Innovation in adventure games
 

Looking through the Top 100, I noticed that most of the Nintendo DS games are extremely different and innovative in terms of gameplay, while the PC games are mostly the same basic formula with only the story or graphics separating them.

Look at for instance

Phoenix Wright
Ghost Trick
999
Trace Memory
Professor Layton

If you expand to all console games, then you have Stacking, L.A.Noire, Heavy Rain, Catherine...

Why is this? What is stopping these sorts of games from coming out on the PC?

6 of the 9 games you mentioned are japanese.

and i have no evidence to back this up, but it seems to me they dont take to pc gaming as much as the west.

stacking is from the mind of tim schafer, and is coming to pc this year. so that should count.

so now you are left with two, high budget, triple a titles. Built by companies with big publishers behind them. (2k and sony) therefore there is no way they would consider PC as a market worth focusing on, so their focus had to be on the big audience. which is consoles.

innovation comes in many forms. and for PC gaming, that's indie games right now. spacechem, braid, limbo, not 100% adventures but appeal to me more than the console AAA games mentioned above.

until pc games start selling 6 million in their first month, this wont change.

The reason why Point and Click is such a popular formula amongst the PC crowd is the fact that the system works and for those that want to tell their story, works best for them. I'm down for people who want to tell a story with good production values (not stick figures and so on) and live with the same ol formula. Games that cost money especially more than 10$ in my mind should try to push out into more creative realms...

Like Idrisguitar said most of these are Japanese and quite a few were created with handhelds in mind. So they not only offer different styles of play and storytelling, but also miss a lot of features the PC gamers take for granted. I'm not even sure all of these are true adventure games or more like evolution of the visual novel genre.

So in short there isn't any strong market established for games like that on the PC... Yet.

But look what's already happening - Telltale Games has been borrowing ideas from Layton and Heavy Rain for their newest games. Recettear - a Japanese "RPG item shop simulator" - has been ported to PC by an indie team and enjoyed a lot of sales. More and more titles like that will start to seep through. Especially anything that's attractive to the casual market.

Again, I have to point out my opinion. Don't fix what ain't broken: PC-adventures have a certain formula. It does not need changing now, and it does not need changing in the future either.

PC ports of games initially released on consoles doesnt count :)

I don't agree with the "it isnt broke so dont fix it" argument.

For example, I found Phoenix Wright a lot of fun, and all the comments on this forum for the other games have been extremely positive. All of these games are very story driven, much more than most point and click.

Perhaps being Japanese meant that they didnt have preconceived notions of what an adventure game is supposed to be? And Tim Schafer is genius enough to break out of any fixed mold.

Actually thats BS. It needed changing ever since it went into a niche market. Not to mention that never is right in terms of entertainment. Ever genre moved forward except for Adventure Gaming (not mentioning those games that did evolve like Heavy Rain, Jurassic Park, LA Noire, etc)

Jurassic Park ain't no innovation more like 10 steps backwards.

However Heavy Rain and LA Noire are good examples of how the genre can go forward.

I'm not sure if LA Noire was such a huge step forward from say, the Tex Murphy games. The one thing I liked very much was the range of outcomes you could get on a case, but of course Tex Murphy was non-linear too. That's a thing I think adventure games could improve on, it's a nice feeling that my questioning and clue-finding could lead to the right person being caught, instead of just ploughing through a list of questions. The driving around and shooting I could do without (and did so - I skipped most of it), so I empathise with the "ain't broke - don't fix" view.

But Tex Murphy is outdated. Innovation is relative to the times.

@Lucien: I absolutely disagree, especially since we don't really have any innovation in the interactive movie department.

Personally, I think that Casual games and thier evolution are part of a big change for PC adventure gaming. I find they fill the void for people looking for good 1st person puzzlers.

Yes, Grim Fandango's gameplay was most innovative ever,point &clicks are antiqued,Heavy Rain,Jurassic Park etc. just button mashing.

I'm all for innovation but that doesn't mean that every formula we've had until now has to be shunned.What I want is games that come out with incredible ideas that fascinate me while still having new games with old formulas around.And I have a thing for point & click(and the opposite for gamepads,however mouse and keyboard ain't a bad idea to me) so....

So you're saying LA Noire is innovative simply because it's new and 'with the times'?

Kinda makes the word 'innovative' rather redundant, doesn't it?

