Adventure Gamers - Forums

Short answer is yes there is a difference. In my opinion the adventure game genre has been bastardized almost beyond recognition. Which in of itself is not a huge issue other than the fact that developers and game companies especially the smaller ones try to push something as being an adventure game when in my opinion it misses most of the tenants of what an adventure game was and is supposed to be. For the record even though I don’t like most of them I have no problem with people who like visual novels or interactive fiction or Choose Your Own Adventure, I just believe in truth in advertising. That’s what those games are, they are not adventure games they might have a few Adventure game elements in them but that not the game itself.

I feel like adventure games is the only main genre that has all these other subgenres pretending to be them.

For instance many action adventure games or even first person shooters have had light role-playing game elements in them but nobody would put them in a true RPG category even though there’s elements of a RPG in them.

that does not happen in adventure games. Devs will label stuff as an Adventure game even though it’s really not; or use buzz words like if you like broken sword or Monkey Island or Gabriel Knight then my game will take you back to those classic Tales. What I have found is usually they mean their game might be slightly Gothic or involve voodoo like Gabriel Knight but everything else that Gabriel knight was is missing, like being an actual game with real puzzles that provided the gameplay.

For the third time for the people who actually like just straight up visual novels or Choose Your Own Adventure or interactive fiction without much gameplay, thats fine those games deserve to exist and people do love them they sell lots of copies. I’m just saying have some truth and honesty in advertising, that is not what an adventure game was and what a lot of us want to play now.

Heavy rain and all the Telltale Games have a lot in common with each other, and they all do contain some Adventure game elements but they are not adventure games. Unless your definition of an adventure game is so loose, it just means anything with a story and completely avoids the topic of gameplay.

My bigger problem with telltale is not them masquerading as an adventure game; but is the gimmick they do employee is also BS, which is that your choice matters. Anybody who has played more than one telltale game will tell you that choice is an illusion, the devs tell us the story they want to tell and the whole gimmick in the game “of this character will remember what you said” really only means they will have a slightly altered dialogue line and the story still funnels you down the same path. I feel like so many games do that now and is infuriating to me. Especially when older games made in the early 90s actually had choice and a whole different alternate path either depending on choice or gameplay. As I always bring up the wing Commander series had multiple paths in the first games if you flew your ship poorly the games had different endings, and then in three and four your dilaogue options would actually give you different endings. Not super Advanced but at least it was not the same story with only two lines of dialogue slightly changed, like in telltale games.

Just like I feel like games have become overbloated to pad the game length to 50 to 100 hrs, i also feel like dialogue trees are way overbloated now too, where you spend more time in menus picking options, that really give you no key difference to story outcome.  one recent example of this is an adventure game I played called 9 nor lives, the dialogue was actually pretty well written but it became so much talking that nothing else mattered much as far as gameplay went.

luckyloser - 16 November 2023 09:30 AM

Is there any difference between Visual Novels, Narrative-Driven Adventure, Choose Your Own Adventure, Walking Simulator, and Interactive fiction?  or are they almost the same thing that describes adventures/games like The Wolf Among Us, Life is Strange, or Heavy Rain?

Very different things.

Although as there’s no official definition, you can’t really argue that someone’s opinion about them being the same is wrong. And obviously if one is a person who prefers playing action games, maybe they all really look the same.

Anyway, here are some definitions that you may agree or disagree with:

Visual Novels:
They originate from Japanese dating simulators that got more content with storylines and (sometimes) puzzles. One false definition is that almost any game coming from Japan with a story is labelled a visual novel in some circles.

Narrative-driven adventure:
Can mean anything really, I wouldn’t call that even a genre. But traditionally adventures had stuff like mazes and fighting, so I suppose “narrative-driven” means that the whole thing relies more on the story than any action or puzzles. Whether that means stuff like kinetic visual novels (without any user interaction) can be debated.

Choose your own adventure:
They originate from storybooks, where you can choose what the protagonists are going to do next. If you want to be a real annoying purist, then labelling any random game with choices as “choose your own adventure” is wrong, as the term would only mean digital versions of older paper books.

Walking simulator:
Basically means games seen from the first person perspective, where you don’t have a clear idea about the situation to begin with. So you walk around and try to make sense of things around you. Some people claim that there can’t be puzzles in walking simulators, which I can’t understand, but that’s one definition anyway…

Interactive fiction:
It’s either a trendier name for old text-only adventures, or by a different definition it’s an interactive novel that has a real novel-like structure (which text adventure don’t necessarily have). And one debatable definition related to this is that visual novels are interactive fiction with pictures. Some agree, some disagree, but at least historically they come from a different source.

In the bigger context they are all the same thing though. They rely on story over other things, like action, and usually you can advance by thinking rather than reflexes and so on.

