[fov]

Originally Posted by Fairygdmther

FOV - you go to GB - do you see anyone there advocating violence? That is a huge site of adv gamers. I'm sure you will see posts saying that they don't like/want it in adv games. And in fact you will see them defining adv games as non-violent.

Whether or not they're "advocating" violence, a lot of people at GB liked Legacy: Dark Shadows -- three shootings and two explosions* included -- a lot more than I did. And come to think of it, I don't remember one single complaint about the game's "violent" nature.

People can have personal tastes. People can dislike games with violence in them. I don't care if people want or don't want to play certain games. But to say that a game that includes violence CAN'T by definition be an adventure game is misguided and extremely arbitrary.

And why do we NEED to have violence in adv games?

Because some stories can't be told without it. Look at the very premise of Moment of Silence -- a game that has been called best adventure of last year and has been said by many players of adventure games (Gameboomers included!) to have an incredible story. It's about terrorism. Things get blown up. That story could not have been told without some violence. Are you suggesting that the majority of adventure gamers wish it had never been made?

There is a difference between gratuitious violence and violence that occurs as part of a story. As I've said before, I don't think ANYTHING should be random or gratuitious in a good adventure... violence included. If it's not necessary, don't stick it in there just to appeal to a wider audience. But if it is, for god's sake, don't leave it out for fear of offending someone. You and whoever else hates violence in games don't have to play those games. Just like I don't have to play Myst clones.

*Since my last post, I realized there's not one but TWO puzzles in this game that require Ren to blow something up. EDIT: Three, actually. Oh, and yet another killing puzzle involving a weapon other than a gun.

Originally Posted by Udvarnoky

Eh, what are you talking about? Sure there was.

I'm not saying there weren't any games with good stories. Like Full Throttle, Grim Fandango. But there were also many games with hardly any story. What's Dott about? Purple Tentacle drinks polluted water, goes insane and wants to rule the world. Go back in time and take care of the water. That's it. The rest is puzzles and loads of fun. That's not much, compared to the long and complicated stories of the black mirror and moment of silence.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Moron Lite

Some of us definitely do think there's something wrong with taking Myst and its ilk wholeheartedly as adventure games. Why is that? At some point, whether it was the creation of 7th Guest or Myst or whichever of these types of games came first, some designers decided to make games in which puzzles carried a far more prominent role, "leading" more of the game design than usual, and in which the puzzles on average became more elaborate (more like the traditional puzzles of yore?) than those coming out of a more world/story-focused adventure design (starting with Adventure?). These games branched off into their own discussion, albeit one closely related to the prototypical adventure game.

This is what I see as epistemological categorizing based on historical behaviour, whether it be personal or collective. What IF Myst hadn't been critically acclaimed and commercially successful? Consequently, given the typical conditions and workings of market and commercial responses, the 'dialogue' (historical behaviour) would have shifted onto whatever other game would have been successful. And that would inform the industry, market, culture, and gamer on what an adventure game is - or at least, what a working adventure game is.

But of course we know it's more abstract than that. It's just that Myst and subsequent titles that feature similar properties inform us of the boundaries within which these kinds of games have been expected to stay.

It's the abstract that I'm trying to pin down, not necessarily the concretes, which I think can often be deceptive qualifiers.

In a game like Half-Life, the design is led by the fact that it's a first-person shooter, that it revolves around a certain kind of gameplay (like what Jake and Emily were saying earlier). Few game designers think, "Okay, I'm going to come up with the story and world first, and then fit whatever gameplay style seems most appropriate onto that," and then purely by chance end up with an unambiguous first-person shooter, or a strategy game. And even if they did, gamers would be most likely to sort the game first as an FPS or strategy game, and then take a look at the story. We think of World of Warcraft first as an MMORPG, and then as a "Warcraft" game. Maybe not *every single* one of us does, but we're dealing with generalizations here, which is what genre's about. We're trying to figure out the logic with which a culture at large understands a game, not a principle of absolute inclusion and exclusion. Exceptional individual responses like "I played Monkey Island purely for the puzzles, not the world or story!" are beside the point.

What I highlighted in bold is exactly what Rags Tornquist is now setting out to do. Which is what is infuriating many adventure gamers who prefer to think in concretes rather than abstracts. This is a good example of the idea of genre being challenged.

For me personally, whether or not Dreamfall will fall under the ultimately arbitrary box of 'Adventure' is not the issue. Maybe we shouldn't be obsessed any more with classifications and instead perceive them as more of a dynamic shifting scale of qualifiers.