The Nintendo DS has a touch screen interface. A PC does not have one of these and I doubt that it can. You use this touch this screen to play the game and solve puzzles. Some games even use the DS microphone or even the Dsi cameras. I myself love this touch screen interface to play adventure games with.

You can convert PC point and click adventure games to the DS and there are some good one out there like Secret Files.

However, I don't think we'll ever see anyone of the DS unique adventure games ever converted to the PC, the Nintendo DS has a huge market base of over 150 million units sold and I don't see Capcom, which specializes in console games ever converting them to the PC.

Every system has unique games to it - Heavy Rain on the PS3, etc. And while I'd love to see some of these unique titles ported to other systems - they themselves sell systems and will stay unique.

The strange thing is that whenever someone makes an innovative PC adventure game, it tends to not do so well commercially. Pandora Directive, Last Express, Grim Fandango. The only exception seems to be Myst, but that was released around the first-person boom of the mid-nineties when DOOM also made its entrance.

Part of me thinks that adventure gamers tend to be a nostalgic lot. Tradition and nostalgia also tend to be the enemies of innovation. And I don't think that "casual" adventure games are really innovative, either. They're the junk food of the genre, a quick bag of potato chips compared to Tex Murphy's fine dining. They only support my belief that the *majority* of adventure gamers simply don't prefer a challenging, new experience. Such a thing goes against nostalgia and tradition.

It's not that I actually believe anyone here would actively be against innovation. It's just that there tends to be an unspoken herd mentality amongst the collective majority. Sure, a game like The Last Express was amazing, but for some reason at the time it didn't sell well.

Yes. Did tex murphy pick up objects with his hands and allows hte player to analyse it? Did Tex Murphy had a realtime 3d engine where everything was in High Quality 3D with animated characters that blend animations together smoothly to create cohesion between animation and interaction with the environment? Did Tex Murphy have a basic interrogation system, ultimately effecting how the game/case will play out?

Oh wait, your comparison is completely irrelevant because these two games are completely different.


Actually I can't say HR or JP are button mashing. Everything you press has direct relevance to the actions on scree. More so with HR especially with the Six Axis tech. Button mashing is a term used by people who aren't capable of understanding certain things.


I never was upset that a certain game was never ported to another system. That's the point of having more than one system. Its like saying 'Damn I hate Skyrim wasn't an RPG. I wish it was a Puzzle Flight Simulator'. It doesn't make sense. Why aren't people complaining that Phoenix Wright isn't ported to the PC or 360/PS3? Why aren't people complaining about Zelda not being on the 360? Why are people complaining that Gabriel Knight isn't on the Wii/360/PS3?

Its all relative to your bias if you have one. Just leave these unique products for their respective hardware. They were designed for the specific hardware and it will cost them more money and additional design document changes that just aren't worth the effort.

I don't think that tradition and nostalgia have anything to do with it.....maybe some people try to make only that type of adventures games but that doesn't apply to everyone.If someone wants to do something innovative and is always on the lookout for ideas he will eventually do it.Also for games to go as far as creating a tradition and nostalgia status around them means that formula is still good.

Yes to all three, aside from the "high quality" part which is just a matter of graphics technology. Haven't you played Pandora Directive?

I'm just trying to figure out which part LA Noire innovated upon. If it's only graphics, then it's not much.

The ability to look at objects is both functional and visual. You are missing the point that a lot of the graphical innovations are functional too.

The way you are talking, its like Tex Murphy is the end all detective games, yet LA Noire is more of a cinematic third person detective experience where as Tex Murphy is a completely adventure based first person detective game with more focus on puzzles and exploration.

I've played all Tex Murphy games and feel that they are the corner stone of first person detective gaming...something I wish Sherlock Holmes looked at a bit more, but you seem to dismiss that the general creativity and design of LA Noire is not innovative at all. LA Noire brought about the organic feel of adventure/detective gaming.

I would stress that in the Heavy Rain system the actions you perform mirrored the movements of the on screen character and had real consequences to the storyline. - i.e real innovation.

