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I do believe, that the reason why no one is really trying to emulate GK3 or BS3 is, that neither of thme really managed to bring adventure gameing to modern tech in a manner that would have satisifed larger audience. For the longest time, devs had problems in figuring out how to use 3D in an adventure game. It also caused the former leaders of the business become as followers, who were trying to play catch up with smaller develoeprs, who could get producs out faster, thanks to early 3D shoters having very little story and other time consuming elements adventure developers were forced to develope.
Myst is really an interesting case. It was a huge hit and it did have its followers, but not that many Myst clones are done these days. Most opt to do realtime 3D games instead and I do believe that’s mostly because Myst was always a bit clunky game in terms of controls. I never liked it, as moving around in games like Myst has always been a bit confusing to me, as I feel the camera often moves in a different manner than I exptect it to move, where as in realtime 3D game, navigation is more logical.
I’d claim that modern 3D games really owe far more to Tex Murphy-series than Myst or any Sierra or Lucasfilm game.
But I believe what Sierra, LucasArts and other companies did for about 10 years during the Golden Years of adventure gaming, and few years before and after, was simply the best kind of adventure gaming to most people, and they are following that pattern, both in game design as well as with graphics and GUI.
You don’t make changes to a winning team - makes sense.
I do believe, that the reason why no one is really trying to emulate GK3 or BS3 is, that neither of thme really managed to bring adventure gameing to modern tech in a manner that would have satisifed larger audience.
I remember that at one point many cartoons tried to go 3D, but they looked awful compared to their former 2D version. It took a lot of time, effort and money to bring 3D animation to a level good enough to compete with 2D. Maybe earlier 3D adventure games had the same problem? The 3D aspect was a cool novelty, but ultimately, didn’t bring that much to the table, and therefore the player felt like ‘what is even the point’? With shooters it’s a different story: you make a pretty big transition from a simple pratformer to a first person experience that is on a completely different level. Nobody really cared that the platformer would have looked better, because 3D is obviously so much better.
by the time Gabriel knight 3 and broken sword 3 came along, technology had came a long way and other genres caught up and surpassed adventure game genre. Not only in gameplay but other games had started matching in story telling abilities as well. such as wing Commander 3, wing Commander 4, Metal Gear Solid Etc…
Let’s not forget Cinemaware!
They were around only about five years, but I dare claim they changed the industry.
For instance, Wings is a brilliant game because not only are those flying missions fun, but between them the game also tells the story of the pilot.
Not to forget the most brilliant feature of all: when you die during a mission, you don’t get a game over, but can continue the game as a replacement pilot who starts his own story.
I remember the first time I saw a “talkie” on the computer, it was mind blowing to me. Before that you might have the odd word or saying voiced in a game but that was it. It was wing commander 2 and the whole intro cutscene, they had characters that were talking and I thought I was watching a Saturday morning cartoon show. for a while adventure games were the only ones to do that, consistently.
Yeah, Wing Commander 1 & 2 were great games, although the talkie was an add-on disk, so it wasn’t really designed from the very beginning. Wing Commander 3 & 4 is a different story obviously, although on some level 1 & 2 were more immersive, because Mark Hamill’s presence was just too overwhelming. Not to mention it was ridiculous how much you got to watch an elevator going up and down the shaft, which was obviously hiding the FMV loading.
Intro sequences are very important as such though.
Ultima VIII: Pagan has a great opening from roughly the same era, not to mention Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity which has possibly the most engaging opening sequence in adventure games ever, not counting The Secret of Monkey Island.
thanks to early 3D shoters having very little story and other time consuming elements adventure developers were forced to develope.
I recommend reading the original design documents for Doom.
They actually had a game that consisted of 10 levels, and there were interactions with NPCs, conversations, items to pick up and carry in the inventory, and even some puzzles.
The game that was made was revolutionary, but had none of the above, even the number of levels was only four. So something happened that made them to seriously scale down their plans, whether it was technical challenges, or simply their attempt to cut out stuff that wasn’t action, I don’t know.
But the game in the design documents was very different.
With shooters it’s a different story: you make a pretty big transition from a simple pratformer to a first person experience that is on a completely different level. Nobody really cared that the platformer would have looked better, because 3D is obviously so much better.
Yeah, although the transition wasn’t quite as straightforward as that.
There were a good number of games that were sort of overlapping between 2D and 3D, even Doom had quite flat 2D NPCs, and the 3D was kind of fake.
But anyway, 3D and FPS are not actually synonyms.
First person shooting happened long before 3D was technically possible.
For instance, the classic arcade game Operation Wolf was a first person shooter, and even had some digitised speech in the intro:
It was even available for home computers, such as Commodore 64. Obviously it isn’t as impressive as the arcade version, but still a good game.
I actually have a real physical C64 version, so I am speaking from personal experience here. 
by the time Gabriel knight 3 and broken sword 3 came along, technology had came a long way and other genres caught up and surpassed adventure game genre. Not only in gameplay but other games had started matching in story telling abilities as well. such as wing Commander 3, wing Commander 4, Metal Gear Solid Etc…
Let’s not forget Cinemaware!