[Manhunter71]

WOW!
I can't believe it - I've been away for a few hours to sleep and then go shopping, and another 5 pages have appeared

I can imagine this topic being discussed by us all over a few pints in the pub, with everyone's voices getting louder and louder as the argument becomes more heated

Its clear that as individuals we all have very different (some of us very wrong ) definitions as to what constitutes an adventure game, so I will say this as my final post on the subject, although I think it has been said a few pages back :

in the most basic terms an adventure game involves a main character with some kind of background story - during the game he/she/it has some objective he needs to complete or issue he needs to resolve. Along the way he will meet other characters, have conversations, solve puzzles, overcome obstacles; either by fighting or by intelligence.
Eventually he will come to the end of his quest and the game will be over.

In short, he has undertaken an adventure - therefore you, in controlling him, have played an adventure

You realise I am generalising here, but I just wanted to be awkward and back up my much earlier statement that basically all games are adventures in some form

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Manhunter71

in the most basic terms an adventure game involves a main character with some kind of background story - during the game he/she/it has some objective he needs to complete or issue he needs to resolve. Along the way he will meet other characters, have conversations, solve puzzles, overcome obstacles; either by fighting or by intelligence.
Eventually he will come to the end of his quest and the game will be over.

So then Doom3 really IS an adventure game!!

[Manhunter71]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

So then Doom3 really IS an adventure game!!

Well yes - didn't the main character have to overcome obstacles to achieve his goal?
Wasn't there a beginning and an end?
Didn't he have an adventure whilst fighting all those nasty alien monsters?

[Moron Lite]

I think I agree with pretty much all of what you just said. (EDIT: Oops, this was supposed to come immediately after Trep's post.)

I do get the feeling that the adventure game genre, broadly and historically speaking, does coalesce more around the story and world more than a particular gameplay style, and that's been the thing that (generally) seperates it from most other genres. (Genre benders and breakers like Deus Ex and Second Life are another story.) Particulars/concretes like branching dialogue trees and puzzles were just the best available means of expressing important facets of the story and world at a certain point in time, and better methods have been hard to come by, which is why we often feel like certain particulars come first (and in a lot of cases, it undoubtedly has, at least when the developer has had the opportunity to move beyond those particulars). But if we can see that the adventure game genre has broadly been more about story and world first, Dreamfall (and Shenmue) fall into the tradition fairly well, I think.

I think there's also something to be said about how the adventure game genre (not talking about the Mystian, puzzle-led genre) emphasizes everyday ways of being, e.g. just walking around, talking, picking stuff up, etc., whereas most other genres form themselves around things we don't normally do much of, like shooting, fighting, jumping, and so on.

[Udvarnoky]

Originally Posted by Fienepien

What's Dott about? Purple Tentacle drinks polluted water, goes insane and wants to rule the world. Go back in time and take care of the water. That's it. The rest is puzzles and loads of fun. That's not much, compared to the long and complicated stories of the black mirror and moment of silence.

Don't you think you're dumbing down the story just a tad? It's like you're ignoring the fact that a lot of the game's puzzles themselves are important story elements, or that the "take care of the water" part is merely what's supposed to happen at the end. It's just as easy to summarize BM or MOS in an equally silly way, but I wouldn't insult them. Games can be wacky and weird and still have a great story. Even a simply story can be really good, but I wouldn't describe DOTT's story as such.

You also mention the original game as having not much of a story. Maniac Mansion was a about an Evil Purple Meteor that crashed into the front lawn of a weird family, causing the father/husband, a mad scientist, to become brainwashed and to try to take over the world by sucking out the brains of teenagers, individually by use of a machine called the Zomb-B-Matic in his basement laboratory. When Sandy Pantz is kidnapped by Dr. Fred it's up to Sandy's boyfriend Dave Miller and the rest of his college buddies to break into the house, rescue Sandy, free Dr. Fred of his possession, and save the world. And they do this by applying their individual talents and meeting a bunch of strange characters like Nurse Edna, Weird Ed, Purple Tentacle, and Green Tentacle. The kids can get aid from some of these residents in different ways, such as taking advantage of Ed's desire to save his father or Green Tentacle's dream of becoming a rock star. MM's story had a brilliant horror/scifi parody flavor to it that made it really enjoyable and fun. Just because the story doesn't unfold in some gorgeous, cinematic type way like, say, Grim Fandango, it's definitely there, and it is the point of the game. I'll also point outthat, even if it is deemed entirely subjective, it was the story that drew me to MM in the first place.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by Udvarnoky

You also mention the original game as having not much of a story. Maniac Mansion was a about an Evil Purple Meteor that crashed into the front lawn of a weird family...

