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I want to make an adventure game but ....
Is there an interest in purchasing an indie PC game with a Japanese style type of art and story?
So I’m still new to the adventure genre, and I’ve been around the forums to better understand it (it’s been a blast reading your responses to everything!). But as you can see by my game history in my signature, I’ve had a bit of a learning curve about Sierra and traditional type adventure games that you all adore. And I believe I’ve gotten the impression that only a certain percentage of you play Japanese AGs as majority of them are limited to handheld consoles. It’s reflected in the top DS/3DS rankings.
Hence the question that has been bothering me for the longest time. While I would love to make an adventure game, I would at least like to know if there is an audience for it? It would sorta suck to put all the effort into making a quality game if the art style was one of the automatic factors that people here don’t have an interest. I’m not sure if the lack of Japanese style AG at the indie level doesn’t exist because of lack of market or just cause not enough people have been trying it.
I sorta felt the need to ask this question as I have to pick which audience genre would be the most receptive, and modify the game mechanics to better fit. Visual novel players would easily accept the art style, and the slice of life aspect of story, but would be extremely off-putted by the inventory puzzles and mini-games in it. While AG players would be fine with the latter, and the mystery part of the story as well, but I have no data on slice of life story genre.
Simply, I need a bit of help determining where my game should go… sorry for the lengthy post. I’d just like opinions on your game preferences 
Games Played: Ace Attorney (PW 1-3, Apollo Justice, Miles Investigation), Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Professor Layton (Curious Village, Diabolical Box, Unwound Future, Lost Specter), 999 and Zero Escape, Walking Dead S1-2, Trace Memory, Area-X, Time Hollow, Ghost Trick, Indian Jones FoA Currently Playing: Portal 2, PL - Miracle Mask, Dangan Ronpa
My advice is to join small independent adventure game company such as for instance Red Thread games? It may be a good idea to make concept art and a small overview of plot! characters and design and try to pitch it to them? by attending gaming and cosplay conventions you may meet many people who work in that area. Also people get funding on Kickstarter once their project is outlined.
I think adventure genre is wonderful and we need more of it! Good luck and best wishes to you 
in terms of the mechanics, my preference is Dreamfall, Broken Sword types of games.
Is there an interest in purchasing an indie PC game with a Japanese style type of art and story?
Yes!
And I believe I’ve gotten the impression that only a certain percentage of you play Japanese AGs as majority of them are limited to handheld consoles. It’s reflected in the top DS/3DS rankings.
I think that the main reason that most of us don’t play Japanese AG is because they are limited to handheld consoles, and most of us doesn’t have such devices, not because of the art style.
Most of us, with some exceptions, care more about other elements such as the story and the puzzle design etc. and pretty much any art style, as long as it actually has a style, and some effort has been put into it will generally be appreciated.
Whether or not the potential market is big enough for such a game, is however hard to predict and will of course also depends on quality and reviews etc. Adventure games is still a niche product, even though it seems to be rising in popularity, but I wouldn’t be too worried about the art style putting people off.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
@Princess - I don’t think Red Thread would be interested in someone they don’t know, especially since they already have their own team members to create new game ideas. Also the fact they do 3D while I draw 2D images.
Thanks Iznogood! That’s a bit reassuring. I guess I should mention some game mechanic examples, though some might be considered limitations.
- Static character art (no animation, maybe eyes and mouth moves)
- No voice acting
- Reading quite a bit of text for dialogue
- Making choices for different outcomes/endings
- No fancy cutscenes (single image variations/panning types instead of full motion movies)
- 2D background art (left and right arrows to other parts of room, click to travel to different places, no 3D movement)
Are any of these deal breakers for some of you guys?
Games Played: Ace Attorney (PW 1-3, Apollo Justice, Miles Investigation), Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Professor Layton (Curious Village, Diabolical Box, Unwound Future, Lost Specter), 999 and Zero Escape, Walking Dead S1-2, Trace Memory, Area-X, Time Hollow, Ghost Trick, Indian Jones FoA Currently Playing: Portal 2, PL - Miracle Mask, Dangan Ronpa
I think that the main reason that most of us don’t play Japanese AG is because they are limited to handheld consoles, and most of us doesn’t have such devices, not because of the art style.
Absolutely right. I’m definitely interested in some of the Japanese AG’s I’ve heard about (My wife is Japanese after all 
) & am rather disappointed that they’re generally not available on the PC.
