Adventure Gamers - Forums

L.A. - 10 November 2014 07:30 AM

1987 – Maniac Mansion – LucasFilm Games – No dead ends. Multiple way of solving the puzzles. SCUMM creation.

I’m pretty sure there’s dead ends in Maniac Mansion. Not only can the kids die, which will prevent you from doing certain things on some group of kids, you can also mess up by destroying important items.

Though I’m not a expert on all things Maniac Mansion, so if I am mistaken, correct me.

No, you could indeed get into a dead end in Maniac Mansion.

It was rare, and mostly involved having some of the kids with special skills killed, but there were a couple of other dead ends as well (I think you could waste the paint remover in a non-essential spot, or fail to obtain the unused stamps, for instance)...
It mostly depended on which kids you were playing with, and which ones were killed or not.

Edit: getting thrown in the dungeon with the last remaining kid, while not having the key, was a dead end as well…

An interesting list. I can see why it would be meaningful to a game designer. My own list as a gamer (I’m not going to make one!) would have some overlap with yours, but not for the same reasons. For instance, Myst would be on my list too because of its groundbreaking concept: I found it fascinating to be dumped in a beautiful environment without any idea what’s going on, where I should go; I loved exploring deserted islands, solving mechanical puzzles, etcetera. No game had done that before.

So for me it’s about the game experience. Bad Mojo had a unique, creative concept, although it won’t make your list.

L.A. - 10 November 2014 07:38 AM

Karlok - 31 October 2014 09:22 PM

No, they won’t, that’s not realistic. FPS and RPG and platformers will always come first. So what, we don’t want to rule the world, do we. 

Why in your opinion those genre have more possibilities than graphic adventure games?

I’m not saying they do. It’s simply not realistic to expect adventure games to appeal to the masses. 

Regarding to the games you mentioned. Unfortunately I have not played Fract Osc and The Novelist, but now I put them in my wish-list. Kentucky Route Zero is a good example. This game really pushes the borders of narration in videogame. Not the story itself but the use of the camera, the visual presentation, everything is working on creation of the best narration experience. It shows one of the possible direction for the genre improvement.

Not the story itself? That’s the part I disagree with!

The others are good game, but do they really bring something new? or it is still the same game mechanics we had before ? In my opinion first.

Again, I look at it from the player’s perspective. I don’t think there have been games like the Stanley Parable or Dear Esther before.

Karlok - 10 November 2014 09:00 AM

Again, I look at it from the player’s perspective. I don’t think there have been games like the Stanley Parable or Dear Esther before.

Actually there were plenty of those, it’s just that nobody has considered demoscene and multimedia as games up until 00s. They used to experiment with every form and shape.

Examples?

I had to look up demoscene. 
Would you tag Dear Esther or the Stanley Parable as a demoscene?

Karlok - 10 November 2014 12:50 PM

Examples?

I had to look up demoscene. 
Would you tag Dear Esther or the Stanley Parable as a demoscene?

Well, I remember multimedia products were very popular in the early-late 90s with the boom of CDs. Numerous interactive books, galleries (dedicated to different artists), encyclopedias, things based on music bands (I think every band had one, Bad Day on the Midway being one of the better known) and other cultural icons (Monty Python, Stephen King, Da Vinci, Lewis Carroll, etc.). There was little to no gameplay, mostly wandering around and observing environment, reading bios, listening to music, playing mini-games.

Demoscene is an old cyberculture that considers itself art (but not video games). They usually try to tell a short story through visuals and music only and, at the same time, push boundaries of graphics cards, which usually results in some weird clips and trips.

Dear Esther and Stanley Parable borrowed a bit of this and that, with stories added, but the rules are the same: wander around, watch and listen. Which is why I find all the praising really strange. Especially since 90s were way more experimental.