Adventuredevelopers.com Returns

Courthold writes "After a very long period of downtime, Adventuredevelopers.com has returned, filling the void for all amateur adventure game creators out there. It returns fully equipped with many new articles, and a forum to share your ideas and work with others in the community. Adventuredevelopers is part of the Lucasfan Network (lfnetwork.com) along with other sites such as AdventureGamers and Mixnmojo. Hopefully this site along with others will help revive the long lost genre that is adventure games."

Comments

Wow.

[Moofius.the.Cow]

Digging through the games listed on the site, I'm reminded of digging through the tras^H^H^H^H bargain/clearance been of CompUSA, of all the old games too old or too crappy to put on the shelves.

Now now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not tryin' to smear these guys - there's sometimes some good stuff in those bins. Some of these games look fairly decent, like the KQ2 remake. But sadly, others just look like the video game form of fan-fiction. Where's the 'sort by highest rating' option on this site, eh?

Re:Wow.

[Moofius.the.Cow]

I'm sorry, but first impressions count. The first game I clicked through on this site was Harvest, in which the author has posted a very poorly designed page, on AOL for chrissake, asking for $15 for his game. WTF? I can get good games like Homeworld out of EB's bins for $5-10 now, and this pretentious wank wants $15 for his drivel when he can't even build a proper webpage?

So no, I don't feel obligated to pander to this particular dying game genre. These games may indeed have stunning little stories, but they reek of fan-fictionism. Some fan-fiction might be good, but in all honesty the majority of it is trash. So allowing an inferred connection between these games and fan-fiction is not helpful.

I understand that they might not be able to pull professional graphics out their hat, but without an objective standard that literally says 'This is crap', this little community is likely to drive away folks, like myself, who'd take one look at the poorest offerings and move on. The adventure game market is on its last legs, and without honest evaluations of its games, it might as well put a gun to its head.

Re:Wow.

[Moofius.the.Cow]

No.

The fact that the community does nothing to filter such poor examples and bring more promising examples to the forefront, is indicative of poor direction. There may be rotten apples in every barrel, but you certainly don't leave them lying around in plain sight on the top.

For dying genres such as this one, it is important to put your best efforts in front, to invite others to enjoy the rare fruits of near-forgotten arts. The Interactive Fiction community does this quite well, even if one doesn't care for their particular genre's style.

The only article you'll ever need...

[PylonHead]

adventure games

Re:The only article you'll ever need...

[Godeke]

That article does point out a major problem with the majority of adventure games. I don't think we will see many more mainstream adventure games of the traditional mold because of that bizarre "logic" that evolved around the adventure game community.

The best part of traditional adventure games were story and the triumph of solving a puzzle. The former (story) could be the part of so many more games than it currently is. One of the reasons I loved Half-Life was that there was a fun storytelling mechanism that never removed the player from the game. The latter (problem solving) is found in only a rudimentary form in most modern games (find key, locks magically open). Illogic puzzles are out, story is in: I don't morn that state, except the lack of more Monkey Island goodness.