[Keyser Soze]

I'm curious what other AG's think about integrating the real world into an adventure game. An example, albiet a poor one, of what I'm on about would be Still Life. Where there was an actual website on the real www where you could sit at your FBI desk and solve little puzzles. This has been done a few times that I know of, and it's never worked out that well. Hype for the game dies off, support for the game ends, and we're left hanging with dead URL's.

Another way real world integration is implemented, would be having puzzles in-game that require out-of-game resources to help you solve them. I can't think of any off the top of my head, though I'm sure it's been done I can't even be sure I've ever played such a game. I suffer from CRS you see

The second scenario is something I would enjoy quite a lot I feel, as long as said game had good alt+tab support. So recommendations of games that impliment this are welcome.

The first scenario, however, always leaves me frustrated. Mad actually, at the publishers that aren't convicted enough to the project to make it actually work.

Such as with Still Life (pretty sure that was the one..)

Spoiler:

Where the ending of the game specifically stated "The adventure continues online!". Which, of course, we found out to be hogwash. The online project was scrapped before the game even hit the shelves if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, how do you folks feel about such things? Where do you feel they were implimented successfully? Where do you feel they failed?

I really hope I didn't miss a topic outlining this very subject in my searches, if I did, please hit me with that fancy little frying pan

[Kurufinwe]

In memoriam and its sequel Evidence rely quite a lot on "real world" stuff (websites, email, Internet searches, etc.). I haven't played them, though, so I can't comment any further on them.

I'm not sure I'm in favour of a game relying on external elements. I love replaying games, and I can still play game that were released 20 years ago without problem. So I'm not sure I'd be interested in a game that is going to become unplayable after a couple of years because the external elements it relied on (websites, etc.) are no longer there.

[Jeysie]

Eh. I'm big proponent of the idea that everything you need to solve a game clue-wise should be findable in the game itself. Having extra knowledge of your own will, of course, still be helpful, but a player should be able to solve the game without *needing* out-of-game knowledge.

A game where "free-form" research is needed, in the sense that a player can look up information from any real-world source (as opposed to "official" sites) might be interesting... but even that is better implemented as an in-game resource/conceit, IMHO. The "Le Serpent Rouge" puzzle from Gabriel Knight 3 comes to mind.

I actually love doing research; it's one of my strong points. But when I play a game I prefer the real world to not intrude... plus having a game self-contained helps preserve its long-time replayability, as Kurufinwe aptly pointed out.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Keyser Soze]

I suppose that's where I was going with my second scenario. That the information you need in-game could be found at the library, or in a reliable online resource.

The sites put up simply for the purpose of the game, ones that are meant to look like a 'real' site, but the domain is registered to the game company... Those are the ones that irk me, because the site is usually long dead before many have even played the game.

[byf43]

The thing that I like so much about adventure games (apart from the basic design philosophy in them) is that they enable me to step into a fantasy world that has nothing to do with the real world.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Eh. I'm big proponent of the idea that everything you need to solve a game clue-wise should be findable in the game itself. Having extra knowledge of your own will, of course, still be helpful, but a player should be able to solve the game without *needing* out-of-game knowledge.

Which isn't to say that a game that offers us the option of 'outsourcing information while in-game' should never be made. That could be deviant fun if it were done beautifully.

A game where "free-form" research is needed, in the sense that a player can look up information from any real-world source (as opposed to "official" sites) might be interesting... but even that is better implemented as an in-game resource/conceit, IMHO. The "Le Serpent Rouge" puzzle from Gabriel Knight 3 comes to mind.

I still do this day find the S.I.D.N.E.Y. and Le Serpent Rouge enigma to be the finest, most fun adventure game challenge I've ever played. I think it's partly because of the concept of feeling like I was 'looking up' databases to negotiate my way through the mystery. It was easily the most intricate puzzle I've done, right down to scouting 'actual' in-game sites for clues, taking notes, and observing. The laptop was simply a masterful part of all that. And one of the most thrilling things is that the actual puzzle spanned the entire game and story, and it incorporated many little puzzles and enigmas - it was brilliantly integrated.

I actually love doing research; it's one of my strong points. But when I play a game I prefer the real world to not intrude... plus having a game self-contained helps preserve its long-time replayability, as Kurufinwe aptly pointed out.

Ultimately I personally have no demands at all on how the game is presented to me, as long as it's inviting and engrossing. If it's self-contained challenges those challenges had better be intelligently, and originally thought out, not some crap conceptual reconstruction of a hundred adventure game puzzles we've seen before. If it involves outside research (especially online) the same applies - it should ask of my knowledge and creativity, and not be a poor excuse to throw pedestrian mini-games at me, like what Missing (In Memoriam) did.

