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Adventure Game Scene of the Day — Friday 20 July 2012

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Some good thoughts on the game here. I agree that the graphics are amazing. I also understand the points about the flaws. I was surprised to find out that King’s Quest V came out after Monkey Island 1. In many ways, the latter seems like a parody of the former. However, I still really like the game. I’ve always enjoyed the King’s Quest series for its campiness and found that the absurd puzzles and situations just add to the fun. I find the series interesting in that it simultaneously establishes genre conventions and (unintentionally) employs distancing effects. It’s kind of like a musical in a way. Musicals have the convention of having moments where the characters spontaneously break out into song. These songs are distancing effects—as Ron Gilbert puts it, they make you realize that you are in a theater watching a movie. Yet some people enjoy this because of the absurdity, and the artistry possible within this absurdity.

As far as the difficulty of Sierra games goes, I actually find most of them pretty easy. Monkey Island 1 and 2 were certainly harder than King’s Quest V for me, although I played the LA games much earlier than the Sierra ones, so I may have simply gotten better at adventure gaming. I can with more certainty say that the Infocom games are harder than the Sierra ones, as I played the first two Zorks within the past few years (and those are supposed to be among the easier Infocom games). Deaths don’t really make a game harder, neither do dead ends necessarily. Suppose I am trying to solve a puzzle on Booty Island but can’t do so because I didn’t pick up an item on Scabb Island. Whether I can travel back there in the game or whether I have to reload a saved game doesn’t affect the difficulty. 

I may try to look at King’s Quest V in relation to those Gilbert rules. I just finished the game last week, so it’s still fresh in my head.

     
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Lagomorph - 09 February 2013 12:48 AM

As far as the difficulty of Sierra games goes, I actually find most of them pretty easy. Monkey Island 1 and 2 were certainly harder than King’s Quest V for me, although I played the LA games much earlier than the Sierra ones, so I may have simply gotten better at adventure gaming.

Squeezing a honey comb at a totally random spot, and then putting an emerald in it to attract an elf. You consider this easy? Gasp
I consider it impossible without a walkthrough!

Deaths don’t really make a game harder, neither do dead ends necessarily. Suppose I am trying to solve a puzzle on Booty Island but can’t do so because I didn’t pick up an item on Scabb Island. Whether I can travel back there in the game or whether I have to reload a saved game doesn’t affect the difficulty.

I don’t agree with this at all. Well, deaths are acceptable if they’re not overly present (which they are in KQV - you don’t want to know how many times I had to restore when traversing the icy mountains). If misclicking one pixel consistently gets you killed, the game is doing something poorly.

But dead ends are the absolute worst game elements ever.
If you can travel back to Scabb Island in your example, then when you’re stuck, you can just go over every screen again, to look for what you’ve missed. And you’ll eventually find what you’ve missed and get to continue.
When you CAN’T go back to Scabb Island, then you’ll be looking at every screen for what you’ve missed, not knowing that you’re hopelessly stuck. When you’re in a dead end, the thing is that you don’t know that you’re in a dead end.

Now, I don’t know about you, but having to restore to an earlier save (and potentially having to replay half a game), isn’t my idea of fun. And not knowing that this is your “solution” makes the matter even worse. Dead ends should be abolished from games forever!
There’s no way in hell that you should be able to enter the forbidden forest in KQV without all the necessary items to get back out again.
Stuff like that annoys me to no end.  Angry

     

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

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Squeezing a honey comb at a totally random spot, and then putting an emerald in it to attract an elf. You consider this easy? Gasp
I consider it impossible without a walkthrough!

Oh, yeah, that was possibly the most nonsensical puzzle in the game. But I don’t think it was any harder than, say, getting the navigation head in Monkey Island 1 (which is actually a clever puzzle). Most of the puzzles in KQ5 weren’t that hard because there wasn’t much to try. I admit to using hints for a few of them though. I found Space Quest IV even easier.

I don’t agree with this at all. Well, deaths are acceptable if they’re not overly present (which they are in KQV - you don’t want to know how many times I had to restore when traversing the icy mountains). If misclicking one pixel consistently gets you killed, the game is doing something poorly.

But dead ends are the absolute worst game elements ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with Gilbert that those elements can ruin the immersion and make the game more tedious. But so far, I haven’t found them to make the games harder to solve. When playing a Sierra game, I always keep in mind that I might be in a dead end. I made sure to save it before I went into the forest. The part that threw me off was that I threw the fish at the cat and thus never encountered the bear. The difficulty was that throwing the fish at the cat seemed to be the correct solution.

The other dead end I really got stuck on in a Sierra game was in Larry 3 when I didn’t pick up (or even see) the magic marker. The game could have theoretically allowed you to go back all the way through the jungle to get it and thus exclude it from being a dead end. But this wouldn’t have made the puzzle any easier. I wouldn’t be any more likely to think about traveling back through the jungle than I would be to restore the game. It is bad game design whether it is formally a dead end or not.

     
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I am still undecided on dead ends. I understand the frustration of getting into that situation, I’ve experienced that. But I also think gamers should be aware of how they approach a game, and with a Sierra game it should be knowing that you could face a dead end.
If you are faced with a growling dog and you know you passed a bone earlier in the game then you should know you stuffed up. If you’re wandering around for hours looking for a solution to the dog, that’s just not very clever gaming.
Dead ends simply change the rules of the game. Sierra always gave you advice to pick up everything that isn’t nailed down and to “save early, save often”.

What I’m saying is that although they can be frustrating, I think they can work in adventure games, assuming they are not badly designed (Games like Space Quest will give you a comment, they’ll tell you “should’ve picked up that bone earlier, eh Roger?”).
Making sure you are prepared for a journey into the desert is more “adventure” than a pop-up saying “gee, I don’t think I have all the items I need” when you try to go there. It puts the responsibility on you, and that works well in the unforgiving world featured in King’s Quest V. As do deaths. Going into a desert without water is silly, and is unintelligent gaming. But at the same time I realize most dead ends are badly thought out.

