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Is there any game from the past 5 years that would enter your Top 10?

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Karlok - 16 September 2020 03:08 AM
VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 07:39 PM
Karlok - 15 September 2020 07:56 AM
VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 06:23 AM

No, nothing even close even in top 20.

These are very sad times for adventure games.

Now I’m curious what your top 20 looks like. Third-person, point-and-click, inventory-based puzzles?

It would look something like this:

[top twenty snipped for brevity’s sake or Zobraks will never speak to me again]

So nothing more recent than 1999. How about for instance Kathy Rain – Prominence – Al Emmo – Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry – The Black Mirror – Oknytt – Memento Mori – The Whispered World – Silent Age – the Dream Machine - Virtua Verse – Pillars of the Earth – Vampyre Story – Stupid Invaders – Feria d’Arles – Technobabylon – Broken Age – Tony Tough – Dead Synchronicity – 1954: Alcatraz – Still Life – So Blonde – Detective Di – The Inner World – St Christopher’s School Lockdown – Journey Down – Machinarium – Deponia – Gemini Rue – Detective Gallo – Edna and Harvey – Moment of Silence – Kelvin and the Infamous Machine – Thimbleweed Park – Yesterday – Primordia – Lamplight City – the Blackwell series – Shardlight – Journey of a Roach – 1954: Alcatraz – Whispers of a Machine – Unforeseen Incidents - and many more.

Not necessarily top twenty material, but are they proof of very sad times for the kind of adventure games you love?

I played about 80% of the games listed and not one came close even to the honorable mentions, that’s why I said sad times Frown

The best of these for me are:  The Whispered World (2009), The Black Mirror (2003), Still Life (2005), Thimbleweed Park (2017). So only Thimbleweed Park in the last 10 years.

     
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VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 03:50 AM

I played about 80% of the games listed and not one came close even to the honorable mentions, that’s why I said sad times Frown

The best of these for me are:  The Whispered World (2009), The Black Mirror (2003), Still Life (2005), Thimbleweed Park (2017). So only Thimbleweed Park in the last 10 years.

Ah. I’m sorry you don’t enjoy the more recent games if 3rd-person is all you want to play. But to be honest, only three of the above list made it into my Top Twenty 2000-2020. Read and shiver.  Tongue

(in no particular order)
The Wolf Among Us - Outer Wilds - Return of the Obra Dinn - The Witness - Stanley Parable - The Longing - Machinarium/Botanicula - Gorogoa - Stories Untold - Edna & Harvey - Orwell - Deponia Doomsday - Obduction - What Remains of Edith Finch - Her Story - Sam&Max; Season 1 - Resonance - Dear Esther - Kentucky Route Zero - Dreamfall.

 

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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Karlok - 16 September 2020 04:22 AM

Ah. I’m sorry you don’t enjoy the more recent games if 3rd-person is all you want to play. But to be honest, only three of the above list made it into my Top Twenty 2000-2020. Read and shiver.  Tongue

(in no particular order)
The Wolf Among Us - Outer Wilds - Return of the Obra Dinn - The Witness - Stanley Parable - The Longing - Machinarium/Botanicula - Gorogoa - Stories Untold - Edna & Harvey - Orwell - Deponia Doomsday - Obduction - What Remains of Edith Finch - Her Story - Sam&Max; Season 1 - Resonance - Dear Esther - Kentucky Route Zero - Dreamfall.

Obra Dinn was excellent, I guess it could be among honorable mentions, but I would really like to see games with those mechanics only with higher budget and technical level (gfx and sound).
I understand that it was designer’s choice, but still I would want to see how something similar would look like in some richer coating.

     
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And how about Anna’s Quest?

     

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VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 05:44 AM

Obra Dinn was excellent, I guess it could be among honorable mentions, but I would really like to see games with those mechanics only with higher budget and technical level (gfx and sound).
I understand that it was designer’s choice, but still I would want to see how something similar would look like in some richer coating.

I don’t know what you mean by higher technical sound level. Sounds and voiceacting are of excellent quality. Same goes for the localisations. And higher budget…? Lucas Pope made millions with his Papers Please.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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TimovieMan - 16 September 2020 05:47 AM

And how about Anna’s Quest?

It was a decent game, but nothing to write home about.