- Static character art (no animation, maybe eyes and mouth moves)
- No voice acting
- Reading quite a bit of text for dialogue
- Making choices for different outcomes/endings
- No fancy cutscenes (single image variations/panning types instead of full motion movies)
- 2D background art (left and right arrows to other parts of room, click to travel to different places, no 3D movement)Are any of these deal breakers for some of you guys?
A year ago, and I might have said that no voice acting would be a potential deal-breaker for me. However, “To The Moon” has proved to me that that’s definitely not the case. Indeed, “To The Moon” is surely proof that none of the points you mention above Roxie are such a big issue for the majority of players.
Go for it! No harm in trying is there
It doesn’t have to have the best graphics etc. There’s only one thing I’d say needs to be solid though - my personal view of course. Story. You have to have this nailed down. It doesn’t need to be the anything groundbreaking, it just needs to be solid. This is one thing that drives me crazy about any adventure games - well, that and illogical puzzles.
It sounds like your trying to make a more visual novel sort of game if you don’t mind me saying. Here’s a good engine for such if your interested: http://www.renpy.org/
Recently completed: Game of Thrones (decent), Tales from the borderlands (great!), Life is Strange (great!), Stasis (good), Annas Quest (great!); Broken Age (poor)
@DaveyB - That’s encouraging to know I was initially planning to do a kickstarter campaign when the majority of the game is complete, and with stretch goals to add voice work, sprite and cutscene animations as well. It would be nice to pay those for the extra work. The current design is pretty barebone to keep the costs down (and the limits of my abilities).
@Tad - Actually I was planning to make a visual novel adventure game. A current AAA example of that is the DS game 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and even the sequel (which is 3D though). Ironically Renpy is the game engine I’m using. It’s able to port to PC/Mac/Linux and Android. I also picked the engine because it uses Python, which is one of the easiest programming languages to learn. From my memory of the game, 999 can probably be completely done in Renpy, so I believe the potential to make a good adventure game is there. As long as the writing is good of course…
I joined the AG forums because I wanted to find gamers that knew what made a good AG puzzle and what they didn’t like 
it’s been a great learning experience.
Games Played: Ace Attorney (PW 1-3, Apollo Justice, Miles Investigation), Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Professor Layton (Curious Village, Diabolical Box, Unwound Future, Lost Specter), 999 and Zero Escape, Walking Dead S1-2, Trace Memory, Area-X, Time Hollow, Ghost Trick, Indian Jones FoA Currently Playing: Portal 2, PL - Miracle Mask, Dangan Ronpa
You see, that 999 game looks really good, but I simple cant justify buying a handheld for games like that which are far and few between. I managed to get a DS a while back and I got Hotel Dusk and The last window. Two great games there
Recently completed: Game of Thrones (decent), Tales from the borderlands (great!), Life is Strange (great!), Stasis (good), Annas Quest (great!); Broken Age (poor)
Hey Roxie,
advice from someone who actually makes adventure games:
- do whatever you feel like doing. You’ll always find people that like your product. The thing is, if you do it with passion and energy, people will resonate with that.
- one director -> one vision. If you’re the directory type, then make all the major decisions for your game. Of course, consult with friends and other people you’re working with. But the director takes care of the vision, the consistency, the drive and the completeness of the product. You need to have a feel for your vision of the game, and how to make it a reality. The thing is, every game need a director. Otherwise it’s dead in the water at the very beginning. The director is the person who understands the game and knows what it is about.
- writing is important, but delivery is MORE important. That is why in movies, as in games, director > writer.
- don’t make a huge, overly ambitious project at once. Make a free flash game or two, just so you can get a feel for what your strengths and weaknesses are, and so you (or your programmer) can gain some experience.
- DON’T overdo it. If a certain element or plotpoint doesn’t work out, no matter how you try, don’t fixate on it - drop it. It wasn’t right. Chances are, you’ll be able to use it in another scene, at another time, with much better results.
- people are strange. Everyone has an opinion. No matter how good your game is, you’ll always find idiots who think they know better. Also, no matter how bad the game is, you’ll always find people who like it Just make your game, watch the reviews, cringe at the bad ones, and rejoice at the good ones.
- you will probably NOT, unless you’re so damn lucky I can’t believe, earn any money from your first game. Hence the need to go small at first.
So yeah, just to sum it up - start small, work your way up. A singular person’s vision and drive is most important. Direct your game, but don’t be afraid to listen to other people’s advice. Probably no revenue from game 1 or 2, but keep at it.
