[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

One example I've already pointed out is that little details that flesh out the story, the characters, and the environment can be left around for the player to either observe or ignore. Depending on how rich the experience he wants, the player could finish the game in two hours or twenty.

So basically, the approach RPGs are taking? That's fine, but more can be done. I haven't played Fahrenheit yet, but its plot is supposed to be deformable, albeit linear. That's only scratching the surface.

Another example I've mentioned in other threads is that by visibly limiting the player's options at any point to only things it will occur to the character to do, the player gains a tremendous insight into the character by just looking at the options available to him.

I don't think that cuts it. Actually, that's exactly what I don't like about current adventure games. If technology allows it, I shoud be in control, not my character. As opposed to most RPGs, I don't want to build my character from scratch, I want it to come with a predefined history and character traits. But as soon as I take control, I want to be able to further define the character by my actions or to even change it completely. That's one of the advantages games could have over other forms of storytelling - the ability to adapt to the consumer. Unfortunately, it's exactly such unpredictability that makes truly interactive narrative hard to design.

The actual solution of said puzzle isn't exactly what you would expect in an adventure game, but if you insist:

The man looked in the mirror, and saw what he saw. He took the saw, and used it to cut the mirror in half. He then put the two halves together to make a whole. Finally, he jumped through the hole. He was free.

Cool.

However, that's not an inventory puzzle, that's wordplay and it works only in English.

Are you kidding? This would make a positively incredible puzzle game! Each puzzle would give you a small environment, and allow you to switch between two or more time periods it gives you. The goal of each puzzle is to make something happen in the last time period by pushing things around in the earlier time periods. The first few puzzles would be simple, involving only two time periods and only about an hour apart. Later on, it could go up to four time periods, with some of them historic occasions. This game (and its sequels, if successful) would explore the quirkiness of time travel far more effectively than an adventure game which is limited not only to just three time periods for the entire game, but also by the requirement that everything that happens must be (to a certain degree) relevant to the story. And this puzzle game wouldn't waste your time with a silly story, but just focus on making the puzzles as creative and wacky as possible.

That's a great idea, yet that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about specific puzzles used in Day of the Tentacle. You said:

Faced with all these inadequacies, we must ask ourselves: "What are the unique strengths of the adventure game Form, when compared with other mediums for puzzles?" There are none. No matter what you can do in an adventure, you can just as easily bundle those same puzzles together with other, similar puzzles in a puzzle game without reducing the quality of the puzzles themselves. In fact, it would only enhance the overall package, because having to deal with many different contexts without anything to tie them together would increase the mental stimulation, which is what puzzles are all about. In short, there is absolutely nothing that the adventure game has to offer in the landscape of puzzle games.

The bolded part is deceiving. That repackaging wouldn't reduce the quality of separate puzzles, but it would reduce the quality of the whole game.

One of the appeals of Day of the Tentacle is the way the puzzles logicaly flow from one into another. The whole game is one huge puzzle comprised of smaller, more or less self-contained sub-puzzles which can further be broken down to elementary puzzles. You can change the names of the characters or get rid of the names altogether, you can scratch the humor (not entirely) or change some aspects of the story, but if you scratch it completely, you'll end up with a far less satisfying experience. You can't change the order of the sub-puzzles without breaking the experience either. The strength of adventure games lies in this interplay between story and puzzles, not in story only.

Seemingly, we want the same thing, but what you're suggesting is that adventures as we know them are a conceptual misfire; I disagree, but I want other flavors of interactive storytelling in games to be explored as well.

I was talking about puzzle games on the computer, and I see no reason why puzzle games can't use dialogue as their main (or even only) gameplay mechanic. In fact, it could use dialogue more extensively than adventures. Dialogue is a relatively small part of adventures, so the interface has always had to be scaled back somewhat. But if the whole game revolves around speech, then a more complex interface can be specialized for the task.

That's exactly what some IF games do and they're strongly connected to text adventures, if not even exactly the same thing. And by the way, dialogue is a pretty important part of some adventures.

Dialogue puzzles are usually used as a way of getting a character to part with a certain object/information or getting you past the certain point in an enviroment. What I'm trying to say is it appears there's no substantial intelectual prize for solving a dialogue puzzle, more often then not the real prize is something else. It suggests that solving a series of disjointed dialogue puzzles wouldn't give you much satisfaction all by itself. Maybe if you used some sort of abstract language, but then the real puzzle would be in cracking the code.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by insanecobra

If technology allows it, I shoud be in control, not my character. As opposed to most RPGs, I don't want to build my character from scratch, I want it to come with a predefined history and character traits. But as soon as I take control, I want to be able to further define the character by my actions or to even change it completely. That's one of the advantages games could have over other forms of storytelling - the ability to adapt to the consumer. Unfortunately, it's exactly such unpredictability that makes truly interactive narrative hard to design.

