The death of adventures

[LotharGR]

I heard lately that lucasarts has stopped the production of Sam n'Max 2, and also Sierra abandoned its project for a new "Larry" game... I Believe that the adventures in general are dying as a genre, and will going to merge with other types of games... with RPG's mostly. Does anyone has to say something on this? :)

[The Niles]

Adventures have been dead for years. Lately there has been a small comeback with titles like Siberia but their performance has been disappointing. No doubt one reason for the discontinuation of Sam and Max2 and others.
In my opinion Adventures have not really died. Other game types have emerged and taken the good of adventures, the puzzles, the mystery and discarded the bad, the tedium and hours and hours doing nothing but running around seeing what you've missed that will let you continue. I'm thinking of games like Baldurs Gate and Star Trek: Hidden Evil. Not Adventures in strictest sense but having many elements from them.

[LotharGR]

You are right... the most recent games are only for "hardcore" fans of adventure games... I don't believe that the average player of today will play Cyberia or anything like that. And even if he does play it, i don't believe that anyone will play it twice. I have played older adv. games ( Like monkey 1-2-3, and others also ) many times, and finished them 2-3 times each, simply because they are.... fun to play :) The little i've seen of the modern adventure games... is that they resemble more "artistic-like movies" that you try to solve their mysteries, than fan to play games.

[muaddib]

Adventures are dead for the new games, but for the more older and more experienced gamers, adventures will always be special, and we will always keep playing our old classics. Making new adventure games is a real risk for developers these days, but luckily there are lots of people (companies) that make freeware adventure games, or remakes 'n stuff.

[Titan]

*caughMYSTcaughANDcaughURUcaugh*

[LotharGR]

Those games had enormous sales, that's true. ( although myst isn't that recent, i believe its a game of 1996 ). Thats why i don't believe that adventures are completely dead, but rather they are dying. Apart those 3-4 good games that have been produced in the last 10 years almost, in general there is very big decline in the adventure industry, and it is logical if we accept the fact that in general the average computer gamer has changed a lot from the average gamer of the late 80s.

[Omuletzu]

hmmm, i don't think this is about the "death" of adventure games, but rather the downfall of the gendre.Today's adventure games are too rigid... there is no fun in playing them.The only thing that keeps you playing are the eventual puzzles.Too bad... :(

[The Niles]

Myst and it's sequels are not strictly adventures but puzzle games. The difference being that adventures have logical (sometimes not so logic) puzzles like "use the rubber chicken with the pulley in the middle on rope to get across the ravine" and strict puzzle games have puzzles that are much more mathematics then logical like "line up all the red pons to form an asymmetrical square directly inverse to the white pons you can already see". I might be a little abstract in my explanation here but I hope you will understand. This just proves my point though, that adventures are not dead but have evolved into several different game types.

[LotharGR]

The fact is, that those games of the late 80s, early 90s, Like Monkey island had something in them, that makes them playable still today... It isn't playability, because since the first time you finish a adventure there is nothing more left to do... They are simply fun to play :)

[The Niles]

That's very true a true adventure is all about humour. From Lucas arts monkey Island to Sierra's Quest for Glory. They all used humour as their main selling point. And Humour is often missing from most games today. They take themselves a little to seriously I think. Not all games of course but a lot of them.

[LotharGR]

There are a few example of funny adventures today... "Stupid invaders" is one. But even that is 2 years old i think.. i don't know of any other funny adventure to have come out since that

[muaddib]

The thing is, these days people like fast action games full of explotions and huge grafical effects. I don't think there are a lot of people (especially kids) that are patient enough to play adventure games.

[The Niles]

The big problem is executives who think they know what people want. It is perhaps true that an old school adventure is a tad on the dull side but I would rather play a good adventure that is not taxing my graphics card every second then the so many-ith 3d shooter that has absolutely nothing going for it. What it comes down to for most people (at least people like me) is that they want to play a good game. Whether that is a FPS a RPG, a RTS or any other three letter abbreviation doesn't matter. As long as it is well done and exciting (which is not necessarily the same as action packed).

