The Grumpy Gamer Speaks

Ron Gilbert, well-known for his work during the golden age of LucasArts adventure games, is also well known as The Grumpy Gamer. Gamasutra has up an interview with Gilbert, discussing his career in the post-Threepwood period of his life. From the article: "It's actually kind of frightening, you know. You sit down with a publisher and the minute you mention anything like an adventure game or something story-based or adventure-game-like in any way, the meeting's basically over. So the publishers do have a huge resistance to this. And I think a lot of it is that they cannot point to anything like this that is successful in the market today. So it's very difficult for them to put anything behind it. It's a very difficult process."

Comments

Agreed,

[NeilTheStupidHead]

games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.

Re:Agreed,

[abscissa]

games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.

That isn't a problem for everyone. If I am playing a game with cutscenes, stories, etc. I always skip them. Is the idea that I am supposed to "pretend" to be the character and become engrossed in pathetically scripted storylines? Please. Most people have trouble enough distinguishing reality in the first place. It is important to distinguish in your mind that your "desktop" is a virtual space that is created through signs and symbols but the reality is that you are staring at a computer monitor.

Personally I would worry about someone who became engrossed by moving images to such an extent and "preferred" these "story and adventure" games... television and the internet are isolating mediums which create illusions of engagement with society. There is a famous argument that the Gulf War never happened for the reason that the real "war" as it was understood was a series of moving images on a TV screen.

Re:Agreed,

[Ohreally_factor]

Over reliance on cut scenes and expositive narrative techniques are a sign of weak story telling in the game genre. A good game that tells a good story needn't depend on these. In fact (I think you'd agree from what you're telling me) they get in the way.

Perhaps what Game companies need to do is hire a dramaturge.

Re:Agreed,

[RingDev]

I don't know, I really enjoyed Max Payne. True, it's no Quest for Glory, or Monkey Island, but as for a FPS with a story, I liked it.

-Rick

Re:Agreed,

[Ohreally_factor]

I played Max Payne on a console, and I liked it as well. The cut scenes were in a comic book format, and you could quickly skip with them the press of a button IIRC.

Anyway, it took a few years for editing techniques and a semiotics of film to emerge after film became a popular entertainment. Many aspects film language that we don't even think twice about were developed thru trial and error. What had worked in the past on the stage floor didn't work as well in the new medium. There were growing pains. I suspect that the language of games will continue to grow, thru trial and error.

Re:Agreed,

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps what Game companies need to do is hire a dramaturge [bartleby.com].

Bartleby wasn't a dramaturge, he was a scrivener.

Re:Agreed,

[Anonymous Coward]

through

Re:Agreed,

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I'd argue with you over this, there are some games who tell a lot of the story in cut scenes of one form or another and do it extremely well. Resident evil for example does it well, the plot is perfectly b-movie grade and works awesomely witht he cut scenes.

I tink people forget something. Games are all different, some games suit some things and other games suit other things. I'm an old school RPG player so I perfer my characters to talk in text and cut scenes more or less to start and end the game (Tales of symphonia and Shin Megami Tensei 3 come to mind here, as long as you turn the dubbing off in ToS as I did).

But there are people who love the FMVs and huge overly unneeded movie sections in FF games. These people are also part of the same market and should be accepted and allowed their share of the pie. The problem is as the article says, people at the top are going "okay sure!" when they ask for more, but when we ask for more we have to pray Japan makes something and Atlus picks it up (BTW, Super robot taisen : Original generation on the GBA is out soon, for the love of God support the series, it's awesome and I've never seen a single FMV on the GBA versions).

Just because you don't like interactive movies doesn't mean the same applies to you.

Re:Agreed,

[CronoCloud]

I guess you aren't old enough to remember when most games didn't have a story at all, and we're mosty twitch fests. Even the games that had a pretense of a story were often basic dungeon crawls.

Re:Agreed,

[servognome]

games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.

How can we forget the amazing plot twists of Pac-Man, not to mention the surprise ending! And no other game tells the story of the futility of mankind's survival like Asteroids.

Re:Agreed,

[Saurian_Overlord]

I've always been a bigger fan of games heavier on storylines, and i agree that a weak story is often worse than no story. I also agree that over-reliance on cutscenes can ruin an otherwise good game, but nearly all story-based games need to utilize cutscenes or something like them to a certain degree. If not an actual video scene, then larger amounts of text than most games (RPG style). For example, the Fallout games are examples of very good storytelling without long video sequences, but the game itself contained lots of textual dialogue. On the same token, many FMV games, which by definition are heavily cutscene oriented, have used cutscenes very well to create an interesting (but admittedly not seamless) experience. And, then again, there have been games that try to add stories that relied totally on cutscenes, mainly FPS games (Quake 2 comes to mind), and failed miserably.

In most cases, though, i think it's very difficult (though certainly not impossible) to tell a story without words.

Re:Agreed,

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I don't know what your definition of "games of old is". The most enjoyable and involved adventure game I ever played, and the one that had the best storyline by a long, long way, was The Beast Within in the Gabriel Knight series.

http://www.mrbillsadventureland.com/reviews/g-h/gk R/gk2R.htm

Without the photo-realism, video cuts, and voice clips it just wouldn't have worked as well.
The next in the series was in 3-D animation and just couldn't capture the same mood.
Now absolutely everything is in 3-D animation.

So for me the golden age is past but it's not 20-25 years ago, more like 10.

Re:Agreed,

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Actually, many games attempt to rectify this, and fail miserably. The standard nowadays is an incredibly hackneyed, tacky, cliched and, if voice talent is present, terribly overacted plotline. Most this/next gen storylines are an embarrassment, and generally you want to wear headphones in case anyone happens to overhear the mortifying content that's sold as "compelling story". Usually, it's boisterous californians, complete with modern san francisco mores, transplanted into a sci-fi or medival fantasy world, taking themselves way too seriously and delivering woeful lines with enough sauce to make Plan 9 look like an expertly choreographed space epic.

Look at Super Mario. Classic games, stand the test of time. Games that good don't need a story. Sonic and Knuckles managed to convey all the plot progression it needed to without a single utterance, text or otherwise, and wth one paragraph in the manual. The game did not need anything else. That's how things should be done. I shudder to think about the Sonic Adventure games, and how perfectly playable games were almost ruined by some idiots junior hight attempt at a "compelling storyline".

Metroid Prime is an example of a modern game that got this 100% right. The story is there, but only if you give a damn. It's nice and text based, so no west coast hysterics will bring the whole household in to gawk at the idiocy. I would have gotten rid of the ridiculous V/O, but since it's only a few lines, I'm willing to let that go.

If you want an example of how to put a "compelling story" complete with voice acting and "movie quality" action, then you have to go to Metal Gear Solid. The first one. That's the level you have to go to. If you're not prepared to, please don't have the characters, especially the NPC's speak. It's very irritating.

Re:Agreed,

[Das Modell]

games today are lacking in story and adventure when compared to games of old. Sure they look great, but they lack that compelling factor.

Ah, yes. A modern game like Jade Empire just can't compete with the complex storyline of Zelda.

Re:Agreed,

[DavidTC]

If you want an example of how to put a "compelling story" complete with voice acting and "movie quality" action, then you have to go to Metal Gear Solid. The first one.

And if you want a confusing story that no one understands, you have to go to the second one. ;)

No, seriously, the Metal Gear Solid series rocks. It's an almost perfect example of how to integrat a story into an action game. (Whether or not that story makes any actual sense is another matter.)

Of course, the greatest and simplest story in an action game has to be Half-Life.

Re:Agreed,

[NaugaHunter]

How can we forget the amazing plot twists of Pac-Man, not to mention the surprise ending! And no other game tells the story of the futility of mankind's survival like Asteroids.

I thought it was Pac-man the described the futility of modern life. Search for Page 12; I couldn't find a direct link.

Re:Agreed,

[KDR_11k]

Sample size of one. Now try D&D Gold Box game vs. Metal Slug 6.

Re:Agreed,

[Das Modell]

Uh huh. Might as well compare Grim Fandango with Ridge Racer. How about making a real comparison, like a D&D Gold Box game vs. Baldur's Gate II or Planescape: Torment?

Re:Agreed,

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Zork.

Re:Agreed,

[KDR_11k]

That was the point.

more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

I love hearing from the experts how we all suck for even DARING to like Grand Theft Auto.

Give it up already. We told you what we like, now learn - or please - go away.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[NeilTheStupidHead]

Don't get me wrong, I play San Andreas just as mush as the next guy. SA looks great, the game play is fun and the controls are easy. And yes, I can pull a lot of social commentary and some story out of it. I also turn SA off and fire up my old consoles and play Chrono Trigger or FF7. Even though these games look like crap by modern standards, I still enjoy them because, either because of the quality of the gameplay or the story. Heck, I even bust out the old Infocom text adventures on occasion.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[JanusFury]

Pointing out that GTA-style games aren't very good at storytelling isn't 'GTA-bashing'. It's obvious to anyone who knows anything about game design. I don't see any comments in the article by Gilbert that remotely qualify as GTA-bashing.

Of course, you probably didn't read the article...

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not an expert. You all suck for liking GTA. I love the free market of barbarians!

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[pookemon]

Haven't you heard. To respond to an arcticle you just search for well known phrases and then say "This guy sucks because he's bashing <insert keyword here>".

It's irrelevant that what was said is correct - it's the fact that <insert keyword here> was mentioned - which could only mean that <insert keyword here> was being bashed!

Gee, get with the program! :P

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Nanpa]

GTA, all iterations, are pathetically overhyped. They offer the illusion of a 'freeform' world, but always become bogged down in a series of scripted missions that can more or less only go in one particular order. Then, we always get a samey 'story' about some gangster (Or Blaxploitation in San Andreas) and immature drug/sex/violence jokes. There are games that outdo every aspect of GTA, except they don't have to lower themselves to encouraging the player to murder civilians for no reason. Hell, even Fable and Freelancer were better than GTA. They looked a whole lot better too, and the worlds felt like they had been crafted with care.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[iocat]

It may be obvious to anyone who knows anything about game design, but it isn't necessarily as obvious to the millions of people who play and like GTA. Although GTA doesn't do conventional linear storytelling, it does offer a compelling environment (ok, I'll say it -- a sandbox, if you will) for those who want to create their own mental narrative.

A GTA player may not be saying... "hmm... I enjoy beating this whore, but when does the entire story climax... what is my character's raison d'etre?" but that doesn't mean they aren't making up a story for what's going on in their heads.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Petrushka]

I love hearing from the experts how we all suck for even DARING to like Grand Theft Auto.

If he had actually said that, you might have a point. But he didn't. What he said was

I think, you certainly can play Grand Theft Auto and come away from it with a story. But I think most of the time people play games they come away with a really bad, boring story.

