The International House of Mojo

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Dreamfall has some new features that can only be good for the adventure game, but I think we would be far more successful if we followed in the footsteps of Morrowind and Oblivion, albeit with more puzzles and character interaction.
Every other gnre has grown up, why can't we?

Absolutely, and games like Morrowind could really learn from adventure games too. I mean, it was a great game but man the cities felt so barren even though they had lots of NPCs in them. This is something they're keen to adress for Oblivion, saying that the NPCs are going to have much better dialouge and character like you'd find in an adventure game.

It would be nice to be able to explore cities in adventure games, though, like you would in games like Morrowind. As it is, most cities are just a few static screens - allright for the early 90's when technology was limited but now we expect more. Hopefully we'll get more with games like Dreamfall and Bone.

I don't think you appreciate the astonishing amount of work and complexity that arises when you take on a task like that, particularly if conversations have a material effect on the game.
Also, let's save the Bone worship for after the game comes out.

Lots of work maybe, but not beyond developer's means. My point is, if we can have large worlds in San Andreas and Morrowind, why not have large worlds in adventure games? The core mechanics of the gameplay would have to change, but that isn't a bad thing as it would lead to a more freeform style of puzzle solving. And the game world wouldn't even have to be as big as it is in Morrowind and GTA (which have HUGE gameworlds) - just big enough so that the player doesn't feel restricted and so that they feel like they have some freedom (a lot of adventure games feel like they're set on mono-rails because, well, they are. Of course a lot of genres are linear too, but at least they disguise it much better).

The other way around it would be to have game worlds like in Psychonauts, but for that to work you need seriously brilliant design concepts like the whole mind level thing. The player doesn't feel restricted because we're in Schafer's world and we can do anything we like in the confines of the story, but as soon as you set things in the real world then it becomes a lot harder to give the player that sense of freedom.

It's difficult to provide a sense of freedom in real world setting games because players are already familiar with what is possible or impossible in the real world, something like Psychonauts gives an illusion of freedom because any genuine freedoms such a world would have are at the designer's discretion. "Anything we like in the confines of the story" is actually very limited, as the confines of the story are quite well defined in a game like Psychonauts. A superficially "free" game like GTA has a lot of limitation with regard to what you can do which is more obvious because it has a real-world style setting (eg, you can't get on a plane and fly to Hawaii, or open all the doors on all the buildings, or talk to anybody on the street, or do anything at all really. It's a game :/).

Very true. It seems we'll either have near-freedom as in GTA or total freedom, albeit freedom that only exists in the confines of the design (like Psychonauts, Last Express etc.) Either of these is better than the mono-rail nature of many 2D adventure games, though, leaving them with the only option to disguise the linerity, which many good adventures manage to do, though trying to hide linerity is difficult and not really the best option.

The other alternative as I outlined in the article is to admit that it's a game and make refereneces to that fact throughout. You then breakdown the traditonal gameplay barriers and can be honest about the level of freedom - you'll never be able to have complete freedom because this is a game, not real life, but at least the game isn't trying to be something it can't be and you can concentrate on the characters and the story.

Half Life 2 did the whole linear thing very cleverly. Every decision Gordon made was somehting you would make, it was the logical decision. This was true all the way until the final ride on the pod, there was no need to get into it, and yet you had to.

Yeah, I was going to mention Half-life... haven't played the sequel but the original was amazingly good at disguising its linearity. Probably the best example of a game doing so.