Try "impossible". Say the player decides he'd like to make the character both arrogant and suicidal. How, exactly, do you program the game to accomodate this? Let's try something simpler- say he just wants the character to have a crush on some nothing NPC. Is the writer supposed to put in dates with every character? And how is the player supposed to know that some decision he makes now, when compared to a similar decision he will have to do later on, makes no sense? Even putting the technical issues aside, if a story is generic enough to be able to happen to any type of character, it's not very good.

However, that's not an inventory puzzle, that's wordplay and it works only in English.

Monkey wrench.

That's a great idea, yet that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about specific puzzles used in Day of the Tentacle.

Remind me of one which supports your point. As far as I remember, the unique puzzles in the game were time-travel related, such as the one where Washington chops down the kumquat tree. These would all work within the theoretical game I described.

That repackaging wouldn't reduce the quality of separate puzzles, but it would reduce the quality of the whole game.

How so? If I want those time-travel stories, I really don't need a lengthy explanation about how the characters ended up in their respective time periods. I don't need the endless wandering around, which needlessly drags it out. As a puzzle game, DoTT would have had more puzzles, with more creativity, with a more effective learning curve, with less distractions. It seems to me that adventure games lose this match hands down.

One of the appeals of Day of the Tentacle is the way the puzzles logicaly flow from one into another. The whole game is one huge puzzle comprised of smaller, more or less self-contained sub-puzzles which can further be broken down to elementary puzzles.

And how is this any better than a collection of smaller puzzles? If a puzzle isn't good enough to stand on its own (you seem to say that dialogue puzzles exist only to lead to another, better puzzle), how will the quality of the overall game be decreased by leaving it out?

[Jake]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

It's about giving the player options to do things, but not forcing them to do them.

I think it's about making your story compelling enough that all the player wants to do is the thing that will drive the story forward. Having a few extra things to do is fine, and following Fahrenheit's "rubber band" model of stretching the story around while still going in a straight line is fine, but ...

Look at Morrtowind, here's your world, here are the rules, here are the possibilities they create, go do what you will. Many Morrowind players choose not to tackle the main quest at all. With their actions they're not changing the main story (which is linear), but they're changing the player-created story (which is not) and context (which depends on player's actions).

... if your players don't want to do the main quest... why did you spend years and years designing a main quest? The story can't be that gripping if players don't even bother with it.

I'm not saying there's no space for sandbox games, or Morrowind-style games in the world of games, but if your focus is to tell a story they might not necesarilly the best direction to go.

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Or System Shock. Or Fallout. Or Little Big Adventure. All of those were successful enough to garner sequels and achieve cult status.

The exceptions that prove the rule? I said adventure and non-adventures were "traditionally" structured in those ways, meaning they were the sort of unspoken rules that most designers seem trap themselves in before thinking about it one way or the other, but of course there are a very small handful of standout exceptions (note I mentioned Fahrenheit earlier in my posts in that context).

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Monkey wrench.

And it was a bad puzzle idea in Monkey Island 2 as well ...

[Terramax]

I think what has made the so-called "death of the adventure game genre" is that we no longer feel in control of the plot and the characters.

When these games were at their peek they were considered more sophisticated than the platformers and racers on our megadrives and nintentos. Now, other genres have surpassed AGs in terms of 'Interaction'.

'Interaction' plays a major role in the games of today. Now I'm not saying that AG games don't have interaction because they do, but not enough as opposed to other games.

Truth is that a lot of people prefer a game where they have more freedom to explore, more activities to do and more outcomes to make (Tomb Raider, GTA). whether you like these games doesn't matterk, they have all sold well. I admit I haven't bought "Fahrenheit" (although I've played a short demo). I believe that the game has been successful because of the variety, or at least, the ILLUSION of variety has made the game more appealing to cater to other audiences other than AG gamers.

How can point'n'clickers compete? They can't. At least not in the state that they are in at the moment. A game such as 'Blade Runner' was on the right track - multiple endings and situations etc. And from what I've heard is that the game did at least moderatly well when it was released and gained good reviews.

We all like control of what we are doing in our games, or at least the majority of gamers, and programmers and publishers or AGs of today haven't always been keeping this in mind.

I think what the creator of this thread is kind of asking is "should we sacrefic the old fashioned elements of AGs and move on for good to cater for the next generation of gamers, or keep these games as they are and hope they expand in popularity?". Or at least where to draw the line between the two.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Try "impossible". Say the player decides he'd like to make the character both arrogant and suicidal. How, exactly, do you program the game to accomodate this?