[buddi]

I really enjoy the "real world" aspect of Evidence (in Memoriam, less so.) A lot of the puzzles had game specific websites, but a good number of them could be solved by researching actual historical and cultural figures, geography and events. I actually learned a lot playing Evidence and found shortcuts to some puzzles by applying real world skills and knowledge. In Memoriam I played several years after the release date and although the srvers were up and it was still mostly playable, there were a couple of times I got stuck due to lack of continued support (tools not being available, certain websites not loading), although it only affected a few puzzles and I was able to get around it by using a walkthrough. Both games had in game access to your browser, or you could alt-tab without glitches.

Another game that makes interesting use of the internet, although the game itself it pretty flat, is the Desperate Housewives game. It has an in-game internet (not connected to the real internet) that lets you complete certain game tasks as well as do key word searches for certain phrases related to game play. It incorporates the idea of using the internet to do in-game research without relying on real world support.

I'd like to see more real research games along the lines of Evidence. True, they have a built in obsolescence, but no more than any other server based game, and in this case, I think the need to keep it somewhat current enhances the realism, for those of us that like a little realism in our games.

[Keyser Soze]

in-game internet (not connected to the real internet)

Now THAT raises an interesting idea. If you had a laptop ingame, that used your internet connection and allowed you to surf the 'real' www :O And if they made use of said internet connection to further the game.. now that would be 'true' integration. That would be pretty damn cool

[Lee in Limbo]

I like the idea of using real world devices to help solve problems in-game. However, due to poor implementation, I think we've seent aht the commercial reality is, if it's not integrally placed in the game code itself, there is very little liklihood that the resources will be supoorted beyond the first or second year, unless the game is unbelievably successful, like various MMOs we can name. The problem is, most adventure games never achieve that level of commercial success, and can't sustain dedicated online resources to further the game.

The alternative is to have in-game resources that behave the way we expect those external resources to work. It's not as immersive and getting up, going to your door and signing for a parcel, but it's not much different than using a search engine in the first place. So just put a search engine in the game. If you're married to the concept of using such devices, dedicating some resources to making the engine plausible (if not nearly as expansive as Google or what have you), then you already have part of your game design sorted. You can't look up the fifty-odd Inuit words for snow, but you can search for some epherma, and most of the information related to the topics the game touches on. That's enough to do the job. Fake website graphics are easy enough to design, and the resources are minor compared to those needed to show the character shaking down a thug for the same information.

Like I said; nice idea. I just don't think a game has much shelf life if its resources are external to the game proper. Even having hints in the booklet is useless to those of us who purchase an old classic that no longer has its manual. The information needed must be inside the disc the game came on, or it will break.

[Crapstorm]

A lot of text adventures do this. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for example, was essentially an in-game search engine that the player had to refer to constantly to fingure things out, and I think it worked beautifully. I can think of a number of freeware text adventures in which the player progressively receives access to reference books. You type "look up X in Y" to find the useful information. (e.g. "Look up MANDRAKE in HERBALIST'S HANDBOOK.")

I can't think of any graphical adventures that has anything like this. Usually, you click on a bookshelf, and the character instinctively grabs a particular book, flips to the most relevant page(s) and shows you a block of text that maybe comes in handy. It would be better, I think, if the game would ask you "what would you like to look up?" when you click on the bookshelf. Then you actually have to do some thinking about the plot of the game instead of relying on the protagonist's bibliomancy skills.

[Nautilus]

The Journey is a freeware location based adventure for mobile phones with GPS.

You are in the role of an infamous detective and have to solve a mysterious case not only by making it through the story, but also by walking to different locations.

You have to move yourself. The game is aware of your movement. Right at the beginning when you as the detective have to leave your bureau and go outside, you have to take your mobile and go through the streets of the city you live in.

The game saves the locations and in the course of the story you will have to return to your bureau and walk back to the place where you started playing.

[buddi]

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

I can't think of any graphical adventures that has anything like this. Usually, you click on a bookshelf, and the character instinctively grabs a particular book, flips to the most relevant page(s) and shows you a block of text that maybe comes in handy. It would be better, I think, if the game would ask you "what would you like to look up?" when you click on the bookshelf. Then you actually have to do some thinking about the plot of the game instead of relying on the protagonist's bibliomancy skills.

I love it in the Longest Journey when you have to go to the library and do research. You tell him what you want to research and he brings you books on different topics. I think only one or two of them is strictly necessary to advance the plot, but you can learn a lot of background that is helpful on the quest.

