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Schafer’s take on GF sequel
“I’ve had this urge to make a fully 3D version of El Marrow, where it’s more like an open world game. You’re running around the city and stuff. Games like Grand Theft Auto have a lot of the elements of adventure games, and if there was just an inventory that wasn’t guns, you could probably do a full adventure game in one. That’s something I’ve thought about since the ‘90s.”
This sounds really cool, the world is so rich and original.
This could work as real evolution for Schafer, AGs as well as GF sequel with
different protagonists, if its hard to shoehorn Manny.
Yes, Grim Fandango has a setting that would work in an open 3D world. But it works so well as it is, too.
That sounds like nothing I would want to play.
That sounds like nothing I would want to play.
I concur.
I also see open world as a necessary step in evolution (granted that one owns a good 3D engine). But why messing with GTA and making some extremely boring game when there were King’s Quest, QfG, Kyrandia, Omikron, Outcast, Anachronox, Ultima, Planescape? Not to mention Schafer’s own MI2, Psychonauts and Stacking. There were plenty of good open world concepts that just need some more thought.
Although the Grim Fandango universe should be left alone imho.
PC means personal computer
Without combat, it’s not easy making an “open world” compelling in an adventure game. Dreamfall Chapters’ world may have been well-realized but there still wasn’t a heck of a lot to do in it, I didn’t think. Unless there’s a lot of optional sidequests and puzzles and people to interact with, which I think is unfeasible without a GTA5 budget, it just doesn’t suit adventures.
And besides, I felt like I was exploring a fully realized world in Grim Fandango, even if I wasn’t able to literally explore every nook and cranny.
I wouldn’t say no to being able to play in open world El Marrow, but I do think it entirely unnecessary, and not just automatically better than what’s come before it.
It worked for LA Noire.
An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams
This won’t work. Basically what Schafer is proposing is the traditional adventure with added filler - more walking, more wandering around, more empty space. Compare Riven with the vastly inferior Uru.
It worked for LA Noire.
Ah, LA Noire. The Los Angeles with a police station, around 10 crime scenes and hundreds of miles of empty streets, barren buildings and no life whatsoever.
It worked for LA Noire.
But it had combat, didn’t it? (I’ve never played, but as I recall…)
It worked for LA Noire.
I completed it and it’s not an adventure by any means, certainly no more than Mass Effect or Tomb Raider and much less than Little Big Adventure for example.
It doesn’t have puzzles only those interrogation scenes that are very poorly implemented.
I think that the big issue with an ‘open world adventure game’ comes in that the puzzles devolve into ‘Cluedo’ style solutions. Its A with B in C.
You generally have a mechanic that you use multiple times in the exact same way. Its a sacrifice you make when giving a player that much freedom - you have to design really simple systems that cant break.
Combat is a system that’s easy, and can’t break the game. Its reactive, can be contained to effect JUST the area around the player, and has an easy way to ‘reset’ the world when its finished. That’s why most open world games resort to a heavily focused combat mechanic. When games try to move away from this with multiple systems that can interact (Watchdogs for example), they start to simplify those systems to extremes (again, Watchdogs).
Adventure game puzzles ARE very complex systems that rely on many variables happening at the right time in the right order to complete them. Item A leads to Item B which leads to Game State C which leads to Outcome D. As soon as ONE of those is taken out, or substituted with something else the chain breaks - unless the differences between the substituted items are minuscule enough to not matter (ie - a long stick instead of a broom handle).
I’m not saying it CANT be done, but I don’t think that you can get the control of puzzles that an adventure game (in the classic sense) gives you, with the freedom of an open world setting.
That said, you could get linear story set in an open world where TIME and PLACE are additional factors in getting A, B, C, or D. Blade Runner did this effectively.
I think that the big issue with an ‘open world adventure game’ comes in that the puzzles devolve into ‘Cluedo’ style solutions. Its A with B in C.
You generally have a mechanic that you use multiple times in the exact same way. Its a sacrifice you make when giving a player that much freedom - you have to design really simple systems that cant break.Combat is a system that’s easy, and can’t break the game. Its reactive, can be contained to effect JUST the area around the player, and has an easy way to ‘reset’ the world when its finished. That’s why most open world games resort to a heavily focused combat mechanic. When games try to move away from this with multiple systems that can interact (Watchdogs for example), they start to simplify those systems to extremes (again, Watchdogs).
Adventure game puzzles ARE very complex systems that rely on many variables happening at the right time in the right order to complete them. Item A leads to Item B which leads to Game State C which leads to Outcome D. As soon as ONE of those is taken out, or substituted with something else the chain breaks - unless the differences between the substituted items are minuscule enough to not matter (ie - a long stick instead of a broom handle).
I’m not saying it CANT be done, but I don’t think that you can get the control of puzzles that an adventure game (in the classic sense) gives you, with the freedom of an open world setting.
I think those are very good points, specially how combat is a very big part of the open-world appeal because of the fredoom and imprevisibility of reactions and how the GTA formula quickly allows for a reset.
Still I think there is room for an open-world adventure with more complex systems than Watch Dogs. One of ways to do it would be more multiple solutions for puzzle, multiple pathways and a more restricted-size open-world with side quests.
It worked for LA Noire.
It doesn’t have puzzles only those interrogation scenes that are very poorly implemented.
Sure it has puzzles. You still need to investigate the crime scenes in oreder to figure out what has happened and who did what and what to use as a leverage in order to get the criminal.
It worked for LA Noire.
I completed it and it’s not an adventure by any means, certainly no more than Mass Effect or Tomb Raider and much less than Little Big Adventure for example.
It doesn’t have puzzles only those interrogation scenes that are very poorly implemented.
Not actually true, it is not a puzzle heavy game or a difficult game, but it is still very much an AG. Even if you exclude the interrogation scenes from the puzzles, then it is still a game based on solving different puzzles and collecting evidence. And that you didn’t like the interrogation scenes doesn’t change the simple fact that they are dialogue puzzles.
It has nothing whatsoever in common with games like ME, and no more in common with TR than every other AG has.
But it had combat, didn’t it? (I’ve never played, but as I recall…)
The combat in LA Noire is 100% optional and only used in the “side quests”.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
And the puzzles are? (except the dialogue ones)
Exploring and collecting evidence doesn’t mean solving puzzles.
Tomb Raider’s pull the lever which lowers the bridge on the next floor is still more of a puzzle than anything in LA Noire.
I enjoyed playing LA Noire, but never actually “used my brain cells” during a whole game.
Adventure game puzzles ARE very complex systems that rely on many variables happening at the right time in the right order to complete them. Item A leads to Item B which leads to Game State C which leads to Outcome D. As soon as ONE of those is taken out, or substituted with something else the chain breaks - unless the differences between the substituted items are minuscule enough to not matter (ie - a long stick instead of a broom handle).
I’m not saying it CANT be done, but I don’t think that you can get the control of puzzles that an adventure game (in the classic sense) gives you, with the freedom of an open world setting.
The A -> B -> C dependencies you are talking about, is more of a narrative dependency that it is an actual puzzle dependency. Puzzle-wise it might mean that you have to rely more on isolated puzzles, or make sure that whatever items you need are found in the same area as where you need them, but I don’t really see this as a problem.
Narratively it will however mean that you can’t tell the same kind of stories, or at least that you have to tell them much less linear, or as many different sub-stories instead of one coherent story, and that is a problem as I see it.
Going completely open world would be a mistake imo, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t make AG’s that are somewhat open world games.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
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