I was actually rather irritated with the linearity of HL2 towards the end. Much of the early part of the game does a great job of tricking you into making decisions that the developers want you to make. This becomes significantly less subtle towards the end; one example which is generally given is entering the body-tram thing in the last levels. You know it's not something you should do because it leaves you defenseless, but it's the only option the game provides.
There's an old trick that game designers for role playing games (tabletop or computer) use which is to give the player a number of choices, but to provide outcomes which end in the same conclusion (for example, I may go left or go right, both paths lead to location X, but unless you replay the game, you don't know where the other path would have led). Often it's useful to design a game with a number of these pseudo-choices, and then later embellish the events unique to specific choices in order to improve gameplay value while preserving the general story flow and keeping general complexity reasonably low. This is different to sidequests etc because you are required to take at least one path, whereas sidequests are optional.

look at the post just above gabez, you've repeated what I just said!
I liked Knight of the Old Republic's choices, they weren't totally subtle, but they got you thinking, and indeed the did change the game a bit, depending on what you said.

"gameplay value" should be "replay value", "end in same conclusion" is redundant. Is there no "edit" function here?

nO! There's not edit button, because this place is evil!
just like me.

Hoping that Bone will do something isn't worshipping. Stop and think before posting, m'kay.

"Hopefully we'll get more with games like Dreamfall and Bone. "

Stop and read, more like :/
I mistook this for "Hopefully we'll get more games like Dreamfall and Bone"

Have to agree there, when you spend so much time exploring in Morrowind reaching a city was meant to be so great, because you met new people.
As it was, it was a little bit boring, you would just nip to the shops, buy something, try to persuade people to do stuff for you, fial and then go off to fight some more.
From what I have seen from Oblivion that is going to be much improved, the recent trailer looked excellent, but then again, that could be a faked one, ala Half Life and Killzone 2.
That might be the problem with adventure games, that they haven't exacty evolved, turning Monkey Ilsna d3D did nothing for the series, it just made it worse in my opinion.

It's a fair point... the 3D in EMI just produced some largely mediocre pre-rendered backgrounds that rarely had the class of Grim Fandango. If they'd done it like Golbin's Blood Island Project then it would have been fine, but as it was they neither made the 3D look that good nor did they actually use it to its full potential. The plus side though was that the cinematics were pretty awesome. If you haven't already, read to 3D or not to 3D if you haven't already.

I'll check it out.
To be honest, apart from Grim Fandango and Longest Journey, most 3D adventure games have been pretty drab. I miss the days where Monkey Island was 2d, and the presentation was spot on, with the change to 3D, there was graphicsl bugs that weren't found in 1,2 or 3.
Same happened with Discworld, the 2d games were great, but then the 3d games weren't so good, this is possibly because there's more time spent on graphics than what could be used on scripting and puzzles.
One of the things I did notice though, was that I never really found myself associating with the characters in Monkey Island 4, the dialgoue wasn't as good, talking (which is my favourite part of adventure games)wasn't much fun, and the puzzles were silly, and unrelated the story (the clock puzzle for instance).
Also, the fact that turning 3d made the series have to compete with good looking games like Metal Gear Solid 2, which was coming out at the time.

I should also mention that the facial animations on the characters on MI4 were a bit rubbish, it was just bland with no emotion.

Possibly true, although I think the body language animations were better - generally characters and much less static in 3D games, which I like.

And I think you were harsh on Discworld Noir: in my opinion it's much better than the previous 2D Discworld games and makes quite good use of the 3D engine: the interface was brilliant (simmilar to Longest Journey if you want a comparison) and shows that you *can* have point and click with 3D and still make it work. Plus there were more characters and rooms than I've ever seen in an adventure game, and being in 3D might have helped this; it's not neccesarily true that 3D takes longer to do than 2D - if you have the right tools it can be quicker and can lead to huge worlds like in Morrowind being created (which would have taken hundreds of years to do in 2D).