... which is absolutely true for most games. Most games have crumby stories. That doesn't stop them from being fun, since a lot of people (like you) don't care about a storyline. I like GTA, and I also like games with storylines (of the three GTA 3 games, only San Andreas had a storyline so's you'd notice, but even there it wasn't so much a story as a pretext). In fact, this is exactly the same opinion that he expressed in the interview; obviously you can't be bothered to take any notice of what he actually said:

There are definitely times when I sit down in the game and I just want to blow stuff up. I don't really care about the story. Give me a good pretext, give me a big gun and let me blow things up, that's what I'm interested in. There are other times when I'm way more interested in the story, ...

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

Nice troll - good to see your score reflects that (MOM SLASHDOT IS INSANE AGAIN). The moron was claiming that GTA didn't have a story line. Uh - lessie - that would be 100% wrong. But then you probably didn't play GTA otherwise you'd know that.

I mean What - The - Fuck - those voice actors were just making dialogue tracks for the porn stars?

Fuck you.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

GTA3 - Story about a bank heist double cross and a series of mob bosses that double cross each other plus a media tycoon whose nuts, and the eventual catch up with said bank double cross.

Sounds like a fucking story.

Vice City - Cocaine deal goes bad, you have to track down and infiltrate the guy who did it, pick up a power-hungry parter (or 3) and double cross the origonal family that didn't reward you for going state's evidence.

Sounds like a fucking story.

San Andreas - Bad cops, toss you into the gang wilderness, and you have to build your way up with minor turf wars until you work with regional mob bosses and the governement.

Sounds like a fucking story.

The article - which I read - put out in glowing letters, that the open sandbox nature of the game lent itself for only player driven narritives. This is bullshit. So Mod me down fuckos, or play the goddamn game.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[iainl]

Umm, GTA _DOESN'T_ have a big storyline. That didn't start happening until GTA III.

Furthermore, I'd say that Gilbert is right to say that the imposition of a storyline into the GTA template is done in a rather simplistic manner, as it just crowbars a linear story into the essentially non-linear environment.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Haeleth]

Although GTA doesn't do conventional linear storytelling, it does offer a compelling environment (ok, I'll say it -- a sandbox, if you will) for those who want to create their own mental narrative.

Right. So what you're saying is that GTA doesn't tell much of a story at all, but instead encourages people to make up their own story. In other words, GTA doesn't have much in the way of storytelling. A sandbox is not a storybook.

And there's nothing wrong with that. The world has room for both. They serve different purposes and are enjoyed in different ways. Let's all say it together: "GTA is a great game with primitive storytelling."

I simply cannot understand why so many people assume that any statement of the form "X does not have Y" must be a criticism of X. "Thank God Slashdot got rid of the pony theme." "STFU ur gay! Only Slashdot-bashing Digg fagboys would bash Slashdot for not having ponies! It does so have poines anyways!!!1"

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me try!

"Madden 2006 - a load of tough blokes run onto a pitch, can you lead them to victory? Sounds like a fucking story."
"Tetris - blocks falling from the sky, you have to get them to line up. Sounds like a fucking story."

That was fun. Now go away and learn the difference between a setting and a story, please.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

One is narritive and one is background. In your world, "plot" must mean wallpaper, "dialogue" must mean sound effects, and "video game" means pong.

The story was driven by "characters" saying "dialogue" over "scenes", with "plots". Oh I'm sorry -that's fucking "setting" to you. A movie has - um - what then?

Play the game or STFU.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[metamatic]

I've played many hours of GTA, and it's a great game, but I've had zero emotional response to the "plot".

Whereas "The Dig", the Lucasarts adventure, had me yelling "No!" at the screen because I was so upset by something that happened. Actual emotional involvement. And I'm not being nostalgic; I didn't play The Dig until a few years ago.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[DavidTC]

You know what else GTA doesn't have?

Aliens.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dig was an amazing game. I was so sucked into it. The feeling of isolation was palpable, and I found that I just needed to know where I was and what I needed to do to return home.

I played a number of the adventure games back then and loved all of them. I remember the first Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, The Dig, and even the Star Trek 25th Anniversary game.

At the same time, I enjoyed GTA thoroughly. But I have to agree that it had more to do with the open environnment and (I hate to admit this) freedom to steal cars, shoot random people, etc. It was about escape and atmosphere, not the story.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[MrKibkibs]

What you described was a setting. What actually happened was a rather bland story. No-one's disputing the existance of a story in these games, we're just saying that some, mainly older, games tell them with better "characters" saying better "dialogue" during better "scenes", they jsut have fucking better "plots". Make pointsthat actually pertain to the discussion, or shut the fuck up.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

OMG!!!???!! There's better plots than GTA?! Holy FUCK!

That's great - that's - really - great.

I think the point was that the article claimed NO plot outside of user-directed play - vs - the real world. Broadside? Meet barn. You missed.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

San Andreas had aliens - in the area 51 lab where you got the flightpack. But you DID PLAY the game didn't you?

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[iocat]

I can see we'll only be able to come to a heated agreement here, no matter what, but I still disagree -- your notion that GTA has primitive storytelling is based on your definition of "storytelling", not mine.

IMHO, GTA has about as deep a story as ICO... crap happens in the game and I make up the story in my head. People love Ico's "story" and bash GTA's, but they have about the same level of exposition as far as I'm concerned... GTA actually has more, to be honest.

For the record, I'm one of those people who bash GTA's story and love Ico's, but I think describing the storytelling of GTA as "primitive" just because it doesn't adhere to standard forms is nosogood. I see what you're saying though.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the fucking article you shitwhore fucktard jackass.

Re:more GTA bashing - yea.

[mgabrys_sf]

I read the article - although I'll admit I'm amazed that you claimed you did. Your literacy rate is somehow - lacking.

While you're at it - why not go back to Digg? There's lots of retards there for you to play with!

I agree as well....

[Rendo]

Adventure games are what got me hooked to on games to begin with. Zork is the first that comes to mind and that led me to delve into the MUD communities. Story lines are a big thing for me and if the game has a very crappy story line, the game just doesn't do it for me. Of course if the gameplay blows, then that won't do it for me either. Adventure games are however not nearly as productive as say shooters are MMO's. Companies realize this as do the consumers....

Re:I agree as well....

[Lord Kano]

For me, instead of Zork it was Starship Columbus.

Falcon, Carrier Command and then later Fallout (+2,+Tactics) have caused me to invest years of my life and I wouldn't do any of it differently.

LK

Ron, Maybe you should try

[zepo1a]

Maybe you should try shopping your game around to some of the self funded developers instead of the publishing houses.

Like id, 3DRealms, or Epic.

Re:Ron, Maybe you should try

[Anonymous Coward]

But he wants to develop the game. I'm not sure those companies would publish a game developed by someone else, and neither are they particularly interested in adventure-style games.

Re:Ron, Maybe you should try

[bishiraver]

3DRealms still makes games?

id and Epic make games that aren't just advertisements for their newest licensable engine?

Re:Ron, Maybe you should try

[Anonymous Coward]

For Epic this is no longer the case. Other studios are shipping games using UnrealEngine3 before they are.
UT2007 might still be somewhat of an engine demo, but Gears of Wars isn't. Also UT2007 can also be seen as the mod developer release of UnrealEngine3.

Re:Ron, Maybe you should try

[Anonymous Coward]

"3DRealms still makes games?"

See Prey. Somewhat generic FPS, relatively story heavy, with enough new twists to keep the FPS fans interested. Lots of fun-with-gravity stuff, I particularly like the mental gymnastics required to stand on the ceiling and hit someone with the grenade launcher - it falls "up".

Re:Ron, Maybe you should try

[Anonymous Coward]

Like id, 3DRealms, or Epic.

Of all three mentioned, id games are published via activision, 3drealms through 2k games, and epic games through atari/infogrames.

With the exception of licensing their own content to third party developers, i've never heard of id pushing someone else's IP (ie: raven for rtcw, splashdamage for et, et:qw, etc.)

Ditto for epic -- didn't they just use digital extremes for UT and that's about it?

The only one of the three with potential is 3drealms -- after all, they're pimping prey, which is developed by humannhead. Although prey is older than DNF (surprised?) and it was probably (can't say I've followed this game closely) concepted by 3drealms and then pushed out for development to HH. Not sure. If that's the case, you're SOL here, too.

Unless you've only got a solid concept, I can't see how bugging developers will help any? If you've got something in development, publishers are (sadly) where it's at.. Besides, I can see going to a developer with a concept much like I can see an artist going to a record label with a song: they shoot you down, and use the concept, slightly altered of course, anyways. You sue, it gets tied up in court, and ultimately, even if you win the suit, you still lose. Sounds about right, no?

Left out....

[MagicDude]

The grumpy gamer ended his interview by shaking his fist and yelling "You damn kids! Get of my LAN!!"

Re:Left out....

[IrishMASMS]

and I would have gotten away with it too, if it was not for you meddling kids!!!

And thats very very sad

[Colourspace]

Some of the best gaming moments I ever had were from the Monkey Island/Sam and Max/Day of the Tentacle days. Never played them but from what I know Full Throttle and Grim fandango did extremely well critically too - I should also include Psychonauts here too, a game which I have absolutely caned recently?. For contrast I have had many other great gaming moments RE4, Bubble Bobble, Gradius etc.. You know what I'm trying to say. Fuck the publishers they really ought to look further than the balance sheet if they want their (read:our) industry to survive past PacManBisexual.

Re:And thats very very sad

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know what I'm trying to say"

No, I don't, really.

Re:And thats very very sad

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Monkey Island/Sam and Max/Day of the Tentacle

Those are still some of my best games ever. I've played quite some adventures, but these 3 are unmatched. Larry and space quest were great too, but they were less than MI, S&M and DotT.
If another MI, S&M and/or DotT would be released I would buy it. Right at the release date. But apparently the publishers believe I'm the only one who would.

Re:And thats very very sad

[Das Modell]

I actually have no idea what you're trying to say.

Re:And thats very very sad

[DavidTC]

Day of the Tentacle is the best adventure game ever made, period.

Re:And thats very very sad

[Kuang_Eleven]

Well, there actually *is* another Sam and Max game coming out. I dunno how good it is, and it is in 3D, but here are the links so you can look it up yourself. It's coming out in fall too! Sam and Max by Telltale Games

I know I certainly will buy this as soon as it comes out!

write me a game...

[Darkinspiration]

Rpg are what drove me to gaming, i'm not to keen on the old advanture game model, the text base game, the mud, they all seem like to much work, go east, look inside the chest... etc. Now rpg good old japanese rpg with the bad translation, and the combat system... that is the life. i still play ff4 once a year or so. just to rename tellah diner....XD Still it seem a shame that all the games nowadays are cutting back on the story writing to make better graphic. I still remember systemshock i know how a fps could have a good story while atomising bad guys. Now tell me why with most games todays you could sumerise the story in five line including all the plot twist?