They were around only about five years, but I dare claim they changed the industry.
For instance, Wings is a brilliant game because not only are those flying missions fun, but between them the game also tells the story of the pilot.
Not to forget the most brilliant feature of all: when you die during a mission, you don’t get a game over, but can continue the game as a replacement pilot who starts his own story.I remember the first time I saw a “talkie” on the computer, it was mind blowing to me. Before that you might have the odd word or saying voiced in a game but that was it. It was wing commander 2 and the whole intro cutscene, they had characters that were talking and I thought I was watching a Saturday morning cartoon show. for a while adventure games were the only ones to do that, consistently.
Yeah, Wing Commander 1 & 2 were great games, although the talkie was an add-on disk, so it wasn’t really designed from the very beginning. Wing Commander 3 & 4 is a different story obviously, although on some level 1 & 2 were more immersive, because Mark Hamill’s presence was just too overwhelming. Not to mention it was ridiculous how much you got to watch an elevator going up and down the shaft, which was obviously hiding the FMV loading.
Intro sequences are very important as such though.
Ultima VIII: Pagan has a great opening from roughly the same era, not to mention Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity which has possibly the most engaging opening sequence in adventure games ever, not counting The Secret of Monkey Island.thanks to early 3D shoters having very little story and other time consuming elements adventure developers were forced to develope.
I recommend reading the original design documents for Doom.
They actually had a game that consisted of 10 levels, and there were interactions with NPCs, conversations, items to pick up and carry in the inventory, and even some puzzles.The game that was made was revolutionary, but had none of the above, even the number of levels was only four. So something happened that made them to seriously scale down their plans, whether it was technical challenges, or simply their attempt to cut out stuff that wasn’t action, I don’t know.
But the game in the design documents was very different.
With shooters it’s a different story: you make a pretty big transition from a simple pratformer to a first person experience that is on a completely different level. Nobody really cared that the platformer would have looked better, because 3D is obviously so much better.
Yeah, although the transition wasn’t quite as straightforward as that.
There were a good number of games that were sort of overlapping between 2D and 3D, even Doom had quite flat 2D NPCs, and the 3D was kind of fake.But anyway, 3D and FPS are not actually synonyms.
First person shooting happened long before 3D was technically possible.For instance, the classic arcade game Operation Wolf was a first person shooter, and even had some digitised speech in the intro:
It was even available for home computers, such as Commodore 64. Obviously it isn’t as impressive as the arcade version, but still a good game.
I actually have a real physical C64 version, so I am speaking from personal experience here.
you’re an encyclopedia of knowledge about games and I love it.
Back to the topic at hand I think the other reason pixiel type games are so prevalent, is because of companies like wadjet eyes games. Here was one dude making freeware games and somehow turned that into a profitable company that’s going on for over a decade. It is actually quite amazing when you really stop to think about it. Dave always seems to find The Sweet Spot whether it’s his own game or he’s publishing somebody else’s. I never heard of Hobbs barrow a month before it came out, but from everything I’ve seen and know, the sales figures have been great. They could be off some but the game regardless, has sold extremely well. so he has another hit in his catalog. I know a lot was made about him putting like eight or nine games in a Humble Bundle recently, for eight or nine dollars, it was posted in a lot of different groups that I belong to. but that kind of promotion keeps his games in the zeitgeist. plus wadjet eye never disappears for long, they usually have a game coming out every year to year and a half.
Yeah, the history of games, tech and graphics is rarely as straightforwad as it seems by just looking at popular games. When it comes to 1st person 3D games, 1992’s Ultima Underworld was years ahead of its time by having real 3D levels and even possibility to look up and down. The game was a technical marvel for its time, having both good and evil NPC charcaters. You could talk with them and trade with them. And of course, there were puzzles.
In comparison, Doom wasn’t a real 3D game, as it lacked the possibility to have as simple things as bridges. You can’t make a levelled structure in Doom engine under which and over you can walk. But in Ultima Underworld you could have those. It even had rudimentary physics.
I recommend reading the original design documents for Doom.
They actually had a game that consisted of 10 levels, and there were interactions with NPCs, conversations, items to pick up and carry in the inventory, and even some puzzles.The game that was made was revolutionary, but had none of the above, even the number of levels was only four. So something happened that made them to seriously scale down their plans, whether it was technical challenges, or simply their attempt to cut out stuff that wasn’t action, I don’t know.
That’s exactly what happened. Tom Hall and John Carmack + the rest of id had completely different games in mind, so they just (wisely) ignored Hall’s overloaded design doc and made a straight-up action game that took full advantage of Carmack’s engine. They probably wouldn’t pulled it off anyway, at the time id was just a small indie company. Looking Glass released a real 3D shooter with real story and puzzles in just a year (System Shock), and there’s still an ongoing debate whether it was a masterpiece or a failure.
