Adventure Gamers - Forums

I apologize because I’m not following your rule of being a recent game

I just think Myst did it best. A number of different islands to solve in any order, all of which had their own theme.

I find your question easier to answer for open world RPGs (such as The Elder Scrolls games) which tend to present worlds instead of tight-knit narratives. It’s a bigger challenge to create the narrative resonance you want, I think, when thematic elements can be experienced in different orders. You’re letting go of a narrative control over your audience…

...but again, just a bigger challenge. I like both ways equally, but I love, as a player, as much agency as possible.

The Deponia trilogy.

There’re many… all of Daedalic’s games feature plenty locations “at a time” and “scattered” puzzles. Go with The Whispered World - it’s not the most non-linear game you’ll see, but it has a good balance.

Gray Matter has Jane Jensen’s unique “map” style like in GK.

Ceville has a touch of “Day of the Tentacle” multi-character madness, though to a lesser extent, but it’s still a great game.

Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman’s Mine is, if not the most non-linear, one of the most “explorable” games out there - try to talk to cacti or kiss the sky (the other way around is good, too ) and you’ll get my meaning. Also, I believe there’re 20+ screens in the Freddy Pharkas-esque city alone you can access right at the beginning.

Journeyman Project 3 (hey, it’s a playthrough candidate!) has a neat “non-linear” puzzle feature in which you can morph into people you meet. The Space Bar (along with “Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon) is enormously “free” to explore (frustrating too!). 

All of Kheops games possess that rare “solving the puzzles in either way” non-linearity.

Also, play Toonstruck if you haven’t already - it’s pretty much a “middle-section” of MI2.

I’d like to include “Virtue’s Last Reward” in this category - I’ve played it several times and gotten quite a few different endings.

Lambonius - 16 January 2014 02:25 AM

Why, the upcoming Quest For Infamy is pretty much entirely that sort of game, save for the very beginning and the very end. 

I’m so glad I backed the game. It sounds better and better

I love how Daedalic’s games boast free - roaming worlds with lots of objectives while retaining the sense of (quirky) logic in (almost) every puzzle. I completely disagree with opinion they should edit their games because I never get stuck more than 15 minutes on their inventory puzzles.

Usually, (IMHO, of course) they’re really good at building up certain tension around puzzles. You know, the usual “the game lays out a problem, you cannot possible fathom how to solve it, then you check your inventory, try some solutions but you realize you’re missing one key ingredient, then you think a bit about problem (Should I ask a certain character to solve it? Did I miss an important item on the way?) and suddenly solution becomes clear and rewarding” stuff.

On the other hand, they should work more on their logic puzzles and interface problems.

Musical puzzle in Deponia 2, open the crate and baby Goal in sewers in Deponia 3. Primarily, I have beef with Deponia series in that regard.

If nonlineraty is your biggest thrill then I believe you are looking at the wrong places. Games like Outcast, Shenmue and actually most RPG/MMORPG are great in this regard since that’s entirely where their focus lies.

With that said, having freedom och large environments/worlds to explore can obviously be a great thing to have in an adventure game. The downside is that you risk losing the focus/impact of the story/characters when there’s basicly to much of it. That often means that the work required can be put to better use developing other aspects.

In a dreamworld most adventure games would aim for something inbetween but then there’s the problem of actually having to hand design a huge game world would take enormous amounts of money.