Jurassic park had the old dragons lair success or dead system where the on screen prompts were basic direction arrows and had absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever. - i.e a barely interactive QTE like we have seen in a million games before

Yeah now that I think of it you're right. There were a couple of moments where the actions reflect the controls, but it is nothing like the advanced use of six axis on the Dual Shock control to mimic movements and so on. I want to play heavy rain again come to think of it. lol

A lot of games let you look at objects and examine them. Phantasmagoria did so, the Phoenix Wright games, tons of others. Nothing new there. The only difference is that this time your character is actually running around, picking things up and the camera zooming in in one fluent motion. So graphics have improved. The rest is not new.

I haven't played a Tex Murphy game, but compared to what adventure games I do know, L.A. Noire's only innovation (apart from their achievements with graphics) is adding a certain Grand Theft Auto element to it by making you chase suspects on foot, by car, and have shootouts.
Makes it more of a hybrid than an innovated adventure game to me.

Don't agree. It didn't do that more than for instance the CSI-games. They nailed the atmosphere in L.A. Noire. But that means they did their job well, it doesn't mean they innovated anything.

I get why Heavy Rain is innovative. I just don't feel the same with L.A. Noire.

Yes, some of the games depend on the hardware, but most dont. Ghost Trick, Pheonix Wright or 999 could easily be played on the PC with mouse controls.

Most PC developers have an idea that "this is what an adventure game looks like" and aren't getting out of that box, whereas on other systems they dont seem to be tied down in the same way. At least thats the way it seems to me.

From what I understand (I haven't played the game) the interrogation system is supposed to be very good. It is not about simply wading through a whole dialog tree, selecting every single option, like most adventures. Based on how you do, there are multiple endings to a case.

And that's pretty much why I stopped playing another genres ages ago.

This looks like finally a good discussion on innovative games because it focuses on specific titles mentioned by the OP.

So let me ask you all a question - would you still consider them innovative, if they weren't mainstream hits and their popularity was limited only to the adventure games fans public?

yeah....anything that implements new ideas never before seen in the genre is considered an innovation*.innovation doesn't have anything to do with mainstream and popularity.maybe the innovation depending on what it is brings popularity or maybe it changes the genre to a hybrid or sth like that and as a result it becomes mainstream.but not the other way round

PS:*innovation to the genre not generally.since we are talking about innovations to adventure gaming.

PS2:maybe they aren't entirely new ideas but recycled ideas from other genres that give adventure games a whole new feeling or maybe they are similar to other ideas already seen on an adventure game but changed a little,presented a little differently or maybe from a different angle/perspective.

Generally speaking, since I've only played two of the games, I would say of course - I would say it's pretty much a fact that the term innovation (or innovative) has nothing to do with being either popular or niche, it's far more universal than that :)

What I meant is that some people might expect a game to be influential outside a particular niche and accessible to a larger number of gamers, if it is to be considered to be innovative. I'm curious if that could be someone's prerequisite, especially since all of the listed games seem to have been targeted at fans of storytelling in general rather than of particular genre and it seems have largely succeeded at reaching that audience.

In contrast to that Grim Fandango and Gabriel Knight games (just examples) could be considered too demanding in terms of puzzles and the genre's traditions for todays general public.

Like I said....if you are talking about innovation in a genre then you have your answer.
I think that calling a game innovative it has to be within a genre...if not then the whole game must be outside of genres.not just some innovation in a part of the game but the whole game(story mechanics etc)

L.A. Noire has a much too simplified interrogation system. You ask about a certain topic, and after hearing (and watching - there are tells if they lie) their answer, you have a whopping THREE choices: he's telling the truth, he's lying but you can't prove it and have to force him a little, or he's lying and you have the evidence to expose the lie.
Three options. That's it.
I prefer a whole dialog tree to that.

Innovation has nothing to do with popularity. Ghost Trick was innovative yet Ghost Trick tanked in sales. Maybe all the prizes it won on sites like Gamespot will eventually make it sell a bit better, but it wasn't all that successful.

Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy was innovative as well, and I've a feeling it's more popular now than when it was first released. In part because of the success of Heavy Rain.

Good and innovative games tend to sell bad upon release. Probably because they're innovative - people are afraid of change. But if the games are good, they'll stand the test of time...

Same goes for movies: Citizen Kane, a movie that was twenty years ahead of its time upon release, only got the recognition it deserved years and years later...

Innovation helps change the course of the future. But the innovator is rarely the one that gets the big bucks...

