Adventure Gamers - Forums

Iznogood - 15 May 2016 04:19 PM

wilco - 15 May 2016 03:56 PM

And look at the Top100 adventure games list, how many of them are there because of their puzzles?

All of them, without a single exception!

Remove the puzzles from any of the top 100 games, even the most story heavy like TLJ, and they fade to a pale shadow of themselves and wouldn’t be worthy to be on a top 10000 list.
Sure, the same would be true if you removed the story, or any other part of them, but that is my whole point, neither part can stand alone.

Oh that reminded me how much i enjoyed Dreamfall than Tlj, where former was just linear and with zero puzzles and lots to explore.

Another good example of gamedesign is HerStory, where the interface and interactivity was more fun than actual story, heck story is your skills of digging and interpretation.
Back in the day that experimental nature of games was my main attraction to try and play from any genre.
That design bit was again attracted me to Fahrenheit, where actual story was not memorable in good way.
So nowadays Devs hardly try new frontiers but design follows Exploration for me.

Gabe - 15 May 2016 04:11 AM

I think sharp character design can carry an ag at some point
but well written script carries all the way.

Yup, sometimes i dont remember characters like in Prominence or Nightlong conspiracy, but plot was good enough to push me to the end.

I voted puzzles but.
What matters is immersion. I am more engaged with a game when it challenges me, which is why I prefer games with good puzzles. I get bored with most story-centric games because the writing, setting and voice acting are rarely enough to make me care enough about anyone to pay attention to the game.
For other people, other elements are crucial to immersion, so they vote for them. I think at the end of the day we’re all looking for the same experience, so this poll boils down to “what is the most important element to immerse you in a game”

Also, since when is the Top 100 list an authoritative source? It has a lot of good games and a lot of crap ones, and I thought we all agree on that (just not on the identity of which is which )

For me, it’s all about quality. You can have any ratio of puzzles/story/exploration if the quality of each element is high.

No one picked NPC conversations and characters, why? I heard a lot of people saying for them story is the most important but they won’t play any Myst game (which has a brilliant story).

I picked ‘story’, but to answer you GrahamDaventry - from my point of view dialog/conversation is key to the story, and in many adventure games that’s how the story is delivered. I think it’s hard to separate the two, so I picked story as representative of both of those together.

However, I relate strongly to Zane’s point of view as well, of ‘problem solving’ being important. As in real problems the game character would have in their world, rather than abstract puzzle solving.

The most enjoyable games for me are those where the dialogue drives the story, and the player solves ‘real’ world puzzles (in his/her world at least).

Overall, Puzzles are most important for me—not just any puzzles, but puzzles of a type I enjoy.
Exploration is a close second.
When I first started playing games, exploration of unusual environments was the most important because it was something I hadn’t really encountered outside of a computer game or simulation. It’s still the most important with some games.

If I want a story, I’ll read a book or watch a movie, where there is a lot more choice in subject matter.

But it really depends on the game.
For example, in many of the LucasArts games it’s the characters that are what I remember the most—I remember Guybrush, Murray, Laverne, Sam,... and from other game companies I remember Kate Walker, Grace, Gabriel, etc. more clearly than I remember the individual puzzles (or story). 

I’m not sure what “Game design” refers to. If it means something like “interface” or “controls” or how you interact with the game, it’s certainly importantl, but it doesn’t usually prevent me from playing a game. Then again, if a game has FPS-style 3D movement, I won’t be able to play the game because of getting motion sickness within 5 seconds, and for that reason would be the most important to avoid.

Puzzles and exploration are what make it a game - if a game looks fantastic, has a brilliant story and well written and acted characters but all I’m doing is clicking from one scripted scene to the next, I might as well watch a film instead and all those factors will be better than in pretty much any game!

There are a few exceptions where even very limited interactivity works to involve me more in what’s happening than if I were just watching, but in general if I’m playing a game I want it to justify its existence as a game rather than trying to be a movie.