Um, what?

[Kuciwalker]

And I think a lot of it is that they cannot point to anything like this that is successful in the market today.

Um, what? Zelda, Oblivion, KOTOR, a million other highly successful story-based and/or adventure games?

Re:Um, what?

[joystickgenie]

Those games, although they contain a plot, are not plot orientated. The story in the games that you listed is there more as a secondary feature, not the primary. Those games are mainly about living out your own character, not telling a story

In KOTOR after the initial few sequences (about to the point you get out of the academy) the plot is put on hold until the last level. Sure there are sub plots to go through and a munch of mini missions along the way but the main plot doesn't continue anymore until the climax. If you were to write down the plot of KOTOR it would only end up being a few pages long, a short story or at most a novella.

What Ron Gilbert is talking about is the kind of story and plot progression that happened in game like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, or The Longest journey (had to give at least one he didn't work on). Games where the plot is more along the lines of a novel then a short story.

All games don't have to be that way or even should be that way. But it's nice to have the option and recently the option is becoming more and more rare.

Re:Um, what?

[SB5]

I still don't see the difference. Take a game like "The Dig", which IIRC was basically a SCUMM based Story driven game(I really enjoyed it but never got to play Monkey Island myself), like Monkey Island, and compare it to KOTOR and the differences are minor.

KOTOR adds an RPG element, and the battle element, but it has puzzles to solve, and ways to do it non-violently via conversation. And the plot isn't put on hold till you get out of the academy, its more like part of the story, you are stuck on a planet under blockade, and there is no way off. So how do you get off? That doesn't seem to be too different from the story the "adventure" games tell, "hey you are stuck in a burning building, better get out!" Plus the one person that can help you get off is captured isn't she? Thats like one of the chapters in a book, and each planet you visit after is another chapter adding to the story. I don't see how it is different or how the plot in a game like Monkey Island or Mansion is much different...

I guess you might be suggesting that the games he is talking about are like a book in how they are unchanging to progress through the story you have to read the next line, and the next line is always the same, which to me tells me you should write a book, make a comic or cartoon. Games are unique in that they can be dynamic and can change quite readily.

From what I remember of Dig, and Full Throttle, is they were essentially a giant puzzle game, and you had to figure out what parts went where to advance to the next section of the game. Not really a story in my opinion but just a game. And there doesn't seem to be much difference from that and KOTOR, you have to find things and do stuff to advance the storyline.

Adventure games are out there, but they have hybridized with other games and been made into 3D adventures.

Re:Um, what?

[Breakfast Pants]

"If you were to write down the plot of KOTOR it would only end up being a few pages long, a short story or at most a novella." You can write the dialog of Once Upon a Time in the West on about 12 pages. It still was a great movie and told a great story. And not only that, it was a long movie. I haven't played KOTOR but I'm just saying that your metric is flawed.

Re:Um, what?

[joystickgenie]

I think the metric isn't that far off then. That's saying that in the course of playing a game for 20+ hours you get 2 hours worth of character development and plot.

That is one of the things that are different between writing for games and writing for movies. Movies only have to occupy your time and entertain you for 1 ½ - 3 hours, story based games should occupy your time for at least 10 - 30 hours.

Re:Um, what?

[mcvos]

Those games, although they contain a plot, are not plot orientated. The story in the games that you listed is there more as a secondary feature, not the primary. Those games are mainly about living out your own character, not telling a story

In KOTOR after the initial few sequences (about to the point you get out of the academy) the plot is put on hold until the last level. Sure there are sub plots to go through and a munch of mini missions along the way but the main plot doesn't continue anymore until the climax. If you were to write down the plot of KOTOR it would only end up being a few pages long, a short story or at most a novella.

Are you saying that games where the player has no control over the plot are more plot-driven than games where the player does? Maybe they have more plot, but at the cost of being less game. Certainly in KOTOR, the plot doesn't stop when you leave the Academy, it just gets more free, with more subplots (and a few plotholes, unfortunately), but it all leads to the final climax of the story.

Re:Um, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a nitpick: he said the academy and none of the events you mentioned took place after the academy. I bet you can't remember which planets you visit after the academy -- and I'll tell you why you don't: nothing happened there. There was some half-assed attempt at character exposition that kept ending with the characters saying "I don't want to talk about that anymore."

KOTOR was a fun game, I loved the combat mechanics, etc... But the storytelling sucked ass.

Re:Um, what?

[Fjornir]

I'd rather have an hour and a half of good gameplay concentrated into an hour and a half to play than "Final Fantasy" syndrome where you've got an hour and a half of good gameplay spread across 30 hours.

HalfLife 2

[Audent]

I have to say that's really why I was dissapointed in HalfLife2... the story simply didn't do it for me.

HL was a journey. You started off with nothing and the character learned along the way... the bad guys changed and the demands on the player's abilities grew as well (this isn't a book it's a game. I want to learn stuff, even if it's how to take out the giant gorilla thing with the buzzy bee gun). By the end of the game I felt I'd done something.

HL2 looked way cooler but really, where was the story? It was hit and run, shoot everything and then, THEN, just as you get to the big Boss fight at the end... we get the Matrix effect and you're away with the fairies. There was no upgrading of the bad guys along the way, no new skills (notice how the boat and the dune buggy handled the same way? Learn it once, use it again and again) and OK, I enjoyed sending the sand lions in to fight on my behalf but really, that was the high point.

I'm not talking about the look (which was excellent) or the "feel" of the game (which I enjoyed) but the story line itself.

Re:HalfLife 2

[Anonymous Coward]

All of your statements are so ridiculous, you must either have not played more than ten minutes of HL2, you are remembering HL through an extremely dense fog of "Everything was better back in the day" memory loss, or you are a troll.
Halflife had a small fraction of the plot of HL2. Mostly due to the fact that, aside from the first 10 minutes of the game, you very rarely interact with another human.
This is a first person shooter. EVERY first person shooter can be solved by "Run, shoot everything" if you deliberately bend the facts, as you are clearly doing. Halflife 1 included.
You're saying you never learn new skills in halflife? Yeah, clearly, you start the game knowing how to use the gravity gun. And the upgraded gravity gun. And how to steer rockets to shoot down the helicopter type things. And how to catch rollers. And how to stay off the sand around antlions by building bridges. And the list goes on.
In short, try actually replaying halflife. It will not be as good as you apparently remember it to be. And try actually playing Halflife 2. It is much better than you think it is.

Re:HalfLife 2

[Nanpa]

The story of Half-Life 2 wasn't just the journey, it was the atmposphere; Particular the early parts were you walk around with the general populace. And, the car and hovercraft didn't handle the same way; The hovercraft could turn and move more than the car (Especially in the air), and to my opinion the car could travel faster. But, you've got to remember that according to the physics system, they're both great big heavy lumps of metal.

Re:HalfLife 2

[Anonymous Coward]

HalfLife 2 was a mediocre game built on a good engine. Gabe Newell must've personally sucked off all the major reviewers to get the reviews that game got (98%?? wtf?). The game was really linear and the story sucked.

Re:HalfLife 2

[Vo0k]

Troll - probably not. Maybe just misguided. HL2 was the sign of the coming crisis in the games world and it shares a small deal of problems with nowadays games, but it was about the last good game.

Sure the ending was a cliffhanger, "to be continued..." and because of that, sucked. But you point out WRONG weaknesses.
The story was good. Last good story to date. The climate, the world with the resistance, the post-soviet cities and rural areas, the oppression. The storytelling was great, with some even if cliche, then still well executed twists. Ant lions, gravity gun, combine rifle secondary fire, turrets, these all required quite a bit of skill. Have you tried carrying the turrets in Nova Prospect? The prison fight gets really fun with 5 turrets for your defense, especially if you try to strategically place them in such a way that the whole fight would fight itself without your help :) And eight turrets in the teleporter battle is a pure madness.

Vehicles - oh, no, they didn't drive the same at all. The hovercraft would never land upside down, you could do some really mad stunts, and it was driving like a hovercraft, that is you turn, apply acceleration and as result modify vector of speed. No wheels to change direction and long sequences where you'd madly drive through radioactive sludge dodging or hitting the combine at high speed, rarely slowing down. The buggy OTOH required much more cautious driving and often it felt really redundant, because of lots of places where walking on foot was definitely preferred - get in, drive for a moment to next "event place", get out, wipe the house or solve the puzzle, continue driving to the next place.

Enemies - okay, not -much- development here. The combine elite sucked, the rest appeared quite early. The fighting technique had to be adopted to situation though, zombies in Ravenholm different than Anticitizen One.

The weaknesses were - linearity and restrictiveness, you couldn't take a stride and see behind the church, climb a mountain over the tunnel or go check the docks instead of getting into the buggy. The story was told, and simultaneously the game was played, but you couldn't change the development of the story, they didn't blend, they were separate and playing the game was like clicking "play" on video player, simply replaying prerecorded story. Enormous amount of work put in details resulted in the overall story being short. Game length aside, pieces that kept forcing you to spend time on tasks that weren't directly connected with the plot, obvious sequencing into "blocks" - a settlement with combine ambush, a road block in the tunnel, a series of tunnels for fast and rough ride, a physics puzzle location - little or no continuity between these, they felt each like a minigame with little impact on what happens later. The piece where you fight 4 dropships and a gunship, your buggy is taken away and the rebels demand your help has completely nothing in common, with no mention, no sign of continuity with Laszlo who lies wounded 100 meters away and must have passed through that base recently. They are separate pieces, separate minigames. Laszlo is part of physics puzzle plus jumping game of sandtraps, the lighthouse is a dropship battle. And neither has anything in common with the main story...

Re:HalfLife 2

[Audent]

Ah, you may have hit the nail on the head there... I definitely wasn't trolling (despite the mod... ay caramba!) but my disappointment with HL2 was, as you say, because we were being fed through the story sausage machine rather than having a more open game play. Perhaps HL was the same and I just didn't notice, but in HL2 I thought it was quite blatent and really interfered with the fun. There were far more "let's explain what's going on" cut scene equivalents than I would have liked.. OK, it's a great way to tell the story and much better than the boring old video clip jump that I hate so much.

The whole "drive along the road, pause when you see Something Unusual, shoot everything, find the supplies, jump back into the buggy, drive on to the next Something Unusual" lather, rinse, repeat... really got to me. That was always the weakest bit of HL in my view (I'm thinking of having to climb down the giant tower thing to trigger some switch to climb back up to fry the monster in the tube... I haven't played for a while as you can tell).

I really did like the 1984 atmosphere though. Wandering around and mingling with the crowd, peeking into doors to see what's going on, having your photo taken every time you popped up (that was sheer brilliance) were fantastic. The atmosphere was great all the way through, although I found Ravenholm a tad tedious. I guess it was about being excited rather than creepy/scared (I really enjoyed Clive Barker's Undying game for generating that feeling) but I was hoping for something... I don't know. Something that did what HL did in the first place. Where you develop from fighting with a blunt instrument to the bee gun. Where the bad guys stop being sonic dogs with no heads and become the marines! Yeah! And the gymnast assassins... come on, where were they in HL2?