Let's not be unreasonable, I never said it would be easy to implement or that you should be able to do anything. But you said the limited number of options is a good thing, I say there's nothing good about it. It's just the way things have to be for now, but we can strive to change that and I'm sure in a more or less distant future we will.

Let's try something simpler- say he just wants the character to have a crush on some nothing NPC. Is the writer supposed to put in dates with every character?

No, but the game could be set up so that you could approach every NPC. It's not a writer's job, it's a designer's job. There would be a number of predefined personalities available in memory and if an NPC didn't have one hardcoded, it would then be dynamically assigned (now, I'm not a professional programmer, I'm just assuming that's possible). The story would only have to predict a possibility of your character getting romantically involved. Whom with, doesn't matter that much, the story could adapt. A lot of actions could also be embedded into objects or locations, just like in The Sims. So if you came to a coffee shop, you woud suddenly have an option of sitting down and having a cup of coffee, something your character wouldn't have to know how to do while being outside on the street. I don't know, I just believe there are ways. Soon I'll try to design a tiny game and test some of those ideas.

And how is the player supposed to know that some decision he makes now, when compared to a similar decision he will have to do later on, makes no sense?

Huh?

Even putting the technical issues aside, if a story is generic enough to be able to happen to any type of character, it's not very good.

That's what I used to think, but I'm not so sure anymore. To quote Richard Rouse III:

...the player’s story is the most important story to be found in the game, since it is the story the player will be most involved with, and it is the story in which the player’s decisions have the most impact. This is the story they will share with their friends when they talk about the game. Though the story may not be very interesting to others, it will be extremely interesting to the person telling it, who lived through it.

...

The ideal for interactive storytelling is to merge the designer’s story and the player’s story into one, so that players can have a real impact on a story while the story retains its dramatic qualities. There are two good examples of the ideal interactive storytelling experience. The first is an example Chris Crawford is fond of using: that of a parent telling a child a story. The parent has in mind a story to tell including what characters it will involve, what surprises it will contain, roughly how the story will unfold, and approximately how it will end. But as the child asks questions about the story, the parent will change the tale accordingly. The parent may use a book as a guide, but will stray from that guide as necessary. For example, the story might begin: “As the princess wandered through the dark forest, she was frightened by many different things she saw, including a large newt, a dark cave, and an old shack.” As the parent tells the story, the child may ask questions. “What color was the newt?” “The newt was a strange shade of yellow, a color the princess had only seen in the royal spiced mustard.” “What about the cave?” “From within the cave came a terrible smell, reminiscent of the smell of sulfur burning.” “Maybe there’s an old sorcerer in there, making potions. Does she go into the cave?” “She did enter the cave, taking each step carefully in order to avoid stumbling in the dark. And as she went deeper into the cave, she started to see a light, and a voice shouted, ‘Who is it that enters my cave?’ And as she got closer, the princess saw an old wizard with tattered robes…” There may not have actually been a sorcerer in the story as the parent had initially intended to tell it, but as the child asks questions, instead of answering “you can’t go that way” or “there’s nothing special about it” as a poorly designed computer game might, the parent adapts the story to the child, adding detail and introducing new characters and situations as necessary. The overall story arc and its main protagonists may not change that much, but the child has had a real role in determining what exactly happens in the story.

Another example of truly interactive storytelling is found in many pen-and-paper role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons.

...

Of course, the problem in creating a computer version of an interactive storytelling experience such as the ones described above is that both require a human to be telling the story, since a modern computer will never be able to dynamically come up with story developments as well as a human can. So the best a game designer can do currently is try to recreate such an interactive storytelling experience, but, in lieu of dynamically generating the story line, anticipate all of the questions players might ask, places they might go, and lines of dialog they might want to say. Of course, this is a Herculean task, and no matter how much anticipation the designer employs, she will never be able to think of everything players might try. At the very least the designer must try to allow for different playing styles and levels of inquiry into the story-world, instead of pigeonholing players into one way of playing the game and exploring its story. If a designer is interested in truly interactive storytelling, it is her responsibility to make the designer’s story flexible enough to allow it to become the player’s story as well.

Monkey wrench.

Same thing, wordplay posing as an inventory puzzle.

Remind me of one which supports your point. As far as I remember, the unique puzzles in the game were time-travel related, such as the one where Washington chops down the kumquat tree. These would all work within the theoretical game I described.

It's not a question of whether they would technically work or not (I said they wouldn't work on paper), it's the question of the quality of experience. It's like saying that taking the musical numbers out of a musical, mixing them with other musical numbers and then watching the tape with such a mix is the same as watching a musical.

you seem to say that dialogue puzzles exist only to lead to another, better puzzle

I never said that. Dialogue puzzles are not intrinsically worse than other types of puzzles, they just don't seem to make much sense out of the context of the whole game.