And of course on the other hand, very strictly speaking The Secret of Monkey Island and Broken Sword are from different subgenres as well, because in the former you click on action verbs and in the latter you have a context-sensitive mouse pointer… 

You know gatekeeper I agree with 95% of that but that goes to my whole issue, that the adventure game genre has been so co opted that it has no real meaning. To relate it to the other thread, I think that’s why many Adventure game fans are not against remakes and sequels, because maybe at least those games will just maybe give them the feeling of a classic adventure game.

By the way every genre in gaming has been co-opted to some extent like I pointed out in my previous post, but not to the level of un recognizability that the adventure game genre has become in the past decade or so.

Anyway I think im done talking about this topic though, because it’s become tiresome even for me. The whole point was it’s hard to wade through the Sea of other genres masquerading as adventure games to pick out the one to two games that actually might be adventure games, and that’s where the passion comes from, at least for me.

GateKeeper - 16 November 2023 10:49 AM

Walking simulator:
Basically means games seen from the first person perspective, where you don’t have a clear idea about the situation to begin with. So you walk around and try to make sense of things around you. Some people claim that there can’t be puzzles in walking simulators, which I can’t understand, but that’s one definition anyway…

Walking Simulator is a derisive term turned buzzword by interchangeable YouTubers used to twitch gameplay almost exclusively, in order to brush off titles they didn’t like. It shouldn’t exist especially in an AG aficionado’s vocab because we’re at a point most of our oldies like Riven are easily qualified as such, like its modern spiritual successor.

Despite similar experiences existing long before 2012, it was born that year as a reaction to the award-winning Dear Esther and others alike, seeing as they couldn’t stand to witness what they viewed as “casual” experiences getting more recognition. And so nowadays everything is branded a Walking Simulator, like Yahtzee qualifying Layers of Fear and Observer_ as such (there goes the no-puzzles condition), The Witness and Life is Strange showing up in the lists of its most significant examples (there goes the first-person, difficulty, and not having a clear idea conditions), the unskippable press-up-for-narrative sequences prevalent in many Sony first-party titles being branded as such, and atypical games like Death Stranding too despite its walking mechanic alone being more intricate than what’s on offer in their twitch shooters. Death Stranding doesn’t become a Driving, Swimming, Rappelling, Survival, Shooting, Tracking, Terraforming, Building, Management, and so on Simulator whenever these mechanics are used freely — it’s a Walking Simulator because they didn’t like it. And it’s been acting retroactively; even its Wikipedia page now qualifies late-70s titles for the C64 and Spectrum as its first examples.

Doom - 16 November 2023 01:53 PM

To be fair, visual novels and “choose your own adventures” are just as old as graphic adventures. The former, as GateKeeper mentioned, originated exclusively in Japan, and they basically substituted adventure games for them. At least I can’t recall anything similar to Sierra/LucasArts where you actually had to use your brains to progress. But Snatcher, for example, has been long considered to be the best Japanese ag of all time, yet there is hardly any gameplay besides choosing options from a menu of verbs and constant shooting.

And “choose your own adventure” was popularised by the late Infocom I think when they were fighting to survive and started publishing those ZorkQuests where you only had to choose the direction of the storyline. I’m sure they weren’t sold as adventure games, but coming from Infocom they were inevitably expected to be such. Cyan also started with kids games presented as barely interactive pictures and then suddenly released “the best-selling adventure of all time”. I guess all this influenced the perception of those niche genres and their inclusion into the ag family.

Personally I always considered them a waste of time since I always saw games as a test of my skills — thinking, reaction, strategy planning. But if a good story is all I want, then I’d rather read a book or watch a movie, in 99% of cases it’s a more rewarding experience than a computer game.

Just when I was out you pull me back in LOL JK. Yeah visual novels in one form or another have been around for years, I’m not sure which came first. Same with qte, a lot of those game elements are now considered part of the adventure game genre even though they were around before that. For instance games like dragons Lair from the 80s, and maybe even before that. I don’t think many people consider dragons lair an Adventure game, more so a quarter sucking arcade machine that bases its gameplay loop around Simon Says repetition and memorization.

I completely agree with your last paragraph, what makes a game a game is interactivity to me and simply pressing a button once every 5 to 10 minutes to make a choice after watching 30 minutes of cutscenes is not gameplay to me. Puzzles where you actually have to use your brain are gameplay to me, for instance like I’ve said before a locked door with the key to open the door one room away in a drawer is not a puzzle, it’s padding for game length and to meet a threshold of interactivity, but if that’s all there is in the game, I’ll call that game a walking simulator, because anybody with a IQ above 3 would figure that puzzle out. But to be fair adventure games with no context or story also don’t interest me that much either. The witness has some great puzzles but I did lose interest because the story of the island is not front and center. One of my other favorite genres RPGs I feel the same way, Dark Souls has a story but it’s told in the background mostly and it’s one of those games I can see why people love it, just never captured me like that, because the story did not grab me. I feel the mix needs to be as close to 50/50 as possible but I feel like most “adventure games” now and I use that term loosely is 95% watching 5% gameplay, if you want to call it that.