P.S. Don’t try to be two persons at once. Either be a designer, or a programmer. Don’t do both. Find a friend, or someone, to fill in the blank.
I wouldn’t discriminate about “Japanese art” because there’s so many different kinds. I loved 999’s so much I bought the art book, but I can’t even play Analogue: A Hate Story because the characters look so off-putting.
Same about linearity - I played Saya No Uta because the story (and hype) was intriguing, even if I wasn’t really a fan of the character art at all.
The main thing about a visual novel for me is obviously the quality of the writing. It’s very rare to find someone nowadays who is an excellent game designer, programmer AND writer. Even the ones with amazing plot often have very cheesy dialogue.
Is there an interest in purchasing an indie PC game with a Japanese style type of art and story?
Yes!
And I believe I’ve gotten the impression that only a certain percentage of you play Japanese AGs as majority of them are limited to handheld consoles. It’s reflected in the top DS/3DS rankings.
I think that the main reason that most of us don’t play Japanese AG is because they are limited to handheld consoles, and most of us doesn’t have such devices, not because of the art style.
^ I fully agree with this!
There are DEFINITELY people interested in those kinds of games, and the reason why they seem limited to handheld games is because those are a lot higher profile than their PC counterparts, and because I think not enough PC gamers are aware of the Visual Novel Database. (Seriously, if you didn’t know that site, visit it!!! Plus that site is proof that there is a market for visual novels. )
- No voice acting
This might be a dealbreaker for some. Especially those who are unfamiliar with DS visual novels, or unfamiliar with To the Moon and the likes. Then again, if they’re unfamiliar with it, they’re likely outside of your target audience.
You see, that 999 game looks really good, but I simple cant justify buying a handheld for games like that which are far and few between. I managed to get a DS a while back and I got Hotel Dusk and The last window. Two great games there
Be sure to check a few of the recent handheld threads for other great DS games, there are quite a few of those out there…
- don’t make a huge, overly ambitious project at once. Make a free flash game or two, just so you can get a feel for what your strengths and weaknesses are, and so you (or your programmer) can gain some experience.
^ This!
Start with something small (maybe a 3-room short story?) and release that as freeware. Making something small gets you acquainted with the engine you’re trying to use and you can use some of the freeware communities’ feedback to improve in areas where you may be lacking a bit. It’ll also prove to the outside world (and to yourself) that you can actually finish a game, and it may get you some followers anxious to see your next (bigger) project.
In fact, that’s how a lot of developers started out (see the AGS community).
P.S. Don’t try to be two persons at once. Either be a designer, or a programmer. Don’t do both. Find a friend, or someone, to fill in the blank.
Why not? Engines like AGS and Visionaire, and probably Renpy as well, are made specifically to let game designers focus on the design of their game without needing vast programming experience. Having good programming baggage is probably helpful, but definitely not a prerequisite. I’m sure a lot of AGS designers can’t make a simple pound-to-kilogram converter program without a tutorial.
It’s very rare to find someone nowadays who is an excellent game designer, programmer AND writer. Even the ones with amazing plot often have very cheesy dialogue.
I disagree. There are quite a few game designers out there who have made a well-written and well-designed game mostly by theirselves, using one of the adventure game-friendly engines (like AGS or Visionaire).
Just look at WadjetEye’s library: Gemini Rue was basically made single-handedly by Joshua Nuernberger, Resonance was made almost single-handedly by Vince Twelve (who managed to get an innovative gameplay-aspect in the mix), etc.
And then there was Kan Gao who used RPGmaker to give us To the Moon, one of the most well-written and emotional games in recent years (and he also composed the wonderful music for it!!!).
And Christopher Bischoff’s upcoming game Stasis looks to be of the same mold.
What I mean is that it’s perfectly possible for one single designer - if talented enough - to design AND program a great game that’s also written well…
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
P.S. Don’t try to be two persons at once. Either be a designer, or a programmer. Don’t do both. Find a friend, or someone, to fill in the blank.
Why not? Engines like AGS and Visionaire, and probably Renpy as well, are made specifically to let game designers focus on the design of their game without needing vast programming experience. Having good programming baggage is probably helpful, but definitely not a prerequisite. I’m sure a lot of AGS designers can’t make a simple pound-to-kilogram converter program without a tutorial.
