What is wrong with Adventure games?
Toony7600
genre, but the worse parts of an Adventure game. Is it the puzzles,
gameplay, or the stories? In my opinion the main flaw has always been
with the puzzles, even the best Adventure games have been tained by
having some bad puzzles that required a look at the walkthrough. What
can be done to improve the genre? I am not saying by adding some
combat or twitch sequences to an Adventure game. Many purists on this
NG might decry the idea of so called improving Adventure games.
Anytime Adventure games have been improved is that they have been
ruined. The problem was that change wasn't thought through. The main
flaw that has always been with the genre that has carried over from
the first Adventure and through Infocom and Sierra games are the
puzzles.
Murray Peterson
news:6abc218a.02060...@posting.google.com:
> What is wrong with Adventure games? I am not saying the state of the
> genre, but the worse parts of an Adventure game.
In the case of the best games of the genre, the only thing wrong with them
is that they are too short :-)
> Is it the puzzles,
> gameplay, or the stories? In my opinion the main flaw has always been
> with the puzzles, even the best Adventure games have been tained by
> having some bad puzzles that required a look at the walkthrough.
Getting hints is a very "personal" thing -- a puzzle that sends you to a
walkthrough is a puzzle that I find trivial to solve (and vice versa). I
doubt that any game that was solvable by everyone without hints would be
(correctly) criticised as being far to easy.
> What
> can be done to improve the genre? I am not saying by adding some
> combat or twitch sequences to an Adventure game. Many purists on this
> NG might decry the idea of so called improving Adventure games.
> Anytime Adventure games have been improved is that they have been
> ruined. The problem was that change wasn't thought through. The main
> flaw that has always been with the genre that has carried over from
> the first Adventure and through Infocom and Sierra games are the
> puzzles.
I don't really see anything wrong with the genre as a whole. All games
(but especially adventure games) are a gestalt of story, puzzles, graphics,
acting, and user interface. Getting it all "right" requires some serious
artistry, and some teams are better at this than others. You might as well
ask why all movies aren't perfect/great.
The existence of even a single "great" adventure game indicates that there
is no generic flaw that is intrinsic to the entire genre.
--
Murray Peterson
Email: murray_...@shaw.ca (remove underscore)
URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/
Murray Peterson
news:Xns9220B116...@24.71.223.159:
> I doubt that any game that was solvable by everyone without
> hints would be (correctly) criticised as being far to easy.
>
Oops -- that should read:
I think that any game that was solvable by everyone without
hints would be (correctly) criticised as being far to easy.
Alai
news:6abc218a.02060...@posting.google.com...
consoles, consoles, consoles.
although there are action type games exist in pc games, console games still
outsell them by a whole bunch. so the developers not only want to develop
consol-litis type games, a lot of pc developers are moving into console
games as well. adventure games don't seem to cater to console players, so
they move on to make more and more of action-adventure and whatnot.
it's all about the money i guess.... ;(
Jenny100
news:adbpeo$r8t$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net...
> "Toony7600" <toon...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:6abc218a.02060...@posting.google.com...
> > What is wrong with Adventure games?
>
> consoles, consoles, consoles.
>
> although there are action type games exist in pc games, console games
still
> outsell them by a whole bunch. so the developers not only want to develop
> consol-litis type games, a lot of pc developers are moving into console
> games as well. adventure games don't seem to cater to console players, so
> they move on to make more and more of action-adventure and whatnot.
>
> it's all about the money i guess.... ;(
They need to make a gamepad or joystick for consoles that has
a trackball in it. Then they could make adventure games for
consoles where you could search for and use inventory the way
you do with a computer mouse.
Enser Manfred
I think it is still a question of return on investment. Adventuregames are
costly to make and dont sell to well. If you are a business men what would
you do? Invest your money into an adventure game or invest it where you get
a higher return on investment. The adventure game market is dead and there
is only little hope adventures will return. In my opition it is a question
of money, selling figures, number of buyer and not if the puzzles are well
developped these days or not!
cu
Manfred
"Toony7600" <toon...@my-deja.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:6abc218a.02060...@posting.google.com...
Ashikaga
> HI, there
> I think it is still a question of return on investment. Adventuregames are
> costly to make and dont sell to well. If you are a business men what would
> you do? Invest your money into an adventure game or invest it where you
get
> a higher return on investment. The adventure game market is dead and there
> is only little hope adventures will return. In my opition it is a question
> of money, selling figures, number of buyer and not if the puzzles are well
> developped these days or not!