For people who hated the dead ends and deaths in a game I would advise them, once they are over their initial frustration, to play again knowing that they might get into that situation, and then see what you think. 


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I’ve always said that Gilbert’s adventure game rules are stupid. You can’t have a universal set of rules for all types of games. Deaths and dead ends aren’t for everyone, and they obviously aren’t for Timmovieman. But you can’t deny that opening up the possibility of getting stuck and dying adds something to a game. You could criticise games with no danger, no death, no risk (the Lucasarts model) for being flat experiences. You’re sitting in your chair knowing nothing will go wrong so you are free to click on anything, do anything. But I wouldn’t attack Lucasarts games for that, because their policy has its place and it works well. Sierra games are different, they want to put you on your guard and get you involved, and they achieve that. Two different experiences for two different types of games.

Gilbert’s rules are good for the type of game he wants to make but I can’t help but feel they have done more damage than good for AGs, now that 95% of games have adopted them as the standard. We can be thankful that not all developers have chosen to submit to their attempt to…

     
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The Gilbert rules applied to King’s Quest V:

End objective needs to be clear

The main objective of the game is pretty clear. However…

Sub-goals need to be obvious

This rule is violated most at the beginning of the game. The immediate goal seems to be to get by the snake. However, there is not indication as to what is needed to do this. Further, the puzzles that need to be solved have nothing to do with this but instead serve to provide you with items for future challenges. I think this is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the second half of the game more.

Live and learn

The desert and boat parts are good examples of this. Only by pure luck is it possible to get past either section without dying. Also, it would be hard to know what to do with the genie bottle without dying first.

Backwards Puzzles

There are many in King’s Quest V. The most hilarious one is the sled. It makes no sense to randomly lug around a huge sled (and to give up a gold-creating spinning wheel for it).

I forgot to pick it up

I only got into dead ends twice. The first was throwing the fish at the cat. This seems like a logical thing to do, especially since you have to do it later in the game. The second was not getting the cheese when I was thrown in the dungeon. I was surprised Cassima doesn’t come to rescue you if you get stuck again. You find out pretty quickly that this is a dead end, however.

Puzzles should advance the story

Again, the puzzles at the beginning fit this criticism.

Real time is bad drama

There are a few real time sections in the game. I thought that hiding from the bandits and escaping from the treasure room had perfect dramatic timing. Having to wait for Mordack to go to sleep was not so good. There was little indication that you had to do this (though perhaps the references to King’s Quest III are a hint).

Incremental reward

Again, the first half of the game. Pretty much all of the areas and characters are available right away.

Arbitrary puzzles

Oh dear. Catching an elf with emeralds and honey? Stunning wolves with a harp? Throwing a pie at a yeti? Making a monster slip on peas? Putting rotten cheese in a magical machine?

Reward Intent

Well, there is no parser. But I think you could put the aforementioned cat puzzle here as well.

Unconnected events

This is basically the resolution of the first half. You get by the snake with the tambourine that the gypsies leave. Why they leave is completely unconnected to what you do.

Give the player options

This is probably the hardest rule to get right. The most nonlinear part of the game is the worst. It may have worked better if the tasks were more connected to the story and if the locations expanded more gradually.

Gilbert also mentions mazes in the conclusion. The castle maze felt kind of pointless. However, I didn’t find it very hard. I got through it in about 5 minutes using the classic maze strategy (no map making required). The desert was a bit more annoying, if you consider that a maze.

     
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Zifnab - 10 February 2013 06:56 PM

But I also think gamers should be aware of how they approach a game, and with a Sierra game it should be knowing that you could face a dead end.

So you should play any game with knowledge of all the designer’s previous works?
You can’t expect that the average gamer thoroughly investigates the conditions of a certain game before he starts playing it, imo.

Zifnab - 10 February 2013 06:56 PM

If you are faced with a growling dog and you know you passed a bone earlier in the game then you should know you stuffed up. If you’re wandering around for hours looking for a solution to the dog, that’s just not very clever gaming.

Exactly my point. If you know you passed a bone and didn’t pick it up, then you know you effed up. However, if you *missed* that bone and can’t get back to it anymore, then you’re unaware that you’re in a dead end. So that’s just not very clever game design… Wink

For people who hated the dead ends and deaths in a game I would advise them, once they are over their initial frustration, to play again knowing that they might get into that situation, and then see what you think.

Why do you think I play most Sierra games with a walkthrough closeby?
Not because of the deaths (I don’t mind the possibility of dying as long as they don’t overdo it), but because of the dead ends.

Oscar - 10 February 2013 07:20 PM

Deaths and dead ends aren’t for everyone, and they obviously aren’t for Timmovieman. But you can’t deny that opening up the possibility of getting stuck and dying adds something to a game. You could criticise games with no danger, no death, no risk (the Lucasarts model) for being flat experiences. You’re sitting in your chair knowing nothing will go wrong so you are free to click on anything, do anything.

You have a point concerning deaths in some games. If there is danger, then dying should be possible. There are even a few games where you couldn’t die at all, where I think you should’ve been able to. Mess up the dialogue puzzle when you’re caught by the Vultures in Full Throttle, and get torn to pieces by their bikes. Or at the end of The Longest Journey when that flailing monster thingy gets resurrected and starts chasing you - if you do nothing, then it just keeps flailing its arms against you without consequence. You should’ve been able to die there.


In other words, I don’t mind deaths as much (unless they happen all the time for no good reason), but I friggin’ hate dead ends… Tongue

     

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

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