[Fien]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

Personally I don't see how those two things - interface and time period - are linked, except for the fact that adventure games became dumber.

and

My ideal interface is the one met in early games by Legend Entertainment (Gateway 2 and Eric the Unready in particular).

Gateway and Eric were text adventures with pictures. Advanced text adventures for sure, but even so. SuperEdy mentioned Return to Zork, which went one step further and was essentially a graphical adventure with a cumbersome interface thanks to the many verbs. Another game on the threshold trying to get the best of two worlds is Steve Meretzky's Space Bar.

[orient]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

Personally I don't see how those two things - interface and time period - are linked

Of course they're linked. As technology moves forward, our understanding of interaction becomes more sophisticated, which leads to more intuitive interfaces. The one-click method didn't come about by chance. It evolved in this particular way because the market demanded it.

All gamers yearn for the "good old days" regardless of genre preferences, so I know where you're coming from, but there's a reason most games nowadays aren't as difficult as Battletoads, and there's a reason adventure games nowadays don't look like Gateway 2.

[terhardp]

In most cases, I prefer simplicity in game navigation. I haven't played many adventures which uses the verb system, so I was struggling at first while playing the SE versions of the MI games. But at the same time, I must say that this makes gameplay more engaging in some way.

[Arial Type]

cbman, mrLOL
Like RPGs, adventure genre have a long history. They grew up from pure text games, where literally everything was text-based, including interface. So why does the text (or more complex) interface is irrelevant? Who said it should be simplified? It's a part of gameplay, part of interaction. The genre is not simply about telling a story. RPGs, action games, even RTSs all tell stories. It's also about exploring the gameworld. The less opportunities we are given, the less we get from a game.

And yes, I want to have an opportunity to manipulate doors or windows in a way I prefer, or at least get some comments regarding them. It's not much to ask, but it leads to a more complex design solutions.

Originally Posted by Fien

Gateway and Eric were text adventures with pictures. Advanced text adventures for sure, but even so. SuperEdy mentioned Return to Zork, which went one step further and was essentially a graphical adventure with a cumbersome interface thanks to the many verbs. Another game on the threshold trying to get the best of two worlds is Steve Meretzky's Space Bar.

They were both text and graphical adventures, where you didn't necessary have to type anything in. Than again, DeathGate or Callahan's CS also had very good text interfaces, no worse than the one in Return to Zork. There was Larry 7 which managed to combine simple commands with text input. And all those games only gained from more complex interfaces. I can easily imagine something like that in modern games.

Originally Posted by orient

Of course they're linked. As technology moves forward, our understanding of interaction becomes more sophisticated, which leads to more intuitive interfaces. The one-click method didn't come about by chance. It evolved in this particular way because the market demanded it

You forget something: it wasn't market - it was the Myst and FMV euphoria. Both are very specific types of games, and it was in no way an evolution or progression of the genre - it was a degradation. FMV died in five years, and Myst only led to hordes of second-rated puzzle clones.

"Intuitive interface" doesn't mean simplified or limited interaction. And that's what one-click method is all about. I said "my ideal interface is the one that Legend suggested", but it doesn't mean I want modern games to look like it. There's plenty of room for experiments. But adventure designers today are happy with this primitive method, and it leads to primitive games.

[Lee in Limbo]

Ooo, a divisive topic that obliquely asks the question 'old versus new'. Fun.

Okay, as an aspiring game designer who has written all or part of a few unrealized games, I can honestly say that I love the idea of presenting choices, but I do understand that most people prefer to have their gameplay fairly streamlined, especially in adventure games, as interpreting the developers' intent can often be a frustrating and deal-breaking problem for many people that drift in and out of this genre. Personally, I'd rather sacrifice a little bit of functional freedom to make the inexperienced player feel secure that the game isn't going to throw them a lot of curve balls.

I do believe that AGs need to engage the player (I do dislike that word--player--because I honestly see AGs as being something more and better than merely a game, despite so many peoples' assertion that they will never be more than just a game). I just think that it's important to at least make everything you ask the player to do feel significant. You need to reward people for trying and experimenting and investigating. It's blind leads and the creeping suspicion that we are wasting their time that turns off a lot of people. You have to give clear indicators as to what they need to do and what is merely optional tinkering if they're so inclined.

With that in mind, I have to say that I've never, ever liked text parsers, and the old verb-laden interfaces of the early 90s were little better, simply because it was largely an all-purpose interface that didn't always reward interaction, and often distracted from the story.

