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Criticisms of adventure games.
I was just thinking about different criticisms of adventure games, that reviewer sometimes dock points for that you don’t agree with.
My favorite that I always rolled my eyes at was replay value. A lot of the bigger review sites used to dock adventure games pts because they would say it had zero to little replay value and I never understood that. I mean I guess if you immediately started the game over again you would know exactly how to solve a puzzle but I challenge any reviewer who played a game, to pick it up 2 years later and see if you remember every puzzle and how to solve everything instantly. I would argue a lot of games don’t have much replay value other than you just like the game and what to play it again. that is one reason I actually do like shorter games because I can justify the time spent again pretty easily. For instance I can beat full throttle in one or two sittings, so I usually play it once a year because I like the game that much. Meanwhile I also adore Persona 5 but I’ll never play it again cuz I don’t have a 100 hours to devote to that game again.
What are some of yalls?
My favorite that I always rolled my eyes at was replay value. A lot of the bigger review sites used to dock adventure games pts because they would say it had zero to little replay value and I never understood that. I mean I guess if you immediately started the game over again you would know exactly how to solve a puzzle but I challenge any reviewer who played a game, to pick it up 2 years later and see if you remember every puzzle and how to solve everything instantly.
That’s a good point.
But in all fairness, many adventure games have zero replayability beyond solving every puzzle exactly the same way again.
AAA-level game productions have had different ways to offer some additional replay value:
- old Sierra games had the challenge of getting all points and seeing all death scenes
- some LucasArts games have different paths or difficulty levels, not to mention Day of the Tentacle had the full Maniac Mansion in it
- Shenmue had many things in it which have nothing to do with actually completing the game, but made experiencing the gameworld much deeper experience, like collecting all toys in the game, playing those game-within-a-game games (is that even a word…?) in the arcade and so on.
So there are ways to make all that better, if game designers so choose to do.
Some people consider achievements as an added value, although personally I trust Steam’s documentation which describes them as a form of DRM, which is meant to devalue illegal copies of the game (and I’m in the DRM-free camp).
So I guess it really depends on a game.
I would even argue that there are games which are best experienced only once, and after that any attempt to replay them is only going to expose flaws in the design, and nothing else, even if the single playthrough is a positive experience.
My favorite that I always rolled my eyes at was replay value. A lot of the bigger review sites used to dock adventure games pts because they would say it had zero to little replay value and I never understood that. I mean I guess if you immediately started the game over again you would know exactly how to solve a puzzle but I challenge any reviewer who played a game, to pick it up 2 years later and see if you remember every puzzle and how to solve everything instantly.
That’s a good point.
But in all fairness, many adventure games have zero replayability beyond solving every puzzle exactly the same way again.AAA-level game productions have had different ways to offer some additional replay value:
- old Sierra games had the challenge of getting all points and seeing all death scenes
- some LucasArts games have different paths or difficulty levels, not to mention Day of the Tentacle had the full Maniac Mansion in it
- Shenmue had many things in it which have nothing to do with actually completing the game, but made experiencing the gameworld much deeper experience, like collecting all toys in the game, playing those game-within-a-game games (is that even a word…?) in the arcade and so on.So there are ways to make all that better, if game designers so choose to do.
Some people consider achievements as an added value, although personally I trust Steam’s documentation which describes them as a form of DRM, which is meant to devalue illegal copies of the game (and I’m in the DRM-free camp).So I guess it really depends on a game.
I would even argue that there are games which are best experienced only once, and after that any attempt to replay them is only going to expose flaws in the design, and nothing else, even if the single playthrough is a positive experience.
I see your point but a lot of the things you bring up you can do in one playthrough as well if you really tried, for example watch a death scene and then reload a save. Also I think what some call replay value, I call busy work. for instance the Assassin Creed games have tons of collectiables, none of which are very fun, at least to me. I think it’s a way to artificially inflate the game time. I do believe that is why the trend of open world games is slowly dying to some extent because a lot of people are starting to find them, too big and kind of lazily constructed.
Going back to my replay comment. for example broken sword 5, I have completed it I want to say three times and I still can’t tell you exactly how to do the final real puzzle of deciphering the language near the end of episode 2. I’ve already forgotten it again.
