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The Death of Adventure Games

oldmanmurray.com

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Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#81

Post by electromagnetic »

rdl wrote: post #58
electromagnetic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought crates were actually on their way out a few years back. Ironically I think crates went out faster IRL than in game. I haven't seen crates in forever, barrels yes but not a true crate. Most things now are placed on a pallet and shrink wrapped like crazy. They'll stack a couple of these on top of each other and they remain intact. The strange thing in games is that crates manage to get themselves into place…

On (working) military bases, and some industrial sites, you will still see plenty of crates (often reusable), pallets with built-up storage things for liquids or special purpose parts, and 10', 20', and 40' containers. Plus, barrels. I was surprised just how much bases in Iraq and Afghanistan looked like video game levels.

I was going to add how I thought Half-Life given its military bases is probably the only major shooter of its era that actually had a reason for all the crates and barrels. I think the circus you end up in (if I'm remembering the original game and not an expansion or total conversion) is actually the only other place I saw a genuine crate. Incidentally it was filled with food for the animals and not headcrabs.

My problem with most shooters is that the crates are placed randomly. At least in Half-Life the crates were more often than not in a storage room/area/rack than piled in the middle of a room or in an obscure corridor.

Fallout 3 resolved the box problem too, in that most items were actually found on shelves. Something I hadn't seen since the days of isometric RPG's where tables actually found their heyday.

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#83

Post by limmeau »

bonzoesc wrote: post #59
pmcginn wrote: post #8

Oh, wow. OMM, talk about memories (the linked article is from 2000.) Among other things Chet and Erik were famous for the Time To Crate system of reviewing games by how long it took from starting the game until you saw a crate. Since this was the late 90s/early 2ks, it was generally zero seconds. This was in comparison to real life, where I frequently go years at a time without seeing a single crate, but then again,…

Chet and Eric got jobs at Valve, where they helped design a game that has an inanimate crate as one of its most memorable characters.

Sokoban?

(I'm really not familiar with recent games)

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#84

Post by Fargren »

sid0 wrote: post #13

The article's over ten years old, and since then there's been a sorta revival of the genre. There are all the Telltale games, the Monkey Island remakes, and more recently the brilliant Machinarium. Digital distribution services like Steam have helped, of course.

Let's not forget about the AAA adventure game, Heavy Rain.

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#85

Post by architectzero »

11 years old and still relevant.

As commercially available products, they're definitely not dead. Studios keep churning out point-and-click adventure games, just check out www.jayisgames.com, the Nintendo DS, and the smart phone app stores.

However, innovation within the genre is on life support and in critical condition, but it has been like that since long before that article was published.

They still largely depend on puzzles with only a single correct solution, even if you have items in plain view on the screen that in reality would solve the problem (this is the "dream logic" mentioned in the linked article). They also rely on pixel hunting. Nothing has really changed.

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#86

Post by zavulon »

jestar_jokin wrote: post #61
zavulon wrote: post #50

I think the iOS platform is helping the revival of adventure games. Just the ones I've personally played on the iPhone over the last couple of years: - Monkey Island 1 & 2 Special Edition (remastered graphics) - Broken Sword special edition - Hector: Badge of Carnage: EXCELLENT original game (if somewhat short) - Flight of the Amazon Queen - Beneath the Steel Sky - Gobliins I'm sure I'm missing something... There's a…

Actually, I would say this is more thanks to ScummVM (an open source re-implementation of many adventure game engines), as well as the people who ported it to iOS. The last three games listed probably use ScummVM without modification (citation needed), and I would be surprised if the Broken Sword and Monkey Island remakes were not heavily inspired by the efforts of ScummVM to revitalize interest in the games.

Yes, you're totally right! ScummVM was a great part of this, as well. I remember getting an otherwise shitty Nokia phone in 2006-07, only because it could run ScummVM (iPhone wasn't even in the rumors then)

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#87

Post by zavulon »

timknauf wrote: post #77
zavulon wrote: post #50

I think the iOS platform is helping the revival of adventure games. Just the ones I've personally played on the iPhone over the last couple of years: - Monkey Island 1 & 2 Special Edition (remastered graphics) - Broken Sword special edition - Hector: Badge of Carnage: EXCELLENT original game (if somewhat short) - Flight of the Amazon Queen - Beneath the Steel Sky - Gobliins I'm sure I'm missing something... There's a…

You may also enjoy Scarlett and the Spark of Life, which was made specifically for the iPhone: http://launchingpadgames.com/games/scarlett/ (Disclosure: I'm one of the developers.)

Thanks, will definitely check it out.

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#88

Post by zavulon »

pyre wrote: post #74
jestar_jokin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I would say this is more thanks to ScummVM (an open source re-implementation of many adventure game engines), as well as the people who ported it to iOS. The last three games listed probably use ScummVM without modification (citation needed), and I would be surprised if the Broken Sword and Monkey Island remakes were not heavily inspired by the efforts of ScummVM to revitalize interest in the games.

I thought that ScummVM was GPL. Doesn't that run against Apple's rules? Wasn't there a case of a 3rd-party dev team in Europe embedding ScummVM into a Wii game for EA (or some large name) and it had to get pulled due to Nintendo's licensing rules (which conflicted with the GPL).

Apple wouldn't allow a ScummVM app into the app store (that it would play any ScummVM game), but games made on ScummVM platform are ok.

Re: The Death of Adventure Games

#89

Post by pyre »

zavulon wrote: post #88
pyre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that ScummVM was GPL. Doesn't that run against Apple's rules? Wasn't there a case of a 3rd-party dev team in Europe embedding ScummVM into a Wii game for EA (or some large name) and it had to get pulled due to Nintendo's licensing rules (which conflicted with the GPL).

Apple wouldn't allow a ScummVM app into the app store (that it would play any ScummVM game), but games made on ScummVM platform are ok.

I thought it was a matter of licensing, not a matter of 'something that can run code.'
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