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The strange genre name: “ADVENTURE games”?
Civ games are prime examples of turn-based strategy, not sandbox games. Shouldn’t you use GTA-games instead???
Sandbox games are a pretty broad concept for any game that doesn’t have a traditional objective, or where that objective can be ignored. It applies to everything from SimCity to Elite to Minecraft, really.
I don’t know if I’d even call it a “genre.” It’s much broader than that.
I think I already blathered on about my take on Sandbox Gaming in the comment above yours. Dunno if you saw that.
Anyway, yeah, I can’t really see GTA as sandbox, no matter how often the Devs call it that. I see it as a modern RPG.
Lee Edward McIlmoyle,
Probably NOT the kind of guy you think he is.
I think what scotches it for some is that I’m deliberately not using the word ‘Game’ in the title, because I tend to think we have a bigger medium on our hands than mere ‘games’, which to my mind are skill-testing/honing devices, rather than a new storytelling medium. People love games, and I’ve enjoyed them myself, but I still think that Interactive Storytelling is bigger than that. I just wish I didn’t feel like the old man on the mountain whenever I start preaching about it.
I agree with this, but dropping the name ‘Game’ in favor of something else (‘experience’ maybe???) is highly impractical at this point.
But this could become a moot point once (or is that ‘if’?) games become known as a valid art form too.
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
I agree with this, but dropping the name ‘Game’ in favor of something else (‘experience’ maybe???) is highly impractical at this point.
But this could become a moot point once (or is that ‘if’?) games become known as a valid art form too.
HUGE If. And to be honest, I don’t see it happening in the next decade or so, because let’s face it, we’re late to a party that already has all the passive art forms sewn up, and wrote the rules of what is and isn’t ‘art’ long before. Hell, television still gets a bad wrap, and it’s been going strong for a good sixty years.
Lee Edward McIlmoyle,
Probably NOT the kind of guy you think he is.
I don’t know. I think ‘Narrative Puzzle Game’ is pretty narrow, actually. It says exactly what we like to argue AG is without making room for future growth. It’s too specific for my tastes, which is probably why I keep losing this argument.
The point is clarity, not breadth. I think the problem we’re trying to describe here is to find a word to describe the thing we call adventure that wouldn’t be easily confused for something else.
I think the whole discussion on the name of the genre is rather unimportant.
It would be nice if everybody immediately knew what kind of game or “experience” it is purely by the genre name, but that is not going to happen no matter what it is called. The simple truth is the the genre name is just a label, and if you don’t already know what that label means, then it won’t help changing the label, in fact it would properly only confuse those that know the old label.
I mean what does “Role Playing Game” or “Real Time Strategy” actually means, if you have never played or heard of it before then it means absolutely nothing. The first time i heard of RPG many years ago i actually thought that is was something very different.
I’m not arguing that AG doesn’t need a better image, but that won’t happen just because you change the genre name.
It is true that Adventure is also used in the description in many other games, and that it can cause some confusion, but as i has argued above it is just a label, and equally important it is a well established genre name.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
Even if you’ve played over 100 adventure games and know what the definition is supposed to mean, you can’t be sure of what a particular game that’s being called an “adventure game” will be like. Besides the outright mislabellings, the adventure genre is such a catchall that knowing something is called an “adventure” doesn’t narrow things down all that much. “Games like Monkey Island” are not much like “Games like Myst,” which are not much like “Games like The Longest Journey,” which are not much like “Games like Gobliiins,” which are not much like “Games like The Experiment,” etc.
Even if you say a game is a “Game like Monkey Island,” what exactly does that mean? Does it apply to all 3rd person adventures or is it more specific—3rd person cartoon-style humorous adventures? If you say a game is a “Game like Myst,” do you simply mean it’s a first person game or do you mean it’s a first person game that focusses on exploration and mechanical puzzles with little character interaction or inventory puzzles?
Pretty much all a “genre label” can do is tell you what a game is not, but even that doesn’t work with adventure games when the websites that sell them misclassify them as strategy, RPG, and action games.
But despite all the misclassification, I’m more apt to check out a game that’s being called an “adventure game” rather than a game that’s simply being called a “game.”
But renaming the genre won’t help with any of those issues.
You will only know more about the game, if it is divided into sub-genres. And there really isn’t much we can do about web-sites that misclassify a game.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
Games like Monkey Island” are not much like “Games like Myst,” which are not much like “Games like The Longest Journey,” which are not much like “Games like Gobliiins,” which are not much like “Games like The Experiment,” etc.
Except for this: I like them all. Why is that? There’s something common to these games, if only their spirit.
I suppose I’d think of them as “the thoughtful person’s videogame”, but then the same could be said of Thief.
I wish one day a psychologist (psychiatrist?) would conduct a study trying to explain why those useless threads about the definition of “adventure games” keep cropping up again and again and again and again and again and again. That debate has been settled ages ago. Why do people feel the need to re-open it every few months? (That’s a genuine question, actually, not just my exasperation talking; I’m curious.)
I agree both that the name “adventure” is dumb (in that it’s actually misleading to a certain extent, often contradicting the definition of the word itself), and that it’s impossible to slap a single label on a genre that covers such an incredibly diverse range of focus and style, making it pointless to try to replace.
And as I’ve said many times, the only reason it matters is that people want to make the label the LAST word in the discussion rather than the FIRST word in understanding the genre. Too many people want to hear the word and instantly know exactly what to expect, but that is foolish where adventure games are concerned. They’re simply too different. The very next thought whenever someone hears the word “adventure” should be “what KIND of adventure?” If we all did that, there’d be much less angst around here. 
That said, if I was held at gunpoint and forced to rename the genre, I’d call them “discovery” games. Yes, other genres involve discovery as well, but none as their raison d’être. As Oscar put it, that is really the “spirit” of adventure games, whether to reveal more of the story or environment or clues and solutions to puzzles. It’s all about wonder and experimentation and… discovery.
I remember an old gift shop owner that call Syberia as research&investigation; game..
“Going on means going far - Going far means returning”
That said, if I was held at gunpoint and forced to rename the genre, I’d call them “discovery” games.
I like that.
Lee Edward McIlmoyle,
Probably NOT the kind of guy you think he is.
You mean the genre label, or me being held at gunpoint? 
I hope it doesn’t catch on, though. It’d be such a nuisance renaming the site to Discovery Gamers.
That said, if I was held at gunpoint and forced to rename the genre, I’d call them “discovery” games.
I like that.
How about exploration games?
PS:Synonyms and related words:
analysis, domiciliary visit, dragnet, emprise, enquiry, examination, expedition, forage, frisk, house-search, hunt, hunting, inquiry, inspection, investigation, mission, observation, perquisition, pilgrimage, posse, probe, quest, ransacking, recce, recco, recon, reconnaissance, reconnoiter, reconnoitering, research, review, rummage, scouting, scrutiny, search, search party, search warrant, search-and-destroy op, searching, stalk, stalking, still hunt, study, survey, turning over
“Going on means going far - Going far means returning”
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