It's important to remember that AGs are, for the most part, a story-telling medium. Oh sure, there are lots of AGs that are really just a flimsy excuse for stringing together a series of physical puzzles to tinker with, but I think that the best of those make some effort to tell a story and engross the player; the less engaging examples are, to my mind, failures, regardless of hos much fun they may be for those merely seeking brain-teasing diversions.

I guess the key, for me, is immersion. I don't really play these games to piss around for a couple of hours (or less, as the modern era of HOGs and Adventure-Lite games has revealed a solid market for); I play them to get caught up in an extraordinary scenario unlike anything I experience in my real life. I'm not looking for distractions. I'm looking for experiences. It's like an adventure holiday for me, and I don't want to get caught up in mini-games when I could be exploring and inquiring and problem solving and generally living like a movie protagonist.

Where this related to the whole interface command issue is, if you give me too many choices that don't relate to what I'm trying to do, of course I'm going to be resentful if I get a 'you can't do that, stupid' response. I consider it essential that AGs give players enough freedom to explore all of the reasonable possibilities, but not be distracted by pointless filler material that does not enhance the experience in any meaningful way.

That is not to say that I don't think there should be things like comedic commentary when you click and examine objects you may not need to interact with. I believe whole-heartedly that even serious adventures need some periodic levity, though it has to be balanced carefully, so as not to break the player's suspension of disbelief. I just think that interactive objects and people need to more or less identify themselves in the flavour text, so that you keep it in the back of your mind that they may come in handy at some point*.

So, the issue of a command interface is very important to me, in that I believe that the commands should be pretty transparent, and should also be dynamic, given more or less options depending on the situation. And frankly, I don't think there is anything pristine or wonderful about the old experience with text editors or verb lists. I think there is room for a more dynamic system of interactions, and I believe a few Devs are experimenting with that, but like most new ideas, it takes time for them to gain some traction. I for one would love to see more of what we saw in Mata Hari, for example. In my mind, the idea of combining concepts to formulate a choice is about as intuitive as it gets. We just need to get used to the idea.

Okay, time to get ready and go help Mom buy a new DVD player. Hope everyone has a great day.

* assuming you aren't going to make them pick everything up and shove in their pockets, a convention I have always hated, no matter how handy it was. I'd rather give the player a quick navigation system than have them carry around absolutely everything they see. The best, most challenging inventory game I ever played was Shivers, where you could only carry one object at a time. Very distracting in its way, but a real lesson in inventory management that more people could stand to learn, Devs included.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

They were both text and graphical adventures, where you didn't necessary have to type anything in. Than again, DeathGate or Callahan's CS also had very good text interfaces, no worse than the one in Return to Zork.

Gateway and Eric are text adventures for two reasons. IMO. One. The player has to choose verbs and objects to produce the input. Whether he types the words or selects them from a list is not essential. But Callahan's has the prefab sentences we call dialogue trees, which of course makes voiceacting possible. Two. The graphics in the top right corner are a nice addition, but you can finish the game without using them at all. In Callahan's or the Space Bar the graphics, complete with your inventory objects, are essential.

You forget something: it wasn't market - it was the Myst and FMV euphoria. Both are very specific types of games, and it was in no way an evolution or progression of the genre - it was a degradation. FMV died in five years, and Myst only led to hordes of second-rated puzzle clones.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man...

[Arial Type]

Originally Posted by Fien

Gateway and Eric are text adventures for two reasons.

Well, Ok, I won't argue on this one I played them with my mouse for the most part and felt right at home, even though I'm not used to IFs and text input. Legend is history now, but it managed to produce quality adventure games with text interface for over 8 years, and every game felt like a good interactive book that was written by me. That doesn't happen today.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man...

Still, FMV and Myst are dead, and classical adventure games are alive and breathing (even in the form of one-clickers that last several hours).

[marvio]

It seems that all advocates for the more complex interface boils down to options in the game, and not to a special liking of the interface itself? Does that make sense?

But that's all in the game design, you can have a two button interface with just as many enviroment/character interaction options as more complex interfaces, if done right. Contextual menus, situational aware actions, etc...

I don't think it has been done in a AG yet, but there are other types of games out there which use these kinds of things to great effect.

No need for an outdated/cumbersome interface

Also, Lee, are you my long lost brother? I dhould've read your post before posting myself!