Originally Posted by Jake

... if your players don't want to do the main quest... why did you spend years and years designing a main quest?

Because some will want to play it and some won't. Maybe they just like the gameplay.

I'm not saying there's no space for sandbox games, or Morrowind-style games in the world of games, but if your focus is to tell a story they might not necesarilly the best direction to go.

Not necessarily, but it's an equally valid option. I think I already addressed that in the above quotes.

[Terramax]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Let's not be unreasonable, I never said it would be easy to implement or that you should be able to do anything. But you said the limited number of options is a good thing, I say there's nothing good about it. It's just the way things have to be for now, but we can strive to change that and I'm sure in a more or less distant future we will.

No, but the game could be set up so that you could approach every NPC. It's not a writer's job, it's a designer's job. There would be a number of predefined personalities available in memory and if an NPC didn't have one hardcoded, it would then be dynamically assigned (now, I'm not a professional programmer, I'm just assuming that's possible). The story would only have to predict a possibility of your character getting romantically involved. Whom with, doesn't matter that much, the story could adapt. A lot of actions could also be embedded into objects or locations, just like in The Sims. So if you came to a coffee shop, you woud suddenly have an option of sitting down and having a cup of coffee, something your character wouldn't have to know how to do while being outside on the street. I don't know, I just believe there are ways. Soon I'll try to design a tiny game and test some of those ideas.

Huh?

That's what I used to think, but I'm not so sure anymore. To quote Richard Rouse III:

Same thing, wordplay posing as an inventory puzzle.

It's not a question of whether they would technically work or not (I said they wouldn't work on paper), it's the question of the quality of experience. It's like saying that taking the musical numbers out of a musical, mixing them with other musical numbers and then watching the tape with such a mix is the same as watching a musical.

I never said that. Dialogue puzzles are not intrinsically worse than other types of puzzles, they just don't seem to make much sense out of the context of the whole game.

Because some will want to play it and some won't. Maybe they just like the gameplay.

Not necessarily, but it's an equally valid option. I think I already addressed that in the above quotes.

My head hurts...

[samIamsad]

Of course, the problem in creating a computer version of an interactive storytelling experience such as the ones described above is that both require a human to be telling the story, since a modern computer will never be able to dynamically come up with story developments as well as a human can.

Slightly OT here, but I had always liked to participate in a game of Neverwinter Nights with a human dungeon master. (A DM is able to take control of virtually any character of a NWN module, he can even create another NPC on the fly, amongst many other pretty cool things)... Too bad I never really got into the editor, because one could create some awesome D&D adventures with it (not just simple hack&slash games). Never mind. Carry on.

[MoriartyL]

Insane_cobra:

I wasn't joking when I asked you to remind me of a dialogue puzzle from DoTT. I can't remember any good puzzles revolving around dialogue, and it's hard for me to talk about something I don't remember.


Regarding the question of interactive storytelling, I have no choice but to agree to your position. You see, your quote of this Rouse guy is eerily similar- no, make that totally identical to my thoughts around a year ago regarding the ideal interactivity. While I still hold onto this notion for platformers, I spent a very long time trying to think of how it could work in adventures without any success. That's why I came up with my current ideas of how adventures should be linear, and completely forgot about my earlier dreams. The reason I bring all this up is to explain that your quote put me directly in conflict with my earlier positions (which I haven't thought about in a while). I refuse to disagree with my younger self as a matter of principle, so you win.

This means that the adventure Form has about three times more evolving to do than I thought. That should take around two centuries, I think.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

I wasn't joking when I asked you to remind me of a dialogue puzzle from DoTT. I can't remember any good puzzles revolving around dialogue, and it's hard for me to talk about something I don't remember.

Well, you mentioned a really simple dialogue puzzle yourself, talking the George Washington into cutting down the tree. Another interesting example which has a form of a dialogue puzzle although technically it's not dialogue is the truck puzzle at the end of Full Throttle. Some more complex examples include insult sword fighting from Monkey Island and especially the Voight-Kampf test from Blade Runner in which you also need to measure the reactions of your test subject.

Here's a nice piece on adventure game puzzles (although it wrongly puts insult sword fighting in Monkey Island 2).

You see, your quote of this Rouse guy is eerily similar- no, make that totally identical to my thoughts around a year ago regarding the ideal interactivity. While I still hold onto this notion for platformers, I spent a very long time trying to think of how it could work in adventures without any success. That's why I came up with my current ideas of how adventures should be linear, and completely forgot about my earlier dreams. The reason I bring all this up is to explain that your quote put me directly in conflict with my earlier positions (which I haven't thought about in a while). I refuse to disagree with my younger self as a matter of principle, so you win.