@Doom Examples of using brainpower to progress were too few and far between. Pixel hunting, moon logic or obvious solutions were the norm. And in the case of Japanese Ags the moon logic comes from solving narrative puzzles navigating changing verbs like in Zeit’s Neji Shiki. But many didn’t come to western shores. The localized port/remake of Snatcher is a lighter option even in Japan. Dating sims like Tokimeki Memorial which were a variation of their Ags were more open ended and increasingly harder depending on your goal. It also didn’t come to western shores and was a much bigger hit than Snatcher in Japan.

@LAmb Every VR game I’ve played was categorized as a walking simulator. There was no walking in them. There were puzzles and sometimes target practice. It’s an empty label so unsurprisingly Myst became one. In that 25 best walking simulator list Flower and Journey are mentioned. So walking isn’t required.

Doom - 16 November 2023 03:36 PM

Jdawg445 - 16 November 2023 02:14 PM

Just when I was out you pull me back in LOL JK. Yeah visual novels in one form or another have been around for years, I’m not sure which came first. Same with qte, a lot of those game elements are now considered part of the adventure game genre even though they were around before that. For instance games like dragons Lair from the 80s, and maybe even before that. I don’t think many people consider dragons lair an Adventure game, more so a quarter sucking arcade machine that bases its gameplay loop around Simon Says repetition and memorization.

I completely agree with your last paragraph, what makes a game a game is interactivity to me and simply pressing a button once every 5 to 10 minutes to make a choice after watching 30 minutes of cutscenes is not gameplay to me. Puzzles where you actually have to use your brain are gameplay to me, for instance like I’ve said before a locked door with the key to open the door one room away in a drawer is not a puzzle, it’s padding for game length and to meet a threshold of interactivity, but if that’s all there is in the game, I’ll call that game a walking simulator, because anybody with a IQ above 3 would figure that puzzle out. But to be fair adventure games with no context or story also don’t interest me that much either. The witness has some great puzzles but I did lose interest because the story of the island is not front and center. One of my other favorite genres RPGs I feel the same way, Dark Souls has a story but it’s told in the background mostly and it’s one of those games I can see why people love it, just never captured me like that, because the story did not grab me. I feel the mix needs to be as close to 50/50 as possible but I feel like most “adventure games” now and I use that term loosely is 95% watching 5% gameplay, if you want to call it that.

Yes, a story told through puzzle solving and “non-destructive” (to a point, of course) interaction with the game world has been always considered the basics of the genre. While Colossal Cave and other early IFs didn’t bring much story with them, they set the rules, and then came Infocom, Sierra, etc. who polished the formula. And ags offered so many ways to tell a story: through dialogues, through notes/books, through environment, through deduction… Want to tell several stories at once? Well, make several different playable characters. It could be always made part of gameplay — but not a core gameplay. Why abandon puzzles/interactivity in favour of gamers who “just want a good story”?

Speaking of QTE games, they sure test your reaction — in fact that’s all they do (which is the main reason NOT to call them adventure games, it baffles me why people ignore such obvious contradiction). Yet they do this in the dumbest way possible. QTE is not based on one’s experience with the game, nor some sort of tactics, surviving, “aha” moments. No, they treat you like a guinea pig who is exclusively told — in big letters — which button you should press right now. It’s primitive, repetitive and, if anything, offensive. It was probably considered cool when it was new (and Dragon’s Lair also came up with jaw-dropping graphics and animation), but this endless line of QTE exclusives has bastardised gaming and gamers beyond repair

QTE has also mostly died off in other genres because devs realized that gamers hate them. I feel like they’re still prevalent in adventure games because the developers feel like they need some interaction in their game or somebody’s going to call the “game” a scam lol. I also find it a cop out whenever devs are like we don’t put puzzles in our games now because the internet exist and people can use a walk through, so puzzles are meaningless.  Since we started this conversation I was trying to think when is the first time I saw a qte in a more modern game and the one that sticks out in my mind is sword of the berserk guts rage for the Sega Dreamcast

For the record I’m actually hard on some of my favorite games too like for example Blade Runner is one of my favorite games of all time but I really don’t consider it an adventure game either because it doesn’t meet my criteria of puzzle solving. You do collect clues in the game but there’s really no deductive reasoning you have to do yourself as the chatacter, the game itself saves the clues in a database and solves the deducting part for you. I will say however that your choice does actually matters cuz the NPCs are randomized to be human or replicant so there’s like 17 or 18 different perminations of an ending which is something telltale can only dream of. I think blade runner has way more of a case to be called an adventure game than most though.