[LotharGR]

The gaming industry is gigantic, and does not involve only the gamig companies ... "First person shooters" ( and now "real time strategy" games also ) are the most succesful games of our time, because they benefit and someone else apart the gaming companies: The hardware manufactures. New games are the "excuse" to buy new graphic cards. Because if only your old card cannot play the new games ( and if of course you want the new games ) then you go and buy the new cards.

[I_Wanna_Be_A_Pirate]

I love aAdventure games like monkey island and day of the tentecle just becuase thier one big joke that gets funnier and funnier as you progress.

[mika]

I'm not sure if it's the big companies that are at fault here. I think they just follow the numbers, if the games sell they make more, and obviously adventures are just not selling enough (unfortunately).

[The Niles]

Big companies like Actavision and EA are afraid to invest in new things. New concepts that might not work or might just be the new great thing in gaming. The innovation comes from the smaller companies that do not have the huge funds of the big ones. Sierra was not doing so well a few years ago and took a chance on some untried games like Half Life and Homeworld and that payed off for them and us. It gave us a whole new concept in gaming. If a big company makes an adventure game they make on like the Quest series or Monkey Island. They do not dare to give a twist to the concept in fear of doing something wrong. They end up with an outdated game that few will play and then they say adventure gaming is not "viable" and go on to make another bland RTS game.

[LotharGR]

That is understandable, but it is wrong ... I mean, if gaming companies don't have the will to take risks, then the quality of new games will continue to drop as the new ideas will be fewer and fewer... Its like the Movie industry. In the 60s and 70s it was a risk to make movies like "star treck" or "star wars", but someone there were people willing to take that risk and make them, and now we have these great movies and tv episodes etc... Of course the will to take risks has almost died and in the movie industry. For example, now the trend is toward epic movies. Noone will take the risk to make a science fiction movie. If the trend moves back to science fiction again then noone will make epic movies... This is wrong in my opininion. The quality drops when you make games or movies or anything else because you are "forced" to do them by the audience. Every artist ( and game making must be considered a "art" ) must follow his own insticts and likeness and not what the people asks. Only then the true pieces of art are produced.

[Tom Henrik]

For me, a good storyline is everything!

For a couple of months back I bought a PS2 and immediately began to buy Action games to it. Games like Tekken 3, Turok, TimeSplitter I & II and so on. The problem with these games are that you loose interest in them after you've played it only once, and so have to buy new ones.

That experience taught me that a good game is something that is different every time you play it, has a good story and is full of secrets. This includes games like the Final Fantasy series and Summoner, but also action games can posses these traits (as shown to us by Diablo).

But I agree that the adventure genre for PC games are dying, like The Picard said; companies don't dare to make "new" types of games. This is sad, but true. Companies are afraid of making a flopp...

A dream that is shared by me and many other gamers around the world is a new game that incorporates all the ingredients for a good game:
1. A great plot.
2. Good graphics (both video, gaming and scenery).
3. A crossing of game types (Turok is an example of this; having both a good FPS and a descent flying simulator).
4. Humour
5. Well made characters (involving backgrounds, conversations and reactions).
6. A long storyline. (Remember Gabriel Knight: Beast Within (6 CD's) or Phantasmagoria (8 CD's)).

Now I know that all these effects in the same game will need a lot of space, but today we have the DVD's that we didn't in the old days. And there are many gamers around the world who gladly would buy a game that uses even 20 - 30 DVD's (me, for instance), even though the cost would be high. If it contained all the above factors, people would buy it.

[LotharGR]

Wow... I imagine what game would fit in 94GB ( 20 DVD :P ) Of course now the number seems unimaginable, but remember that in the early 80s we still imagined games fitting in 1-2 1.44MB disks, and thought that this was big enough... Technology still amazes as :)

[Stroggy]

6. A long storyline. (Remember Gabriel Knight: Beast Within (6 CD's) or Phantasmagoria (8 CD's)).
I wouldn't go so far as to call Phantasmagoria a dream adventure game.
it was pretty good (except for the entire rape thing which was quite misplaced)
well... compared to phantasmagoria 2, I guess phantasmagoria 1 was good.

