Other genres
 

I know you like adventure games, but do you love other genres as well? Have you looked at other game genres to see if you could incorporate some gameplay ideas into your adventures?

I hate Simulation and Racing games. (Just as much as I hate the daily routine and watching Forumula One on TV.) I hope I'm not hurting anybody's feelings here. :)

Shooters are very interesting in terms of technology and character AI, and there's a lot to learn there. But as a gamer, I just can't see much fun in running amok. Maybe I have to talk to my therapist about this.

Jump'n'Runs are fun. :)

Have you played Trackmania? Perhaps a weird question, but I normally dislike racing games, and yet found this particular one to be immense fun in a building-tracks-is-amusing kind of way.

As for 'Jump'n'Runs', do you mean platform games? And if so, have you any idea why so few people imitate the expansive, free-roaming style of games such as Mario 64, and why the PC has so few of these type of games?

But even then, there might be something to learn. Some level of simulation of the lives of the people in the adventure. And for racing, I think there is a place for car chases (in an adventury way). Every other movie has a car chase, and not without good reason.

Am I alone in getting reasonably bored with the sheer number of movie car chases? With a few exceptions, they're a very generic, and often unnecessary, way of padding out the film by another 10 minutes...

Yes, a *generic* car chase is not very interesting. As with everything else, it depends on how well it is done. I was just trying to point out that there might always be things to learn from outside your horizon, no matter how much you happen to dislike it.

If you wan't a non-generic, hell of a good, car chase, watch The Bourne Supremacy.

Back on topic, just like ragnar, I think that there is something in every genre that can be incorporated into any type of game. You just have to have an open mind. The actual task of finding that something is another issue... :rolleyes:

That's true. But it's easy to cross-over things so much that in the end you have a game that appeals to nobody.

The typical adventure game developer dilemma is that if you don't "innvovate", people will say "Yeah, that's all well and good, but where's the innovation?"

On the other hand, if you DO innovate, people will say "I don't want that in my game, the good ol' days were so much better!"

Generally I think it's not the case that game developers can't figure out how to do things. Limited resources and restricted budgets are a central problem.

I read an interview about Half Life 2 where they said that they had told the dev team "money doesn't matter".

In the real world, money does matter, and you have to set priorities. All you can do is work as hard as you can.

If not, you should demand to get a copy from Digital Jesters for free :)

Edit: Make that that four or five, so you can play it on the office LAN in the lunchbreaks..

Edit 2: No, forget it. It would probably have a _very_ damaging effect on your work efficiency, and we do want you to make more adventures... :)

I watched it being played, didn't play it myself.

Immensely addictive game. I know it catches everybody.

But I'm a smoker already that's why I'm still holding myself back. :)

Indeed, that seems vaguely familiar. :D
And I believe that that's a problem that occurs more often when making adventure games than when making games of other genres. We adventure gamers are so bloody picky.*


*No offense, Steve. :P
Yeah, because Half-Life 2 was a certain success before development even started. That doesn't apply to most games unfortunately.

Plus, Half-Life 2 is (like Doom 3 for id) going to be the game that shows off Valve's Source engine, so the more impressive they make it, the more more tempting it will be for other companies to pay huge sums to get to use their engine.

I remember, you saw TrackMania Sunrise at that June event. We got some many jounalists hooked onto that. :devil:

*advert* TrackMania, another fine DJ product (well for us in the UK anyway. :P) *advert*

Spammer.

;)

That is certainly a possibility. There are lots of examples of that. It should naturally fit within both the story and gameplay
That is very true. But that is something you have to live with and I think it ultimately boils down to what the developer think is fun and want to do. I just wish that more adventure game developers (and the gamers for that matter) look more out of the box and want to experiment a bit more. I think it would be a benefit if someone who usually doesn't make adventure games would make one and then adding his or her experience from making games in other genres.
I certainly appreciate that and that's what I am really sorry about: That there is so little room all over the game market for experimentation and doing odd things.

I certainly think you work hard, it's just that I wish it was an adventure game developer that had the HL2 resources instead.

I understand that, but I also see the other side:

We haven't yet seen any real proof that adventure gamers really want huge experiments.

Many adventure games that were technically very innovative and did something different, failed at retail. On the other hand, rather traditional games with good stories were very quite successful.

You gotta remember that we have to make a living from this. If changing adventure games was just a matter of openness and willingness to experiment - somebody would already have done it.

I know, and I understand. We all dream of that. :)

I don't think adventure gamers are that a homogeneous group. Without some form of innovation (not necessarily on technical grounds, mind you) it can be quite hard to attract new audiences and without new audiences, the clientele can only stagnate at best.

I think that developers shouldn't look too much at what they think their target group want, but to focus more on what you want your audience to feel and experience in your game (well I'm not talking about MoS in particular here, since I've not playedit yet, but more in general).

My view is: Before you can start to attract new audiences, you must learn how to attract an audience at all. And before you learn how to attract an audience, you must first sit down and actually start working on something.

Doing what you like is certainly always the key. Creating a game that you would want to play, that you would buy.

I certainly agree on that. If not even the developer of the game want to play it, it can't be a good game.

For what it's worth, I think it is madness to ask a developer to try and incorporate things they don't enjoy into their game - as a creator in any field you have to have a strong interest in the subject matter otherwise you can't give it the energy it needs.