The Death and Rebirth of Genres

Via GameSetWatch, an article at the Manic Pop Blog about the way in which game genres disappear and reappear based on current trends. The post's author discusses the death of the Adventure game genre, and its reincarnation thanks to casual gaming: "A casual game like Azada takes that basic "Seek and Find" formula, adds in some additional bridging puzzles, and you end up with a game with a series of static screens filled with items to discover. You put these items in your inventory and combine them in order to open up additional areas. And some areas require that you solve puzzles to advance. And it's all wrapped up in a storyline, further driving your desire to "finish" the game. In other words, it's an old-school adventure game."

Comments

old school adventure?

[Chris Pimlott]

In other words, it's an old-school adventure game.

Er, old school adventure games were not static screens. What he's talking about sounds more like Myst.

Re:old school adventure?

[Anonymous Coward]

King's Quest = old school adventure game
King's Quest = series of static screens

Re:old school adventure?

[Kratisto]

Great, you've got one example of one that is a series of static screens. I could come up with ten that aren't if I weren't a lazy bum.

Re:old school adventure?

[Stevecrox]

Myst was a puzzle based adventure game which has never included an inventory, this an inventory based adventure game. A better example would be Starship Titanic, a game I loved but in the end loathed due to a bug which meant a false move in the begining stopped you ever completing the game.

Re:old school adventure?

[CheShACat]

Er, old school adventure games were not static screens.
It depends how old school you're going, no? "Adventure" was pretty static...

Re:old school adventure?

[dpilot]

There was a not-well-publicized version of Myst called RealMyst. Think of the basic Myst plot, combined with nearly full freedom of movement common to 1st/3rd person shooters. But RealMyst was really a technology demo/test platform for Myst Uru.

Myst Uru was a Myst-style game with 1st/3rd person selectable viewpoint and full motion. It was supposed to become a full MMPG world, but Cyan ran out of money. There are still people hacking the server code and running the MMPG on their own, but I never got around to trying it. I did enjoy the game, however.

I think my favorite concept of all of this is, "Explore strange places I've never been, perhaps places that don't really exist, perhaps even physically impossible places."

Oh, plus Uru Myst had an inventory.

Re:old school adventure?

[Stevecrox]

Uru Myst does not have an inventory nor does realMyst, realMyst was a demo piece for the 3d rendering engine Cyan Worlds bought for their next project "DIRT" which evolved into the mutliplayer project "mudpie" which later became known as Uru: Ages beyond Myst. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was to have a online component known as Uru Live, this was cancelled in its beta stages (known as Prologue) by Ubisoft. Last year Gametap and Cyan Worlds relaunched Uru Live and renamed it Myst Online: Uru Live, this is still going and worth checking out : http://www.mystonline.com/

To go through the myst series:

Myst has no inventory, you are able to pick up a page from each age and return it to its book you can hold only one page at a time.
In Riven you were given two books, one you could read and one you could give away you could not add to this inventory nor could you effect it, it was there as a plot device.
realMyst was released next which is Myst but in 3d, it had an extra age and was only avaliable for a short time, you could only pick up a blue or red page from each age.
Myst 3 had no inventory you were given a journal to read from and could only directly effect things in game.
Uru was released at this point you are able to create a avatar, collect links of places you've been to and collect "relto pages" to alter your personal space. This is as probably close to inventory based as a Myst universe game has gotten. Even then the items you can collect exist allow you to personalise your charracter rather than help you solve a puzzle.
Myst IV gave you an "imager" which allowed you to take pictures and notes as well as a locket these were the only items you could hold and use neither directly acted on the enviroment.
Myst V was released in 2005 this had a journal and you were able to pick up and use tablets, the tables were not placed in an inventory and you could only use a specific one in each age.

Inventory based games are different good examples would be the Discworld games and Starship Titanic, you were able to go around a 2d universe and start conversations with people/objects, these conversations if navigated correctly would mean you would be given an object you could combine items in your inventory to get past certain targets, using Discworld 2 as an example after completing a series of errands for a ships captain he would give you some rope, in the next chapter you would help out a woman in doing so you would come accross a hook, the hook and rope can be combined, in the third chapter you had to get past a guard, to do this you would combine the rope and hook and then select the new object and the wall, the charracter would then climb the building.

