Adventure Gamers - Forums

Hi! With the Myst 25th anniversary, many people regain interest in first person adventure games these days (Myst-like, not just narrative), and I’m quite happy to see all this enthusiasm.
Some of you probably know that I have developed a few games in the genre (ASA and Catyph) and that I have some new projects in progress, alone or in cooperation with other devs (RealMyha, Boïnihi…).

I’d like to ask you what you’d want to see in a perfect modern first person adventure game! Would it be in 2d, 3d, 360° nodal, VR? Would it have easy or difficult puzzles (would it be more casual or hardcore), would you include action scenes, minigames, do you seek for interactivity with the world (manipulating objets or puzzles)...? Is there a kind of environment that you would favor in this kind of game? (space/foreign planet, fantasy world, Medium Ages/alchemy/dark magic, horrific/haunted place…). How would you like the story to be told? (diary, interaction with characters, no story/contemplative world…). What kind of system would you use (pc, mac, console, tablet/phone…) Etc etc.

I’m mainly asking out of curiosity because my next projects are too advanced in their development to benefit of these ideas, but it would be interesting to read your thoughts for later (and for other devs hopefully).

Sorry if that kind of subject already exists. I’m sure there are several threads about Myst-like games, but here I’m asking from the point of view of a developer, what people would like to see and how we could make the genre evolve in the future. It’s not to criticize or discuss of existing games, but to try to encourage new projects.

I’ve been giving this matter some thought lately, as I’ve started to tinker with a remake of an old Sierra game Mission Asteroid. (https://playernone.blogspot.fi/2018/04/mission-asteroid-second-alpha-release.html)

At first, I was thinking of making it with pre-rendered backgrounds, but I’ve never really liked the style, as the first-person view with either drawn or pre-rendered scenes has always felt restrictive and somewhat clumsy. There’s always something about the navigation or scene transition, that just feels off to me, even, or especially, if the transition was done with video. Real-time 3D just feels more genuine to me, despite the transition mechanics would be relatively similar to what games like Myst usually have.

Just like with every game, the puzzles need to fit the game. I don’t like puzzles that feel arbitrary in any game, the game style has no bearing with that. Puzzles should always flow with the story unless you are doing an intentional puzzle game like what modern hidden object titles are these days. It is nice though if the difficulty level of the puzzles is progressive so, that the further you get, the more challenge you get.

I don’t necessarily think action scenes are out of the question, it all depends on what kind of actions scenes those are and how they’re designed. For things like quick time events, I have relatively low tolerance to, as they are rarely done in a great fashion and with fail states often lead into replaying one scene time after time to ad nauseum if you don’t get it right.

It’s true that a good gameplay is difficult to create properly with 2d pre-rendered scenes…

You’re doing a good job with Unity from what I see of your remake!

I must recognize that full 3d is certainly the best option nowadays. I like a lot the feeling of the good old 2d Myst games, but it’s probably more due to nostalgia.. and the fact that I have motion sickness.

For me, the games that come closest to this are The Talos Principle and some of Frogwares’s Sherlock Holmes games.

Simon_ASA - 27 April 2018 08:47 AM

Would it be in 2d, 3d, 360° nodal, VR?

3d. At this point I see 2d and nodal as crutches. While they certainly can be and have been used to great effect, a “perfect” game should be able to achieve the same in full 3d. If you’re worried that you cannot make it photorealistic enough, look to the photogrammetry technique used in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (and a few other games).
I’m not sure about VR, largely because I haven’t found the time to play enough adventures in it. The sense of immersion it provides is unparalleled, but it may constrain your design options (as well as potential audience!) too much at this point in time. Still, there’s definitely great promise there for advancing the genre.

Would it have easy or difficult puzzles (would it be more casual or hardcore)

For a perfect one, an option to choose your difficulty at the beginning. Otherwise, on the difficult side.

would you include action scenes, minigames

No opinion, so long as you don’t overdo it.

do you seek for interactivity with the world (manipulating objets or puzzles)...?

Certainly.

Is there a kind of environment that you would favor in this kind of game? (space/foreign planet, fantasy world, Medium Ages/alchemy/dark magic, horrific/haunted place…).

Doesn’t matter, so long as it’s not too drab to look at and has a bit of backstory.

How would you like the story to be told? (diary, interaction with characters, no story/contemplative world…).

Having some interaction with characters is very important to me, to the point that I don’t think I would have mentioned The Talos Principle here if it weren’t for the debates through terminals scattered about. (The great writing and eventual important role for the main character also helped a lot there, but still.)

What kind of system would you use (pc, mac, console, tablet/phone…)

Pc. Both for the better options in graphics and the point-and-click controls. Though admittedly consoles are getting good enough about graphics and gamepad controls don’t feel too limiting anymore in games designed for them.

Etc etc.

Though this isn’t strictly limited to first-person games, I’ll add that there should be some point in the game where you have several places to go to and a sense of exploration. Without this it can feel like a rollercoaster story or a series of levels stringed together by story. For me, this is something in which the Portal games fall flat and The Talos Principle does great.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Harald! I should definitely play the Talos Principle someday.

It is true that 3d is the best for immersion/exploration and graphics quality.

Regarding the puzzles, I find it difficult to add an option at the beginning of the game to choose the difficulty. A good puzzle can often have only one level of difficulty, particularly in a first person game where usually you don’t have people to give you additional clues. So the only thing I can think of is an option to receive some help, like in The Room (there is a “?” icon giving tips when the player is stuck). But in that case it becomes too easy and attractive to click on the button, and the game is finished very fast. The player doesn’t take the time anymore to think on his own usually!
What do you think?
And would you like the Myst series better if you had an help option when you’re stuck? I have often asked myself this question, because it happens that the puzzles are frustrating when you are missing something. And on the other hand it’s also part of the game!

