her are sitting.

16. Protagonists take everything not nailed down, often in front of the NPC, leave lights on, doors and drawers open, and even leave safes open, and almost never get caught.

17. Protagonists, for all their ingenuity at combining weird objects for making various things, can't seem to realize that the key they just picked up could be used on the door in front of them.

18. Reading private mail and diaries is not only expected, but you can't proceed without doing so.

19. Clothing never needs to be changed, and they never need to eat, sleep, or bathe.

20. Protagonists will always find someone who knows the answer to their questions, but will tell them only if a dumb quest is done for them first.

Lynsie

21. Even though you've just arrived in town and nobody trusts you, you're still the only person capable of defeating the enemy/rescuing the damsel/finding the treasure.

22. If something has been hidden for a very long time, you will be responsible for finding it.

23. Nobody wants to help you, without doing something for them first, in an adventure game...

24. The players character will instantly know what can be useful amongst piles and piles of junk/objects.

25. The players character will be totally inconsistent with what he/she classes as too disgusting to carry around.

26. flying to and from different countries on short notice and with no luggage doesnt seem to be a problem

27. The Rule of Three: Before someone does something for you, you need to help him/her first by performing three (no more, no less) trials or tests, or retrieving three (no more, no less) objects.

28. The bigger and more beautiful and fantastic a world seems, the less likely that there will be interesting (if ANY) people in that world.

29. ....or open-ended exploration of above-mentioned world.

30. No one ever uses a conventional way to lock up their homes or belongings...You HAVE TO put slider puzzles on EVERYTHING if you want an effective security system.

31. If you see the morning newspaper shoved under a door, there's a better-than-even chance that if you slid it out, a key would be on it.

32. Male playable characters, no matter how ugly they look, will get a wonderful girl in the end.
33. Females, on the other hand, are sexy, very sexy, with big breasts and everything, but they will end up still single (I guess not to hurt the player's ego too much and give him some - virtual - hope :P).

34) You can be carrying an axe, a chainsaw, a lockpick, and two pounds of gelignite, but if the princess/artefact/sidekick/villain is behind that door, you are still going to have to find the key/password/answer to the slider puzzle.
35) Post "Longest Journey" games have a better-than-even chance of featuring a good looking (but not in a conventional big-busty-blonde style) female lead who is a really strong character and saves the world by solving puzzles. She will almost certainly be a long-haired brunette with a cute-but-practical wardrobe.
36) Dream sequences form the perfect excuse to insert really wacky puzzles.
37) Your character will invariably refuse to pick up one item on the grounds that it will not be useful; but will pick up all manner of useless crap that will later prove crucial.
38) You can't die
39) "Battles" in which you cunningly defeat an enemy are unloseable, even if you abandon your character.
40) You will feed at least one animal in the course of a full length game.

41) Pixel hunts. :shifty:

42) A quest :P


- :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

43) If you haven't fed an animal, you will have distracted, trapped, or avoided one.
44) No-one ever remembers their password without written aids (to a varying degree of crypticness)

I guess you've never played any Sierra adventures.

Anyway...

45) The protagonist has no past and no future. He only comes into existence at the beginning of the game, saves the world, and disappers.

mag

46) You never consider enlisting the help of the authorities or anyone else with the resources and skills to safe the world without breaking a sweat, since you know you, a nondescript tourist, can do it better.

I have. Couldn't stand them.

Remember, these are cliches, not hard-and-fast rules. I would say that you can't die in about 75% of what we class as adventures.

47) At some point in any game, you will have to change your outfit to fool a guard into letting you into a new location.

48) Any broken machine can only be fixed by *you* finding the items to fix it and using them correctly, even if there's three NPC mechanics just sitting around and you're the pizza man.

49) If the main character is female, at least one NPC will make a sexist joke or rude suggestion over the course of the game.

50) All myths and legends about treasure hidden on Island A in or Graveyard B are always factual. If an NPC tells you a legend it means you must go to the place he/she mentioned and find the treasure.

51) The bad guy will *always* be male.

48) All adventure games (Excluding Still Life and a few other minorities) at some point include either sci-fi or fantacy elements.

49) No matter what, at some point you will have to visit some ancient mayan/aztec/whatever temple.

50) Even the simpler things are always complicated. For example, I'm in my house looking for a phone number. I know I've written it down somewhere... Oh, I forgot, I'm in an adventure game... So that means, I wrote it down somewhere, then i ripped the paper in 3 pieces, hid them in 3 different places, and of course I wouldn't use normal numbers but it would be in some ancient summerian code.

51) You usually get to save the world from some unheard massive disaster, that was fortold in some ancient prophecy, but after that your miserable life remains the same...no rewards, no nothing.

52)Sequels.