I don't think the adventure game "market" is dead, it's just not a lot of
publishers are willing pour tons of money and praying the investment will
recouperate. The market still exists! I for one would love to see more
true-to-the-genre type of adventure games.
I think if there is something "wrong" about a lot of the current adventure
games is that the newer ones are more action focus, but less mind
involvement. I think there are some good reasons why we play adventure
games but not FPS. ;-) And it seems publishers as well as developers are
not very aware of that.
> cu
> Manfred
Ashikaga
Alai
>
> Marco
i love deus ex(one of my fav game ever made), but still doesn't have the
charm of traditional adventure games(solve puzzles, no twitchy action
sequences).
Diana
Nothing.
Diana
Lynne
for my taste, but that's purely a matter of personal preference. Perhaps the
people who provided the majority of adventure games reviews over the years
never quite "got the point" of adventure games and trashed them, which
resulted in fewer sales, which has resulted in fewer pure adventure games
being developed. As a "mature" adventure game fan, I rely on reviews from
sites such as Quandaryland and JustAdventure, to name a few, where I feel
the game was given serious and thoughtful consideration of all aspects of
the game. Thanks to them, I've enjoyed many games that I otherwise would
have avoided had I relied on reviews from sites such as GameSpot,
GamesDomain, etc.
ShapeShifter
"someone" <eri...@hotmail.com> skrev i melding
news:3cfc0232...@news.singnet.com.sg...
> X-No-archive: yes
>
> On Mon, 03 Jun 2002 01:32:58 +0200, Marco Thorek
> <marco...@infocom-if.org> posted:
> >X-No-Archive: yes
> >"Grim Fandango" was a great adventure, but its sales were mediocre,
> >while the development costs were high (it took years to complete it).
> >And when publishers like Dinamic Interactive, who apparently believed in
> >the adventure market, go out of business, it doesn't quite set a
> >positive signal.
>
> I humbly submit that the causes behind the lackadaisical performance of GF
> could be related to other causes as well. In particular, baring in mind
> that one of the key attractions in adventure games appears to be the joy
of
> immersion in the setting, therefore it could be that a fair proportion of
> adventure gamers, including myself, simply did not find the Mexican
> afterlife scenario appealing.
If you mean by what you say that realism is the key, I couldn't agree
less.I think the key attraction of adventure games is about he joy of If
you think about it, which Lucasarts adventure game (except indy) did ever
rely on REALISM? The surreal concepts of Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max
didn't keep them from selling in large numbers back in the days. No, I think
kids who grow up today are more into violence and shockers, so GTA3 sells
like hell, while GF and other non-violent games are put aside. I work in a
games shop and that's my experience with the younger audience. Besides, the
new trend of making short and easy games may have something to do with it as
well. A good adventure game requires commitment. People just don't have the
time or patience to spend several week on an almost daily basis with a game
to complete it. They just want a game they sit down and play on their lap
top or whatever, and if they spend a couple of weekends on it, they can
finish it. Simple and fast, that's the key nowadays...
By the way, GF was game of the year (not just adventure game) at gamespot
the year it was released ('99 was it?). And gamespot are usually terrible on
adventures, so I don't think the setting has anything to do with it.
Besides, I still sell buttloads of this game...
Jenny100
news:3CFAAB2A...@infocom-if.org...
> X-No-Archive: yes
>
> Ashikaga wrote:
> >
> > I think if there is something "wrong" about a lot of the current
adventure
> > games is that the newer ones are more action focus, but less mind
> > involvement. I think there are some good reasons why we play adventure
> > games but not FPS. ;-) And it seems publishers as well as developers
are
> > not very aware of that.
>
> while the development costs were high (it took years to complete it).
>
The box was a turnoff. I'd never have bought it if someone hadn't
loaned it to me to try first.
ShapeShifter
"Jenny100" <Jenn...@nospam.com> skrev i melding
news:adeo5k$fgk$1...@slb2.atl.mindspring.net...
I would've bought it just for the front cover, dammit. It just oozes film
noir all over, I love that stuff. From the fonts to the colors and
drawings...just wonderful, nothing wrong there.
