Adventure Gamers - Forums

Are there any features you especially like to see, or you think they deserve more often place in games? I’m thinking about things like in-game hints (which might be overused a bit lately), maps, diaries…

Let me start:

We often talk about how to improve things, but I find some elements to be unjustly less used today. For example, while playing Memento Mori or Art of Murder I remembered how “close-ups” of the inventory items give you so much possibilities when designing a puzzle - you can read letters, rotate stuff, zoom, combine… or just look at the inventory objects more closely:

LucasArts used this in Escape from Monkey Island, and Sierra in King’s Quest 7, or Phantasmagoria. Of course, not every game is suited for it, but I’d still like to see it more often.

I like in game notebooks, especially when they are used for puzzles, like putting certain information together to get new clues… I agree with the close-ups too, finding fingerprints etc, or even finding and opening the battery for example.

I agree with diego. Being able to intricately examine objects in games just adds depth to puzzles.

I loved that in gabriel knight you learned new things and then could return to characters you’d spoken to previously and ask them questions based on that. It was as if when you started the game you were at the end of a funnel and near the end you had a huge repertoire of questions to ask people.

Perry Rhodan interface is very innovative,

1-using a dialogue or an idea as an inventory objects ,is a great
perspective that i wish and love to see used in all Adventures.

2-technically No need to scroll through the inventory objects,they (always) ALL show down there at
the bottom of the screen whether they were compacted or stretched.

I wish to see those features at all Adventures (esp the 2nd) .

For DS games: making full use of the DS functionality.
- One or two puzzles that need to be solved by closing the DS (deliciously out-of-the-box thinking required)
- A few puzzles or gameplay elements that require you to speak or blow in the microphone
- As much touchscreen functionality as possible

Good examples: the last (DS exclusive) case of the first Phoenix Wright game, Hotel Dusk & Last Window.

For all adventure games:
(note: a few of these are present in most RPGs but could enrich the adventure genre)
- Minigames (like Whack-A-Mole in Sam & Max Hit the Road, spitting from a roof in Beavis & Butthead’s Virtual Stupidity, casino games in Leisure Suit Larry, all the extra stuff in the Layton games, etc.) to spice up the gameplay a bit
- Maps for easy traveling (that show all locations you’ve already visited). Think Bethesda’s Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls map. Making the map an on-going game-element (like Miasmata seems to have done) looks interesting too.
- Traditional point-and-click gameplay could really benefit from the Special Edition of Monkey Island 2’s system (with the scroll button for the inventory and the quick-access verbs).
- Zoomed inventory examining (let us rotate and watch the items like in Phantasmagoria so that we may find hidden compartments or serial numbers ourselves)
- Unnecessary inventory items that are never used but that can increase the difficulty (like a lot of the items in And Then There Were None) or that are just plain fun (like the abomination prosthetics in Escape from Monkey Island)
- Journals/Notebooks with clues and info on characters you meet and locations you visit. Being able to combine notebook clues to get to new insights is a plus.
- Bonus scenes or bonus content for doing optional stuff in the game (that is the ‘right thing to do’), like returning the flute in Lost Horizon (for which you get a bonus medal) or returning Wonkers’ brain in Dreamfall (which gives you an absolutely amazing extra cutscene hours later in the game).
- Bonus content that gets unlocked in the game’s menu as you get further into the game (the option to replay cutscenes, or play the game’s sound tracks, or seeing concept art, etc.)
- Innovative gameplay elements that get added halfway in the game (like in Discworld Noir, or the added psychic abilities in Cognition) - things that keep the game fresh or suddenly breathe some new life in it
- Multiple solutions to puzzles (for instance: acquiring an item from a shopkeeper can be done by simply buying the item, distracting the shopkeeper and stealing the item, or trading him for another item or a service)
- Currency (like in Larry 1 or Zak McKracken)
- Day/night cycles and people having their own agendas (shops aren’t open at night, people go home after work, etc.)
- Good/bad, light/dark, paragon/renegade, karma, (in)sanity meters based on your actions, and having the environment react to your rating (doing good means people like you more, doing bad means people fear/dislike you more)
- Optional sidequests that help with your rating/status ^
- Factions and organizations: allying yourself with one faction means they can help you out with some things, while members of rival factions might dislike you for it
- etc.

Basically I want my games to be as varied as possible in terms of gameplay, and give you the illusion of free will as much as possible… which actually brings me close to actionless RPGs…

I therefore also fully endorse badlemon’s post ^^^

I also agree on most of the ideas above, like having short term/long term memory as “objects” (Resonance), having the ability to examine inventory up close to add problem solving possibilites, and having a notebook to rely on and integrate with to solve different puzzles (maybe like the Uncharted games for PS3 (not a pure Adventure Game though, but you get the idea)).

TerminusEst - 12 December 2012 08:13 PM

And, yes, please keep the combat

But make it turn-based (which I would prefer, like in the RPGs of old), or impossible to lose (like in Jake Hunter Detective Story), or skippable (like in L.A. Noire). This is the AG forum after all…