That’s an interesting one, and reviewers often miss the point when giving priority to “replayability” as an important factor for adventure game reviews, as it’s one of the least important. It’s like criticizing Tetris for lack of story. It’s often done by amateur reviewers, or those who come from the world of action genre.
That said, there’re two main aspects in all video games, that hinder replayability - how linear it is, and how narrative-heavy it is. All in all, both aspects that are the main core of adventure genre - telling the story in a mostly linear way. You can introduce 10 different endings, one hundred ways to solve a puzzle, and thousands of branching dialogs, you will never have replayability of Tetris or a football video game - and that’s fine. Because that’s not the point of an adventure game.
It’s also interesting that adventures has been a dominating and best selling genre in 90s, while it’s the least replayable of all. So, people were ready to buy and invest into a game knowing in advance that it might be for one-use only. Similar like buying a DVD movie. Was low replayability part of the reason it became a niche genre? Perhaps, but more than that - other genres like FPS, RPG and action games started incorporating narrative-heavy elements and adventure games weren’t alone in that anymore. And the focus switched to a more dynamic, action-oriented gameplay, but as we know, trends come and go, and then make a full circle and come back, so you never know.
Everything being said - adventures DO have “secret” replay values, but it’s not that obvious to a non-adventure player - when you periodically replay adventure after few years, you will almost certainly experience things from a new perspective. You will appreciate the details each time, little nuances and gameworld. If you play with a friends, or a community playthrough you will have motivation and the second or third time might seem like the first.
Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale
Re-playability in adventure puzzle games is something I have been giving a great deal of thought to recently as I am currently making my own. It is undeniable that many games of this genre, even some of the best are very linier and do not provide much content beyond the puzzle solutions. You may think, why care? Its just indicative of the genre right? I kinda agree but re-playability is something investors like to see developers implement even if there is little point in it.
So these are a few ideas I’ve decided to implement.
- Two endings. Standard and secret. The secret ending involves solving a completely different set of puzzles that are hidden and much harder. It also involves solving some other puzzles differently. Upon a second playthrough, the hint system will provide clues for the secret ending instead.
- Achievements. Quite a simple technique of luring players into further exploring the depths of the game.
- Multiple ways to solve some puzzles.
- Added interactivity when it comes to using inventory items with the world. Too many times I’ve gotten sick of hearing the “I can’t use X with Y” line. Where it makes sense, I have tried to add either different lines or different results (that are often inconsequential) just spice things up a bit and encourage players try different things.
Apologies for the ramble, it just so happens I’ve been thinking a lot of about the re-playability of this genre. EDIT: forgot to mention, I find some Sierra games have great re-playability, I’ve yet to score max points on those games and I usually find something new everytime I replay.
Re-playability in adventure puzzle games is something I have been giving a great deal of thought to recently as I am currently making my own. It is undeniable that many games of this genre, even some of the best are very linier and do not provide much content beyond the puzzle solutions. You may think, why care? Its just indicative of the genre right? I kinda agree but re-playability is something investors like to see developers implement even if there is little point in it.
So these are a few ideas I’ve decided to implement.
- Two endings. Standard and secret. The secret ending involves solving a completely different set of puzzles that are hidden and much harder. It also involves solving some other puzzles differently. Upon a second playthrough, the hint system will provide clues for the secret ending instead.
- Achievements. Quite a simple technique of luring players into further exploring the depths of the game.
- Multiple ways to solve some puzzles.
- Added interactivity when it comes to using inventory items with the world. Too many times I’ve gotten sick of hearing the “I can’t use X with Y” line. Where it makes sense, I have tried to add either different lines or different results (that are often inconsequential) just spice things up a bit and encourage players try different things.Apologies for the ramble, it just so happens I’ve been thinking a lot of about the re-playability of this genre. EDIT: forgot to mention, I find some Sierra games have great re-playability, I’ve yet to score max points on those games and I usually find something new everytime I replay.
