Adventure Gamers - Forums

According to this AG article, adventure games have three pillars: exploration, story and puzzles.
Take away story and you get Myst-for-plumbers aka Rhem and puzzle games like yesterday’s Unmechanical.
Take away puzzles and you get The Dark Eye and Gone Home. Interestingly the more experimental or non-traditional Stanley Parable, The Path, and Dear Esther are generally not considered real adventures.
Take away exploration and you get Ceremony of Innocence and In Memoriam.

And when two of the three pillars are knocked out from under the adventure game, it becomes fringe.
Today is Fringe Day!

It doesn’t get much fringier than sci-fi novel Hyleyn (2002). No exploration, no puzzles. You can turn pages and turn the music on and off. That’s it. Even graphic novel The Madness of Roland had more interactivity. But The Legacy tags it as an adventure and respected adventure sites like Four Fat Chicks and Quandary reviewed Hyleyn and prequel Sinkha. So it has created a place for itself in the history of the adventure genre as a multimedia experience with its detailed graphics and excellent animations. The whole thing is incredibly kitschy though. 

In the screenshot we see Darshine, who is half-woman and half-spaceship. (Don’t ask.) She is also invulnerable to most weapons, they pass right through her. Cool! 

I like Fringe Day.
And I love fringe games (specially The Dark Eye).