Let's have a pint to that.

That happens to me all the time, sometimes I change my mind more often than my socks. I think that's a good thing, constantly changing and questioning things, but maybe tomorrow I'll think otherwise.

This means that the adventure Form has about three times more evolving to do than I thought. That should take around two centuries, I think.

Well, if the glass is half-filled, I guess it only means it has enough room to grow for another two centuries (although I'd say it's more like a decade, maybe two), getting there should also be fun.

[guybrush122]

On linearity, idealism, and interactivity in Adventure Games:

isane_cobra, MoriarityL:


Let's suppose you're a little boy, sitting at the campfire with your boyscout leader. Now just bear with me. He sits down to tell you a story. Do you want to tell him, and decide for yourself where the story goes? Or do you want to hear the freaking story? Sure, there's the campfire game of going around in a circle, and each person telling a piece of an undetermined story, but is that ever really fun? As fun as hearing something wild or engaging or frightening from your boyscout leader? Hell no!

Look, I used to think that ultimate interactivity, that idealist uber-interactivity, was a great idea. But quite frankly, once you attempt to design that (which would have to still be limited-- one cannot acheive total and complete interactivity without the advent of AI), you create a model of life. The more interactive you are, the more it is like life. Guess what life is? Boring! Very very boring!

Fact is, I don't care if the player of my adventure game wants to get involved with some nothing NPC-- because I'm going to design a game where he won't want that: he'll be involved with a hotter, more interesting, main character NPC, damnit.

The whole point of linearity is to eliminate all desires of wide-range, open-ended, superfluous interactivity. In a game, if there is a desire to do something that you cannot do, there is one or two of two things that are wrong--

1) the story is not compelling enough
2) an unperformable action is too glamorously depicted, which thus distracts from the story

I'll give you an example-- in B.A.S.S., in the St. James Club, there is a character named Babs. Babs is hot. She serves no purpose whatsoever-- she gives you no information. However, the fact that you can talk to her, in a mildly in-depth manner, makes you believe -- hope -- that she is of some importance to the overall story, or at least an option, or an embellishment of the story itself. I remember hoping (when I first played it, around age 12) that there was some way to get the main character and Babs together, and when I found out that there wasn't, I was definitely slightly peeved-- "they should let you do it! even it's not part of the whole story!"

WRONG. BUZZZ. Quite frankly, what caused the desire for all of that was not Babs herself, in all her pixelated glory, but the fact that there was the ability to interact with Babs, that she seemed like an important or accessible character, made me desire more interactivity. Therefore, interactivity spawned the desire for more interactivity, and thus let me down, beacuse there wasn't any more. You know what I think Babs should have been? Sitting down at the bar, or a table, with someone else. Or engaged in a conversation. OR have no dialogue options. This eliminates the illusion that she is important, and therefore eliminates the desire for more interactivity, which will ultimately let someone down.

This is not to say that Adventure Games should be strictly linear, with no extranneous options or interactivity availabilites whatessoever. Hell no! Personally, I would have been fine if, in Grim Fandango, you could have entered the festival outside of Manny's office, and maybe talk to a few people, find a few worthless objects, etc. etc. (and worthless objects can be fun-- remember the gum from the desk in Fate of Atlantis?). Do you know why? Because it would have added to the story. The festival was, in fact, an attraction, and being able to parttake would have caused no harm to the story's path. But let me tell you something-- thank god I wouldn't have the ability to, say, set the tents on fire, or sit down and order a cup of coffee at a coffee stand, because if I sit down, and can order a cup of coffee, then I wonder, "Well why can't I flirt with the waitress? WHY CAN'T I DO THAT, HUH?", and if I can flirt with the waitress, then I wonder, "Why can't I have more pickup lines?", "Why can't I get the cappucino?", "Why can't I haggle price?", "Why can't I talk to that suspicious looking guy in the corner, or the hot blonde in the back?" "Why can't I go to the bathroom, or ask for the bathroom key?"

It opens up a can of worms. Superfluous interactivity should be limited -- strictly in Adventure Games -- so as to not distract from the story, or cause distaste for the game.

What you're talking about, insane_cobra, is not an Adventure Game-- it is a non-violent RPG. It's Grand Theft Auto without the Theft or the Guns. Mark my words-- to solve numerous puzzles that belong to different numerous adventures, or none at all, would be tedious, overly difficult (or simple), and boring. Like everyday life.

[MoriartyL]

For now, I pass. I'm curious to see how insane_cobra deals with this one.

[guybrush122]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

For now, I pass. I'm curious to see how insane_cobra deals with this one.

