[Merricat]

I know that a lot of people feel a bit negative regarding AG prospects, but I just made a list based on what is coming up for release over the year to come, and I don't think I've ever had so many interesting possibilities. There are more than ten games that pique my curiosity, which is some kind of record for me. So...yippee! I can't afford for them to all come out at once anyway. I seem to be death to most conversations around here, so I'm just leaving this comment to stand alone. Feel free to move or discard as you prefer.

[alinutza20]

People have seemed to be very skeptical about the life expectancy of adventure games throughout the years. But, despite all that, there is a great number of adventure gamers out there and it's a much too precious genre for too many to be left to die. I check this website every day and the previews and release dates sections truly make my days brighter. There's nothing better than knowing that your hobby is alive and blooming and that you'll never get a chance to be bored or sad in your free time.

[Melanie68]

Welcome to Adventure Gamers alinutza! I'm glad you could join us here and I'm glad you like the info on the main page.

It's a fun hobby and even when my brain isn't quite up to playing, I still try and play a bit of something to keep connected with it.

@Merricat: I agree about the possibilities in adventure gaming (and don't worry, you aren't a thread killer ).

[tsa]

Originally Posted by Merricat

I know that a lot of people feel a bit negative regarding AG prospects, but I just made a list based on what is coming up for release over the year to come, and I don't think I've ever had so many interesting possibilities. There are more than ten games that pique my curiosity, which is some kind of record for me. So...yippee! I can't afford for them to all come out at once anyway. I seem to be death to most conversations around here, so I'm just leaving this comment to stand alone. Feel free to move or discard as you prefer.

I agree with you wholeheartedly Merricat! Between you and me, I'm getting a bit depressed with all those 'the adventure game genre is dead', and, more recently, 'new adventure games are not as good as the old ones were' posts. So let's enjoy the games we have now and those that are still to come! Yippee!

[Askobar]

Originally Posted by tsa

I agree with you wholeheartedly Merricat! Between you and me, I'm getting a bit depressed with all those 'the adventure game genre is dead', and, more recently, 'new adventure games are not as good as the old ones were' posts. So let's enjoy the games we have now and those that are still to come! Yippee!

You can't kill, what's already dead... just joking.

But it's also a question of "what is the adventure genre". Many of those who complain that AGs aren't what they used (or AGs are dead) to be refuse to see the fact that AGs - as all the other game types - evolve constantly. Does Penumbra qualify as an adventure? Or Fahrenheit? Do action sequences belong to AGs? Should a good adventure game consist only of puzzle solving and other intellectual problems?

You shouldn't be so picky or restrictive, really. Wikipedia (don't mock) define AGs as follows: "characterized by investigation, will include exploration, puzzle-solving, interaction with game characters, and have a focus on narrative rather than reflex-based challenges."

Focus on narrative doesn't mean that game couldn't have i.e. RPG or FPS elements in an adventure game, does it now? The games change. I think that everyone agrees when I say that if the first Monkey Island game was released now, it would be a wholly different game than the 1991 original. Maybe the "fencing" would be done different and maybe even many of the puzzles'd be changed.

I really like such old titles like "Impossible Planet", "The Day the Earth Stood Still" or "Invisible Man, but I liked "Sunshine", "Dark City" and loved "Blade Runner" as well. There is huge difference between the old and the new science fiction movies. I think the same thing applies to games as well. The old ones are great, but there's beauty in the new style (or approach) as well.

AGs change as does everything else. I don't think it's a bad thing. And to get to the bottom line: in my opinion AGs aren't dying - they're just changing and mixing with other genres. I think it's great. Otherwise the genre would just fossilize and then AGs would truly be dead. We'd be playing the same games over and over again.

(Sorry, I think this was a little bit offtopic. By the way, if this subject has been discussed deeply in some other (old) thread, I apologize for posting here.)