It's perfectly true what you say about Morrowind, it is a game that couldn't be done in 2d, becase of the fact is was totally freeform, free form is something 2d has problems doing, as there's only one way to move, left or right.
The body language in EMI was quite good I have to admit, but it was light years behind titles that came out in the same year, I think it was a bit of wasted oppotunity myself.
What adventure games also need is more interaction, whether this id one in 2d or 3d it really doesn't matter, take Psychonaus for example, everything responded to you in the way you wanted, there was no 'don't be silly' or 'I can't do that', everything seemed to loving.
3D probably gives you that more than 2D can, but it's up to the people designing the game to think about that.
Getting back to Discworld, I think it's a great example on how we should be making adventure games, we shouldn't be taking the seriously, therw should be more games like Monkey Island, possibly in 2d yes, but I'm more bothered about the game actually being good to play with characters that you can laugh at, releate to, hate (basically characters like Towflower and Rincewind.).
Don't get me wrong about taking games seriously, I'm all for nvoling, mature games like Longest Journey, but I certainly don't want to see a flurry of serious titles that further nail the coffin on adventure games.
Just out of interest, have you seen Bohemia Interactive's Flashpoint successor? You actually live as a soldier now, talking to people, citizens, okay so you don't solve puzzles, but it's a step in the right direction, in an FPS no less.

OF2 (in everything but name)? Yeah, I heard of that and definitely like the sound of it. See also Deus Ex - the adventury bits with characters and puzzles really lifted the game for me.

And I totally get what you mean by having more interactivity in adventure games - most of the time the "gameplay" consists of "using everything in your inventory with everything in the game" and that's no good. It's also frustrating when you have a really good logical idea that should work but which doesn't because the game doesn't let you (see original Evolve or Die article of a rant on this). Take Broken Sword for example - why can you only visit three locations in the whole of Paris? In one puzzle you need some tape - why do you have to steal it from some guy when you could just look for a corner shop somewhere? If we had an almost infinite amount of locations (a la Grand Theft Auto) with an almost infinite amount of objects to pick up/by then the player would be forced to think rationally rather than be constricted by the game and their inventory.

A truly good adventure game is either very good at hiding this game flaw (Grim Fandango) or has a different approach to puzzle solving alltogether (Discworld Noir and The Last Express). Especially Ladst Epxress, actually, as that is the most free-form game I've ever played even though it's an adventure game.

I agree completely with your Broken Sword rant, maybe only visiting three locations is logical to the plot I suppose, but the tape you mentiom is just stupid, it's puzzles like these that are ruining adventure games, they're illogical and no fun to do.
As I've already mentioned talking to people is my favourite thing to do in adventure games, and characters really make the game I think. That's why I hate Myst, it's so souless. The best game I think are the games where you're put in fanasty locations but the people there are just like us, cynical, stupid, a bit like Discworld, wgere they argue other stuff we argue about. For too long have characters in games been boring, emtional or just not convincing.
The thing you say about adventure games becoming like Grand Theft Auto rasies a few points, it sounds good yes, but I don't want to see everything like GTA, because that would mean in seeking originality, we turn things we deem original unoriginal.
Puzzles need to be directly linked to the story, they need to involve people (who are intregal to the story, and not just catalysts) and it needs logical ways of doing puzzles, if this means some action, then so be it.
Personally, I'd love a game where you were working solely with talking to people, as in getting your money back from a shop assistant, being a diplomat (you have different ways of getting people to do what you want, and if they do something you don't want them to do, you have to adapt.).

(These comments are getting thinner and thinner!)

You've got a point about the GTA style - if applied to adventure games it would make them very generic, and one of the best things about adventure games is the uniqueness and the excitement of the locations. Take any location in a half decent adventure game and I bet it'll be 10 times more exciting than any other location in another game (Doom 3's corridors, anyone?) Perhaps this is another area where EMI missed out - some of the locations were a little barren - and let's hope that Bone doesn't follow the same route (though considering the screenshots, the art style and the content they're drawing from this seems unlikey).

And yeah, better dialouge would be good, but the question is: how can it be done? The traditional adventure game tree-style dialouge is probably the best way, but even that is restricting. In Discworld Noir that amount of stuff you can talk about is much larger because you can use "clues" with the characters, so for instance using "murderer has a wooden leg" with shop owner will ask the question "Have you sold anything to anyone with a wooden leg?" The potential for dialouge here is enourmas but at the same time uncluttered and logical. Maybe other adventure games could build on this.