There are many types of adventure game two main styles existed, the Myst Puzzle style which involves logic and reasoning to solve by manipulating objects on the screen for example exploring and finding out four frequencies to make a crystal resonate. The other Starship Titanic Inventory style which involves figuring out puzzles and how your inventory can relate the enviroment around you.

I'm a adventure lover and hope the genre opens up more I'm tired of only having Myst Online as the place I can go for advernture fix.

Re:old school adventure?

[dpilot]

Thanks for the link. I'd dug some stuff (links) up a while back, and lost them. This is much more direct.

I'll agree that the Uru inventory was limited, but there was something to it beyond putting eye candy in your relto.
- You collected linking books which were inventory-like, in that an artifact collected here enabled you to go there, even though they were only visualized and used in the relto.
- The wrist-band in the world with the spinning forts that allowed interfacing with later parts of the game.
- The fireflies buzzing around your head that let you see in the dark elsewhere, likewise the energy capsules.
Agreed not as complex as some games, but more so than other Myst games.

I found the interface to some of the objects annoying. Obviously I wanted to use the box as a bridge, but kicking it along the ground was most awkward, and the positioning was a bit critical. I wish I could have used my hands, somehow.

Looking a little deeper at your link, it's not really worth $10/mo for me, especially as Myst Uru is the only thing I'd want at Gametap.

Re:old school adventure?

[Corwn of Amber]

Darkseed, Darkseed II, Phantasmagoria, the cthulhu thing in ice I can't remember the name of, countless others.

Classic Adventure games. Static screens.

X-Files, Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry. Lots of others. I haven't ever played much, let alone old-school adventure...

What /were/ you thinking? If it's not "puzzles on static screens" it's not "old-school adventure". And that's high tech compared to text dungeons.

My Theory

[ILuvRamen]

I think it's just that people play the hell out of awesome games in waves as a group then one person decides to play it again years later and tells their friends and posts about it online and they all start playing it again. Who doesn't like another Mario Kart spree or Sonic the Hedgehog on Genesis now and then? I personally went back to the ancient Exile 3 from Spiderweb Software, a 2D RPG with a storyline and gameplay that kicks the ass of just about any RPG. But every time I start playing it again it gets old after a month or two.

Re:My Theory

[RuBLed]

Much like playing a Sims game in my case, whenever I had those "what-should-I-play-now" moments. I usually get bored in a week or two or whenever I decide to ruin the lives of the "sims" whichever comes first.

Re:My Theory

[SQLGuru]

My all-time favorite games have infinite replayability (and can be played alone). NetHack, Civilization, Master of Magic, and Pirates. It's nice to be able to fire up those old games and play them whenever the urge hits me. Some of the other games I like are harder to play over again because I either need others to make it fun or it's just repetetive once you've beaten it a few times (Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island are great, but it really kills it when you already know the story).

Layne

Long live Old-Skool Sierra!

[Afreet1]

I really miss the days of Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and most importantly SPACE QUEST. Those games were truly involving and made you enjoy playing them. The writing was also fantastic. I break out those collections now and then, and while the graphics always seem more and more crude, the gameplay is still great!

Re:Long live Old-Skool Sierra!

[dunezone]

Its true. I just finished playing Leisure Suit Larry 6 using dosbox.

The game play got irritating at times when you got stuck but it was fun to be part of the story and take your time without all the flashy graphics. Adventure games have really nice and well written stories to go along with the game since thats really the selling point behind them. I still remember the hours of playing Kings Quest VI with my friend. Took us about two months to beat that game and we only had to seek out help maybe once or twice.

Currently, I'm tired of the current genres and their typical stories. Most RPGs are the same routine of some individual who doesn't have a family and must find himself against an evil or his family was kidnapped/murder and he must save or avenge their deaths. FPS games are not much better. I will give credit that Gears of War was entertaining and ill be buying bio-shock in about 45 minutes. Though those stories are getting the same too, alien invasion, corrupt government agency, or mad super villain. And don't get me started MMORPGs.

Re:Long live Old-Skool Sierra!

[Nazlfrag]

If you haven't already, give Peasant Quest a go. It helps if you have an appreciation for Trogdor.

Re:Long live Old-Skool Sierra!

