The "Is Broken Sword 3 an adventure game?" FAQ
 

Q: Is Broken Sword 3 an adventure game?
A: Yes.

Q: Are you sure? I saw jumping and climbing.
A: Look, you're not going to run around Paris climbing everything you see like a dog in heat. You'll do it a couple of times, to provide some variety to the typical "put pencil in dancing monkey's ear" puzzle.

Q: But I don't know how to jump or climb.
A: You press the "jump" or "climb" button, as appropriate.

Q: What if I jump off a cliff and die?
A: Not that kind of game. You press "jump" and the game handles aiming.

Q: But... I saw jumping and climbing.
A: Shut up and pre-order already.



I'll add entries as necessary.

You think that this kind of thing wouldn't be necessary anymore...

Q: But that screenshot I saw had George hanging off that cliff. You have to make him jump, just like Lara Croft.
What the hell part of 'the character does all the work for you' do you NOT understand?

Q: The game's gonna be in 3D, so it's gonna have action. I hate action!
And I hate ignoramuses who don't do research on the game and end up blurting out comments based on their own biases and sterotyping.

:D

I've got another point to add to this: The action in BS3 is almost identical to the action in BS1 and BS2! This means that there are timed sequences in which the player must solve a PUZZLE quickly. It provides suspense and adds some action to the game without actually having much to do with an action game.

But... he was jumping in that one shot.

Curse you, Jake! :D

it does seem odd to have the jumping if it is just press button with no risk, like a redundant feature put in only to make the game take longer.. *people start throwing things at feisar* .. shadow of memories had no jumping and crap, and is full 3D and amazing! *dodges frying pan* you dont see platforming sections in resident evil or silent hill..

..although hopefully it will be used sparingly and only for brief sections where its logical .. rather than half the game being about platforms.. no-one can really say if BS3 is a true adventure without actually playing.. but then who cares if it isnt it still should be great.. (unless its another in cold blood style disaster/false hope..)..

:pan: :pan: :pan: Feisar to death.

Next week, alas, their will be no "This week..." as Feisar is no longer with us. :D

STOP! STOP STOP STOP!

If Charles Cecil says it's a pure adventure, it is! He would never make that statement unless it's true, because from a marketing standpoint it would be much easier to push the game as an adventure/action or action/adventure.

There are two reasons why this button isn't just a fancy. 1st of all all those action buttons are not available all the time for you. It's all context related/sensitive. You can order George to jump only in certain scenes and locations not everywhere and everytime. For example on the cliffs in congo it's not just about making George to jump (since you're not performing those actions and only give "orders"), it's more about navigating him through the right path - it's cerebral not action gameplay so jump control is unnecesery.
Second of all jumping and climbing isn't always the only option to approach particular problem. For example in order to get to castle you can either make George to jump and climb his way through the walls to the castle but you can also try to avoid guards by using shadow which allows George to sneak into the castle, you can also use a hamburger to allure the dog and trick the guards - there are many possible ways.

Exactly! This is, by the way, very similar to one of the very first puzzles in the classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Seems like just because BS3 is 3d, people want to take fairly common adventure game elements and mutate them into their action counterparts to slam the game.

This game will hopefully be the beacon of light that the pure adventre genre has been searching for these last few years. If all goes to plan I expect AG to be swamped by new members in the coming 6 months, converted to our immersive, interactive world of adventures.

The Harry Potter books did one good thing in the world - they got kids interested in reading again. Maybe BS3 can have a similar effect on computer gamers................

*Curt launces into a rendition of Ozzy's "I'm just a Dreamer................."

Thats because the jumping is not the puzzle; rather finding the route. And don't say it's a glorified maze puzzle... :7

I know this is drifting off topic and therefore is bad form, but I just played the first bit of FOA yesterday including that puzzle and ... wow damn that's a good game. I'd forgotten. My general apathy towards and mistrust of Hal Barwood's game design skills had clouded my memory as to how good FOA is.


Anyway, back to BS3, yes? Jumping? :) I personally wouldn't mind if BS3 included "normal" video game jumping for added exploring purposes, but the play control would have to be good, and whatnot. I guess right now its got "3D Zelda" type jumping? Or is it even more simple than that (as in "its impossible to miss ever, the word 'jump' just means 'play mini-in-engine-cutscene')?

Jake: yes, it's entirely contextual. It's not like Zelda jumping. You don't have to aim. It's like any other adventure game. You don't actually expect to have to aim the key into the lock. No, you just tell the guy to put it in the lock and turn it, and he does. Same with BS3.


And yeah, Fate of Atlantis really is incredible. I busted it out a couple weeks ago and was blown away again. I made sure to play it totally objectively, too. I played that game when the talkie version had just come out, so I wanted to make sure I didn't have that nostalgia filter. Hell, no. That game rules.

Now i finally have proof that BS3 actually IS a tennis game!

http://maniac.adventuredevelopers.com/thetruth.jpg

http://maniac.adventuredevelopers.com/thetruth2.jpg

I knew Charles Cecil is evil!

Almost convincing, Igor. ;)

Pshhh. It's not a REAL tennis game. You just tell George when to swing and he does it automatically. :rolleyes:

BS3 is pure adventure! You never have a scene is bs3 where your progress through the game will be halted due to you not beating someone.
The action events may seem very obtuse to the genre but they work very well.
As stated by Charles, "People play adventure games as familys, the majority of players are women""In this action event people playing as family's will be shouting out hit her with the fridge, It's very interactive" (roughly remembered)
One also good scene Charles showed was in the congo with the use of warm (orange) and cold (blue colours) and it really adds effects.
Also with the sound hotspots that they use for the music layers, in a broken sword 3 map there are loads of different areas which will cause a certain audio stream to be faded in with the current music.
From what I saw was quite simply amazing, seeing the congo intro live was great, it looked stunning. The characters were very fluid (looked even more fluid than the gamer.tv footage)
Oh yea another quote George "The rod fits perfectly" Charles "You'll find in adventure games, things usually always fit"

um this is the same charles cecil that did a carol vorderman and was in and on everything saying how great and revolutionry In Cold Blood was going to be.. until the game was released and he shut up for three years. Its his job to hype things up and in his interest to create as much attention for BS3 as he can, which is what any good or bad developer does, but it has to be taken with a pinch of salt and can never be taken as impartial.

it would be easier to push the game as an adventure because of the millions of people that bought the last two, all the revolution fans and that other than BS3 there arent really any high profile western developed adventure games to rival BS3.

I'm not trying to start an arguement here but from whats been shown BS3 is very close in terms of gameplay and action to prisoner of war and harry potter. Neither of which were considered adventures by the adventure gaming community. This jumping & action stuff "should" be fine but we dont know yet. There are many games like Primal & Zelda which are action games but dont even involve pressing a button to jump.

Being a true adventure or not doesnt effect BS3 in the slightest anyway, a good game is a good game no matter what its labeled as. Although its sad how this gets all the attention from adventure game websites and other next generation games that dont feature the slighest hint of action or non-adventure elements get sidelined

(like JA+/AG and co. havent mentioned Glass Rose or Gregory Horror Show and it took two years and an iffy PC conversion for any adventure site to go near shadow of memories. Although thankfully the non-adventure games sites gave it enough attention for it to be a worldwide top 10 hit. Which is more than can be said for poor old Phase Paradox which never made it out of japan because no-one in Europe or the US wanted a console adventure game)