Maybe it is like you said about the interrogation system of LA Noire but you can't deny that it feels a little more real.When you talk to someone you have certain choises and from what you judge to be the truth you get certain repercussions.And you only have one chance.And it also blends the visual part to the whole discussion.What the other party is feeling,giving you a feel/sense as to where this discussion's going.Of cource,without the graphics upgrade it wouldn't be considered as something notable.

And this is exactly why I don't consider L.A. Noire to be innovative.

Graphically it's a stunning achievement (the amount of facial motion capturing they did is insane). But I think it's little more than a graphical update of elements that were found in the genre for years, albeit a rather GOOD update.
I'm definitely not saying L.A. Noire is a bad game, I just don't feel it's innovative...

my point though was that the graphics upgrade wasn't just better graphics.By using it in an interrogation system it became more real,immersing.I haven't played every ag game out there so there might be other games that have used this but from those i've played it's definitely sth unique.

The only other one I can think of is Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney, where finding the specific tell in a sentence was a puzzle of its own.
But I'm sure there's a FMV game that'll have used this before. Heck, with all the motion capturing, L.A. Noire practically IS an FMV...

maybe you're right even if it still doesn't sit well with me:P(sth feels different about FMV and LA Noire).anyways in terms of pure graphics it is new.and even if it doesn't revolutionise the ag genre i'm happy if it revolutionises the rest.

I still feel like there's no appreciation for the mainstream gamer accessibility that is helping these games get noticed outside the genre and (in effect) also helping them to be considered innovative (I'm not talking about personal evaluations, but about the public image of these games).

Sorry, but that's only our wishful thinking. Usually to be considered as an innovator in the public eye you need to have either big bucks or already established popularity behind you. Especially in an industry that's been going for so many years, and in todays oversaturated market.

You're oversimplifying. CK was an expensive Hollywood studio production and a huge controversy upon release. It has quickly become, if not famous, then infamous, and Welles remained one of the major celebrities of those times - one of the enfant terribles. A good measure of how popular he was is that after a few years his (then) controversial films and actions led RKO to cut their ties from him and coin the slogan "Showmanship instead of genius" as a PR move. That seems pretty influential to me.

If Citizen Kane was actually ignored and of no interest to the public at the time of release, it would probably never be re-evaluated later on.

So were the sales horrible or just below expectations? It was a new IP experiment from the designer of a hit series and making it probably didn't come cheap. I'd say it had to sell a lot of copies to make even, but regardless it's definitely far more popular than Grey Matter or any of the less mainstream adventure games of recent years.

Well, I don't know exactly where to jump in here but I'll address the OP.

The controls of console and handheld gaming forced adventure to innovate. If you've ever played one of the Discworld games on a Playstation you'll see how cumbersome using the directional pad to move the cursor is. The development team at Capcom had to be more conscientious of how the gamer is going to interact with the DS when they worked on Ghost Trick. You can tell the designer of that game liked the idea of possessing objects and put a lot of thought into how to execute that function with the DS controls. There's a reason why you draaaag the stylus across the screen to possess different objects rather than just click on two different objects on the screen.

In another thread I'm arguing for a new paradigm in game development where the narrative dictates the game's mechanics rather than trying to stuff the narrative into conventional game mechanics (like Uncharted 3) and the team behind Ghost Trick really exemplify what I want to see more of. But so far it's only scratching the surface.

Ghost Trick has sold over 280,000 copies worldwide. It actually sold quite well in the states although sales did drop off after week three in Japan.

There are many adventure games with sales well below 280,000 copies that are considered to be a major success. There is talk of a 2nd game on the 3DS.

999 For example had 220,000 units sold worldwide and a second game is being developed. Ace Attorney has had 3.6 million sales total spread across six games.

There was an adventure game on the WII that was a major disappointment in sales - that game sold only 21,000 copies. The game was not ported to any other systems and never saw a release in the United States.

Should Ghost Trick have had Prof Layton or Ace Attorney level of sales? Obviously Gamespot thought so - giving the game the "Best Game Nobody Ever Played" award.

Now that the game has won so many major awards like "Best Handheld Game of the Year" - I'm certain that "Ghost Trick" will have a very long shelf life and copies will continue to sell.

Ghost Trick still sells for full retail price - most games that have been out for as long as Ghost Trick see a major price drop by now.

When I played "Ghost Trick" I thought it was very innovative - even for a DS game. I do hope we see more games like this one produced and released.

:D