Adventure Gamers - Forums

This is just an open question, in the hope of gaining an overall impression of what others think. I have my own ideas which may or may not come out later.

All of us here have a preference for games with slowly evolving more cerebral interactive narratives, with environments to explore at leisure and obstacles or puzzles to overcome through contemplation rather than fast reflexes. Others might like the adrenaline rush of being amidst the action - some of us might like that too or other kinds, but we all have in common a preference for the kind I mentioned before.

Why? What are we seeking in it? What does it give us, or what do we believe it gives us? What drives us and our collective interest?

I’m not asking for answers like “I enjoy stories and puzzles and so-and-so”. That much is obvious. I’m interested in the why.

Maybe through a collaborative exploration of the topic we can find some answers, as the thread evolves.

Mr Underhill - 13 December 2018 04:57 AM

Because, whether you play them or make them, they give you the illusion of participating in engaging stories without there being million dollar budgets involved.

Okay, sure. And why do you think we want to participate in engaging stories? I mean there must be some reason we want to and others don’t, right?

I think it’s the combination of a good story, solving mysteries and such, enjoying bizarre situations, and trying to think new ways to use available items.

It’s more or less the same reasons why people like to watch MacGyver, only with an added interactive component.

Another element about adventure games is that their “puzzles” or their kind of problem solving is a natural way for making interactvity into challenge. In more interactive games there are environment dependent interactions (objects in gameworld are not just skins on gameworld) and you can make those into challenges by making player to guess right ways to interact with environment to reach her goals and to overcome problems.

I’ve always liked puzzles, but what first attracted me to adventure games was being able to explore a virtual world without being harrassed and shot at by enemies.
Although I enjoy pure puzzle games, they don’t allow much in the way of exploration.

It all boils down to problem solving. In many games the problem and the solution are laid out for you. Press A to fire lasers at the aliens, dodge the lasers fired back at you, do this with increasing rapid succession. The dream of an adventure game is the problem and its solution cant be found in the rulebook. The game is going to create a reality that you try to exist in and solve in ways that should not be immediately apparent to the player… because to the player anything could happen, so anything could be needed to solve it. While other games might have aspects of this sprinkled in, adventure games entirely revolve around this idea.
A great example that comes to mind: theres a couple adventure games on the DS that have 1 or 2 puzzles where you use the system itself in unexpected ways.. like thinking of the system as a box that closes in order to solve something. Or (even though this puzzle made me mad) the volume puzzle in one of the deponia games. These specific puzzles are not needed in an adventure game at all, but the very fact the game gets your brain thinking in all these different directions is what makes these games special.

I just like to jump into another world every now & again - sometimes just for the fun of it & sometimes just to get away from reality. 

TimovieMan - 13 December 2018 06:29 AM

So, while this probably isn’t really the “why” you’re looking for (it boils down to “I like narratives and puzzles” after all), these are my reasons for liking AGs.

Actually, does there really have to be a deeper meaning? Can’t I just be shallow instead?

You can, but I really would prefer the “why” part to be discussed.

Everyone knows what we like about adventure games, and we don’t need a thread for that.

Even if you think about what you like about AGs and then think to yourself “WHY do I like this? why don’t many other people? what does that say about me compared to others?” then that would be extremely helpful and would set the thread apart from the typical boring AG fan thread.

Ever since I got my first Choose Your Own Adventure book as a kid, I always liked the idea of stories that you could interact with.  And while I was growing up adventure games seemed like the only genre of video games that took storytelling seriously.  So it was a natural fit.

Now that the video game industry has matured and grown so much, good storytelling has made its way into almost every genre.  So unlike fans that were more drawn to the puzzles, I’m much more willing to branch out into other genres.  Some non-adventure games like The Last of Us, Yakuza 0, and Higurashi: When They Cry are IMO as good as anything the adventure genre has ever made.