Because I know what I’m talking about.
a) your work will be slower
b) you will not have another viewpoint on things
c) you will not have someone to give you perspective and limitations. Imposed limitations (whether by programming language or another person) are the most important step on the road to creativity.
d) your deadlines will be broken and somehow, your game will never get done in time. Of course, self-discipline is the trait you want, but this is much easier to do in pairs.
e) you will end up with a not-really-so-good game. Compare Fez (a boring and empty game, made by a 1-man team) to Binding of Isaac (a wonderful game; also, a two-man team). In fact, Isaac’s creator always shared the workload.
Think of making a game as a sort of dialogue. If there’s only one of you, you’re making a monologue. The trouble with monologues, they only sound good in your head.
“Having good programming baggage is probably helpful”
-> This is ESSENTIAL. Because otherwise you are building a house on rocky foundations. And just like a person CANNOT be a master pianist as well as a master athlete (jack of all trades, but master of none)
PandanFain,
Would you have links to some of the games you’ve made? I am at the start of 5 adventure games of varying lengths and ideas and am soaking up developers’ viewpoints like a sponge as I move forward. I would like to play some of your stuff.
Thanks!
lessismore74
I’m making five different adventure games. My dev blog is: http://paskeyland.tumblr.com I also make t-shirts and those are at: http://shirtboxco.com
I took a look at the Altabe Studio website associated with your profile, Roxie, to get a better idea of your past games. Is the game you are proposing being done with these studio members, or are you working on it solo?
@Tad - Actually I was planning to make a visual novel adventure game. A current AAA example of that is the DS game 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and even the sequel (which is 3D though). Ironically Renpy is the game engine I’m using.
That sounds good. I would say just make the game how you want it to be, in terms of style and tone, and trust that it will find a like-minded audience. 999 and Phoenix Wright, while in the visual novel tradition, had crossover appeal to adventure gamers, so there’s no reason yours can’t too. (Well, marketing, but I’ll come to that…) You will find, of course, that many people form preconceptions about how your game will play based on how it looks, so if your game looks like a visual novel, your core base of supporters will likely be people who play visual novels. Adventure gamers will also be part of your base of supporters but they will likely be a secondary set. So that may be an important consideration for marketing and sales.
If part of your question is a business question—e.g. Will my game, even though it is niche, find enough of an audience to make money?—then that’s a tough question to answer. I’ve never been an indie dev, only worked as a producer and designer on school and side projects and in a AAA studio, so I haven’t personally had to worry about the business side much, which is handled by publishing in AAA, and I’m still new and junior in the dev hierarchy anyway. Best I can do is this: Pixel Prospector collects lots of articles from indie devs around the ‘net, including many articles on business, marketing, and sales. I think this article about Defender’s Quest has useful insights, even for non-commercial games if you skip to the Final Takeaways section. If you think your audience is really small and you want to know how to make a living off a small audience, Jeff Vogel’s blog entries on pricing and maybe this one in particular may be of interest.
I joined the AG forums because I wanted to find gamers that knew what made a good AG puzzle and what they didn’t like
You might find these articles of interest:
Why Adventure Games Suck - classic manifesto written in 1989 by Ron Gilbert of LucasArts
Designing the Puzzle - by Bob Bates of Legend Entertainment, from his 1997 GDC talk
Good Puzzle/Bad Puzzle - by Jeff Strand, a writer for JustAdventure in its heyday
Who Killed Adventure Games? - by Eric Wolpaw, who went on to work on Psychonauts and Portal
A Journey Across the Main Stream: Games for My Mother-in-Law - by Dave Grossman, design director at Telltale Games
Many of these are very biased toward traditional inventory puzzles so they may not all apply to your game. But there’s some valuable design wisdom in there about how players learn the parameters of your game world.
PandanFain,
Would you have links to some of the games you’ve made? I am at the start of 5 adventure games of varying lengths and ideas and am soaking up developers’ viewpoints like a sponge as I move forward. I would like to play some of your stuff.
Thanks!
lessismore74
Here: http://www.kongregate.com/games/BlackOliveGames/the-grey-rainbow
Some people may dismiss the game solely on the artwork. Some hate it, some love it. So please, if you’re deterred by the artwork at first, just stick with it. It’ll all make sense later. Please let me know how you feel about it afterwards.
That is my first (and only) finished game. A second game is 95% done and it will release in the next month or so. Both are free Flash games. After the current game is done, the next one is aimed at the mobile and iPad platforms. Each game takes us (me and my programmer buddy) about 4 months to finish (for varying reasons, which I’ll lay out if you’d like)
My website is http://www.blackolivegames.com, so check it out afterwards.