I’m not a developer but as a fan I would not do any of this besides the extra lines of dialogue for different inventory combinations, and I don’t see Publishers really caring about replayability in the adventure game genre unless they can monetize it. If this secret ending of yours will be a paid DLC, than maybe they would care. one major reason the Sierra puzzles were so hard was so they could monetize the phone hintline and make more money. In that way they double dipped a bit.
as a rule of thumb I rather have one great puzzle than five mediocre puzzles because you’re trying to make different solutions and endings, unless you have a very clear vision and the budget for those implementations. In fact the only recent adventure game that i played that I thought did this fairly well was Whispers of a machine and even that left something to be desired. Usually what happens is you leave the player experience feeling hollow like a Telltale Game where there is the illusion of choice but you can see through it, bc there’s nothing much there besides some artificial dialogue. Just my 2 cents.
Off topic but on topic I’m also tired of different endings in gaming in general. It used to be a pretty cool novelty back in the day when developers actually put a lot of time, energy and effort into it. But now it comes off usually artificially lazy or you can tell where they spent the majority of their time in the real Canon ending. so what was the point of making a lack luster alternate ending that maybe 10 percent of the players will see. I rather the writer, director and actors just tell me the story they want to tell, with the ending that they want to see, then trying to make some convoluted video game version of Clue where this could be the killer but wait or this could be the Killer. It’s fun in a board game but not so much in a video game at least to me unless it is executed near flawlessly, which it never is… usually.
Add me to the list of people who disagree with the replayability criticism. Alternate puzzles and endings aren’t the only way to have a game be replayable. Broken Sword only has one route through it, but it has been massively replayable for me over the years thanks to the depth of content it has. There are so many things to talk about, look at, and so on, that alternate puzzles just aren’t needed.
The game I’m making, Foolish Mortals, only has one route through the game, which came about both from a budget and preference thing. My thinking was: why split the final part budget into five endings, each one of which might never be seen, might not be as narratively satisfying, and certainly wouldn’t be as spectacular as putting all of that towards one ending that the entire game builds towards. (I majorly disagree with people saying Hob’s Barrow should have had an alternate ending for this reason - it’s all built towards the ending it has).
In some cases I even get annoyed with alternate endings! Replaying 90% of the game just to see a different 90 second cutscene at the end just makes me watch the alternate endings on YouTube instead, so no replaying happens.
To add something else, I don’t like when reviewers criticise adventure games for not ‘pushing the medium forward’, which almost always seems to be saying that there’s no gimmick in it. In most cases I don’t need gimmicks, or crossovers with other game genres, or things like that adding into adventure games, I just want more adventure games with interesting stories told in interesting worlds with interesting puzzles in the classic point & click adventure style. Most movies don’t innovate the medium of film, but they’re still fantastic movies.
Add me to the list of people who disagree with the replayability criticism. Alternate puzzles and endings aren’t the only way to have a game be replayable. Broken Sword only has one route through it, but it has been massively replayable for me over the years thanks to the depth of content it has. There are so many things to talk about, look at, and so on, that alternate puzzles just aren’t needed.
The game I’m making, Foolish Mortals, only has one route through the game, which came about both from a budget and preference thing. My thinking was: why split the final part budget into five endings, each one of which might never be seen, might not be as narratively satisfying, and certainly wouldn’t be as spectacular as putting all of that towards one ending that the entire game builds towards. (I majorly disagree with people saying Hob’s Barrow should have had an alternate ending for this reason - it’s all built towards the ending it has).
In some cases I even get annoyed with alternate endings! Replaying 90% of the game just to see a different 90 second cutscene at the end just makes me watch the alternate endings on YouTube instead, so no replaying happens.
To add something else, I don’t like when reviewers criticise adventure games for not ‘pushing the medium forward’, which almost always seems to be saying that there’s no gimmick in it. In most cases I don’t need gimmicks, or crossovers with other game genres, or things like that adding into adventure games, I just want more adventure games with interesting stories told in interesting worlds with interesting puzzles in the classic point & click adventure style. Most movies don’t innovate the medium of film, but they’re still fantastic movies.