[tsa]

You're right, and as on-topic as is possible to be in this thread I think. I can elaborate a bit more on my comment by saying that all the people who complain about the quality of the new games usually compare them to the same old classics like TLJ, Monkey Island, GK and Syberia. That's wrong in two ways. Firstly, you can't expect every new game to be as good as an absolute top classic game. In the olden days when the classic were released they were also surrounded by lesser games, that are now forgotten. And secondly, as you said, the genre evolves. Comparing a very good new game to a very good older game and saying you're disappointed can be like compairing a very good modern painting to a Rembrandt. You may not like the style of the newer game or painting, but it still can be very good.

[Erwin_Br]

These are indeed good times for the adventure gamer. Maybe not as good as the early 90's, but it's getting there.

--Erwin

[Melanie68]

I wasn't even gaming in the early 90's, so while I've played some of those games in the past couple of years and like them, they certainly don't mean the same to me that they do to others. So I guess I don't pine for those days like others do (and probably have an easier time looking forward).

I don't know if it will ever reach the early 90's quality for some people and it won't be because of the games themselves. Along with the games that came out then, a lot of the people here who played them were young, didn't have the stresses of adult life and could completely lose themselves in those games. I think what a lot of people are looking for is the same (nostalgic) feeling they got when they played those games, which may never happen playing as an adult, no matter how good the game is.

[Harald B]

I'd like to add to that that there's probably a lot of what I like to call 'fake nostalgia', induced by things like remastered full-talkie versions and ScummVM's graphics filters. Combined with the usual effects of not playing that beloved game for years, this makes people conceive of the classics as significantly better than they actually were.
I don't believe for a second that the quality level of the golden age is insurmountable (in fact, imo S&M S1 beats Hit the Road in every way except maybe length), and I know I've never looked forward to as many adventure games as now. A new golden age could be very close; it may even already be underway.

[Wolfrider]

I'm not sure about that. I grew up on consoles so my familiarity with adventure games was next to nothing until a few years ago. I only really became interested in them after playing Sam and Max Season 1 and Bone which I thought were lovely and charming and basically everything I thought gaming needed to do in order to "grow up". It left me hankering for more, so I started grabbing as many adventure games as I could get my hands on, including those from the "golden age". I must admit, they are as good as everyone says they are. I was stunned by the brilliance of the writing and cleverness of the puzzles.

I think in terms of being an adult, it's a double edged sword. I agreed that it's difficult to "lose yourself" in a game nowadays because there's just so much more you have to deal with but I think there are lots of pluses to playing the oldies when your older. I can appreciate Tim Schafer's brilliance and the writing in his games much more now than I ever could as a kid.

[Melanie68]

Welcome to AG Wolfrider!

Yes, being an adult in general has its pros and cons. There are some older/oldish LA that I got into a lot more than others (I got into Grim Fandango much more than Secret of Monkey Island e.g. and was a complete failure with DOTT ).

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Welcome, good people.

Personally I have moved on in regards to playing adventure games by and large. Instead I now simply wait for a singular type of this game or two to happen by that catches my attention. The best qualifier for me is Jane Jensen's Gray Matter. Admittedly the only game I've played by her was Gabriel Knight 3, but when I played it I intuited her intrigue with human relationships, fallibilities, and vulnerabilities, things I'm naturally drawn to in terms of stories. As well, I loved Indigo Prophecy and Dreamfall.

But for the most part, though, I am personally very disappointed with the general creative and marketing stagnancy of this type of game in the past several years. We need a little more balls here with new concepts for gameplay and very, very daring ideas for new stories and character types.

Interestingly, though, I found freshness in other types of games - from RPGs to first person shooters - that have uncanny resemblances to adventure games.

But yeah, it's more or less a pretty good time to be an adventure gamer for you guys. Have fun!! And I can't wait for Gray Matter myself. And I'll be keeping an eye out for any 'idiosyncratic' adventure type game for me.

[tsa]

I must say I have the impression that Experience 112 might be more 'new' in the way you describe it (with the balls and such) than Grey Matter Trep. Maybe you should check that one out as well.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Yes, thanks! I do know about that one and am keeping an eye on it.