Why Adventure Games Suck - classic manifesto written in 1989 by Ron Gilbert of LucasArts
Designing the Puzzle - by Bob Bates of Legend Entertainment, from his 1997 GDC talk
Good Puzzle/Bad Puzzle - by Jeff Strand, a writer for JustAdventure in its heyday
Who Killed Adventure Games? - by Eric Wolpaw, who went on to work on Psychonauts and Portal
A Journey Across the Main Stream: Games for My Mother-in-Law - by Dave Grossman, design director at Telltale Games
I would like to point out here, sensationalist headlines like Who Killed Adventure Games? don’t really shake my bootay. And true enough, that article was crap. Adventure games are not dead! Never have been! But right now, they’re mostly made here in Europe. I don’t know if it’s a culture thing, but us Europeans can appreciate a good adventure even today.
However I firmly agree with Ron Gilbert and Justadventure’s article. In fact, below are links to three recent articles of mine. All three echo sentiments of Gilbert and JustAdventure EXACTLY, albeit in different wording.
http://www.blackolivegames.com/article/how-we-make-our-games—the-short-version
http://www.blackolivegames.com/article/puzzles-in-adventures
http://www.blackolivegames.com/article/puzzles-in-adventures-2
I am sad to say, though, Gilbert now is not the man he was before. His Cave sucked, and it broke almost every rule he laid out IN HIS OWN ARTICLE.
@Caliburn - Altabe Studio is an online multimedia studio, certain members specialize in comics, animation, sound work and such. Yes and no, some are “sorta” helping me with my game, but I’m mostly solo as they are busy with their own private works and job. If the game gets funding from Kickstarter, I would hire my studio member for some animation work, and the sound engineer and voice actors that have been working with us. The studio is currently focused on making their own film animation (another separate topic).
Solo work does take forever to do everything, I have one colorist to sorta help (but she’s busy on her own game) and I’m sorta commissioning original music. I’ve had many people bail on me early on in production (non studio members) and sometimes you just have to do (mostly) everything yourself, it is your own game after all. But what can I say, it’s a REALLY fun learning experience, I have a large appreciation for those that complete their games
Caliburn brings up EXACTLY what I was wondering about. The art style carries preconceptions. I will use my friend as an example as she’s the reason I started the thread in the first place. She has 4 games under her belt, does game making for a living, yet she doesn’t make any money off the ones that has game and story mechanics she loves. She has an anime art style, her recent game falls under a romance sci-fi visual novel adventure game (cause it’s got exploration and mini-games). You assume it’s like other VNs targeted at girls who love that genre, but she did some major taboos as a result from deviating from the market. She has limited romance (hugs at most, no erotica), killed off the heroine in the “happy” ending, and has mini-games (VN taboo). She’s gotten emails by previous fans that said they would not buy her game as it has mini-games, and told her to remove it. She added mini-games cause it’s what she likes… so what can she do? The story and art is spectacular though, high quality and well written. It’s a major disappointment as a fan and friend cause I feel it’s her best work (I don’t even like romance VNs). So you’re thinking, why did she target them? Cause VN girl players buy games in the English visual novel market (super niche). You can’t target anyone else in that market that likes the art and pays for games (another long story). Would her game appeal to adventure gamers then if the art isn’t a negative factor? The demo is misleading cause the mini-games were simplified to keep VN players stuck around long enough, but the puzzles get challenging later on. I think yes AGers can enjoy it, because the story is good (I actually grew to like the characters, I can’t say the same thing about 999 characters)... It takes a lot of skill to write a story along 5 different routes and piece it all together to tell one complete story.
I’ve been pushing my friend to try making adventure games; she can make a good story the way she wants it, she doesn’t have to do romance, and she can do puzzles. But she simply asked, “is there even a market for the style and story?” I’m… conflicted. While I’m glad that all you guys that have responded are open minded to it, it’s .. tough to evaluate. Thank you all for the links though I’ll be sure to do my research!
Games Played: Ace Attorney (PW 1-3, Apollo Justice, Miles Investigation), Hotel Dusk and Last Window, Professor Layton (Curious Village, Diabolical Box, Unwound Future, Lost Specter), 999 and Zero Escape, Walking Dead S1-2, Trace Memory, Area-X, Time Hollow, Ghost Trick, Indian Jones FoA Currently Playing: Portal 2, PL - Miracle Mask, Dangan Ronpa
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