[magisterx]

I miss Quest for Glory (AKA Hero's Quest) personally. I played every game in the series and loved all of them (even if they had a few bugs.) They had direct combat, but it was not a dominant theme and they also had numerous puzzles set in a high fantasy setting. I don't think there were any games I ever enjoyed more. I also liked Police Quest.

The Interface

[Enderandrew]

The interface is a big factor. Console gaming is bigger than PC gaming right now, and adventure games don't do as well on the console. However, some are crediting the DS with bringing awareness back to the genre.

Retro gaming

[kn0tw0rk]

Genres don't die, they just are out of the spot light of popular culture.
People are going back and investigating games (and gaming systems) that they didnt have as kids, either legitimately by buying/acquiring the original hardware/software or by emulation and/or warezing.

This is partly because of
- emulation (ala MAME, MESS, etc)
- XBox Live and the Wii offering great classics,
- retro gaming sites
- people making prettied up versions of classic games (like the great stuff hosted at retrospec)
- and most 30 year old males who now have kids want to share some of the good gaming experiences that they had when they were young.

But the single biggest reasons (IMO) is that there are old games that OOOZE playability which people still rave about even now many years since they were released.

Re:Retro gaming

[hansamurai]

Don't forget 0ScummVM! Definitely one of the great open source projects in my opinion.

Re:Retro gaming

[kn0tw0rk]

Oops, my bad I forgot. I blame the purple tentacle for wiping my memory. :)

On the topic of genres...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://gamefab.blogspot.com/2007/03/musing-on-pc-g ames-vs-console-games.html
No, I'm not this guy, but I know him from a forum.

Damn young'ins

[rikkitikki]

Get off my lawn!

Old school adventures didn't have no fancy static screens. Old school adventures were walls of text! And full of mazes of twisty little passages all alike. You young'ins and your shiny 8-bit graphics will never appreciate navigating a non-euclidean maze while fending off theives and grues. Bah!

xyzzy

Re:Damn young'ins

[Chris Pimlott]

I'm quite aware of Infocom games but the term "adventure game" is normally applied to the later graphics games - Sierra, LucasArts, Legend, etc. Now, if you said "interactive fiction"...

Re:Damn young'ins

[orasio]

I'm quite aware of Infocom games but the term "adventure game" is normally applied to the later graphics games - Sierra, LucasArts, Legend, etc. That would be "graphic adventure".

Re:Damn young'ins

[Nazlfrag]

It was a real bastard mapping those text dungeons and BOOM! you hit something pen and paper just isn't cut out for! You just don't see it nowadays with the pathetic strive for photorealism. Give me warped surrealism any day!

Re:Damn young'ins

[SQLGuru]

I always hated when I started graphing in the wrong spot and ran off the edge of the page......that's when I found a deskpad of graph paper.....that rocked! Oh, and when those passages turned in the middle, GRRRRR.

: E
You are in a room......blah blah blah
Exits here - N, S

Bah! You screwed up my map!

Layne

LucasArts!

[cduffy]

Sierra's writing? Bah. The writing in the best of modern IF (try Spider and Web) is significantly better than what Infocom and Sierra used to put out in KQ and PQ. As for Space Quest, I have very fond memories -- but going back and trying to play them again, the games are a mixed bag, and I spend far too much of my time frustrated.

No, if you want to get reminiscent about games with outstanding plots that still have playability (almost) a decade and a half later, I think it needs to be LucasArts. The Secret of Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit The Road, Day of the Tentacle... those are the classics that stand the test of time.

Re:LucasArts!

[Mprx]

Spider and Web gets a lot of praise for its main puzzle, which is admittedly innovative, but it does not make a good story. In almost all other IF there is great effort to identify the player character with the player - the player character is "you". Spider and Web starts by tricking you into thinking this is the case, as the main puzzle would be too easy it it were honest. The puzzle actually relies upon the separation of player and player character identity, so it's effectively a metagame puzzle. When this identity is suddenly and violently sacrificed for the "cleverness" of puzzle design it greatly harms story immersion. It's an unexpected violation of the basic assumptions of storytelling, and as unsatisfying as the "it was all a dream" ending. For a game that plays with player/player character identity in a way that doesn't harm storytelling, try Slouching Towards Bedlam, a far superior game.

Space Combat Sims

[Knara]

While I realize that the Freespace 2 engine has a pretty impressive open source community, I still pine for the days of good space combat sims.