Still. Tis only a game. I suppose.

They guy keeps going back

[rsilvergun]

to wondering why a publisher won't fund his game even though it'd probably be reasonable profitable. The answers obvious: games are so big right now, being a publisher's like a license to print money. Why waste even a few moments of time on a game that'd net you 1 million when there're others that'll get you 10 times that. Worse, no smart industry wants to risk fragmenting their market into niches if they can avoid it. That's why they music industry pumps out the same crap over and over again. That's what killed Working Designs, and it'll kill anything this guy tries to do with a major publisher, sooner or later.

Re:They guy keeps going back

[paedobear]

No, terrible localisations full of "clever" jokes, and lead voice-actors they'd literally pulled off the street are what killed Working Designs.

Re:They guy keeps going back

[rsilvergun]

Their games where profitable, what ever you think of the localizations. If there games where profitable, why then did they shut down? From Victor Ireland we know they couldn't get Sony to greenlight their projects, and after years of tough battles they threw in the towel. Why wouldn't Sony ok projects from a sucessful (financially) developer?

Re:They guy keeps going back

[paedobear]

My understanding is that Working Designs were ALWAYS on a knife-edge as far as profitability goes - they were working in a tiny niche. Sony weren't OKing projects because SCEA have all sorts of issues with the idea of allowing 2D games to be released in the US, which I know has caused problems for Atlus and Nippon Ichi.

Re:They guy keeps going back

[paedobear]

Oh, and as an addendum, the fact that people like Atlus and Nippon Ichi WERE getting involved in their niche and actually bothering to localise well and hire REAL actors (with a few exceptions that I know of, but that's perhaps giving away secrets) would have put even more pressure on WD. It's a shame Sega of America didn't let them bring across Sakura Taisen for Saturn, I guess, as Victor Ireland had pledged he wasn't going to ruin it with terrible jokes and an awful dub.

Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it does suck. Badly. I feel like more people bought it to be "controvertial" instead of to have fun. But what the hell do I know? I thought it was incredibly stupid the second I heard what it was...

He's right to an extent.

[WidescreenFreak]

Yes, the adventure genre had its golden hour back in the Sam and Max/Monkey Island days, but there are still companies that are dedicated to the genre. For example, I can't wait for the guys at TellTale to release their first Sam and Max episode. (This is the company that was formed by those who were on the Sam and Max sequel team when LucasArts idiotically abandoned their Sam and Max development when it was estimated to be 90% finished.)

You're not going to make a successful adventure game for $10 million. But you can certainly make successful one for one or $2 million.

This really sums up the problem with the current video game industry. The big wigs apparently have this ridiculous attitude that spending more will mean earning more, but only with certain genres. Otherwise, it's just not worth it because they apparently believe that they "have" to spend big bucks. Look at how many licenses are purchased every year, particularly from sports organizations. You can't tell me that in all circumstances changing the offical logos, changing the names of the players, getting very talented voice actors who sound like the real announcers but cost 1/10th a much, but keeping the exact same game play suddenly means death for the game. People want games that they can play and enjoy. Changing a name from NFL to "Pro-Football" thereby saving who knows how many millions in licensing costs might turn a few narrow-minded morons away, but if the game is really good, people will buy it. History has shown that time and time again. A probably-now-forgotten company originally called "Apogee" comes to mind.

And that brings up another question. Does he really need a publisher? With electronic distributions as popular as they are, the increase in the number of people who have broadband, and the increasing popularity of delivery methods like Steam, does any game company really need a distributor to hold them back from at least an initial release - just enough to get the word spreading about the games that he releases? Again, look at Apgoee and its associated company iD, both of which were very popular from the electronic/shareware release method. No, it won't work with all types of games, but in this world of broadband and the Internet, where we only had dial-up and BBSes, I think that electronic distributin has a much better opportunity for success than ever.

Just my two cents.

Re:He's right to an extent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sucks that apogee isn't as well known as it deserves to be. They've re-branded, they're 3D Realms now.

Re:He's right to an extent.

[some guy on slashdot]

Am I the only one here that feels uneasy about TellTale Games? I guess it's just because their web site makes it seem as if they actually made Grim Fandango and Sam and Max 2 - games that in reality certain members of their team worked on, and one of which was never even finished. It sits uneasy with me, knowing that Tim Schafer, the real creative engine behind Grim Fandango, is out there running his own indie game studio and not padding his resume with every game project he ever worked on. It just feels dishonest.

Honestly. Look at the about pages for TellTale and Double Fine and tell me which company looks like an outfit worth putting your money on. It looks like one is a game company, and the other is a venture capital vacuum.

Re:He's right to an extent.

[master_p]

And to confirm your claims, the most successful soccer console game is Konami's Evolution Pro which is not FIFA-licenced and therefore it contains imaginary names and logos (of course it costs 60 euros, but that's another story).

Re:He's right to an extent.

[Das Modell]

Yeah, TellTale's site looks very depressing. "Corporate" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Re:He's right to an extent.

[GospelHead821]

There are both advantages and disadvantages to creating an unlicensed football video game. In my opinion, one of the prime disadvantages is that many people buy the licensed game because they want a NFL simulator. They want to create teams of familiar players, based on their statistics during a given seasons and to play out games using these carefully-crafted teams. They also like the ease of recognizing the skills of a player without having to carefully read the statistic sheets. If the player's stats have been faithfully reproduced, then they'll know which players they want to use.

The advantage of having "nameless" players is that you open up the exact opposite phenomenon. You allow the excitement of discovery that isn't possible when you already know the stats of the real players. You either have to read through the player statistics to see what you like or you have to play games with teams you don't recognize to learn the strengths and weaknesses of their players.

Re:He's right to an extent.

[Bodrius]

I really like the concept of electronic distributions, although I may be biased because the game quality in my experience has been so much better than my typical impulse retail pick (e.g.: Stardock, Steam).

But an initial release is EXACTLY where I think most developers still need a publisher (even if they want to take that role themselves). Getting the word of mouth out there does not seem that easy, Internet or not. I doubt I would have heard of the GalCiv2 release if I had not both played the original GalCiv back in the day, and there was significant buzz for the sequel from the usual suspects (gaming media, stores, etc.).

Each succesful electronic distribution I've seen rests on the success and popularity of a previously successful retail game.
Steam rests on Half-Life, and Stardock's seems to rest on GalCiv and non-gaming products. Now once they're out there, they open the doors for a lot of other games that didn't get the exposure, but at that point they are acting as publishers/retail-shelf for other games... I'm not sure how that works, number-wise, for a non-casual gaming title.

I personally prefer the electronic distribution model, because it is far more convenient for all parties when bandwidth is available. But I do not think we have develop full alternatives to the marketing clout of the traditional publisher yet.

There is a pretty good post-mortem on GalCiv2 at GamaSutra that I think is relevant to the topic: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060405/wardell _01.shtml/

internet killed the adventure game... erm star

[Sathias]

One of the things that made adventure games good back in the day is that if you got stuck on a puzzle, you really had to nut it out. Walkthroughs and hints were not as easy to come by. Much of the gameplay in an adventure game is the solving of the puzzles, if you can easily get help when you get stuck, there isn't that much gameplay in such games. I think this is why games like Psychonauts are the next logical step, they have similar elements but more elements to them than the old adventure games that are purely problem solving.

Re:internet killed the adventure game... erm star

[Hannah E. Davis]

There were hints and walkthroughs back in the day, they just weren't free -- in fact, this was part of the business model for many old adventure games and was thus part of the reason why some of them were so difficult to complete without any outside help. Personally, I don't mind easily-accessible hints, if only because I play adventure games for the story and the humour more than the puzzles themselves. Sure, I'd rather play through a game on my own, but sometimes I just don't notice that the third pixel from the left is a bit different from the others, and I'd rather get a hint from UHS or some similar site than manually test every pixel and combination of actions until I finally give up on the game.

Re:internet killed the adventure game... erm star

[spyrochaete]

What about hint books and help lines? Publishers were more than happy to sell you the answers to the real stumpers. I have a couple of those ugly old white Sierra hintbooks with the red cellophane readers. They were $15, I believe, which is pretty steep now that I think of it.

Story-based games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? No successful story-based games? What about (off the top of my head) ...

- Baldur's Gate 2
- Planescape: Torment
- Star Wars: KOTOR 1
- Oblivion
- Neverwinter Nights
- Diablo 2
- Day of the Tentacle

Not only do each of these games feature great stories, they are among the top-rated PC games of all time on sites like Metacritic. The raison d'etre for these games are their stories, and all of them were highly successful in stores.

Re:Story-based games?

[swordgeek]

Well, you've picked up on seven games. One of them was actually done by Ron's former partner, Tim Schaffer, back in the 'good old days.' Out of the remaining six, you could argue back and forth on whether they were story-based, or scenario-based, as Ron discusses. I haven't played Oblivion yet, but if it's like Morrowind, I'd give it a marginal rating on that scale. (Great game, but the degree to which the story was integral is arguable.)

There are some out there--mostly coming out of Europe. Runaway is one I'm in the midst of. Siberia I and II were moderately recent. Dreamfall is new and sounds rather good. However, these are REALLY rare--You list six games from the last decade, I could come up with ten more, and we probably wouldn't add up to the total number of games released in an average week in the industry. Furthermore, each year produces fewer than previous years. Games truly based on stories are dwindling and almost extinct.

Re:Story-based games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo 2? You're joking, right?
Walk, walk, walk, clickclickclickclickclickclick
Walk, walk...

The story: Bad things! Evil! Go out and find it and click on it!

Re:Story-based games?

[Rapter09]

You're describing the actions that drive the game, not the story. By comparison Zork is "Type type. Read. Type type. Read read read read read read read." Diablo 2 doesn't have the most absolute in depth story ever, but if you follow from Diablo 1 all the way through and make sure to pick up on the little tomes that sit around the world and read into things - as well as read into the backstory - there's actually a cool semi-beefy mythos short of generic evil demons from hell. Speaking of Story. Baldur's Gate. My god, what a beautiful game. It will never be matched. Neverwinter Nights is a joke in comparison.

Re:Story-based games?

[DoctaWatson]

Planescape Torment sold like crap.

And Diablo 2? Story based?

Yeesh.

Re:Story-based games?

[Truekaiser]

diablo 2 and oblivion are story based games?? *ROTFLOL*

Re:Story-based games?

[Flyboy Connor]

Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: KOTOR 1; OK, these are pretty much story-based.

Oblivion. Even less story than Morrowind, which was pretty light on story anyway.

