Adventure Gamers - Forums

Oscar - 06 November 2012 07:28 PM

But it won’t. Someone earlier said text adventures died 30 years ago because they were outdated, too hard and people weren’t playing them. Yet they are still being made.

And played by little more than a handful of people…

Except for the recent Cypher I hadn’t heard ANYTHING about text adventures in over a decade…

Timovieman, you’re never going to persuade people like Grossman’s mother-in-law to play adventure games, tutorial or not. Grossman’s article made it clear that it’s not about instructions, it’s the gamer’s mind-set that subject M. lacked. She wasn’t enjoying any of it. I once had more or less the same experience with a family member who I was sure would enjoy playing an adventure game with me. I was wrong.

And even if you could entice a couple of those unwilling newcomers with one of your tutorials, I shudder to think what that tutorial would look like to the more experienced and more eager player.

Fien - 07 November 2012 08:31 AM

Timovieman, you’re never going to persuade people like Grossman’s mother-in-law to play adventure games, tutorial or not. Grossman’s article made it clear that it’s not about instructions, it’s the gamer’s mind-set that subject M. lacked. She wasn’t enjoying any of it. I once had more or less the same experience with a family member who I was sure would enjoy playing an adventure game with me. I was wrong.

And even if you could entice a couple of those unwilling newcomers with one of your tutorials, I shudder to think what that tutorial would look like to the more experienced and more eager player.

Maybe not Grossman’s mother-in-law, but I was thinking mostly of the casual/HOG crowd. A lot of potential adventure gamers there, imo.

Also, I’ve already mentioned a few examples of good tutorials, and most DS games did a great job with their unobtrusive tutorials as well, so it definitely CAN be done…

TimovieMan - 08 November 2012 06:27 AM

Fien - 07 November 2012 08:31 AM

Timovieman, you’re never going to persuade people like Grossman’s mother-in-law to play adventure games, tutorial or not. Grossman’s article made it clear that it’s not about instructions, it’s the gamer’s mind-set that subject M. lacked. She wasn’t enjoying any of it. I once had more or less the same experience with a family member who I was sure would enjoy playing an adventure game with me. I was wrong.

And even if you could entice a couple of those unwilling newcomers with one of your tutorials, I shudder to think what that tutorial would look like to the more experienced and more eager player.

Maybe not Grossman’s mother-in-law, but I was thinking mostly of the casual/HOG crowd. A lot of potential adventure gamers there, imo.

Also, I’ve already mentioned a few examples of good tutorials, and most DS games did a great job with their unobtrusive tutorials as well, so it definitely CAN be done…

Exactly my thoughts two. Offering a hardcore indepth experience without sinking as low to casual/hog standards. Its all about the learning curve, and majority of the gamers today don’t want to learn how to control a space shuttle through means of a manual.

Yeah, years ago many people, including our heroes like Jane Jensen, predicted casuals would have a tremendous impact on the in-flow of new adventure lovers. They were wrong.

I agree.

I think the difference is at least partly long term goals.

Mrs Degree has played and enjoyed a few HOG’s and Plants v Zombies, Peggle etc. However, when I have tried her with Adventure Games (Traditional Adventures or whatever you will) she is simply not interested.

I think the reason is that in a HOG you have a screen in which you must find objects and when you have done it you move on. The overarching story (if any) isn’t really as important and the gratification comes sooner from having found the objects on the screen within 5 - 10 minutes.

In an Adventure Game you may have a well written and structured goal or set of goals that you will only acheive through hours of play and a few other “side bits”. The feeling of acheivement is much further off and some people can’t be bothered to wait.

To put it another way, in a HOG you click on the screen a few times, find the objects on a clearly marked list (with maybe one or two optional extras) and within 10 minutes you have suceeded and can move onto the next screen.

At the beginning of Gabriel Knight for example you can talk to Grace, read a paper, pick up a few items which have no immediate use and then maybe move onto some other locations where you find other pieces of “the puzzle” (story) etc. You are playing the long game. Now if you want to enjoy a deeper story with (to my mind) greater rewards then this is brilliant, but otherwise you can play for half an hour or so without having really acheived anything (compared to having found all the objects) but finding a few loose threads that need to be worked on more. Many “casual” gamers (in my opinion) simply aren’t interested in this. Therefore the gameplay style is so different that I cannot see HOG’s/Casual games as “Adventure-Lite” or similar as some describe them.