>
>
ShapeShifter
If you mean by what you say that realism is the key, I couldn't agree
less.I think the key attraction of adventure games is about he joy of
watching a story go by, and being able to help it along everytime it stops
up.
Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused ;)
"ShapeShifter" <mag...@akersmic.no> skrev i melding
news:adfj06$7vo$1...@troll.powertech.no...
Jenny100
news:adfsbu$ai7$1...@troll.powertech.no...
I was put off by the appearance of the characters. Once I played
the game and saw them in action, I got over that pretty quickly.
But before playing the loaner game, it just didn't "look" like
something I'd like. Also the idea of playing a game that took
place in the Mexican land of the dead didn't really appeal to me.
I can see what you mean now that I've played the game, but
I must have picked up that box, read it, looked at the pictures,
and put it back on the shelf about 10 times on different visits
to the store. I've heard other people say the same thing about
it so I'm not alone. Of course now that I know more about
adventure games I'd buy any adventure game LucasArts
put out regardless of what the box looked like. But I was not
at that point when Grim Fandango first came out.
Toony7600
> less.I think the key attraction of adventure games is about he joy of If
> you think about it, which Lucasarts adventure game (except indy) did ever
> rely on REALISM? The surreal concepts of Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max
> didn't keep them from selling in large numbers back in the days. No, I think
> kids who grow up today are more into violence and shockers, so GTA3 sells
> like hell, while GF and other non-violent games are put aside. I work in a
> games shop and that's my experience with the younger audience. Besides, the
> new trend of making short and easy games may have something to do with it as
> well. A good adventure game requires commitment. People just don't have the
> time or patience to spend several week on an almost daily basis with a game
> to complete it. They just want a game they sit down and play on their lap
> top or whatever, and if they spend a couple of weekends on it, they can
> finish it. Simple and fast, that's the key nowadays...
>
> By the way, GF was game of the year (not just adventure game) at gamespot
> the year it was released ('99 was it?). And gamespot are usually terrible on
> adventures, so I don't think the setting has anything to do with it.
> Besides, I still sell buttloads of this game...
Gamespot is right usually most of the time with Adventure games. At
least they are picky and won't just say "it's Gone with the Wind
because we want to save the genre." Grim Fandango was no doubt a great
game with a great story only that it's flawed in the sense by it's
interface and puzzle design.
I do like figuring out things on my own, but Fallout made me feel so
good in the fact that I could figure out everything on my own without
any walkthrough or hintbook. Fallout 2 was even more enjoyabler with
reading the walkthrough or hintbook. I felt so good in the fact that I
figure out how to talk to the deathclaws through give and take. That
game had conversation puzzles and it also had interactivity, freedom,
and a world to roam around in. The story was beyond belief, but it had
sub-quests which added to the game. I even solved a mystery with in
the game without any hints. This game also had many multiple solutions
to problems which makes it a very replayable game.
One Adventure game in mind is Riddle of Master Lu. The game's story
was really good and the gameplay was okay. The puzzles were simply
impossible to figure out without a walkthrough. They were innane and
illogical. Their was a maze in the game that was simply not very well
designed. It required using and pulling ropes each time you went into
a room. I use the walkthrough all over that because that drove me
crazy. Even with the walkthrough it was hard to figure it out because
of the nature of the interface and the pixel hunt. That game was
totally ruined because of the esoteric puzzles. The walkthrough was a
very good road map, even in some places it wasn't enough. It was
esoteric beyond belief. Some Adventurers love this game and call it a
classic because of the mind bending teasers it had. It has a very good
story, but if the puzzles were better designed, it would be a great
game and a classic IMHO. That game even with it's good story couldn't
redeem it from those innane puzzles. Some games will have some bad
puzzles here and there and it's okay because the story compensates for
it. Nothing is wrong with it once in a while. It's not if every puzzle
is that way.
The Adventure genre in my opinion is bearable or at least enjoyable
because of the story IMHO.
> > >What do you think of hybrids like "Deus Ex"?
I think hybrids like Deus Ex are great. Games combining action, rpg,
and adventure are just brilliant. An example, System Shock 2 was
amazing although it had some of the worse elements of the adventure
genre in it, unfortunately.