Neverwinter Nights. Story? "Collect the four X's, then kill the evil wizard"-style. That is a typical example of what is mentioned as "not really a story" in TFA.

Diablo 2. Story? HAH!

Day of the Tentacle. Good story, but over a decade old.

There are still story-based games out there, but there are very few. LucasArts, which was great in this respect, basically stopped producing these games. BioWare sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails with stories. And a REALLY GOOD story I have seen for the last time in Planescape Torment and Shadows of Amn.

What can it possibly cost?

[Cadallin]

To DO an adventure game nowadays? Let's say you wanted to do a SVGA (SCUMM-style) 256-color 640x480, animated, with full voice acting game? Let's say you pull all the stops, go whole hog, and get like, Tony DiTerlizzi to do your background paintings and Character designs, put together your own studio, etc? I mean, jesus, it probably wouldn't be more than like $500,000. How can the market NOT support this? Even with fairly modest sales you'd expect a couple million in revenue. Let's suppose you sell 60,000 units at full retail price of like $40 and recoup $20 of that after packaging and the retailors cut, that's still $1.2Million. And honestly I'd expect a game with decent writing and production values to EASILY sell in excess of a hundred thousand units.

At this point I'd half expect someone to be able to make a game in their freaking basement, and then jump start a studio off just a few thousand digital download sales, with a few thousand in revenue. I mean really, we've got the Gimp, various free audio editing tools, Python is Free/Free. Studio recording equipment is Ass-cheap. What's stopping people?

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Chris_Jefferson]

You think anyone will buy a 640x480 game?

Also one problem is that lots of people have LCD monitors. If you have a fixed resolution, you are either going to have to stretch it, or leave it in a window. Neither is acceptable. So you'll have to draw a number of different sizes, and have your engine choose the most approriate one.

Also, if you are going "all-out", the amount the animation costs is surely going to compete with one, if not multiple episodes of say Futurama, Family Guy and similar. I think you underestimate the cost of that much animation.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Eideewt]

Why such a low color depth/resolution? This isn't 1995 any more. A low end computer could easily do 1280x1024 at 32bpp. I don't think a game that looks ten years out of date is going to excite people much (my theory is that most people have a broken nostalgia gene).

I'd like to see some modern adventure games too, but I suspect that although many people would buy one in a heartbeat, most gamers wouldn't. The majority is a little obsessed with graphics, squad based FPSes, and MMORPGs, without much interest in beautiful painted scenery. It wouldn't tax their $500 peni^H^H^H^Hgraphics card enough. An adventure game might sell enough to be profitable, but publishers don't seem to be looking for profitable games so much as blockbusters. Indie Developers might give it a try, but that's a hell of a lot more content than the average indie game contains.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Eideewt]

Good points, but it would be easy to draw at the largest size you want to support (maybe around 2000 pixels across) then scale it down, or use vector graphics, of course.

I think the animation costs would be a bit less than the average TV show. The adventure games of old didn't have so many unique animations. A few walk cycles for each character would be needed, and the main character would need plenty of special animations, but they could keep the number down. I think that painting backgrounds would be where the real work is. TV shows (especially long-running ones) can re-use many of their backgrounds, but an adventure game would need new art for every single one. Couple that with the extra work of drawing for modern resolutions, and I could see things getting quite expensive.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tony DiTerlizzi to do your background paintings and Character designs, put together your own studio, etc? I mean, jesus, it probably wouldn't be more than like $500,000. How can the market NOT support this?

Are you kidding? $500k is so far below budget for a modern game that it's almost laughable. You simply won't be able to produce a viable product (i.e., one that people will want to buy) for that amount.

1) It doesn't take too many people to code an actual game engine. A team of 8 or 10 core developers could put together a decent 3D engine, networking code, audio code, UI, and manage platform portability. They'd be stressed out, but they could produce something workable in 1-2 years.

But just one of those developers, on a yearly basis, is going to cost you $70k (for someone with a bachelor's degree) ... And it's going to cost you in the mid-$100k's for an experienced coder with a PhD. To wit: I'm a professional software developer, and have a PhD in Computer Engineering from a prestigious university. My salary is ~$130k per year (not counting bonuses, stock options, etc). My manager's salary (he has similar academic credentials) is $170k per year (but he gets many more stock options than I do, as well as larger bonuses). I'd guess that the core development team alone is going to meet (or exceed) your budget.

2) Yet, the majority of development in modern games isn't spent in the "engine". It isn't spent figuring out how to write the server. Nor is it spent figuring out how to make a fancy scene renderer run smoothly on different OSs. Where the majority of time & money is spent in modern games is in the graphics & scripting (initially), and in technical support and customer service (once deployed). This means that you will need to hire ...

- graphic artists (for 3d modelling as well as 2d textures)
- an audio team (which will require musicians and a composer)
- storyline writers / quest writers / etc.
- scripters (who actually write the scripts for the various encounters)
- testers & quality assurance

And, of course, the customary "big company" things ... (which we can try to ignore for the sake of simplicity, but which tend to be important the minute you start trying to manage a company of more than > 10 people)...

- customer service department
- IT department
- marketing department (to determine what kind of game to write)
- human resources department (to manage these boatloads of people)
- finance / payroll deparment

3) According to this, most modern games cost well over $20 million to produce. And many games (the example being given at that link being Halo 2) spend tens of millions in marketing costs alone. I couldn't even begin to imagine how much a game like World of Warcraft cost to develop & maintain (imagine just the costs of setting up a data centre!) ... it wouldn't surprise me if it were in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Petrushka]

You think anyone will buy a 640x480 game?

It's a niche market, sure, but FWIW, within the last year I bought two -- Monkey Island 3, and Planescape: Torment. (Actually, I'm not certain about Monkey Island 3, but I'm pretty certain Planescape is 640x480.)

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[mbourgon]

Wow. 130k a year, and you still missed the point of what he's talking about

1) Why do you need a new engine? 8-10 people? Cripes. Network code? It's a frickin adventure game. License the SCUMM engine or something similar.

2) Yes, the assets are the biggest expense. No, they're still not 500k. We're talking a pretty basic game - especially if you have a old engine, support should be minimal (game help lines don't count). Assets are pretty simple - you're not doing 2d/3d modelling, you're doing old SCUMM 2D graphics. Audio, soundtrack - these can be outsourced. Honestly, I'd say you need 3-5 people, 1 year development time. And not all of them need to be paid 130k a year. I'd be surprised if any did, really.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ron Gilbert's already made the calculations for you on his website. His project development total, without marketing, comes to around $950,000. See:
http://grumpygamer.com/4904226

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Semi 3D works well too, like the last monkey island or grim fandango. It'll save you quite some time drawing various frames for the movement of characters. The rest of the world simply uses 2D backdrops.
And ofcourse there is absolutely no need what so every for this "HD" crap all over the place. I think you can push out a great adventure game with just 10 people in total.
1 or 2 programmers, 2 2D artists, 2 3D artists, 1 story/dialog writer, 1 producer/PR dude, 1 creative director (who could double as one off the prevously listed jobs), 3-4 voice actors (could also be partially done by other team members).
Target development time: 1 year
Using licensed software
500k might not be enough when using licensed software, otoh not everybody works on it the whole year.
The sequel will be released about 6 months after that for less than half the price, the tech doesn't need updating, just a new story some new art and new voice overs.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

And voice acting doesn't come in cheap either. First you need to pay the voice talents, plus the recording studio and engineers. You need somebody to write all the dialog/story and sb. to direct that stuff.... and then comes the musical score.....

I'm no expert but in my, maybe flawed, opinion telling a story in games IS one of the expensive and difficult part. You need creative people for that and they tend to be more rare than coders and licensable engines.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Nurgled]

It's probably better to look at more "current" adventure games like Broken Sword 3. It broke away from the point-and-click model to a more console-friendly interface and was thus able to do reasonably well in both th PC and console markets. It used 3D graphics that were quite reasonable for the time.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[DavidTC]

Um, please don't look at Broken Sword 3. The UI in that sucked balls, precisely because they aimed it at consoles. (I have to give them props, the physical challenges, like climbing along ledges and jumping, were done exactly how they should be done in an adventure game, via logic instead of pushing buttons at exactly the right time, barring a few fight scenes where they gave you no time at all to push buttons. And those crate puzzle made me go on a murderous rampage and kill four people.)

Look at, instead, The Longest Journey 2 or something. I can't even remember the UI of that, it was so good.

And, whatever you do, if you're doing real 3D, use fixed cameras and pay a lot of attention to where you switch between them. Look carefully at each transition area and ask yourself if you need another camera view there. Make sure that no one will ever even have a reason to attempt to do something in an area they can't see.

And don't put important things where the player can't see them, like a door between the character and the player, thus making it offscreen, that the character could clearly see but the player has no idea it's there until they wander 'towards the screen' far enough to switch cameras. If the design really requires that, consider a 'pan' when the character enters the room...just four seconds of video showing what the room actually looks like is very helpful. Or just switch cameras near the middle point of the screen, instead of having a single view that only switches when they walk up to each 'edge', because that's a really good way to miss things that are downstage.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[adagioforstrings]

It's not stopping these people. Their first game may be a good test of the market. They've pulled in some talented people to make the game (creative content) so they're above amateurs, but....well, I can't bring myself to download the 234MB demo for a 640x480 adventure game. Maybe it's worth it and I should just give it a try.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[krist0]

and the above is the reason why we need indepenant ARTISTS, not the usual corporate whores, we need people passionate about their art (hence the term starving artist) instead of these, dare I say, asses.

give me a 19 year old kid passionate to put a game out there and a guy who has a good story he wants to tell and i'll buy that in a heart beat.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, there are plenty of amateur efforts out there (eg the fan based King's Quest sequel), and the adventure genre is not totally dead in Europe and Japan (eg Phoenix Wright).

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[LionOfMacedon]

maybe noone just tried,id like to point out that croteam that came up with serious sam was a garage developer,but they came up with an fps that was fun since doom.

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[StikyPad]

I'll do it for 10 rupees. Thanks!

-India

Re:What can it possibly cost?

[Arkaein]

Are you kidding? $500k is so far below budget for a modern game that it's almost laughable. You simply won't be able to produce a viable product (i.e., one that people will want to buy) for that amount.

Actually, I work for a small game studio that is just wrapping up a game for both PC and XBox with a budget of under $500K. The software is written by three developers, there are two artists which created all for the art content, and music and voice work were contracted out. Testing and distribution is handled by the publisher and so are not counted in the development budget, but testing at least would surely account for less than the development budget.

Let's look at your numbers. 8-10 people to develop an engine? Try zero, at least for small budget games. Most studios don't code engines from scratch, they use existing game engines (look at ID software, the Quake/Doom engines are their real products). The engine handles model loading, texturing and animation, sound, networking, basic physics, etc. Game engines can be licensed for a wide range of prices, decent engines go something like $20K-$100K+. And without the need for engine coding you really don't need a team of PhD's. I have a Masters in CS myself, but no one else on the team does, and that hasn't been a serious detriment.

