Adventure Gamers - Forums

As the credits of the final Blackwell game poured across my screen. I thought in that moment, that this is the essence of why adventure games are so great. Sure I was encapsulated in the emotional ending of the game but it was not just that. I had set out on a journey. What once was unfamiliar grew into something very special and I had come away feeling a deep connection to my experience. When we pick up and read a book, we form an attachment and understanding. We come to know the characters and in some part we become part of the world, part of the story. We connect because of the time spent with the characters and all the events that happen in between. An adventure game goes beyound the boundaries of a book. We are no longer the fly on the wall watching events unfold. We step into the characters and form a connection that is far greater then thoese in books or any other form of entertainment. An adventure game in its simplist form is a story with puzzles. However it is how these puzzles define our journey, how it bridges the gap between being the observer to becoming the character in the game. An adventure game gives us the illusion that we take care of our character/characters. A deep maternal instinct in which we seek the best for the characters we become. Every puzzle and action we take is not only to progress the story but to also guide this character that we continually grow attach too. Good adventure games, when done right, erode our sence as the care taker and we can actually become the characters we play. Feel shock and disgust at uncovering betrayal. Feel utterly sad when misfortune befalls us. For a moment in our life we can escape ourselves and become others within thrilling and captivating narratives. What a book can do, an adventure game can do better. That is why adventure games are the greatest kind of game, because they encapsulate us to such an extent, that they no longer appear to be a game to us.

Agree with this, but I would add that not only adventure games can do all the original poster described. For example RPG games can do the same, just look at Planescape Torment for example, or Baldurs Gate and some other older RPG games with great stories and characters that have personality. That is the reason why adventure games and RPG’s are my favourite genre of games.