Toony7600
> Nothing is wrong with adventure games themselves. Too much action popping up
> for my taste, but that's purely a matter of personal preference. Perhaps the
> people who provided the majority of adventure games reviews over the years
> never quite "got the point" of adventure games and trashed them, which
> resulted in fewer sales, which has resulted in fewer pure adventure games
> being developed. As a "mature" adventure game fan, I rely on reviews from
> sites such as Quandaryland and JustAdventure, to name a few, where I feel
> the game was given serious and thoughtful consideration of all aspects of
> the game. Thanks to them, I've enjoyed many games that I otherwise would
> have avoided had I relied on reviews from sites such as GameSpot,
> GamesDomain, etc.
How are you more maturer than any other Adventurer? In your opinon,
Are Adventure games for mature players? IMHO Something is wrong with
Adventure games if they don't sell. Am I correct or wrong? Or is it
that Adventures games have change too much that they have been ruined?
The interface being complex full sentence parsers going to a one mouse
icon pointer that does everything for you. I don't think it not that
reviewers don't get the point. It's that they probaly do, but a good
game should appeal to all gamers regardless of there favorite genre.
ShapeShifter
"Toony7600" <toon...@my-deja.com> skrev i melding
news:6abc218a.02060...@posting.google.com...
When they reviewed Broken Sword 2 for GBA, it seemed like the only thing to
keep the score down was that it belonged to the wrong genre.
ShapeShifter
well, I guess the fact that Lucasarts and Schafer had made it that was
enough for me at that time, but I was really thrilled when I saw the first
screenshots of the game at preview sites...
Jenny100
news:<fFAK8.30476$155.1...@news2.west.cox.net>...
> > Nothing is wrong with adventure games themselves. Too much action
popping up
> > for my taste, but that's purely a matter of personal preference. Perhaps
the
> > people who provided the majority of adventure games reviews over the
years
> > never quite "got the point" of adventure games and trashed them, which
> > resulted in fewer sales, which has resulted in fewer pure adventure
games
> > being developed. As a "mature" adventure game fan, I rely on reviews
from
> > sites such as Quandaryland and JustAdventure, to name a few, where I
feel
> > the game was given serious and thoughtful consideration of all aspects
of
> > the game. Thanks to them, I've enjoyed many games that I otherwise would
> > have avoided had I relied on reviews from sites such as GameSpot,
> > GamesDomain, etc.
>
> How are you more maturer than any other Adventurer? In your opinon,
> Are Adventure games for mature players?
For gamers with physical limitations adventures, puzzle games,
and possibly turn-based rpgs (if keeping track of stats aren't
a turnoff) may be the only genres they can play.
Older (which generally means more "mature") gamers are more
likely to have physical limitations, such as arthritis or repetitive
motion disorders, that make games which require hand-eye
coordination impossible or at least a PITA and 'not fun.'
I think it's pretty safe to assume there are a higher proportion
of "mature" gamers who play adventure games than there
are who play reflex-oriented games.
> IMHO Something is wrong with
> Adventure games if they don't sell. Am I correct or wrong?
The marketing has a lot to do with it as well as other factors
such as availability. I've seen ads for games online and the
games have never shown up in the stores where I live.
So many adventure games are only available from online
distributors like Amazon. And games sold online aren't
usually counted as sales.
> Or is it that Adventures games have change too much
> that they have been ruined?
Well if a beginning gamer bought Myst and enjoyed it, but then
bought another game that was full of action or timed sequences
that they didn't like, they'd very likely avoid any other game unless
it was "like Myst." Myst III sold very well. What does that tell you?
> The interface being complex full sentence parsers going to a
> one mouse icon pointer that does everything for you.
Huh? Don't you think that it is an advantage in a game
to have an easy interface?
> I don't think it not that
> reviewers don't get the point. It's that they probaly do, but a good
> game should appeal to all gamers regardless of there favorite genre.
That's utter rubbish. Some gamers play a variety of genres but
a considerable number only enjoy games in one or two genres.
I would never send someone who didn't ordinarily play strategy
games to review a strategy game. They'd have no idea what was
important or convenient to strategy gamers. And the same
goes for other genres.
I've read reviews of adventure games where the things being
criticized were either unimportant to me or even plusses
to me. What one person considers boring may not be boring
to me at all. What one person considers a limitation may not
bother me at all. And what one person considers exciting may
be an annoying PITA to me. But that's why there are different
genres. No one game will please everyone, no matter how
great the game.