Now, the game in question is a fishing game, not an adventure game, so we don't need story writers, just someone to write voice overs. Artwork is a significant part of the art budget, but if you're creative you get a fair amount of mileage out of a single level (e.g., make mini-games that reuse main levels). Lakes for fishing admittedly require less development and testing than a Super Mario Bros style platformer level where every jump and step must be measured just right.

This game isn't a big AAA title, it's being sold as a value game. However, I don't see why some AAA quality games can't be created for a few million dollars if our small studio can produce something decent for less than $1 million.

As far as the rest of the costs you list, from my understanding of the actual publishing process many of those costs wouldn't even be included in the
development budget anyways. A studio develops the game, but the publisher handles marketing, distribution, possible tech support. These would likely be included in a larger overall publishing budget, but aren't development costs per se.

HOLD IT!

[Kamineko]

You sit down with a publisher and the minute you mention anything like an adventure game or something story-based or adventure-game-like in any way, the meeting's basically over.

Your Honor, how do you explain the existence, and subsequence release of the popular Nintendo DS adventure-attourney game, 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney' (Originally a Game Boy Advance game: 'Gyakuten Saiban' roughly 'Comeback Court')

Re:HOLD IT!

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Have you noticed that the big N has been on a streak of "crazy" games, handhelds, and consoles. DS: Stylus? WTF? Is this a game machine or a PDA? Phoenix Wright: WTF? Law? In a game? You're joking! How's that entertaining? Wii: What a dumb name! And that crazy controller is just stupid.

Of course, those views changed. I just don't think big N, or any Japanese publisher, would take this guy seriously.

Re:HOLD IT!

[geminidomino]

Phoenix Wright was a great game. I just regret spending $50 on it because it was WAY too damn short. Two hours, no walkthroughs or FAQs, and it was done. *sigh* I could have played that game for ten times that. It was really nicely done.

Re:HOLD IT!

[Deadguy2322]

Uh, I know you are into fellating Nintendo, but Phoenix Wright is a product of Capcom. You know, a publisher that doesn't try only to make games for 4-year-olds.

Re:HOLD IT!

[LKM]

You're right, of course, but the question is: Could Capcom have released this game on any other console? Would Sony have allowed it? Probably not.

Re:HOLD IT!

[Deadguy2322]

Oh, right, because Nintendo released every Fire Emblem in North America and Sony would NEVER allow games like Mad Maestro or Mr. Mosquito on the PS2, or Carnage Heart on PS1, or develop something as weird as LocoRoco. Get a clue. Nintendo plays it safer than anybody else in the industry. Incredible Crisis was not on N64, you know. Hell, if it was, we'd never have seen it released domestically.

What about

[sinij]

What about Knights of The Old Republic (not 2), Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate, Fallout, DeusEX (not 2), System Shock, Oblivion just to name few?

Re:What about

[bishiraver]

Well, only 4 or 5 of the games you mentioned even had a good story. KOTOR's writing was just terrible, as was its voice acting. Compared to even something like Kings Quest VII (The Princeless Bride), everything about it was pretty mediocre... and the gameplay was pretty boring. Oblivion had a pretty neat story, but that wasn't the point of the game so much as it being a sandbox (plus, because it was developed by a huge name in the CRPG genre, it didn't take much to sell it to publishers I'm sure). I haven't played DeusEx, so I can't really comment on it.

And Planescape, Baldurs Gate, Fallout, Deus Ex and System Shock (and 2) were all released in the Golden Age of CRPGs - which came a few years after the golden age of adventure games.

Try to sell something like Planescape or Fallout to a publisher nowadays and you'll get laughed out of the office. Just look at how screwed the Fallout franchise has been lately. Maybe Bethesda will do something interesting with it - but they bought those rights what, 2 years ago now?

Isn't this obvious...

[__aaclcg7560]

I would be a grumpy gamer if the other guys took off without me to play "house" with Snow White.

Myst

[carterhawk001]

I can't believe that the slashdot crowd hasnt even mentioned Myst, which is going to make a comeback via GameTap

ask slashdot

[abuilder]

Why do game companies spend so much time and effort designing very complex game scenarios that are only used for 2 minutes of gameplay? IMHO the focus should change from ultra-complex money sucking graphics to exploring new ways of gameplay and more interactivity with the envirnment. Just check some of the old ZX Spectrum games and how much fun can be pulled out of so little computing power - http://www.worldofspectrum.org/. Keep the graphics, but don't forget it should be entertaing even without them.

Yeah there is a sad state of gaming right now

[xutopia]

And honestly the games suck right now. http://www.wowdetox.com/

RPG/adventure.. like Fable was supposed to be?

[Lifelike]

GS: And what would you say the next evolution will be? Where would you take something like a Maniac Mansion or a Monkey Island in order to bring it into the mainstream, assuming all these other financial issues were in place?

RG: The thing I'm trying to do with the game right now is kind of meld it with an RPG. So what you've got is the kind of large world exploration that you have in an RPG that you don't really have with an adventure game. You've got the action, some light combat, you know, Diablo-style combat going on with it, but it is also infused with really good adventure-game-style puzzles and adventure-style sensibilities to the storytelling. So what you can do there is take those puzzles and that storytelling that really appeal to people on a certain level, but you can fuse it with the kind of action and mindless play mixed in. I think you can really broaden that audience, and really get to the people who are buying and playing games today.

To me it sounds a lot like what "Fable" was supposed to be. Where did Molyneux go wrong? Wasn't it theoretically the storytelling?

The question isn't "where did Molyneux go wrong"

[DoctaWatson]

It's "when".

And the answer is: somewhere around 1999.

What's wrong with stretching or windowing?

[tepples]

You think anyone will buy a 640x480 game?

Nintendo thinks more people will buy an affordable 480p console than an expensive 720p console. Yo muthafscka Wii!

If you have a fixed resolution, you are either going to have to stretch it, or leave it in a window. Neither is acceptable.

Why is stretching an image not acceptable? In 2006 we have smarter line art stretching algorithms such as Scale2x/Scale3x and hq2x/hq3x, and we have LCD HDTVs that stretch SDTV to 720p and also stretch 1080i to 720p. Heck, on a 1280-pixel monitor, you can emulate a 640-pixel monitor.

Why is running the game in a window not acceptable? For one thing, it lets the player more easily switch between the game and the online hint book.

Third choice: Vector graphics. Ever heard of Inkscape?

They forgot to ask the one important question

[SmallFurryCreature]

What went wrong with the lucasarts adventure games. He himself was there when lucasarts changed from the adventure company into the "let's milk star wars until the cows come home" company.

So why did Lucasarts stop with adventures?

To be honest I think this guy might be too blame with his "getting adventures into the mainstream" crap. Now its RPG he tries to bolt ontop of it to create some frankenstein monster, back then it was 3D.

Yes I know some people loved Grim Fandango and the last monkey island but can it be a coincedence that these were also the last adventures? A long line of 2D adventures, a handfull of 3D and bam, the end of the adventure era.

I am not totally against 3D but that one MI game didn't really do anything with 3D just made it a bitch to control. The sleeper hit The Longest Journey also used 3D but in a 2D world so that 99% of the time it behaved just like a old 2D game but with 3D models. Mmm, 3d April in her undies.

Adventures worked when they were adventures. Easily controlled puzzle games that were fun to play. Who here really thought the fighting scenes in Full Throttle were fun? The 3D world in the last monkey island. For that matter any of the mini arcade games that Sierra always tried to squeeze in?

If the adventure is going to make a comeback it is going to be in the form of the old adventure. Just the adventure and nothing but the adventure. If you look at the small successes that is exactly what happened.

Stop listening to game reviewers who laud every game that does something unusual and simply rely on your gaming audience.

This guy says it himself, there is a market for old scumm games but then totally fails to realize what this means by saying he wants to add RPG elements. Hello! There is a market for old scumm games. That is it! The OLD scumm games. So any new game should NOT try to add anything new. If people wanted that they would be playing the new games.

The whole adventure debacle reminds me of the new coke crap. Except that game developers like this guy seem unable to grasp the fact "people upset with new product, lets give them old product back". Instead he keeps coming up with new recipes while the customers just want their old coke back.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[spyrochaete]

To be honest I think this guy might be too blame with his "getting adventures into the mainstream" crap.
...
This guy says it himself, there is a market for old scumm games but then totally fails to realize what this means by saying he wants to add RPG elements. Hello! There is a market for old scumm games.

THANK YOU for saying the obvious!! This really pissed me off when I read it. I got about 8 hours into Dreamfall, the sequel to The Longest Journey, and I can't stomach another second. They made it a 3D dual analog game with Shaq-Fu fighting sequences. The story is still solid and so far there have been some satisfying and intriguing continuations of old characters' stories, but the control scheme is a nightmare. Why would the fans of the point-and-click game be interested in this? Why would people who hadn't played the original want to play a sequel that continues the story?

The only really innovative adventure game I've seen in a long time is Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy but with n00dity). This game took an admittedly stale genre and breathed tons of new life into it. It had a fantastic no-button control scheme where you gestured with the analog sticks to perform actions, it featured cinematic camera angles that implied your next course of action, and the dialogue and subject matter were mature and not watered down.

Adventure gamers have grown up with fond memories. Dreamfall and Gilbert's travesty-to-be do not pander to the people who want these games the most, and they're apeish half-baked caricatures of genre busters like God of War and Metal Gear. When we want beat-em-ups and Diablo clones we'll buy them. Gilbert got it right when he said the story is its own reward in adventures of old, so don't make us wade through hundreds of robotic Foot Clan to hear then next 7 lines of dialogue.

Ooh look, I unlocked a 3-headed monkey costume for Guybrush! Now let's play chapter 2 scene 4 over and over and over until I collect enough grogs to view some concept art! Wow, a wireframe screen cap of the men of low moral fibre! Thank you for reminding me that I'm playing a game at my desk!

Even the latest Leisure Suit Larry game was better than Dreamfall, somehow. That game was basically a 1st year computer science assignment Warioware Inc. with lewd scenes, but the dialogue was clever and funny! I don't know what it says about me that I was willing to sit through 10 hours of garbage mini games to see boobies (wait, I DO know what that says about me) but the fact that I can't stand Dreamfall speaks volumes about how far Ragnar Tornquist missed the mark. If TLJ wasn't such an amazing standalone game I'd be mournful, but THANKFULLY my memory isn't tarnished by the awful sequel.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[Chibi-Hikaru]

This guy says it himself, there is a market for old scumm games but then totally fails to realize what this means by saying he wants to add RPG elements. Hello! There is a market for old scumm games. That is it! The OLD scumm games. So any new game should NOT try to add anything new. If people wanted that they would be playing the new games.