[Arial Type]

Originally Posted by marvio

It seems that all advocates for the more complex interface boils down to options in the game, and not to a special liking of the interface itself? Does that make sense?

I'm not. I just say there's no such thing as "an outdated interface" (if we're talking about graphical adventures, that's it). And even one-pointer can be cumbersome (too big or too ugly).
After all, there are hardly many people out there who concider the verbcoin interface cumbersome. And that's three-four commands!

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

I just say there's no such thing as "an outdated interface"

My thought on this is, any interface that takes up roughly 20-40 percent of the screen real estate with clever but ultimately useless graphics is very much an antiquated design concept in action. Even some of my old favourites committed that particular sin (Journeyman Project, Temujin, Shivers). And to my mind, those old verb list interfaces are exactly where that design aesthetic came from... and thankful went, as well.

Originally Posted by marvio

Also, Lee, are you my long lost brother? I should've read your post before posting myself!

You'd think, eh? My brother is a sports fan who listens to Duran Duran and Elton John religiously (both of which I actually like in places, but still, not exactly covering all the bases). Some days, I do suspect I was misplaced at the hospital. Then I notice that my family all seem to have the same mental illness as me, and it starts to make sense again.

And back on topic, I think the aesthetic that has proven itself the most resilient in this genre has been the largely unencumbered screen real estate with the context-sensitive mini-pointer. Everything else Devs put on the screen that isn't characters and backgrounds is kind of cluttery and distracting, by modern standards.

However, I also find myself really liking the modern batch of AGs with no pointers and lots of intuitive keyboard controls and collapsible menus. The control schemes can sometimes be a little intimidating at first, but once you get the basics down, you're free to do as you wish without a lot of cheesy interface graphics forcing the protagonists to work within the space of a comicbook panel. I think that's one of the conventions largely adapted from MMOs that has really benefited everyone.

That said, I also miss the chatty computer companion that sat in the corner of the screen in the Journeyman Project games. Perhaps a little distracting in its own way, but I would greatly love to see someone adapt the invisible/intangible sidekick concept again someday. But that's... another story.

[Arial Type]

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

My thought on this is, any interface that takes up roughly 20-40 percent of the screen real estate with clever but ultimately useless graphics is very much an antiquated design concept in action. Even some of my old favourites committed that particular sin (Journeyman Project, Temujin, Shivers). And to my mind, those old verb list interfaces are exactly where that design aesthetic came from... and thankful went, as well.

As I said, there's a lot of place for improvement. You can hide those menus in pop-up windows, for example, or even make pop-up commands. The verbcoin is another example of clever interface. The remakes of Monkey Island games introduced three interfaces at once (though I found them rather clumsy). It's all about experiments. Sadly, they are rarely met today.

[ozzie]

Wow, I didn't know that such an interesting discussion was going on here! I feel that's kinda rare on this forum, so I'm surprised.
Anyway, I see the arguments against lots of verbs boil down to these two:

1) Many of the verbs are useless for the given interactive object. Like, "Talk to table"
2) It makes the interface cumbersome, not accessible. It takes too much screen space away.

Personally, I looked for a solution to these problems for a long time. I wanted to do a fan adventure in the RON universe. I managed to put together a proof of concept for the interface and a friend helped me with the programming, but I didn't get any further. I guess I'm just not determined enough.

Anyway, I solved the first problem by making the verbs context sensitive. You point your cursor at a hotspot and at the bottom of the screen an interface pops up that contains up to 6 verbs for the given object. You can scroll through them with the mouse wheel or select them with one of the number keys on the keyboard (that's the idea, that latter is not implemented yet). It's not ideal for laptop users, I know, but I kinda expect that you play it with a standard 3 button + wheel mouse.
The second problem...well, for one, the interface is only visible when you point at a hotspot. Then you can mostly see through it, so it doesn't block the sight of the graphics too much. It's not even close to being as huge as the SCUMM interface in Monkey Island.
It's accessible because you don't even have to click before you see all the corresponding verbs to the hotspot, like you'd need to do in Monkey Island 3 or A New Beginning.