"the house awaits your return"
I still have that black box around here somewhere

[Tom Henrik]

I brought Phantasmagoria up because it uses a lot of CD's, not because it was ever a good game. (Even if it scared the living daylight out of me when I played it right after its release).

My point was that people stormed game shops around the world when these games hit the streets, because of their lenght. I remember many who were jealous of me after I bought The Beast Within. :wink:

[auhsor]

If you guys are mourning the loss of Adventure Games, and want to go back to that nostalgic age of point and click adventures, I suggest you check www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk . Most of you have probably heard of AGS, but if you havn't theres quite a few professional quality amatuer games there. And you can make your own (with alot of work, planning etc...).

Yeah, who needs commercial adventures when you have got amateur ones.

[Stroggy]

phantasmagoria was scary indeed
my personal favourites are the "first mirror movie" (when you look at the mirror in the dinningroom and you see a different woman in the painting
wasn't scary... just creepy (I didn't know what was wrong with it first and why she was acting sos trange, until I finally noticed what was wrong) and the "Greenhouse murder" is quite insane aswell... oh and ofcoarse that old movie thing on the stage where you see what happened.

[LotharGR]

To me, Gabriel Knight 2 - The beast within, is the best movie-adventure that sierra produced... but thats just my opinion :)

[Tom Henrik]

Yeah! I'll have to agree and I still play it from time to time.

[Stroggy]

I've only played Gabriel Knight 3
but I do remember seeing the box of Gabriel Knight 2 when it was just released.

Funny... I owned all of those sierra games but I didn't buy gabriel knight 2

[Havell]

I think that there are fewer adventure games now because back when there were lots of adventure games technology was not very advanced and adventure games do not need good graphic to be good while other genres need good graphics so they look interesting (and scary, for example). Also, a lot of the good puzzles have been "used up" in earier games so it is hard to think up puzzles that do not boil down to "pick up the red key, find the red door and put it in". Plus, stories tend to be more vague now then a few years ago because it now takes far many more people to make a game so it is hard to keep one single idea focused in the minds of an entire company.

Glad to get that off my chest. :)

[Kiddiarni]

I heard and saw that they were making Larry for Playstation 2...

[Kiddiarni]

Did they abandon that too?

[cosmogreen32]

Making Larry for playstation would be the worst decision the gaming industry has made since MI4 going 3d. Not only they would butcher game's charm and atmosphere, they would also release an adult game on console designed for children. This means that puzzles would be easier, storyline would be simpler and overall gameplay would suffer. As for PnC adventures, I'm kind of glad that big companies have gave up on them because this leaves plenty of space for fan made games.

[Tom Henrik]

I agree with you totally!
Larry is supposed to be a somewhat difficult game! And so it should remain...

By the way...
Why is your title MEAT-BALL?....

[Jwh D'Ar]

It's all about money.

3D games = buy new graphic card.
Better 3D games = buy new processor, RAM, motherboard, graphic card.

Adventures = spend a lot of time thinking of a good plot, puzzles and such.
You can probably make 5 shooters in the same time you need to make an adventure.
5 shooters = 5 times more money then 1 adventure.

Shooters and MMORPGs = multiplayer
Adventures = no multiplayer


So it all comes to this. Software developers in accordance with hardware developers make games that constantly upgrade your hardware, need short time to make, make you buy a new game the second you finished this completely non-replayable game, play hours and hours on-line and as the result of all that SPEND A LOT OF MONEY.

[FreeFreddy]

They could anyway not make as good adventure game as they were earlier, just for the example: Kyrandia series, Maniacs Mansion, Sam & Max hit the road. Any good adventure today or from not long ago that matches the fun of those older games?