Yeah, I'm anxious to hear his response. My uncle always speaks to me with incredulity on the subject, saying, "One of these days there's going to be a game that's just called Life, or Crime, and people will just sign on and go. It'll be tremedously addictive."

And I can never help but think, "Who would play that? It's gotta be the most boring thing on earth!"

[JHousequake]

Originally Posted by thedigitalmonkey

As I continue to contemplate the "who wants to play them" issue, and the "what adults will play a stylized game" issue, two important things come to mind.

One is Adult Swim. Cartoon Network airs cartoons "for adults" after 11PM. And they are wildly successful with 20 somethings, both male and female. So successful in fact, that Fox put Family Guy back on the air years later. (Find me another instance in television history where this has happened.)

It tells me two things. The same people who support the game industry (20 something males) have an appetite for smart satire, quirky characters, witty dialogue, and adult-oriented cartoon stories. They just don't think of these things as going hand in hand with gaming.

Okay, I think you're over-idealizing Family Guy here. One look at their forum over at imdb.com will reveal people love Family Guy because of the random comedy and the pop culture references. There really isn't a lot of comedy in modern gaming, ESPECIALLY adventure games. Runaway wasn't as good as you think probably because Runaway's idea of being funny was throwing a couple of trannies in the middle of the desert. Compare that to the way LSL6: Shape Up Or Slip Out dealt with the trans-gender issue...

Originally Posted by thedigitalmonkey

*snip about girls not being represented in the game market*

That and their parents. They're the other untapped market. My mom loves Day of the Tentacle. (She's 60.) In 1990something my friend's dad used to leave messages on my answer machine that scared my parents, (Put the pot on your head like a helmet. Click.)

Older people are more saavy than ever with computers, more than enough to play an adventure game, plus they have the interest and the patience. Casual gaming (pogo.com-esque) is a big money maker with the women 30-50 crowd.

Nintendo is an innovator, and if we look at their top-selling titles they are totally different than XBox's. Plus, they have a larger following of women gamers. It goes beyond the for kids theory, too.

Look at the Revolution controller. May not seem like such a big deal, but they are clearly aiming at the non-gamers. The moms and dads who are more likely to use a remote than a controller, who are more willing to put something on top of their TV that looks like a VCR than a video game.

Everyone knows how to use a pencil (again, my mother stole my DS for about a week to play the mini-games in Mario DS) and handhelds inherently lend themselves to a different type of play.

So perhaps it's not going to be about winning over the current market of game customers, but the huge, untapped market of non-gamers and casual gamers?

I still think you'd need to win over the current audience before you approached new territory. I don't imagine Star Wars being a big hit when it came out if children were the only ones who liked it. Still, people aged 16-25 are a huge part of the population (The generation is often referred to as the Echo-Boomers) and you'll find it hard to get funding for a game aimed predominately for over-50's. I think that's one of the brilliant things about the Super Mario franchise, it's so general and not focused on any subculture; just about anyone can like it.

[thedigitalmonkey]

Originally Posted by JHousequake

Okay, I think you're over-idealizing Family Guy here. One look at their forum over at imdb.com will reveal people love Family Guy because of the random comedy and the pop culture references. There really isn't a lot of comedy in modern gaming, ESPECIALLY adventure games. Runaway wasn't as good as you think probably because Runaway's idea of being funny was throwing a couple of trannies in the middle of the desert.

Haven't been too active in this thread anymore because after much thought I think I've come up with a good solution to my problem. Currently are implementing a different approach in a short demo. Hope you'll all be blownaway.

I just wanted to reply quickly to JHousequake because you quoted me.

I might've misinterpreted you're meanign of "Runaway probably isn't as good as I think," but if I didn't: I don't think it was good at all. I think it was a huge piece of crap. It opened with fairly poor animation of the protagonist sitting in that chair, with painfully bad dialogue- not only in form and interest, but in that there was some really, really unrealistic stuff in there. (I may be biased as a New Yorker.) I don't mean unrealistic literally, games are naturally "unreal," but unrealistic within the game's own world even. Also, in that particular game, I had no drive to go on because the story was stupid and didn't draw me in from that opening cut scene. I've realized, for me at least, the story has to capture my interest in the first couple minutes or why play.

As far as comedy- I agree that most new adventures lack comedy, and I tried a few of them since this thread, and again, wasn't amusing by any of them. Couldn't hold my attention for five minutes even. For me, I like comedy, I think games should be funny and clever, for the most part, especially adventure games- so the stories in something like Syberia would never have drawn me to a movie theatre or book.

I think that a good, comedic game would have a larger audience draw in that untapped market. At least that was the gist of my comments.