I'm perfectly happy with Monkey Island's style of talking, choosing questions, what I am not happy with is the fact you can ask the same question and get the same answer, it can get very boring after a while. It would be better if your comments were set into types, the persausive type, the funny type, the taunting type, the intimidative type, and you could choose while style you wanted to give.
It's not just that that, though that I want changing, it's the actual dialgoue itself, in my opinion there have been very few games (mgs, monkey island and hl2 being a trio of them) that have actually been as good as Pratchett, or even Rowling. If you have ever played Rogue Ops the dialogue on that is just embarrasing.

In regard to locations, yes, that is a very valid point, the first three Monkey Islands were very abstract, and that gave immensly to the style of the game, maybe the best way to make it abstract is 2d, but you just have to look at Pyschonauts to see that 3d can quite easily pull it off as well.

and yes, the lines are getting shorter, I smell a conspiracy to stop us posting.

The dialouge could be better in a lot of games, I agree, and that doesn't just mean "better writing" but funnier more imaginitive writing. If you want a game with dialouge as good as Pratchet, though, you should play Discworld Noir as the dialouge in that was written by the man himself and is hillarious (though arguably there's way too much of it for an adventure game).

I also agree that the dialouge options should be more varied - that would give the player a chance to forge their own character through the dialouge rather than have the character of the protagonist forced upon them. The only problem with this is that it can lead to an incosistent and possibly blank main character, but if the other characters are good enough, and if the protagonist's dialouge is good enough, then that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Well said.
One of the things I liked about Monkey Island was the fact that the main character knew nothing until you took control of him, you learnt what was going on with him, rather than because of him.
One thing I would like games to do is the shape the character you have via the way you make him speak, so you can make him nasty because of the things you get him to say, this could change his physical appearance and the way people think about him.
Characters you haven't yet met would be fearful because of the looks your avatar gave them.

I would love to get ANY of the Discworld games because of the fact I've heard so much good stuff about them, but as is the way the gaming system works, it's either very hard or impossible to get old games like Discworld, which is another reason the adventure genre fails for, because you annot get your hands on the classics, like Monkey Island and Sam and Max.

Hee, this column gets very thin after a couple of nests.

stan: nice article
stan: you're right... the barriers need to be broken
stan: and when they are, I will return to gaming. maybe
stan: though, I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited about Dreamfall
stan: and the bonus is, I can get Psychonauts when I get my x-box for Dreamfall

Mwahahaha

damn straight

Why is there a picture of Chris Farley instead of Ron Gilbert?

I always thought they were the same person...

Here's another one for free: Jack Black and Tim Schafer.

And I see that you say that Indy month is beginning soon. I was going to suggest that you all review the Indy movies, too, but too late.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea of distancing players from a story driven game. I agree with you that the current mainstream concept of immersion is a load of shit, but I don't think reminding people that they're playing a video game is the way to go either (and I don't necessarily think that the nudge-nudge joke from Monkey Island is a good example of that).

Immersing the player in the game is a step in the RIGHT direction, if you ask me. No, games shouldn't be like real life, but making the graphics more realistic has nothing to do with true immersion.

Fair point, but maybe I wasn't clear enough by what I meant by "distancing". It's not an alienation effect it's merely a more honest and in my opinion a more effective approach. You distance the game from reality because it can never be reality and by doing that the themes issues and characters of the game stand out. In other words, you distance the player from the graphics but immerse them more in what really matters - the story. I think that's what you mean by "true immersion". And you're right about graphics - it seems that games developers think that realistic graphics make for a more immserive experience but in my experience they can detract from the themes and issues of a story because they are set too rigidly in a closed world.

Ah, then we're in agreement. Yes, there's a big difference between distancing the player from "realism" and from what matters.