Jenny100
> At least they are picky and won't just say "it's Gone with the Wind
> because we want to save the genre."
In some of their reviews they place too much emphasis on
flaws that I consider minor - or not flaws. They have given bad
or mediocre scores to games I really enjoyed. Their older
reviews seem to be more balanced than their newer ones.
Now why do you suppose that is.
> Grim Fandango was no doubt a great
> game with a great story only that it's flawed in the sense by it's
> interface and puzzle design.
I agree with your comment about the interface (inventory
management was inconvenient) but not about the
puzzle design. As has been repeatedly pointed out by
various people in this newsgroup, a puzzle which one gamer
finds impossible will be simplistic for another gamer - and
vice versa. The only GF puzzle that was a REAL nuisance
was that one in the elevator, which was reflex-oriented and
tricky even if you'd patched the game (the patch was for
computers 400 MHz and faster). If you don't have the head
for the kinds of puzzles used in GF, then fine. Play whatever
game you want. But don't assume everyone else found the
puzzles in GF impossible or that the puzzles are "badly
designed." Different people will always be better at
different kinds of puzzles.
David Adrien Tanguay
> One Adventure game in mind is Riddle of Master Lu. The game's story
> was really good and the gameplay was okay. The puzzles were simply
> impossible to figure out without a walkthrough. They were innane and
> illogical.
No they weren't. I managed it without a walkthrough, and so did 3 of
my friends. The puzzles were logical. I wish more game had puzzles of
the quality of Master Lu.
--
David Tanguay d...@Thinkage.ca http://www.thinkage.ca/~dat/
Thinkage, Ltd. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.24N 80.29W]
Toony7600
> flaws that I consider minor - or not flaws. They have given bad
> or mediocre scores to games I really enjoyed. Their older
> reviews seem to be more balanced than their newer ones.
> Now why do you suppose that is.
Perhaps that is their opinion. I think most people would probaly agree
with Gamespot. Most people didn't think Grim Fandango deserve game of
the year especially when it came to the Gamer's Choice. Gamespot is
very jaded when it comes to Adventure games. Those reviewers played
all types of games and perhaps they aren't very keen on the Adventure
genre. They probaly don't like Adventure games. Don't you think a good
Adventure game should appeal to all gamers regardless that they are
action or RPG fans? What games did you enjoy that Gamespot didn't?
Could you give some specific examples of what games? What flaws in
those games you consider minor that Gamespot consider atrotious?
> I agree with your comment about the interface (inventory
> management was inconvenient) but not about the
> puzzle design. As has been repeatedly pointed out by
> various people in this newsgroup, a puzzle which one gamer
> finds impossible will be simplistic for another gamer - and
> vice versa. The only GF puzzle that was a REAL nuisance
> was that one in the elevator, which was reflex-oriented and
> tricky even if you'd patched the game (the patch was for
> computers 400 MHz and faster). If you don't have the head
> for the kinds of puzzles used in GF, then fine. Play whatever
> game you want. But don't assume everyone else found the
> puzzles in GF impossible or that the puzzles are "badly
> designed." Different people will always be better at
> different kinds of puzzles.
I'm not very good at puzzles. I figure this out after playing
Adventure games for at least 11 years, I could figure out any puzzle.
How would I get better? I guess I could figure it out, but it would
take months or even years if I solved an Adventure game without any
hints. I could also try every object on an object. That would always
work. I think the game that had the best puzzle design was Buried in
Time. Those puzzles were hard and cleaver, but the most fariest. No
trial and error or try every object on a object to figure it out.
Toony7600
> toon...@my-deja.com (Toony7600) wrote:
> > One Adventure game in mind is Riddle of Master Lu. The game's story
> > was really good and the gameplay was okay. The puzzles were simply
> > impossible to figure out without a walkthrough. They were innane and
> > illogical.
>
> No they weren't. I managed it without a walkthrough, and so did 3 of
> my friends. The puzzles were logical. I wish more game had puzzles of
> the quality of Master Lu.
How were you able to do that? I wish I could have figure that came
without a walkthrough. I feel so dumb somethings. How long did it take
you to finish Riddle of Master Lu? What was the hardest Adventure game
puzzles in an Adventure game? How does one get better at puzzle
solving? What was the worse puzzle design in an Adventure game? One
that made you said screw it and I'll get a walkthrough.