We see eye to eye about everything. Plus if the only difference is an alternate ending you can usually save right before the ending and make a slightly different choice to see the alternate ending like in the dig, so how much replayability is actually there. if it is more than that most people don’t want to play the game right away again to make a poorer decision to see the bad ending. I completely agree with Hobs barrow, the one thing the devs did sort of mess up on was they gave the illusion of choice, which they should have never done bc it makes a player feel like there’s different outcomes to be had.
I also agree with your other criticism of needing to push the genre forward. unless the developer really has something ingenious in mind it usually does boil down to gimmicks. Although sometimes those gimmicks work okay. Like in broken sword 3 at least for me. The qte events were not overly annoying and actually I liked the stealth section at the castle because it was implemented with some care and grace.
other genres like FPS, RPG and action games started incorporating narrative-heavy elements and adventure games weren’t alone in that anymore.
I’ll just leave this here:
Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale
Happy New Year!
Yes, I wish other genres didn’t incorporate narrative-heavy elements, at least action games which became slow and casual once they became story-driven and ultra-realistic. Also I keep insisting that most games are unable to tell a good story. And it became even worse once professional writers who studied writing/screenwriting in institutes started taking over. Somehow people with technical or artistic backgrounds were better at telling original stories incorporated into the gameplay, or even simply creating characters and telling jokes.
As for replay value, I do think it’s important if done tastefully, just like with any other genre. It motivates exploration, gives the sense of freedom, people generally like discovering new things, so why miss an opportunity to attract more players? It’s also a good chance to come up with something original, like Christy Marx did in Conquests of the Longbow, or Barwood and Falstein in Fate of Atlantis, or Roberta and Jane in King’s Quest 6. The score system in Sierra and some other games also adds replayability, at least for me. Broken Sword 1-2 had some non-linearity which led to slight changes in dialogues and which was also fun to discover on replays. It’s what moved the genre forward, not stories which suck in 99% of cases anyway))
PC means personal computer
Happy New Year!
I’m replaiyng The Longest Journey for the 100th time now. It’s one of my favorite game of all times. In my scale, is a 10/10 game. Now, I am listening to all dialogues, clicking in every clickable point and doing everything that you can do in the game. This game have the best sidecick (crow) in a game. There is no game now that can bring the same joy for a game. The reviewers today problably never play a game like the ones of late 90s. The next in line to replay will be Syberia, Tex Murphy and so on. All 10 stars in my point of view.
Re-playability in adventure puzzle games is something I have been giving a great deal of thought to recently as I am currently making my own. It is undeniable that many games of this genre, even some of the best are very linier and do not provide much content beyond the puzzle solutions. You may think, why care? Its just indicative of the genre right? I kinda agree but re-playability is something investors like to see developers implement even if there is little point in it.
So these are a few ideas I’ve decided to implement.
- Two endings. Standard and secret. The secret ending involves solving a completely different set of puzzles that are hidden and much harder. It also involves solving some other puzzles differently. Upon a second playthrough, the hint system will provide clues for the secret ending instead.
- Achievements. Quite a simple technique of luring players into further exploring the depths of the game.
- Multiple ways to solve some puzzles.
- Added interactivity when it comes to using inventory items with the world. Too many times I’ve gotten sick of hearing the “I can’t use X with Y” line. Where it makes sense, I have tried to add either different lines or different results (that are often inconsequential) just spice things up a bit and encourage players try different things.Apologies for the ramble, it just so happens I’ve been thinking a lot of about the re-playability of this genre. EDIT: forgot to mention, I find some Sierra games have great re-playability, I’ve yet to score max points on those games and I usually find something new everytime I replay.
I’m not a developer but as a fan I would not do any of this besides the extra lines of dialogue for different inventory combinations, and I don’t see Publishers really caring about replayability in the adventure game genre unless they can monetize it. If this secret ending of yours will be a paid DLC, than maybe they would care. one major reason the Sierra puzzles were so hard was so they could monetize the phone hintline and make more money. In that way they double dipped a bit.as a rule of thumb I rather have one great puzzle than five mediocre puzzles because you’re trying to make different solutions and endings, unless you have a very clear vision and the budget for those implementations. In fact the only recent adventure game that i played that I thought did this fairly well was Whispers of a machine and even that left something to be desired. Usually what happens is you leave the player experience feeling hollow like a Telltale Game where there is the illusion of choice but you can see through it, bc there’s nothing much there besides some artificial dialogue. Just my 2 cents.