The - hard to fund a game aimed at over 50 market- it wouldn't really be aimed at them, ideally it would have the unique potential of appealing to them as well as the younger audience.

Family Guy- the pop culture references and such are the key elements of its humor, and the non-sequitors, "Remember the time I.../cut to a short" things were a fairly original approach to format that made it a winner.

Going off topic more, but also games like Syberia do suffer from feeling technically dated. The idea that it seems newer by being 3D is not working. Plus, it's not even really 3D, so it's a waste. Simply put, even on the newest computers, the best of the best real time 3D can't hold a candle to pre-rendered 3D. So why have a real time 3D character on pre-rendered backgrounds? The only thing that 3D can offer to an adventure is real time camera moves, and if you have pre-rendered backgrounds your 3D character just looks out of place.

End rant.

[insane_cobra]

Cripes, I was really hoping I wouldn't have to write another word in this thread...

Originally Posted by guybrush122

Let's suppose you're a little boy, sitting at the campfire with your boyscout leader. Now just bear with me. He sits down to tell you a story. Do you want to tell him, and decide for yourself where the story goes? Or do you want to hear the freaking story?

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, games are obviously not campfire stories.

There's a time and place for everything, a time for listening to/reading/watching stories and a time for taking a part in them. And believe it or not, that's what you're doing every time you play a game, you're taking a part in a story. It's not even limited to games with narrative, the player's story is always there, even if the game itself has absolutely no plot. Thus your campfire analogy is fundamentally broken - if there's no interaction, it's not a game.

The more interactive you are, the more it is like life. Guess what life is? Boring! Very very boring!

Well, I'd say you're totally wrong, but maybe your life is boring so I won't argue with that.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I never said games should be ultrarealistic. It's common sense that every well designed game will leave the boring bits out, nobody wants to tie shoelaces in a game (unless it's a game about tying shoelaces, of course ). It doesn't mean that games should necessarily focus just on the fun aspects of life, but interaction should be economic, it always has to serve some higher purpose. A game about Holocaust probably wouldn't be "fun", but it could still be a gripping experience.

Fact is, I don't care if the player of my adventure game wants to get involved with some nothing NPC-- because I'm going to design a game where he won't want that: he'll be involved with a hotter, more interesting, main character NPC, damnit.

My idea of interesting might be totally different from yours, but if we play such a game, we'll both end up with the same character - one of us is bound to get disappointed.

In a game, if there is a desire to do something that you cannot do, there is one or two of two things that are wrong--

1) the story is not compelling enough
2) an unperformable action is too glamorously depicted, which thus distracts from the story

Every time you play a game you have to accept the game's rules, you need to suspend your disbelief. No matter how you design a game, there will always be something someone will want to do, but won't be able to. I do agree a designer should try to predict and avoid such situations, but eliminating them entirely is pretty much impossible.

Also, I believe the reasons you listed are wrong. How many times did you play a game with a fence you couldn't simply climb over? No, you'd have to walk all the way to the entrance or find some clever way to get to the other side. What about the locked doors? Like in Silent Hill games, you're a walking arsenal, but you can't break through a locked door? Come on! You just have to accept that. It's not that the story is not compelling or that the doors are glamorously depicted, you just expect certain functionality from certain objects. When designing a game, you can either avoid using such objects, which often doesn't leave you much to work with, add interactivity to everything, which is impossible and which, by the way, I never suggested you should do, or compromise. Another way is to limit the player's time so he has to focus on the most important things. Fahrenheit does it. Some older games do that, too, but Fahrenheit often leaves you enough room to decide for yourself what those important things are and the story adapts according to your choices. That's what I'm professing, choice.

WRONG. BUZZZ. Quite frankly, what caused the desire for all of that was not Babs herself, in all her pixelated glory, but the fact that there was the ability to interact with Babs, that she seemed like an important or accessible character, made me desire more interactivity. Therefore, interactivity spawned the desire for more interactivity, and thus let me down, beacuse there wasn't any more. You know what I think Babs should have been? Sitting down at the bar, or a table, with someone else. Or engaged in a conversation. OR have no dialogue options. This eliminates the illusion that she is important, and therefore eliminates the desire for more interactivity, which will ultimately let someone down.

I agree she shouldn't have looked like an important character if she wasn't one and if all the other characters you could talk to in the game were important. It's the question of consistency. Maybe it was planned for her to have some role in the plot, but the time constraints didn't allow for implementation so the team just left her there. In that case, she should've been removed or changed. But time and budget permitting, why not add some more interactivity? What if you were able to go to bed with her only to find out she's gone the following morning, together with some of your stuff? Then you'd have to find replacements for the missing objects, it would open up a couple of new puzzles you would completely miss had you not slept with her.