I totally agree. I would love new adventure games but short of Quest for Glory, keep your god damn RPG elements out of my adventure game. If I want to play an RPG I'll pick up Dragon Quest VIII thank you very much.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[DavidTC]

I got about 8 hours into Dreamfall, the sequel to The Longest Journey, and I can't stomach another second. They made it a 3D dual analog game with Shaq-Fu fighting sequences. The story is still solid and so far there have been some satisfying and intriguing continuations of old characters' stories, but the control scheme is a nightmare.

What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About?

The 'fights' in Dreamfall consist of repeatedly hitting buttons for twenty seconds. I suck at fighting games, and yet I was able to win every single fight the first time, except the fairly hard 'how to fight' fight that you don't have to actually win. (Luckily, everyone you control in a fight is actually a skilled fighter, and I don't think that's an accident.)

And I don't know what you mean by '3D dual analog game with Shaq-Fu fighting sequences'. I don't have a joystick, and I did fine.

I'll admit the fights didn't belong, but you're talking about maybe six instances of twenty seconds of random button pushing. They were so short I didn't even learn the controls for kick and punch and whatnot.

I actually kinda like that the game actually gives the option for violence, as opposed to TLJ. The idea that the second the enemy attacks you you're dead in an adventure game is kinda lame. Kick them in the face and keep going.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[spyrochaete]

"I actually kinda like that the game actually gives the option for violence, as opposed to TLJ. The idea that the second the enemy attacks you you're dead in an adventure game is kinda lame. Kick them in the face and keep going."

Many games give the protagonist few "hit points" and work just fine: Thief, Metal Gear, Pac Man, just about every other adventure game ever made... Not every game is a run and gun smash-a-thon.

Adventure games are about finding creative solutions to problems. Hitting a guy in the face is not a creative solution. There are few better adventure games than The Longest Journey (opinion), but there are many better face hitting games than Dreamfall (fact).

The 'fights' in Dreamfall consist of repeatedly hitting buttons for twenty seconds.

And what does that add to the game? Time? Busywork? Certainly not challenge or depth. Wouldn't you rather have seen an expertly choreographed cut scene instead of watching 2 mannequins use pushbutton kung-fu grip action? The fights are bad, not hard. That's. What. I'm. Talking. About.

(Luckily, everyone you control in a fight is actually a skilled fighter, and I don't think that's an accident.)

It's not an accident, it's a convenient excuse to engage 12 year-olds with Xboxes. I look past this worthless Mickey Mouse combat system and picture an executive at Funcom saying "Your game needs a bullet on the back of the box about combat or we won't capture the male teen demographic. I know your game is done, but surely you can slap in some combat."

Did you play the original, The Longest Journey? Do you think TLJ and Dreamfall were designed for the same audience? I know you consider the combat to be a conquerable obstacle, but do you like it or just tolerate it?

The idea that the second the enemy attacks you you're dead in an adventure game is kinda lame. Kick them in the face and keep going.

I disagree. Combat has been done many ways in adventure games - some good, some bad. Monkey Island's swordfighting was awesome because you won by learning to best your opponent in an insult contest, and you HAD to lose several times to learn the rules. This scheme worked in context and was original. Dreamfall doesn't make sense in this respect. The protagonist is a black belt, yet she has 2 moves and she does them both poorly. Not every story's protagonist has to be Rambo. Horror movies are suspenseful because the heroes are overpowered and in constant danger.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[DavidTC]

Many games give the protagonist few "hit points" and work just fine: Thief, Metal Gear, Pac Man, just about every other adventure game ever made... Not every game is a run and gun smash-a-thon.

Yes, which is why I'm glad adventure games have caught up to the concept.

I'm thinking specifically of adventure games where a single guard would cause you to spend twenty minutes trying to avoid them, like Space Quest did at some point I can't exactly recall. Instead of giving you the option to take them out. Compare to, say, Metal Gear Solid.

Adventure games are about finding creative solutions to problems. Hitting a guy in the face is not a creative solution. There are few better adventure games than The Longest Journey (opinion), but there are many better face hitting games than Dreamfall (fact).

And sometimes the obvious solution is to hit the person a little. Think the very start of Dreamfall, where you're rescuing what's-her-name, that scientist.

Talking about 'creative solutions' reminds of games where you had the 'problem' of getting past a two foot high fence, which was only a 'problem' because the game mechanics said so. Limiting options does not make something 'creative'.

And what does that add to the game? Time? Busywork? Certainly not challenge or depth. Wouldn't you rather have seen an expertly choreographed cut scene instead of watching 2 mannequins use pushbutton kung-fu grip action? The fights are bad, not hard. That's. What. I'm. Talking. About.

No, that then goes to the 'Do you want to be out of control?', and, hilariously, I had the exact opposite discussion a few weeks ago.

I like the fact they don't take away your control for a cutscreen, and I've seen arguments that any cutscenes are jarring and take you out of the game, that you should always be in control of the character.

However, I wouldn't have a problem with them doing it as cutscenes.

Did you play the original, The Longest Journey? Do you think TLJ and Dreamfall were designed for the same audience? I know you consider the combat to be a conquerable obstacle, but do you like it or just tolerate it?

Yes, I did play TLJ, and yes, I do think it's for basically the same people. And I just tolerate the actual act. I just love the fact it's an option.

I disagree. Combat has been done many ways in adventure games - some good, some bad. Monkey Island's swordfighting was awesome because you won by learning to best your opponent in an insult contest, and you HAD to lose several times to learn the rules. This scheme worked in context and was original. Dreamfall doesn't make sense in this respect. The protagonist is a black belt, yet she has 2 moves and she does them both poorly. Not every story's protagonist has to be Rambo. Horror movies are suspenseful because the heroes are overpowered and in constant danger.

Dreamfall's fighting looks lame, admitted, especially when compared to the rest of the game. If your problem is with the implimentation of the fighting, I'm with you there.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[spyrochaete]

I agree with all your statements. Especially this one:

I'm thinking specifically of adventure games where a single guard would cause you to spend twenty minutes trying to avoid them, like Space Quest did at some point I can't exactly recall.

That point hit home. My problem with those sneaking sequences is my same problem with the fighting in Dreamfall. You're right when you say it's the implementation that I have a problem with, not the fact that they have these sequences at all. Crappy sneaking is just as crappy as crappy fighting. I liked how the Leisure Suit Larry series took care of that - action sequences could be skipped but you'd forgo some points by doing so.

Guh.. now you've reminded me about this super annoying sneaking sequence in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. These stupid zombies are super slow but their "clipping" box is huge so you can't even get near them without having your brains nibbled on. At least it's one of those sequences where adjusting the speed slider makes only your character faster so you can zip around them like lightning.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[Hast]

If the adventure is going to make a comeback it is going to be in the form of the old adventure. Just the adventure and nothing but the adventure. If you look at the small successes that is exactly what happened.

Well, personally I think that adventure games have a great chance at a comeback now.

Everyone talks about how the new thing is all of the "non-gamer" gamers. The people that play Bejewelled and such. It seems to me that those people could be perfect for playing adventure games. And particularly adventure games like the old LucasArts games.

For me the most important part of those games where always that you could never get truly stuck (get in an impossible to solve situation), you could never die and it was funny. That ment you had a lot of freedom with exloring the humour in the game.

However I think that adventure games "died" when they did mostly because many moved on to new and shinier things. And not only gamers but mostly publishers and game studios.

It would seem to me like many adventure games could be great for online episodic play as well as on handheld systems. And with humour and puzzles I think you'll have an easier time to attract audiences which don't consider themselves to be gamers (yet).

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[MemoryDragon]

The main problem with the Grim Fandango and even worse with Monkey Island 4 was, that they tried to shoehorn an analog dual gamepad control into a mouse keyboard interface. With both adventures it was clear that the controls were made for the console generation of its time, but never were ported to those machines. When I started Grim I just asked myself WTF were they thinking, the game easly would have worked 1o times better with a normal point and click interface even with the same graphics. It is the quality of the game that Grim could survive this control onslaught and still becoming a classic (grim fandango in my opinion is one of the best works of lucasarts story and puzzlewise) but the mediocre Monkey Island 4 could not. Both games could have worked without any reworking of the graphics as point and click games, I still shudder on the thought on what they were thinking pushing this dreadful interface into more than one game.

Re:They forgot to ask the one important question

[Fjornir]

To be honest I think this guy might be too blame with his "getting adventures into the mainstream" crap. Now its RPG he tries to bolt ontop of it to create some frankenstein monster, back then it was 3D.

I'd love to see a good RPG/Adventure hybrid. The Hero's Quest/Quest For Glory games were a ton of fun.

Two words

[MemoryDragon]

Nintendo DS, this platform already within the last months has had two higly successful adventure game releases one being Phoenix Wright the other one Another Code by Cing. The next one, Hotel Dusk already is in the line, adventure games fit perfectly into the lineup of the machine, which also has a very high emphasis on adult puzzle games like Dr. Kawashis Brain Jogging,and also the stylus is a perfect blend to point and click mechanisms.

Re:Two words

[PhotoBoy]

Yep, just what I was going to suggest. The DS is quite ideally suited to point and click adventures with it's touch screen for pointing and the top screen for displaying close-ups of what you're inspecting.

Re:Two words

[MemoryDragon]

Actually also recommendable from the homebrew site, is the DS scummvm port, this thing is close to perfect to play the old lucasarts adventure games, lower screen touchpad point and click upper screen automatic closeup of your characters position.

Phoenix wright

[Rodong]

I just thought i'd add that i'm a long time adventure gamer, finished off most of the old lucasarts games and sierra classics, and i actually find that phoenix wright on the ds has some of that old magic....it's a bit short, but well worth it.

The Internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet, or at least mainstream use of it, killed the Adventure Genre.

When most people didn't have access to the Internet an adventure game could last months, you could be stuck on a puzzle hoping that the next monthly issue of your favourite magazine had some hints, or that your mate down the road managed to figure it out.

These days if somebody gets stuck it's a couple of clicks on Gamefaqs and they have their solution. Most adventure games last a day at most unless they start putting some action based sequences in at which point it's less of an adventure game, and less appealing to those who liked pure adventure games.

When an adventure game lasts one day because the player has found the solution online they'll say that the game was too short, or too easy, even too obvious (despite them looking up the solutions) Once you lose the brain scratching the adventure genre is dead, and the current generation of gamers don't seem to want to have to think.

It's a sad state of affairs because Adventure games are probably my favourite genre but the reasons for their demise seem clear to me.

Re:The Internet...

[grumbel]

### The Internet, or at least mainstream use of it, killed the Adventure Genre.

The adventure genre died off quite a while before the internet got mainstream, back around in 1997. Beside from that, walkthroughs have been popular long before that, for pretty much any adventure game, except Maniac Manison back on the C64, I had a walk through right at hand when playing it. Its simply isn't a lot of fun to walk around for hours and hours in an adventure game, getting stuck is no fun and walkthroughs prevent that frustration.