My issue isn’t a publisher but rather the people funding my endeavours. To some them, all they see are the masses continuously play games like Fortnite, FIFA, COD so all games should strive for the same thing, not understanding nuance between different genres and audiences. With this and lots of other assumptions that are often made, I feel it is best to pick the battles. After all, there are worse things than having a bit of re-playability in your game.
I agree with the opinion of one great puzzle being better than five mid ones for sure. Hopefully this is something I’ve avoided but who knows. Balancing the desires of a core audience and the desires of those outside of it may have been the wrong approach. By doing so, I may have inadvertently created a game that pleases nobody 
Your two cents are always welcome as are everyone’s! If my current game doesn’t please, I’ll learn and do better next time (I hope).
For me, a good adventure game is just as replayable as good films/series are rewatchable and good books are rereadable. In some cases I’ve enjoyed replaying a game more than I did playing it the first time. The Broken Swords, the Tex Murphys, the Syberias, the Mysts, the Longest Journeys and many others. They all have a lot of replay value to me.
Actually, although they have never been at the absolute top region of my favorite games list, I’m currently replaying all Monkey Island games and I’ve been enjoying them a lot. At least until I reached the Monkey Kombat part of Escape from Monkey Island the other night…:)
Re-playability in adventure puzzle games is something I have been giving a great deal of thought to recently as I am currently making my own. It is undeniable that many games of this genre, even some of the best are very linier and do not provide much content beyond the puzzle solutions. You may think, why care? Its just indicative of the genre right? I kinda agree but re-playability is something investors like to see developers implement even if there is little point in it.
So these are a few ideas I’ve decided to implement.
- Two endings. Standard and secret. The secret ending involves solving a completely different set of puzzles that are hidden and much harder. It also involves solving some other puzzles differently. Upon a second playthrough, the hint system will provide clues for the secret ending instead.
- Achievements. Quite a simple technique of luring players into further exploring the depths of the game.
- Multiple ways to solve some puzzles.
- Added interactivity when it comes to using inventory items with the world. Too many times I’ve gotten sick of hearing the “I can’t use X with Y” line. Where it makes sense, I have tried to add either different lines or different results (that are often inconsequential) just spice things up a bit and encourage players try different things.Apologies for the ramble, it just so happens I’ve been thinking a lot of about the re-playability of this genre. EDIT: forgot to mention, I find some Sierra games have great re-playability, I’ve yet to score max points on those games and I usually find something new everytime I replay.
I’m not a developer but as a fan I would not do any of this besides the extra lines of dialogue for different inventory combinations, and I don’t see Publishers really caring about replayability in the adventure game genre unless they can monetize it. If this secret ending of yours will be a paid DLC, than maybe they would care. one major reason the Sierra puzzles were so hard was so they could monetize the phone hintline and make more money. In that way they double dipped a bit.as a rule of thumb I rather have one great puzzle than five mediocre puzzles because you’re trying to make different solutions and endings, unless you have a very clear vision and the budget for those implementations. In fact the only recent adventure game that i played that I thought did this fairly well was Whispers of a machine and even that left something to be desired. Usually what happens is you leave the player experience feeling hollow like a Telltale Game where there is the illusion of choice but you can see through it, bc there’s nothing much there besides some artificial dialogue. Just my 2 cents.
My issue isn’t a publisher but rather the people funding my endeavours. To some them, all they see are the masses continuously play games like Fortnite, FIFA, COD so all games should strive for the same thing, not understanding nuance between different genres and audiences. With this and lots of other assumptions that are often made, I feel it is best to pick the battles. After all, there are worse things than having a bit of re-playability in your game.
I agree with the opinion of one great puzzle being better than five mid ones for sure. Hopefully this is something I’ve avoided but who knows. Balancing the desires of a core audience and the desires of those outside of it may have been the wrong approach. By doing so, I may have inadvertently created a game that pleases nobody
Love your attitude, let us know of your progress.
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