And worthless objects can be fun-- remember the gum from the desk in Fate of Atlantis?

Some people find them fun, I find them annoying. Again, it's all about consistency. If a game makes me believe every object is useful and then gives me something I can't use at all, I'll probably get mad. Hear me, developers? It's neither funny nor clever! As I said, consistency - I never had such problems in Morrowind where there's a load of clutter scattered around.

It opens up a can of worms. Superfluous interactivity should be limited -- strictly in Adventure Games -- so as to not distract from the story, or cause distaste for the game.

It all depends on what you consider superfluous. Some people loved collecting stuff in Shenmue. Every interactivity has to be meaningful in some way, but it doesn't have to be tied to the story.

What you're talking about, insane_cobra, is not an Adventure Game-- it is a non-violent RPG. It's Grand Theft Auto without the Theft or the Guns.

You got that right, I'm not talking about adventures as we know them today, I'm talking about possibilities for interactive narrative. Call if what you will.

[guybrush122]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Cripes, I was really hoping I wouldn't have to write another word in this thread...

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, games are obviously not campfire stories.

There's a time and place for everything, a time for listening to/reading/watching stories and a time for taking a part in them. And believe it or not, that's what you're doing every time you play a game, you're taking a part in a story. It's not even limited to games with narrative, the player's story is always there, even if the game itself has absolutely no plot. Thus your campfire analogy is fundamentally broken - if there's no interaction, it's not a game.

Well, I'd say you're totally wrong, but maybe your life is boring so I won't argue with that.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I never said games should be ultrarealistic. It's common sense that every well designed game will leave the boring bits out, nobody wants to tie shoelaces in a game (unless it's a game about tying shoelaces, of course ). It doesn't mean that games should necessarily focus just on the fun aspects of life, but interaction should be economic, it always has to serve some higher purpose. A game about Holocaust probably wouldn't be "fun", but it could still be a gripping experience.

My idea of interesting might be totally different from yours, but if we play such a game, we'll both end up with the same character - one of us is bound to get disappointed.

Every time you play a game you have to accept the game's rules, you need to suspend your disbelief. No matter how you design a game, there will always be something someone will want to do, but won't be able to. I do agree a designer should try to predict and avoid such situations, but eliminating them entirely is pretty much impossible.

Also, I believe the reasons you listed are wrong. How many times did you play a game with a fence you couldn't simply climb over? No, you'd have to walk all the way to the entrance or find some clever way to get to the other side. What about the locked doors? Like in Silent Hill games, you're a walking arsenal, but you can't break through a locked door? Come on! You just have to accept that. It's not that the story is not compelling or that the doors are glamorously depicted, you just expect certain functionality from certain objects. When designing a game, you can either avoid using such objects, which often doesn't leave you much to work with, add interactivity to everything, which is impossible and which, by the way, I never suggested you should do, or compromise. Another way is to limit the player's time so he has to focus on the most important things. Fahrenheit does it. Some older games do that, too, but Fahrenheit often leaves you enough room to decide for yourself what those important things are and the story adapts according to your choices. That's what I'm professing, choice.

I agree she shouldn't have looked like an important character if she wasn't one and if all the other characters you could talk to in the game were important. It's the question of consistency. Maybe it was planned for her to have some role in the plot, but the time constraints didn't allow for implementation so the team just left her there. In that case, she should've been removed or changed. But time and budget permitting, why not add some more interactivity? What if you were able to go to bed with her only to find out she's gone the following morning, together with some of your stuff? Then you'd have to find replacements for the missing objects, it would open up a couple of new puzzles you would completely miss had you not slept with her.

Some people find them fun, I find them annoying. Again, it's all about consistency. If a game makes me believe every object is useful and then gives me something I can't use at all, I'll probably get mad. Hear me, developers? It's neither funny nor clever! As I said, consistency - I never had such problems in Morrowind where there's a load of clutter scattered around.

It all depends on what you consider superfluous. Some people loved collecting stuff in Shenmue. Every interactivity has to be meaningful in some way, but it doesn't have to be tied to the story.

You got that right, I'm not talking about adventures as we know them today, I'm talking about possibilities for interactive narrative. Call if what you will.

You certainly make an interesting case-- I suppose it is all subjective. Personally, I hated Shenmue, because it was terribly too much like mundane life. Sure you can knock on all the doors in the street, but 90% of them are locked, and the other 10% are completely irrelevent to everything. I guess I'm just sort of a strictly linear kind of person when it comes to "adventure." Games like GTA are different, but I just wouldn't personally prefer non-linear, or hyper-interactivity adventure game. Kind of like Resident Evil: Outbreak. Never sounded fun to me.