[Fien]

In Memoriam and Evidence, mentioned by Kurufinwe, are the best examples I can think of. But if you take the integration into the Real World one step further, you'll find yourself immersed in Alternate Reality Games (ARG). See Wikipedia for a description. I participated a bit in Perplex City, but it was well underway by the time I'd found it. (Sequel is in the making.) Fascinating stuff. Very hard. ARGs are just as varied as the adventure genre.

[aries323]

Or you could just go get yourself a

Second Life.

[Ramek]

When I sit to play a game, I expect to play everything within the games world! If I wanted to play in the REAL world, I would just go out and shoot some hoops!

[Keyser Soze]

Heh, the ARG thing seems pretty cool, though maybe a bit excessive for my tastes.

@ Ramek - I hate basketball . Sailing and carving some turns on my Motorcycle/Snowboard (seasonal, obviously) are my games IRL.

I just think it would be pretty neat to have a game where I had to do research through channels that were exterior to the game. If done well, of course, I think it could really add another dimention. From something as simple as searching Google for a clue, to translating something from a different laguage all the way up to going to the library to find a clue in a book.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by Keyser Soze

Now THAT raises an interesting idea. If you had a laptop ingame, that used your internet connection and allowed you to surf the 'real' www :O And if they made use of said internet connection to further the game.. now that would be 'true' integration. That would be pretty damn cool

Yes, and if you then type a URL that exists in the game as well as in RL, you get the game version of that website (otherwise you can never finish the game of course). In that way you get the eerie 'almost like the real world' experience, which I like a lot.

Fantastic idea!

[Davies]

I say that everything needed in a game should be available in the game.

Let's take me as an example. On a given day, I might have an hour or two of playtime between, say, 11 pm and 12:30 or 1 am. And my gaming laptop is NOT and will never be connected to the internet. So I'm merrily playing away for 20 minutes or so and... what? I'm slammed up against something I have to look up in real life before I can get any further? So I've got to put the game away and hunt through my bookshelves, or fire up the desktop computer and start trawling the internet, or make a note to myself to get to the library as soon as work allows? That's frustration, not fun.

Also, it's hard enough as it is keeping up with cross-cultural assumptions in games. A piece of information might be at your fingertips in one country, but deeply obscure in another. Even within the English-speaking countries, there's a lot of room for linguistic and cultural confusion, as we all know.

Similarly, as time passes, some information becomes more and more obscure (e.g. popular culture), some is made obsolete (e.g. names of politicians), and some is proven wrong and replaced by new understanding (e.g. scientific advances). I don't want to have to look up what year a game was published, just so I can search for things that existed or were popular then.

[godel23]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I still do this day find the S.I.D.N.E.Y. and Le Serpent Rouge enigma to be the finest, most fun adventure game challenge I've ever played. I think it's partly because of the concept of feeling like I was 'looking up' databases to negotiate my way through the mystery. It was easily the most intricate puzzle I've done, right down to scouting 'actual' in-game sites for clues, taking notes, and observing. The laptop was simply a masterful part of all that. And one of the most thrilling things is that the actual puzzle spanned the entire game and story, and it incorporated many little puzzles and enigmas - it was brilliantly integrated.

Hear hear! A set of puzzles that really made you think about the plot and what you wanted to do... as opposed to trying every inventory combination possible...

Originally Posted by Keyser Soze

Now THAT raises an interesting idea. If you had a laptop ingame, that used your internet connection and allowed you to surf the 'real' www :O And if they made use of said internet connection to further the game.. now that would be 'true' integration. That would be pretty damn cool

My problem would be that if there was a connection to the 'real' internet, or I had to go to the internet to solve a puzzle, the temptation just to look up a walk-through would be impossible to resist... It's a weakness, I know!

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by Davies

I say that everything needed in a game should be available in the game.

I want to be able to solve the entire game without having to search outside IRL as well. One of the things I look forward to when gaming is to "get into" the game and leave reality behind. On occation I've looked things up. For instance I checked the recipe for ginger bread when playing Still Life. I didn't mind at all but having to do major investigations in books or on the interenet doesn't appeal the slightest.
The idea that Lee presents is on the other hand an interesting idea.

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

The alternative is to have in-game resources that behave the way we expect those external resources to work. It's not as immersive and getting up, going to your door and signing for a parcel, but it's not much different than using a search engine in the first place. So just put a search engine in the game. If you're married to the concept of using such devices, dedicating some resources to making the engine plausible (if not nearly as expansive as Google or what have you), then you already have part of your game design sorted. You can't look up the fifty-odd Inuit words for snow, but you can search for some epherma, and most of the information related to the topics the game touches on. That's enough to do the job. Fake website graphics are easy enough to design, and the resources are minor compared to those needed to show the character shaking down a thug for the same information.