[jellyfish]

Well, adventure gamers do whine at least as much as fans of other genres. Every genre specific forum has posts with people saying rts gaming is dead, and fps gaming is dead, and pc gaming is dead etc... Personally, I have to say, the adventure gaming market is as thriving as any of those others. There are as many interesting adventure games to be soon released than say rpg's, if not more.

And as for the comparison to the days of yore is concerned, well, there is always some nostalgia involved when thinking that things were better back then. That is understandable. I played adventure games in the late 80's and early 90's and then took a break for many years. Only recently I got back to them and I must say I am amazed at how much the genre has improved. The spoken dialog and improved graphics do wonders for immersion. The gameplay is considerably less simplistic and the story is more involved. I would say that adventure games are today better than they ever were before.

And considering how it is a niche market that does not cater to the twitch gameplay masses or push the hardware to its limits, which the industry seems obsessed with doing, I am actually quite surprised by just how many new releases there are. So I think we should all be very happy about the current state and whine a lot less. Have fun.

[Crapstorm]

One very important thing that we should keep in mind here is that when we talk about adventure games, we are talking about a diverse class of games. An adventure gamer may love one type of adventure game and hate another. I think there are two distinct sub-classes of adventure game:

1. The first sub-class is the interactive cartoon, a la King's Quest, Monkey Island, and the Syberia series. These games are heavily scripted, involve a lot of characters, and feature quest-like challenges based on finding the right inventory items to perform various tasks. These games usually employ the third-person perspective and feature a lot of animation.

2. The second class is the lonely explorer/puzzle-solver type, where the player navigates a strange land and solves a variety of puzzles, which can include riddles, codes, mathematics, logic, sliding blocks, jigsaw puzzles, board games, mechanical devices, etc. In these games, the story (if there is one) is usually unraveled by the discovery of documents. Characters and scripts are less prevalent, and the first-person perspective is heavily favored.

This classification system is not black-and-white. Very few games fit perfectly into one of the two. There are many games that blur the boundaries, so I think of these sub-classes as representing the extreme limits of a continuum.

When I hear people say that the adventure game is dying, I think that they are dead wrong in terms of the 3rd-person interactive cartoons, but quite right about the lonely puzzle-solver sub-class. However, there is a burgeoning industry of "casual" puzzle games that could be classified as a new generation of adventure games (although they completely lack exploration, which I think is a necessary criterion).

[Unita]

I have been adventure games fan for years (first game played on Amiga computer in early 90s) and for most of the time I have heard that this genre will be soon an ancient history.
I can’t really understand why do people think so because whenever I have finished to play one adventure game I started another one. Never in my entire player life have I felt that AG will be soon extinct and there has always been an adventure game to play. Of course some of them were better some were worse but the point is that they have never ceased to be created. It proves that there is a constant demand for this type of games in general.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by tsa

I must say I have the impression that Experience 112 might be more 'new' in the way you describe it (with the balls and such) than Grey Matter Trep. Maybe you should check that one out as well.

Just watched the trailer. It reminds me of Lifeline (click for trailer), a Japanese game for the PS2 that takes place in a hotel spaceship, where you play someone trapped in a room full of monitors and you voice control Rio, a female character to help you find a way out. It was more survival horror than adventure, but there were some puzzle situations and for the most part involved shooting nasty aliens. Didn't do very well, though, critically or commercially.

I'm hoping Experience 112 will be able to escape the typical - and stereotypical - details plaguing most adventure games today. I'm curious to see how inventive they'll be at the puzzle designs and character interactions.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

When I hear people say that the adventure game is dying, I think that they are dead wrong in terms of the 3rd-person interactive cartoons, but quite right about the lonely puzzle-solver sub-class.

Not so long ago, it was the other way round though...

Cheer up, Rhem 3 is here!

[tsa]

Although you have to interact with some people every now and then, I would share the MDNA games in the 'lonely puzzle-solver' sub-class.