Toony7600
> and possibly turn-based rpgs (if keeping track of stats aren't
> a turnoff) may be the only genres they can play.
> Older (which generally means more "mature") gamers are more
> likely to have physical limitations, such as arthritis or repetitive
> motion disorders, that make games which require hand-eye
> coordination impossible or at least a PITA and 'not fun.'
> I think it's pretty safe to assume there are a higher proportion
> of "mature" gamers who play adventure games than there
> are who play reflex-oriented games.
What would be wrong if they made Adventure games that were real time?
I don't mean action or arcade sequences, but where the NPC move
independently of the main character.
> The marketing has a lot to do with it as well as other factors
> such as availability. I've seen ads for games online and the
> games have never shown up in the stores where I live.
> So many adventure games are only available from online
> distributors like Amazon. And games sold online aren't
> usually counted as sales.
I never really though marketing had anything to do with it. They were
many Adventure games that were hyped before released. Phantasmagoria
is one of these. I remember a lady buying that game in a store. Riven
is another and people bought in the droves. People didn't go out and
by tons of Phantasmagoria and Riven clones. These people didn't go out
and buy tons of other Adventure games. Everyone seems to assume that
people should buy tons of Adventure games. Ads don't do anything and
perhaps the only way to sell and Adventure game is through hype or put
something controversial in it. All the Adventure games that were
released after 1997 started to flop with Riven as the exception and
perhaps Titanic.
Everybody in this NG seems to hate action and have this grudge
against Doom when it was Myst that sold many times more copies that
Doom did. The difference between Doom and Myst is that Doom was a cult
title with a large fan base wheras Myst capture all the newbies who
didn't bother with out Adventurers after they possibly finish Myst.
Some newbies did bother and are in this newsgroup. I don't know what
happened though. There are always will be a game that will come of out
nowhere and will be what they call Sleeper Hits. Those are usually the
biggest hits.
> Well if a beginning gamer bought Myst and enjoyed it, but then
> bought another game that was full of action or timed sequences
> that they didn't like, they'd very likely avoid any other game unless
> it was "like Myst." Myst III sold very well. What does that tell you?
Where are your facts that Myst 3 sold so very well? In order for a
game to break even, it needs to sell at least 100,000 units and
Adventure games sell only 1/3 of that ammount meaning they bombed
badly. A hit is consider 500,000 units and 1 million is a blockbuster,
but even 1 million might be consider a flop in the future. Adventure
games cost at least 2 million dollars. I remember GK3 cost at least 4
million to make, but it was over budget by 2 million, though. That
game didn't sell very well. It's really cheap right now. It cost only
19.00 and it was released at the end of 1999.
> Huh? Don't you think that it is an advantage in a game
> to have an easy interface?
I am only saying that other genres have gotten more complex and more
depth while Adventure games have gotten simplier through out time. I
remember those Sierra games with all the icons and you can look around
and play with them, but now it's a one icon cursor that does
everything. As long as the interface isn't clunky like UAKM and
Pandora Directive or Grim Fandango then that is fun. An interface can
be complex, but yet intuitive.
> That's utter rubbish. Some gamers play a variety of genres but
> a considerable number only enjoy games in one or two genres.
>
> I would never send someone who didn't ordinarily play strategy
> games to review a strategy game. They'd have no idea what was
> important or convenient to strategy gamers. And the same
> goes for other genres.
Why would that be utter rubbish? Why should games be pigenhole into
genres? So people know what their buying. You don't what your buying
until you have played the game. In the beggining, genres were very
fluid and hardend and now it's coming a bit loose. Even the Adventure
genre has fragmented into sub genre like Myst Clone or FMV or even
Traditional or combination or out of this world.
> I've read reviews of adventure games where the things being
> criticized were either unimportant to me or even plusses
> to me. What one person considers boring may not be boring
> to me at all. What one person considers a limitation may not
> bother me at all. And what one person considers exciting may
> be an annoying PITA to me. But that's why there are different
> genres. No one game will please everyone, no matter how
> great the game.
That may be true. Their are some games that almost every one raves
about and say it's fantastic like Gabriel Knight 1 is one of these,
only one person in this NG said they didn't like GK1. Everybody else
seems to love that game. There are some that people will
overwhemingly hate and some that polarize people into camps like Myst.
Robert Norton
> Don't you think a good
> Adventure game should appeal to all gamers regardless that they are
> action or RPG fans?