Compared to most recent games' stories, that's quite lame.
I never played Maniac Mansion, DOTT or Monkey Island for their stories, I played them for the fun writing, compelling atmospheres, and high interactivity. That's what today's games lack, which they (try to) compensate with deeper/darker stories and better graphics.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Ninth

Compared to most recent games' stories, that's quite lame.

Just because it's a teen comedy or whatever doesn't mean its lame by definition. An adventure game doesn't need to star adults, tell a story of doomed romance, or be about some grisly underbelly of a city or a wartorn land or something to be quality. That sort of thing can tip into cliche or melodrama city pretty much just as quickly as a teen comedy can tip over into trite-land.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Ninth

Compared to most recent games' stories, that's quite lame.

Your arbitrary stance seems to declare some kind of vague qualifier, based on personal opinion, of the significance of the pervasiveness of narrative for a fulfilling gaming experience.

Udvarnoky ENJOYED the story, didn't he? Surely that's some kind of testament to DOTT's power to grab the player in some way.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by Jake

Just because it's a teen comedy or whatever doesn't mean its lame by definition. An adventure game doesn't need to star adults, tell a story of doomed romance, or be about some grisly underbelly of a city or a wartorn land or something to be quality. That sort of thing can tip into cliche or melodrama city pretty much just as quickly as a teen comedy can tip over into trite-land.

Sure. Whenever did I implied otherwise?
Monkey Island or DOTT are teen comedies, and they're (among) my favorites.
I tried Cirque De Zale, No Action Jackson, Apprentice... and they suck badly, compared to commercial adventures (even though I do respect the people who make them a lot). They lack ambition, good graphics (and to me, Monkey Island had excellent graphics, it's not about the resolution, it's about the style), compelling dialogs, atmosphere, etc... Trying to diss commercial adventures while praising these is nonsensical.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Your arbitrary stance seems to declare some kind of vague qualifier, based on personal opinion, of the significance of the pervasiveness of narrative for a fulfilling gaming experience.

Udvarnoky ENJOYED the story, didn't he? Surely that's some kind of testament to DOTT's power to grab the player in some way.

Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed the story too, so what? It's over-simple, full of cliches, yet funny and clever, and it's anything but deep. I think that recent games on the whole have better stories, unless you're considering atmosphere and dialogs as part of the story.
Plus I was referring to Maniac Mansion, not DOTT.

EDIT: And whenever did I deny DOTT the power to grab anyone? It grabbed me, badly.

[Udvarnoky]

Originally Posted by Ninth

Compared to most recent games' stories, that's quite lame.

Either I've never played these games, or our tastes are spectacularly contrasting.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Ninth

Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed the story too, so what? It's over-simple, full of cliches, yet funny and clever, and it's anything but deep. I think that recent games on the whole have better stories, unless you're considering atmosphere and dialogs as part of the story.
Plus I was referring to Maniac Mansion, not DOTT.

I wasn't talking about what you personally think of the story, I was talking about the story's power to hold the player's attention and how it's maintained through the game's arc. Get that difference into your skull. Better story is subject to the individual player's judgment, but how a story is better in terms of how it is designed into the game is another matter.

[Udvarnoky]

Getting a bit off the path here, I notice MM/DOTT being described as "teen comedies." Is the definition of this supposed to be comedy that features teens or a comedy targeted at teens?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Usually both.

[fov]

Newer games tend to have more complicated storylines than older ones, simply because in old games the technology and disk space limited what could be done. I haven't played Maniac Mansion or DOTT, but I think I understand what Ninth is getting at -- that the stories are more primitive than what you see in some of today's adventures. But even a simple story can be well told (which is, I think, what happened with MM and DOTT) and as we've seen many times, complex stories can be told very badly.

EDIT: What Trep said, about the arc.

-emily

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by Udvarnoky

Either I've never played these games, or our tastes are spectacularly contrasting.

I don't know if you've played them.
If I had to pick my favorite between DOTT (I don't like Maniac Mansion that much) and any recent game, I'd pick DOTT for sure.
But if I'm asked to pick the better story, then I'd pick Syberia, Black Mirror, Darkfall, NiBiRu, Moment of Silence, or even BS3 over DOTT.

But I'm pretty sure we don't have the same definition of "story" anyway, so this is kind of pointless.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by fov

Newer games tend to have more complicated storylines than older ones, simply because in old games the technology and disk space limited what could be done. I haven't played Maniac Mansion or DOTT, but I think I understand what Ninth is getting at -- that the stories are more primitive than what you see in some of today's adventures. But even a simple story can be well told (which is, I think, what happened with MM and DOTT) and as we've seen many times, complex stories can be told very badly.

EDIT: What Trep said, about the arc.

-emily

Yes.