@Doom It’s a matter of personal experience ig. It was rare for me to find any puzzle that required brainpower as in deductive reasoning beyond following the clear bread crumbs. There are many similar to Clock Tower 1 like the unlocalized ムーンライトシンドローム series or 夕闇通り探検隊. Or more recent ones like 葬回診. Then there were many Myst-like Ags: Kowloon’s Gate and Keiji Eno’s localized projects like Enemy Zero come to mind. Then there were sound novels with Ag elements like 弟切草 but this extensive subgenre never became a thing in the west. There is a big variation and if you’re interested in finding out more about this world I suggest reading the comprehensive list An Introduction To Japanese Adventure Games pt.1 - What They Are and The Different Types on Neogaf that I contributed.

Doom…. ah good old shenmue, i remember the forklift mini game like it was yesterday. Dreamcast also host my personal two favorite jrpgs in skies of arcadia and grandia 2. I always did feel like turn based combat, was like small puzzle solving in role playing format. I like rpgs in general, but i do prefer turn based combat in part for my love of adventure games. You are right though jrpgs are a lot like adventure games, much more than cage’s new offerings.

I do love blade runner, top 10 game for me, but i do wish the game had actual more investigation and deduction. I feel like the game also needed more photos to comb through.

Doom - 16 November 2023 06:44 PM

I think “moon logic” became an overrated term with years as people tend to use it each time they got stuck on a puzzle for more than 10 minutes.

That’s a good point.
“I can’t solve it, so the game is flawed.” That’s not how it really is.

I think what defines moon logic is that you can’t come up with a solution logically, and logic is a very loose term here. Basically the solution has to fit the rules of the game world. For instance, if in the game world you can walk through walls, you can’t call walking through a wall moon logic, but if for some reason you need to open a door and not go through a wall next to it, it might be moon logic then.

In more realistic settings the player should expect things like physics work like in the real world, but often it’s the complete opposite, like how temperature and pressure changes affect objects incorrectly and so on.

Doom - 16 November 2023 06:44 PM

Regarding the first QTE game, I think Dreamcast had quite a few of those when it launched. I remember reading Shenmue previews and dreaming of playing an open-world adventure where you could wander around a huge 3D world and do whatever you want, enter every door, pick up and use anything you want and follow whatever plotline you choose. And then discovering how limited it was in terms of interaction and storytelling, with an increasing amount of QTE challenges.

I don’t think you are 100% correct about Dreamcast launch.

The very first game that had QTE was Shenmue, and it was released a bit later than the console. I suppose we could argue that there are similar things with a different name, but Shenmue was the one that introduced them as QTEs.

And because Shenmue is an adventure game (at least according to many, some disagree), it’s kind of logical that the whole concept is associated with certain kind of adventure games.

If you consider how massive Shenmue is, and how much variation there is in the gameplay, QTE is maybe 5% or less of the whole content. Obviously if you happen to get stuck in them, they may feel worse than they actually are.
And also, those fighting scenes are not QTEs, even though some people may have those two confused.

Shenmue probably couldn’t have had much more features in it due to technical limitations, it’s amazing that it accomplished what it did. I mean, there was a simulated day and night pattern with shadows that reflected that, there were entire arcade games embedded in it, all of which don’t advance the story at all, but make the game more life-like. Not to mention the shopping street which is a real world location.

Charophycean - 16 November 2023 09:20 PM

There are as far as I’m aware no games which could be described as actually simulating walking. If anyone knows one I’m happy to be proven wrong. It was never meant as a genre descriptor in any sense.

Yes there are such games. I don’t recall any titles at the moment though.

But there are some games where you need to, for instance, walk across some park, and that’s it.
These are mostly some obscure freeware games, but they do exist. I think in some cases you can even walk as an animal, instead of human. I may be wrong here, but I believe there are even some educational games where you can walk on the surface of Mars and such.

Obviously whether these qualify as adventure games is a whole different discussion. Even if we accept walking simulators as a subgenre of adventure games, are all walking simulators adventure games?

And speaking of Shenmue, if you don’t even attempt finish the game and solve any puzzles, you can just walk around the town, buy things, and play arcade games. Wouldn’t that in a sense qualify as a walking simulator as well? 

Gatekeeper, even though Shenmue might have coined the term qte, they’ve been around for years, like I said dragons lairs gameplay is nothing but qte, you can call it anything you want, but anybody who played the game will say those are qte events and that came out in the 80s. Even the game i mentioned beserk guts rage came out a week b4 shenmue.  Seems to me the Japanese development community as a whole were interested in qte at the time