Karlok - 16 September 2020 05:56 AM
VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 05:44 AM

Obra Dinn was excellent, I guess it could be among honorable mentions, but I would really like to see games with those mechanics only with higher budget and technical level (gfx and sound).
I understand that it was designer’s choice, but still I would want to see how something similar would look like in some richer coating.

I don’t know what you mean by higher technical sound level. Sounds and voiceacting are of excellent quality. Same goes for the localisations. And higher budget…? Lucas Pope made millions with his Papers Please.

Voiceacting was good, but I’m talking about triple A quality, something like Toonstruck was in its time.

     
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VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 06:24 AM

Voiceacting was good, but I’m talking about triple A quality, something like Toonstruck was in its time.

You do realise that there will most likely never be an adventure game with AAA production values?

Games like L.A. Noire may achieve that, but then we are getting very far from third person point-and-click inventory puzzling. Some say it’s not even an adventure anymore.

Also quality is relative. It’s not too difficult to create a game like Toonstruck. Basically you only need some pixel arts, green screen and an actor, and AGS.
(Getting someone like Christopher Lloyd is the difficult part, of course.)

The point is, if anyone created a game like Toonstruck, it wouldn’t be considered AAA quality anymore, because the technical standards have moved beyond that. Inside the industry, just the very point-and-click mechanics is probably enough to “degrade” a game to lower level. Parser interface even more so.

Great ideas, on the other hand, seem to be a rare resource no matter how much technology develops.

So regarding good or great games from the recent years, if we approach it “technology first” then there won’t be too many games, if any, to choose from. There have been many great games otherwise though.

Machinarium which has been mentioned here is one of those games, although the game going back 11 years, over a decade, some consider that a retro game already.

     

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GateKeeper - 16 September 2020 07:14 AM

You do realise that there will most likely never be an adventure game with AAA production values?

Games like L.A. Noire may achieve that, but then we are getting very far from third person point-and-click inventory puzzling. Some say it’s not even an adventure anymore.

Also quality is relative. It’s not too difficult to create a game like Toonstruck. Basically you only need some pixel arts, green screen and an actor, and AGS.
(Getting someone like Christopher Lloyd is the difficult part, of course.)

The point is, if anyone created a game like Toonstruck, it wouldn’t be considered AAA quality anymore, because the technical standards have moved beyond that. Inside the industry, just the very point-and-click mechanics is probably enough to “degrade” a game to lower level. Parser interface even more so.

We were talking about voice acting, look at the cast of Toonstruck, that’s what makes it AAA game in that department.
I know that there is almost no chance that AAA adventure game will be made in my lifetime, that doesn’t mean I should consider (below) average production values as anything other than they actually are.

It would be like appreciating modern Hollywood which is pile of garbage wrapped in sweet PC coating just because we know it will just get worse and will never be on the level that it once was.

     
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VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 08:38 AM
GateKeeper - 16 September 2020 07:14 AM

You do realise that there will most likely never be an adventure game with AAA production values?

Also quality is relative. It’s not too difficult to create a game like Toonstruck. Basically you only need some pixel arts, green screen and an actor, and AGS.
(Getting someone like Christopher Lloyd is the difficult part, of course.)

We were talking about voice acting, look at the cast of Toonstruck, that’s what makes it AAA game in that department.
I know that there is almost no chance that AAA adventure game will be made in my lifetime, that doesn’t mean I should consider (below) average production values as anything other than they actually are.

Well, you can have some parts of the game top-notch, but the whole production won’t be. If we talk about voice acting only, then wouldn’t Broken Age be an AAA production? And it would also match the five years timeframe too!

If we on the other hand stick to Toonstruck cast, then wouldn’t Back to the Future be an AAA production as well, it had Christopher Lloyd and even Michael J. Fox in a small role?

So talking about voices only gives a good number of top-notch production value games, whereas talking about entire productions really doesn’t.

Even Pizza Morgana (which never got beyond the first episode in English) would be a great game, because it has Claudia Christian and few others!  Tongue

     
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It seems to me VoodooDerina is one of those people who are hopelessly stuck in the past looking all old things through rose-tinted glasses and comparing everything new against impossible standards that never really were true.

As a whole, adventure genre has never been this healthy and with this much variation. We have a lot of retro indies for those who like them, lots of story-driven games, visual novels, 2D games, 3D 3rd person games, 1st person games and the like. If someone really sees this point in time as a sad time for the genre, they are seeing an entirely different reality from what I see.