For TV, that's like saying "Don't you think a good soap opera should appeal
to football fans?" Or for books, like saying "Shouldn't a good Sci-Fi
novel appeal to history buffs?"
Murray Peterson
> [snipped throughout]
> What would be wrong if they made Adventure games that were real time?
> I don't mean action or arcade sequences, but where the NPC move
> independently of the main character.
I believe The Last Express meets that criteria.
>> The marketing has a lot to do with it as well as other factors
>> such as availability. I've seen ads for games online and the
>> games have never shown up in the stores where I live.
>> So many adventure games are only available from online
>> distributors like Amazon. And games sold online aren't
>> usually counted as sales.
>
> I never really though marketing had anything to do with it. They were
> many Adventure games that were hyped before released.
Hyped where and how? How does anyone hear about a game except through
marketing and advertising?
> Everyone seems to assume that people should buy tons of Adventure games.
Only if they enjoy adventure games.
> Ads don't do anything and
> perhaps the only way to sell and Adventure game is through hype or put
> something controversial in it.
Again, how does "hype" get generated except through advertising and marketing?
> All the Adventure games that were
> released after 1997 started to flop with Riven as the exception and
> perhaps Titanic.
Myst III was anything but a flop, and there are other games that have sold
quite well.
> Everybody in this NG seems to hate action and have this grudge
> against Doom when it was Myst that sold many times more copies that
> Doom did. The difference between Doom and Myst is that Doom was a cult
> title with a large fan base wheras Myst capture all the newbies who
> didn't bother with out Adventurers after they possibly finish Myst.
No -- I hate Doom because it is an action game. That is the important
difference between Myst and Doom.
> Where are your facts that Myst 3 sold so very well?
www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/May2002/SalesMarch2002.shtm
www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/Mar-02/sales2001.shtm
> In order for a
> game to break even, it needs to sell at least 100,000 units and
> Adventure games sell only 1/3 of that ammount meaning they bombed
> badly.
The numbers in the links above belie your assertion. Quite a few
adventure games are doing better than break even.
> A hit is consider 500,000 units and 1 million is a blockbuster,
> but even 1 million might be consider a flop in the future. Adventure
> games cost at least 2 million dollars.
Not all of them; I would be willing to bet money that the Nancy Drew series
cost quite a bit less.
Jenny100
> > and possibly turn-based rpgs (if keeping track of stats aren't
> > a turnoff) may be the only genres they can play.
> > Older (which generally means more "mature") gamers are more
> > likely to have physical limitations, such as arthritis or repetitive
> > motion disorders, that make games which require hand-eye
> > coordination impossible or at least a PITA and 'not fun.'
> > I think it's pretty safe to assume there are a higher proportion
> > of "mature" gamers who play adventure games than there
> > are who play reflex-oriented games.
>
> What would be wrong if they made Adventure games that were
> real time? I don't mean action or arcade sequences, but where
> the NPC move independently of the main character.
Nothing "wrong" with that at all. Last Express was like that.
I don't know of any other adventure game that had that feature
though. Not with the individual characters really living their
own lives and pursuing their activities independent of your
character. That kind of thing is probably hard to code for
though and may not add enough to a game to make it
cost-effective to program.
> > The marketing has a lot to do with it as well as other factors
> > such as availability. I've seen ads for games online and the
> > games have never shown up in the stores where I live.
> > So many adventure games are only available from online
> > distributors like Amazon. And games sold online aren't
> > usually counted as sales.
>
> I never really though marketing had anything to do with it.
> They were many Adventure games that were hyped before
> released.
They may have been at one time, but it was before I started
playing adventures so I can't say. I don't remember any
recent adventure games being really "hyped" except for
Myst III: Exile.
> Phantasmagoria is one of these. I remember a lady buying
> that game in a store. Riven is another and people bought in
> the droves. People didn't go out and buy tons of
> Phantasmagoria and Riven clones.
Riven is the successor to Myst. Wouldn't a "Riven clone"
be very similar to a "Myst clone?"
I didn't know that Phantasmagoria was so popular as all
that. And I don't know of anything that I would call a
"Phantasmagoria clone," though there were other FMV
games.
> These people didn't go out and buy tons of other Adventure
> games. Everyone seems to assume that people should buy
> tons of Adventure games.