Some other problems my interface would supposedly fix: It would be harder to "accidentally" solve a puzzle, a phenomenon that pops up with the use of a smart cursor (like in Book of Unwritten Tales and most adventures after Syberia). I don't solve a puzzle by understanding what needs to be done but only because of luck, of just clicking around. At first there's a surprised reaction, like "What? That just worked??", then a sobering awareness that the game didn't make me think hard enough, it just let me get further with some use of trial & error out of boredom. That's just bad.
Otherwise, it's just fun to have more verbs. I love all the comments I get from interacting with stuff, to deeply explore the environments, to experiment. Exploration, experimentation, these are two traits of adventure games that seem to be missing a lot today.

There are some drawbacks. For one, you never can design a puzzle where the player has to use a verb that seems inappropiate, but actually isn't.
Of course, in 99,9% of all cases it's better this way, but still, not always.
I'm thinking of the puzzle in Apprentice, where you had to "Talk to Snake". Since you always had the talk option, no matter if you interacted with a drawer or a person, you had to make this logical jump yourself. This wouldn't be the case with my interface.

Screenshot:


Proof of concept:
Download here!

You can interact with 2 hotspots, the nearest door and the nearest lamp. The game will crash if you try to cycle through the verb list of Roger (since he doesn't have any verbs).

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by cbman

Most adventure gamers expect simplicity. Not in terms of gameplay but interface. It should be entirely instinctive.

"Instinctive" or "intuitive" in this context are just synonyms for "familiar". There's no genius or sophistication involved with dropping the more complex features in the hopes that this will allow a greater number of players to be able to handle a game (and consequently like it). So games (and any other kind of entertainment) when targeting the masses tend to minimize the learning and thinking effort requirements. And that's all relaxing and fine, but I doubt any of us would like for all games to be this way. It'd be like suggesting that all books should be written in beginner level English so that they are accessible to the greatest possible number of people.

Anyway, personally I tend to be more drawn to the approaches suggested by Ariel Type and ozzie (get back to making games, you!).

@Lee The Journeyman Project interface took such a huge amount of screen space specifically to limit the size of the playing window - the games could work much faster that way on the computers of those times. I bet this wasn't unimportant in the low-res, pixel art games from LucasArts either.

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Ascovel

@Lee The Journeyman Project interface took such a huge amount of screen space specifically to limit the size of the playing window - the games could work much faster that way on the computers of those times. I bet this wasn't unimportant in the low-res, pixel art games from LucasArts either.

Yeah, I understood it to be a concession to the technical limits of those old PCs. I don't begrudge old games for dealing with limitations in creative ways (lots of my old faves did this; heck, thinking about it, probably all of them did. It's just that some interfaces were less intrusive than others). However, it's an old convention that doesn't need to be brought back, unless it's done cleverly for aesthetic purposes alone.

I certainly wouldn't want to play a modern feature length AG with a big wonky graphical interface frame and lots of menus and stuff permanently embedded on the screen to artificially contain a teeny window of animation or FMV, but at the same time, I wouldn't throw a game out for teasing me with little bits of that sort of thing for nostalgic flavour. However, after playing numerous modern AGs that have done away with that (with varying levels of success), I find that I really don't miss them, even though the graphic artist in me loves dicking around with ideas like that.

I think I prefer transparent/translucent panes opened at the stroke of a key, or perhaps right clicking (even better). Best of both worlds.

[mrLOL]

Wow, I didn't know that such an interesting discussion was going on here! I feel that's kinda rare on this forum, so I'm surprised.

Ah I once made the same assumption about this forum as well, I brushed it off as not really being much interesting discussion going on, but much later I luckily realize that tho there might not be whole lot to discuss on the topic of adventure-game if you DO have a question you need input on this forum is great as you will get tons of interesting answers.
"ask and you shall receive", in this particular case I might have gotten way more than I bargained for I was not expecting this long of a discussion and certainly not a playable prototype

It was great to see this prototype in action as sometimes you can discuss something all day long but you won't really know how it's like until you've seen and played it,

I liked how despite all irrelevant options being missing (which is usually where the humour is, when you try to use the obviously wrong verb for the wrong item) there was still room for humour as the lamp had the option for "turn on" and a snappy joke for it

The remakes of Monkey Island games introduced three interfaces at once (though I found them rather clumsy)

Cool, I didn't know that, I'll see if there's a let's play showing them off as I'm curious.

I for one would love to see more of what we saw in Mata Hari, for example. In my mind, the idea of combining concepts to formulate a choice is about as intuitive as it gets. We just need to get used to the idea.

Sounds interesting, I will check out what Mata Hari is