PC means personal computer
oh God, maybe this is a terrible idea, but i think something’s pulling me back.
Anyway, i feel this discussion. Here’s two more cents:
RETRO itself is a marketing tool. It’s a cool 5 letter word that evokes nostalgia. It’s also a way to create financial bubbles by adding value to (collectable) commodities, not really applicable to digital media distribution, but i think the word is associated with value subconsciously anyway. When things are discussed and sold as RETRO, it’s because someone thinks this adds value to something that may seem outdated, redundant and superfluous.
RETRO in adventure generally applies to visual presentation: 90s LucasArts/Wadjet Eye style, pixelated. This is just a very accessible technique, it doesn’t require expensive software or licenses. There’s a great amount of work and even some theory that you can learn from, it doesn’t require a lot of math and with enough effort, it can suggest moods, expressions, movements very effectively.
Some people know/are able to afford actors, have access to expensive recording and editing tools.. and grants, or other forms of (large) investments. These games will be made.
A lot of (indie) developers will go for pixels. Should they call it RETRO? is it really? To me that’s like asking if the recipe is really new and improved, like it says on the carton. I think video game history is short, with too many overlapping developments happening either in short order or simultaneously. In other words: claiming pixelated/retro aesthetics are old hat, to me, is like people pretend working on wood is redundant because there’s also plastic, or some high-tech materials.
I can be wrong here, but I think the number one reason for retro graphics is… nostalgia. Many indie developers grew up on classical point-and-click titles and want to incorporate the magic of these games into their own projects.
I, too, might be wrong here but the first adventure I ever played was the original King’s Quest I. It was first published for PC in 1984. I thought it was a few years earlier than that, but who am I to argue with Wiki?
So, what’s the point? Well it means that if you are less than 39 years old, you weren’t even born when KQI first came out. If you first played KQI when you were 20 years old when it first came out, you are now one year short of 60. So it’s hard for me to think that Nostalgia is a motivator here. My guess is that most indie developers are probably on the light side of 40.
And, since it’s obvious that I have few nostalgic memories of retro-style graphics, and since most contributors are aware that I am truly old enough to remember the dawning of the computer gaming world, I have a right to say that nostalgia is a cop out.
I haven’t read this entire thread yet, but you are conflating two different forms of retro graphics. Most retro style games today are going back to the well circa The Secret of Monkey Island through, say, Day of the Tentacle and maybe even Full Throttle. From a Sierra point of view, that’s the VGA/SVGA games, so King’s Quest V and onward, until they went 3D.
Not many modern games are going so far back in the retro time machine as to try and replicate the style of King’s Quest I.
Also, I’m juuuust about to turn 36 years old, and vividly remember playing KQ III and IV at a friend’s house when I was around 7 years old (around 1993-1994). Those games came out well before then, but perhaps technological adaptation was a little slower, a little less reflexive, back then. We played the old stuff because that’s what our uncles copied onto floppies for us, and that’s all we knew. Which is to say in a very roundabout anecdotal way: I’m relatively young, and still feel nostalgia for games that came out when I was not even 2 year old.
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I can be wrong here, but I think the number one reason for retro graphics is… nostalgia. Many indie developers grew up on classical point-and-click titles and want to incorporate the magic of these games into their own projects.
I, too, might be wrong here but the first adventure I ever played was the original King’s Quest I. It was first published for PC in 1984. I thought it was a few years earlier than that, but who am I to argue with Wiki?
So, what’s the point? Well it means that if you are less than 39 years old, you weren’t even born when KQI first came out. If you first played KQI when you were 20 years old when it first came out, you are now one year short of 60. So it’s hard for me to think that Nostalgia is a motivator here. My guess is that most indie developers are probably on the light side of 40.
And, since it’s obvious that I have few nostalgic memories of retro-style graphics, and since most contributors are aware that I am truly old enough to remember the dawning of the computer gaming world, I have a right to say that nostalgia is a cop out.
I haven’t read this entire thread yet, but you are conflating two different forms of retro graphics. Most retro style games today are going back to the well circa The Secret of Monkey Island through, say, Day of the Tentacle and maybe even Full Throttle. From a Sierra point of view, that’s the VGA/SVGA games, so King’s Quest V and onward, until they went 3D.
Not many modern games are going so far back in the retro time machine as to try and replicate the style of King’s Quest I.
Also, I’m juuuust about to turn 36 years old, and vividly remember playing KQ III and IV at a friend’s house when I was around 7 years old (around 1993-1994). Those games came out well before then, but perhaps technological adaptation was a little slower, a little less reflexive, back then. We played the old stuff because that’s what our uncles copied onto floppies for us, and that’s all we knew. Which is to say in a very roundabout anecdotal way: I’m relatively young, and still feel nostalgia for games that came out when I was not even 2 year old.
Yeah to go from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the old Nintendo, to Wing Commander 2 where the game actually had characters talking was a culture shock and awesome to me.
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