There are a few ways to go with hint systems. In some of the Monkey Island games, the casual difficulty setting meant skipping some puzzles and parts of puzzles. Hidden object casual games often have a timer restricting how quickly and often you can get hints, and achievements for not using them. There’s also the method used in Machinarium, where you have to play a mini-game to earn the hint each time. To a lesser extent the same goes for the hint coins in the Layton games, where the sense of rarity more than the actual rarity makes sure most players use them as little as possible to the point of having more than a hundred left at the end.
Pointers that aren’t about the puzzles themselves may also help. Think hotspot reveal, a good (mini)map, and quick summaries of where you are in the story and what the next goal is.
I don’t see a hint system as a requirement if the puzzles are well-designed, but of course designing puzzles that are difficult without being obtuse or feeling unfair is the big challenge of the genre.

Strangely, the thing I like least in 1st-person games is 3D. Aside from the motion sickness aspect, I often found the precision required to, say, look down to examine the contents of a drawer, annoying. There were multiple examples of this in Pandora. Granted, that’s an older game, but I still find instances of it elsewhere.

For me too 3d is not necessarily an argument for the gameplay (but it is for graphics) in a first person game. Being able to rotate the camera freely while walking or searching something is not always relaxing or accurate.
When you have to walk in a 3d game, I find also that you become too aware of the distances. Often you want to run (or to run even faster) because you quickly get bored.
If you need to follow several times the same path to solve a puzzle, it will become more boring than in a 2d game, because of the back and forths (it happens too in 2d games but it’s usually much faster if you see what I mean).

What Oscar said above about The Room is more what I would like to be able to create someday in a game. It’s made with a 3d engine and gives comfortable mouse controls.

i dont know what a modern 1st person adventure means, does firewatch considered one?, if, then goodbye adventures.
i know what i want a 1st person adventure to be; close to 3rd person playing, attracts the 3rd person (only) players whom when they see a 1st person game they feel like ‘No!’.. ‘not more puzzle scattered around huge space with other huge empty passages between them’.

but devs had tried this 3rd person thing at 1st person AGs already, but they fucked it up, some threw pixel hunting, other even tried worse; pixel hunting with hotspot revealer that moves away from its spot as the player advance…etc. the closet 1st person AG to 3rd person i know and did good! is JMP3 and why is that; you get to meet NPCs with* interesting dialogue, even dialogue puzzle, each one has a unique personality and clues that help you in your ‘journey’ and they are intense. smart inventory since inventory puzzles are stupid ate 1st persons but when used nicely they boom, maybe than BM 40+ items, because 3-5 items can make your head spin, because you either know what to do with them or you don’t, putting every item on everything won’t help.

i can go on, but more than that will be just describing the point i already gave.

thanks Simon for taking our humble opinion, dont remember anyone did this before.

Simon_ASA - 28 April 2018 04:07 PM

When you have to walk in a 3d game, I find also that you become too aware of the distances. Often you want to run (or to run even faster) because you quickly get bored.

Very true.

I don’t really mind the axis rotation, as long as it’s limited to left and right. (Which is actually 1D, because forward and backward requires/implies directional movement.) What I don’t like is vertical rotation, i.e. top-to-bottom. Which, if you think of it properly, you would probably get sick in real life if you stood in one place and looked up/looked down more than two or three times. It doesn’t get any less nauseating because it’s a game.

Distances often are an issue with 1st person games, and with 3D games in general. Some devs have the notion, that if the game is made in 3D, then the distances should reflect on what it would be if the location was in the real world. It is easy to forget, that not all games, despite the graphics might edge on photorealism, should, or even need, to try to emulate real world.

There’s a balance there, between “real” and too much abstraction that is the sweet spot I think.

SoccerDude - 28 April 2018 09:42 PM

As far as puzzles go, my favorite style is multiple difficulties like MI 2. King’s quest did multiple puzzle solutions back in 1984 so I don’t get why devs dont take advantage of that. You see that all the time in other genres like action adventures or RPGs that provide multiple difficulties. If that is impossible, only have difficult puzzles if you have multiple puzzles to explore at the same time. The Witness has some brutality difficult puzzles but you can tackle another puzzle if you are stuck on one.

There are a whole host of problems with having multiple solutions. Not least it ruins the cinematic nature of a game, since you can’t have dialogue later on in the game based on a puzzle the player may or may not have done. Some of the best puzzles are built upon you having learnt something from earlier puzzle, again this would not be possible if you skipped it. And let’s think of some of the great puzzles - let’s say the safe puzzle in Monkey Island 1 - instead of watching the storekeeper and following him, what if you could find the directions to the swordmaster in a locked chest instead, which you could open with lockpicks? Instead of working through a satisfying puzzle you have just skipped it by doing a boring lockpick minigame. As a player I would actually be upset that the developer didn’t trust me to be smart enough and included that alternative solution, so I miss out on the cool puzzle.

And let’s be serious, RPGs and action adventures are not role models for good puzzle design. I don’t know about you but I can’t recall any memorable puzzles in such games.

I like the approach of having one solution but multiple ways of finding out that solution - The Sexy Brutale does a great job at this, meaning that if you persist you will always find out the answer rather than pixel hunting for a tiny hotspot you may have missed.