     

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GateKeeper - 16 September 2020 09:07 AM
VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 08:38 AM
GateKeeper - 16 September 2020 07:14 AM

You do realise that there will most likely never be an adventure game with AAA production values?

Also quality is relative. It’s not too difficult to create a game like Toonstruck. Basically you only need some pixel arts, green screen and an actor, and AGS.
(Getting someone like Christopher Lloyd is the difficult part, of course.)

We were talking about voice acting, look at the cast of Toonstruck, that’s what makes it AAA game in that department.
I know that there is almost no chance that AAA adventure game will be made in my lifetime, that doesn’t mean I should consider (below) average production values as anything other than they actually are.

Well, you can have some parts of the game top-notch, but the whole production won’t be. If we talk about voice acting only, then wouldn’t Broken Age be an AAA production? And it would also match the five years timeframe too!

If we on the other hand stick to Toonstruck cast, then wouldn’t Back to the Future be an AAA production as well, it had Christopher Lloyd and even Michael J. Fox in a small role?

So talking about voices only gives a good number of top-notch production value games, whereas talking about entire productions really doesn’t.

Even Pizza Morgana (which never got beyond the first episode in English) would be a great game, because it has Claudia Christian and few others!  Tongue


Toonstruck was as a whole AAA production game when it was released, it wasn’t FF7, but it was expensive and felt rich in every department.

Broken Age gfx feel cheap, as it screams that the specific art style was chosen to reduce the cost of animation.

And let’s not introduce TT’s animated wax figures into discussion   Laughing

L.A. Noire showed how the adventures of the future may look like, but unfortunately it was only baby steps and would require many more games like that to perfect the formula.

tomimt - 16 September 2020 09:16 AM

It seems to me VoodooDerina is one of those people who are hopelessly stuck in the past looking all old things through rose-tinted glasses and comparing everything new against impossible standards that never really were true.

As a whole, adventure genre has never been this healthy and with this much variation. We have a lot of retro indies for those who like them, lots of story-driven games, visual novels, 2D games, 3D 3rd person games, 1st person games and the like. If someone really sees this point in time as a sad time for the genre, they are seeing an entirely different reality from what I see.


...And not one 10+ million budget adventure, which is modest by modern standards.

     
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tomimt - 16 September 2020 09:16 AM

It seems to me VoodooDerina is one of those people who are hopelessly stuck in the past looking all old things through rose-tinted glasses and comparing everything new against impossible standards that never really were true.

With Willy Beamish in her/his top 20, I’d say those glasses are slightly more than rose-tinted

     
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VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 09:22 AM

[

Toonstruck was as a whole AAA production game when it was released, it wasn’t FF7, but it was expensive and felt rich in every department.

That just goes to show how subjective this sort of conversation is.

I bought Toonstruck shortly after release and it would have cost me somewhere between £30 and £40 from memory.
Played it for about 20 minutes, decided it was a whole heap of overrated garbage, and have never gone back to it even though I still have the original CD.
I’m not attempting to change your opinion, nor to denigrate it, just pointing out that things like this are never black nor white.

 

     

Life is what it is.

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VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 09:22 AM

 


...And not one 10+ million budget adventure, which is modest by modern standards.

There are quite a few indie adventures which prove you don’t need a multimillion-dollar budget to surpass what AAA studio can do graphically. The only thing those titles, Beautiful Desolation and Gibbous, lack is AAA-voice acting. Other than that, they are more or less AAA-games.

     

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Jabod - 16 September 2020 09:31 AM
VoodooDerina - 16 September 2020 09:22 AM

[

Toonstruck was as a whole AAA production game when it was released, it wasn’t FF7, but it was expensive and felt rich in every department.

That just goes to show how subjective this sort of conversation is.

I bought Toonstruck shortly after release and it would have cost me somewhere between £30 and £40 from memory.
Played it for about 20 minutes, decided it was a whole heap of overrated garbage, and have never gone back to it even though I still have the original CD.
I’m not attempting to change your opinion, nor to denigrate it, just pointing out that things like this are never black nor white.

Of course, I don’t press my opinion on anyone.

Tastes are different and that’s enriching per se.
When it comes to numbers, then these are more exact and can give us a realistic picture how niche and insignificant in global gaming industry this genre has become.  Frown

     

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