[JKR]

Is there something you truly don't like in any given Adventure game? It could be pixel hunts, or bad voice work, or lack of a real ending, or pretty much anything.

For me it's when you have to trigger an event just to get an item you could have gotten before. For example, in Runaway 2, you could search the plane hatch and find nothing, but go two screens to the left and POOF suddenly looking in the same hatch makes something useful appear! I hate that, because then you have to backtrack EVERYWHERE just to see if you activated something that your character said "Nothing here is important" before.

[SamandMax]

Lately it's been a lack of atmosphere in games. I just finished playing Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and while I thought it was decent, there was so many small mistakes that added up and never really let me fully enjoy the game. If you're going to make wide open areas like London or New Orleans, you can't just leave them empty except for a handful of characters, the world feels so sparse and empty and that takes you completely out of the story.

[Periglo]

What annoys me the most is the rupture of the storyline. Typically, you may be following some exciting story thread but, oh my, you can't proceed because you need to picklock A with B, which is hidden in C... That would be the case with the infamous beginnings of TLJ and GK3. Another example, and it happens often (to me), is that I'm completely at a loss about what to do next!

And, yes, triggered events are horrible. Lots of those in Paradise, which made me stop playing.

[maphisto_2000]

When an adventure game tries to be something other than an adventure game...

e.g. The fighting and sneaking sections in Dreamfall: TLJ. Uneccesary.

[Risingson]

Wandering through empty scenaries. Standing long pointless conversation without naturality or wit. Aimless story.

[Wolfrider]

Bad puzzle design. Similarly to what JKR said I just hate puzzles that defy logic. Sam and Max (even though I love them) is filled with these kinds of puzzles. I'm not talking about weird puzzles, I'm just talking about doing something in a way you wouldn't normally do it. Reversing steps, or ignoring that one item would do the same thing another would in the same situation. Having to read the designer's mind just kills an adventure for me.

[Monroeski]

Pixel hunts, pixel hunts, a THOUSAND TIMES pixel hunts.

I'll second moments when I have no idea what to do to proceed, as well. Usually, those come about because I missed some stupid item in a pixel hunt, though.

[Lucifiel]

Oh, mmm... musical puzzles. It gets pretty annoying when all the notes sound almost the same. Thank goodness, I think very few games use these nowadays.

Odd, annoying puzzles which make you resort to trial and error.

[misslilo]

Hmm, I second all above.
But what I hate most, is not being able to SKIP dialog, which of course also leads me to bad design of dialog trees.

Oh and, if they give us the option of running and skipping to next room with a double click, then for crying out loud SKIP immidiately to next room.
I've seen in a few games how it's possible to skip, but first the person starts running to the door/new area etc.... how annoying.

[Mayboy]

For me it is timed sequences and set pieces where you can die. I like to take my time and cover every area, so by that you can tell i love pixel hunting.

The only other thing would perhaps be a selection of inventory items that must be combined together, or used to solve something that simply don't make any sense, to the point where you would definately need a walkthrough to complete the task.

[JKR]

Wow, I hadn't even thought of some of these. I totally agree though.

I find after I'm playing a game where you can double click on the arrow to the next screen and then try to play a game where you can't, I'm extremely annoyed. It's like "Hurry your butt up and get to the next room, darn it!" Little things, but still make a difference while playing.

And I can understand the developer side of things for puzzles that don't make sense to players. When designing an adventure, it's easy to think of something that's like "Wow, yeah, that works" but if you step back objectively (which is very hard to do at that point since you know the answer) then suddenly the puzzle makes no sense. But to YOU it makes sense, because you thought it up. I think that's something that plagues a lot of developers (especially underground ones). They think everyone will think like they do.

Oh and my new peeve is adventure games without any voice work. Even if sometimes there's no voice, I think there should be at least in the opening and maybe endings. Monkey Island 3 spoiled me with great voice work...

[QFG]

I love musical puzzles and don't mind pixel hunts TOO much ... but I HATE HATE HATE when there are interesting things in the background that can't be accessed.

*edit* I'm adding lack of humor also. Good thinking Gabe! Although I did find parts of TLJ funny (Crow!).

[Gabe]

Lack sense of humour like syberia ,tlj dreamfall or silly sense of humour like
runaway,bs 3,4 so on..

[cwapitm]

Pixel hunts, dead ends, timed sequences and stealth sequences are my most hated.

[skurken]

Lack of "double click to exit screen" can put me totally off playing a 3rd person game. Honestly. Keepsake anyoune?

Edit: ...and an overly complicated user interface can also put me off... Look/do is about all I can take. (no text parsers please!)

[Melanie68]

Hate seems like such a strong emotion for the tone of certain adventure games. It sounds like you guys have a strong preference for humor in games.

To me, the implications of this thread (in 'hating' something), is that you'd never like to see it in any adventure games. It would be just as silly to make every adventure game funny as it would be to make them all serious.

[Crapstorm]

There is a lot to hate in this genre. I cannot pick just one thing, so here's my top 3.

1. Puzzles whose solutions defy logic & reason.
2. Hidden hotspots (i.e. pixel-hunting).
3. Gameplay structures that just have the player cuing dialog and events without really thinking.

[Lucifiel]

Originally Posted by skurken

Lack of "double click to exit screen" can put me totally off playing a 3rd person game. Honestly. Keepsake anyoune?

Edit: ...and an overly complicated user interface can also put me off... Look/do is about all I can take. (no text parsers please!)

Oh gods! Keepsake! Yeah, some of the puzzles really raised my ire. I wish that the development team which put out this title would learn from their mistakes and improve on them. :p If at least it hadn't been so bland, the game would've been more fun.

[Davies]

I don't mind at all a lack of humour, if the game is supposed to be serious or scary.

A lack of humour when it's trying to be humorous is something else again...

[Lucifiel]

Originally Posted by Davies

I don't mind at all a lack of humour, if the game is supposed to be serious or scary.

A lack of humour when it's trying to be humorous is something else again...

Yeah, agreed with the "trying to be humorous" part. Broken Sword, anyone?