### Most adventure games last a day at most

Guess what, most other games from those days don't last any longer either, especially not when you cheat. Today its really not that much different, games have gotten longer, but so did adventure games, The Longest Journey takes a good 20-30h, Dreamfall takes a solid 15h and the other ones aren't that far behind. Fahrenheit was rather short with 7h, but than that game was more interactive movie than classic adventure game (little to no running around, little to no freedom), so thats excusable. Beside, not everybody wants to run around like in FinalFantasy slaying the same old monsters over and over again in endless boring random encounters, some people acually like to have games without useless gameplay that is only there to stretch the game.

I just want great games.

[James A. V. Joyce]

"Go play any recent Square RPG (well, not the weird SaGa ones) - they're basically 3D adventure games with a battle system thrown in. I'm playing Chrono Cross right now and it's just like playing Grim Fandango, except I get to beat people up more."

I'm sorry, I respect your opinion and all, but I must disagree. RPGs have indeed taken a few elements from adventure games, but not really to the extent where I'm thinking to myself "Hey...who put their adventure game in my RPG?!"

I was alluding earlier to a true balls-to-the-wall adventure game that was an adventure game form the first keystroke in MSWord to the last closed beta bug to the boxed copy on the shelves. A title that just wants to be a pure adventure game all along, not a cross platform, genre splitting hybrid. No combat...no time constraints...no boss battles...no leveling...no dying...no jumping puzzles, etc..

Certainly no super-deformed, gargantuan-eyed, Japanese, insular misconceptions of American pop-culture with absurd story arcs and dialogue written by grade school students on LSD, who fantasize about falling in love while saving the world, hot dogs, and "...", (For some reason they go on about "..." a lot.) all the while being drop-dead serious about it.

Shudder. No thanks. I decided several years ago that I'd had enough and will probably never play another Square RPG again. (Well, except for my old GB titles, perhaps.)

This was a big reason why I gravitated strongly towards the PC in the late eighties and haven't looked back since. Sure I try things out on the console side every once and awhile that I really enjoy (GTA, Fable) but the platform really doesn't speak to me, excite me, inspire me, entertain me, or even motivate me the way computer games do. There are many other reasons as well.

In all honesty, I'm just scared because I'd be lying if I said I didn't see the writing on the wall. Each year that goes by since the PS1 came out in '95 or so, I see PC gamers becoming ever increasingly in the minority. I walk into my local EB and Gamestop and am horrifically hurt and saddened to see the PC games carelessly crammed away in the furthest, back corner of the store, huge, gooey bar-code stickers slapped over 50% of the sides (the only visible portion of the box) of unshrink-wrapped, dog-eared boxes. Contrast this with a local Walden Software 10 years ago that had over half of the store space dedicated to PC games.

Since the arrival of the XBOX, I see many (at one time) die-hard PC companies fold or jump ship to (at best) cross platform, lowest common denominator detritus. I see 1.5 million people splooging over mainstream titles like Halo 2 and wonder "Do that many people not know that Half-Life did it better, smarter, and cooler back in '98? Are there that many people out there in console land who have never played an engrossing (and dare I say "better") FPS before Halo on the PC?"

Maybe I'm just bitter and unyielding - fearing change. Maybe I know all too well what I like and see that it's no longer matching up with the mass market. Either way, I'm pretty upset and I want desperately something to be done about it. I certainly don't know what to do, and even feel that I'm actively trying. Frankly, I'm terrified. The day they stop making engrossing, mature, dark, funny, deep, detailed, immersive, atmospheric, complex PC titles, be them adventure, RPG, action, FPS, is probably the day I stop being a gamer...and that's too horrible for me to even think about.

Re:The question isn't "where did Molyneux go wrong

[Lifelike]

Do elaborate, I want to understand why.

Re:The question isn't "where did Molyneux go wrong

[Chyeld]

Peter left Bullfrog Productions to form his own company, Lionhead Studios, at that time.

The real problem with Peter is a fairly simple one. He goes for "Wiz! Bang!" more heavily than he goes for "Once upon a time...."

None of the games he's done have had stories that were deep or complex. The closest he's ever been to that were Fable and Black and White. Both of which were over ambitious games where the story was present and actually tied to the game, but the games themselves did not live up to the hype. Primarily because rather than spending time on things like storyline or ensuring the games had any sort of deep complexity to them, he spent time on making sure your animal knew how to throw poo or you could boast that you would do your next quest naked.

The man has vision, but he lacks the ability to cause it to bear fruit. And when this invariably happens, he attempts to cover up the shortcomings by piling on meaninless eye candy.

Where Gilbert goes wrong

[Flyboy Connor]

From TFA, Gilbert describing what he would want to do with a game: You've got the action, some light combat, you know, Diablo-style combat going on with it, but it is also infused with really good adventure-game-style puzzles and adventure-style sensibilities to the storytelling. So what you can do there is take those puzzles and that storytelling that really appeal to people on a certain level, but you can fuse it with the kind of action and mindless play mixed in.

While I pretty much like what Gilbert says in TFA, here is going completely in the wrong direction. He does not seem to realise that the people who want stories and adventure-style puzzles are turned off by mindless action sequences. Mixing up different styles is a surefire way to make a game fail miserably. Try to please all, and you wll please none.

Re:Where Gilbert goes wrong

[grumbel]

He does not seem to realise that the people who want stories and adventure-style puzzles are turned off by mindless action sequences. Mixing up different styles is a surefire way to make a game fail miserably. Try to please all, and you wll please none.

Most people don't have any problem with action sequences, the problem why action isn't much liked in the adventure community is that the action sequences in adventure games are *extremly* badly done, Fahrenheit so far was the only game that made action actually fit the story and not look completly out of place. That said, it is extremly difficult to mix action and story in a meaningfull, which makes it very risky to try to mix those since either the action will suffer or the story, causing a game that doesn't make anybody happy. I found Psychonauts quite annoying for that reason, the game didn't really know what it wanted to be, in some parts it feels like a normal fun adventure game, in other it turns into a frustrating jump'n run only to turn into an Zelda-like action-adventure for the next few minutes, it misses some consistant pacing so that you know what to expect, instead you kind of jump from genre to genre with none of them being half as good as a pure game would be. Its still not a bad game, but it could have been so much better with a bit more focus on specific aspects of gameplay and not a crazy mix of everything.

Re:Where Gilbert goes wrong

[Flyboy Connor]

I am currently playing Psychonauts, and I have precisely this problem. I love the look of the game, I love the characters, I enjoy the humor, I think I will like the story -- but I get stuck on the action sequences because I simply am unable to do those. I am not a twitch gamer. Especially with a mouse and keyboard these sequences are much too hard for me. So this game will probably get deleted out of frustration. Which is a really sad conclusion.

But 2D costs more than 3D!

[LKM]

The reason why most modern adventure games are 3D is not that 3D is fancy. It's that 3D is cheaper than 2D. Creating good 2D characters is incredibly expensive, since you have to draw up to hundreds of consistent frames for each character. 3D is cheaper than 2D.

Re:But 2D costs more than 3D!

[Fjornir]

I'll add that doing 3d does not require an engine like most people are thinking of. Pre-rendered is fine for adventure games, and would keep costs down a lot.

OBJECTION!

[Lave]

Your honour, I have been playing Phoenix Wright exclusively - and have yet to finish the game. I've had to recharge the battery on his DS twice so far.

THIS EVIDENCE ON BATTERY LIFE DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS THE WITNESS TESTIMONY!!!.

(flashing lights - music kicks in)

Hence geminidomino could not have finished the game in two hours!!

Re:OBJECTION!

[geminidomino]

Objection Overruled. Just because Lave sucks at the game doesn't imply GeminiDomino does as well. ;)

Re:OBJECTION!

[Lave]

Sustained - the rate of ones progrees doesn't imply the rate of progress of another

However, the rate at which text flows, coupled to the unskippable sections indicate that GeminiDomino is clearly exaggerating the speed at which he progressed through the game! The game easily takes 10 hrs to complete. And is memorable enough for grown men to pretend they are lawyers on slashdot 0 clearly implying it is worth every penny!

I call the parrot as a witness!

Re:OBJECTION!

[geminidomino]

Honestly, no exaggeration. It came in the mail at 11am. By 1:30pm, the game was beaten and I was sleeping for work.

You're right though, it is definitely memorable enough to be worth it. :)

Planescape Torment

[Rob T Firefly]

Planescape Torment sold like crap.

Which is terribly sad, really. It has a cult following and all, but crap promotion may have had a hand in the game's miserable sales. I remember almost buying it new, but at the time I had never heard of it, the box art and unimpressive writeup on the back put me off, and I ended up taking home some long-since-forgotten PS1 game or something. Which is really a shame.. I'm playing through it for the first time now (off a reccommendation in a Slashdot comment, actually) and sure, it's a bit dated graphically and the interface needs work, but story-wise I can honestly say it's the best game of this sort I've ever played. If the suits involved had put a little more of whatever it is they do behind this gem, who knows what we could have by now.

umm..

[kazilin]

Has no one played Dreamfall: The Longest Journey??? (Note: I did not have time to read prior comments, apologize if this was already mentioned...) I finished that game recently, it came out April of this year, and I was thoroughly impressed. Yes, it's an adventure game...and it was awesome. I'm just sitting here waiting for the sequel...and I find this article. *shakes head* It makes me sad. Adventure games are wonderful.

HOLD IT!

[Kamineko]

Your Honor, if you bought your copy of Phoenix Wright second hand, then all of the cases will have already been unlocked. In Phoenix Wright *holds up DS and gestures at it*, you can skip text that's already been played by holding the stylus down on the > button. This would greatly reduce the time taken to complete the game: the only unskippable sequences being the case introductions.

<Judge> The prosecution has a point...

-OBJECTION!-

<Phoenix> This is mere conjecture, the prosecution has no evidence that the defendent has bought a second hand copy of Phoenix Wright!

<Edgeworth> GYAAHH! *leans on desk*

You're wrong

[LKM]

Oh, right, because Nintendo released every Fire Emblem in North America and Sony would NEVER allow games like Mad Maestro or Mr. Mosquito on the PS2, or Carnage Heart on PS1, or develop something as weird as LocoRoco. Get a clue. Nintendo plays it safer than anybody else in the industry.

Nintendo was bad during the NES/SNES/N64 days as far as violence and sex was concerned, but they've learned something. During the PS2/GC days, Sony censored some games, Nintendo didn't. But this is not the issue at hand. The issue is 2D. Sony won't allow most 2D games on their consoles, especially for US releases. Nintendo will.

That's why you have tons of 2D games on the Cube and the DS, but not a whole lot on the PS2 and the PSP. Sony thinks it's bad for business.