The closest thing I've played in a long while is Project Sylpheed (not to be confused with the old 3d-shooter Silpheed), but it's closer to a "macross space combat emulator" than a space combat sim in the tradition of Wing Commander, TIE Fighter / X-Wing, Freespace, etc.

Re:Space Combat Sims

[gringer]

it's closer to a "macross space combat emulator" than a space combat sim in the tradition of Wing Commander, TIE Fighter / X-Wing, Freespace, etc. Well, there's always privateer, which is in a bit of development at the moment.

Adventure games never died...

[atomicstrawberry]

... they simply evolved. Take Psychonauts, for example. Scratch the platformer surface and you'll find a detailed, well-written adventure game.

Re:Adventure games never died...

[EtoilePB]

... they simply evolved. Take Psychonauts, for example. Scratch the platformer surface and you'll find a detailed, well-written adventure game.

Mmm, true, but the field is more sparse for those who would rather do all the work with their brains and none of it with their thumbs. The old-school adventure (I still count the LucasArts classics as my favorite games) really has its modern incarnation on the Nintendo DS: Phoenix Wright (1, 2, soon 3), Hotel Dusk, and so on. Granted, the modern version, usually Japanese, is a little more text-heavy and narrative, but I still describe Phoenix Wright to my friends as "sort of like a SCUMM-engine CSI."

Not that there's anything wrong with a game like Psychonauts, but for people who enjoy PC or other gaming but who don't have the reflexes or the physical ability (I've had arthritis in my hand since I was a teenager, it really sucks sometimes) sometimes it's really nice NOT to have it couched in a platformer or whatnot.

Re:Adventure games never died...

[SQLGuru]

I think the major innovation in gaming these days is in how best to combine genres successfully (emphasis on successfully). There are several "classic" genres in gaming, but more and more often, you are finding games that tap into more than one of these. Psychonauts and several others (Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, etc.) have combined the Adventure and the Action (sub-genre: Platformers) genres together to make great games. I think in order for Adventure games to make a resurgance, they need to incorporate some aspect of another genre in order to appeal to more people - and thus appeal to the game makers.

On a related note, here is an excerpt from a gaming class assignment that I did a couple of years back that is related to the current discussion:
(3) Adventure games have declined in popularity in the last 10 years. Why do you think this has, happened? What would you change about the content or structure in adventure games to incite new interest in this genre?

Adventure games have not taxed the available hardware in the past few years. There have still been some that have been made (the latest Tomb Raider Legends has some adventure gaming aspects). I think that game designers have gotten away from the story telling mode. Games such as RTS and FPS games rely more on gameplay and less on story. Producing these types of games in mass numbers as they have recently has inhibited their ability to tell engaging stories. Even MMORPG games focus less on story telling. If adventure game are to have any sort of resurgence, I think that game designers need to work with authors to develop their story telling skills.

Layne

Say that reminds me...

[Floritard]

In The Adventures of Willy Beamish, is there a way to see the principal and teacher fucking on top of the school, or were my junior high friends just pulling my leg?

The Death of Adventure Games

[zarkill]

Everything I know about adventure games (and their death) I learned from Old Man Murray.

Re:The Death of Adventure Games

[AdamThor]

huzzah for you, and for Old Man Murray. I had the epiphany that adventure games suck while trying to play leisure suit larry - attmpting to make a grass skirt i needed to cut the grass. I had the ginsu knife, but it was too dull. I needed to sharpen the knife, but on what? Rocks? Sandpaper? A wheel? No, upon finding a walkthrough I was informed that I needed to sharpen the knife on the concrete steps of some building. "Of course!" I exclaimed, "This is retarded!"

Sorry...

[godfra]

You have been eaten by a Grue.

Recent adventure games

[swordgeek]

Dreamfall: 2006
Runaway 2: 2007
Paradise: 2006
Sam & Max: 2006-2007, six episodes

The genre isn't dead, it just hasn't grown to the same extent as action games. When a third-rate shooter can sell five times as many games, it takes some determination to release an adventure game. As a result, there's fewer of them coming out, but they do exist.

Correction, prease

[jo42]

:%s/trends/fads/gc

"There are no trends, only fads." - me

Re:Correction, prease

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about?