Actually I think that new gamers in general should figure out
what types of games they like and which they don't and
buy more that are like the games they like.
Figuring out which games are going to be like the games you
like is a lot easier if the games are correctly categorized.
> Ads don't do anything and perhaps the only way to sell and
> Adventure game is through hype or put something controversial
> in it. All the Adventure games that were released after 1997
> started to flop with Riven as the exception and perhaps Titanic.
Titanic benefitted from the release of the movie, which was sort
of free advertising for it.
Did Tex Murphy Overseer (1998) flop? I don't know if it did or not,
though it's hard to believe a Tex game would flop.
> Everybody in this NG seems to hate action and have this grudge
> against Doom when it was Myst that sold many times more copies that
> Doom did. The difference between Doom and Myst is that Doom was a cult
> title with a large fan base wheras Myst capture all the newbies who
> didn't bother with out Adventurers after they possibly finish Myst.
Actually I'd say Myst was a sort of cult game too.
The Myst series certainly has a large and devoted fan base.
> Some newbies did bother and are in this newsgroup. I don't
> know what happened though.
What happened with what? With how they got here?
They probably had a friend or relative who told them
about newsgroups. Or maybe they did a google search
and found the newsgroup that way.
> There are always will be a game that will come of out
> nowhere and will be what they call Sleeper Hits. Those are
> usually the biggest hits.
> > Well if a beginning gamer bought Myst and enjoyed it, but then
> > bought another game that was full of action or timed sequences
> > that they didn't like, they'd very likely avoid any other game unless
> > it was "like Myst." Myst III sold very well. What does that tell you?
>
> Where are your facts that Myst 3 sold so very well?
It's mostly the impression I've got. I don't know where to go
for recent and reasonably accurate numbers.
> In order for a game to break even, it needs to sell at least
> 100,000 units and
I think this would vary with how much money was put into production.
I don't know what the average is. I'm sure Myst: Exile cost a lot
more to make than Mystery of the Druids, for example.
> Adventure games sell only 1/3 of that ammount meaning they
> bombed badly.
Again, I think it depends on how much was put into producing
the game. I've heard Dreamcatcher games (at least back when
they were primarily adventure and puzzle games) were
produced cheaply, sold well because of a low starting price,
and Dreamcatcher made a profit. Not a huge one, but they
made money while other larger game companies lost money.
> A hit is consider 500,000 units and 1 million is a blockbuster,
> but even 1 million might be consider a flop in the future. Adventure
> games cost at least 2 million dollars. I remember GK3 cost at least
> 4 million to make, but it was over budget by 2 million, though. That
> game didn't sell very well. It's really cheap right now. It cost only
> 19.00 and it was released at the end of 1999.
I've heard GK3 didn't do very well. But if it's selling for $19.00
it's kept its value a lot better than most action games of that
age.
> > Huh? Don't you think that it is an advantage in a game
> > to have an easy interface?
>
> I am only saying that other genres have gotten more complex and more
> depth while Adventure games have gotten simplier through out time. I
> remember those Sierra games with all the icons and you can look around
> and play with them, but now it's a one icon cursor that does
> everything. As long as the interface isn't clunky like UAKM and
> Pandora Directive or Grim Fandango then that is fun. An interface can
> be complex, but yet intuitive.
I can't think of any games with complex yet intuitive interfaces.
I always need the manual open in front of me to play games
with a complex interface. And I don't consider that to be
intuitive.
Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "complex."
> > > but a good game should appeal to all gamers
> > > regardless of there favorite genre.
> >
> > That's utter rubbish. Some gamers play a variety of genres but
> > a considerable number only enjoy games in one or two genres.
> >
> > I would never send someone who didn't ordinarily play strategy
> > games to review a strategy game. They'd have no idea what was
> > important or convenient to strategy gamers. And the same
> > goes for other genres.
>
> Why would that be utter rubbish?
Because some people just don't care for certain types of gameplay.
> Why should games be pigeonhole into genres? So people
> know what their buying.
Yes.
> You don't what your buying until you have played the game.
But you have a pretty good idea of the type of gameplay you're
apt to get if you buy an action/adventure, or a strategy game,
or an rpg (provided you've played games in the genre before).
It's better than having no idea at all.
> In the beginning, genres were very
> fluid and hardend and now it's coming a bit loose. Even the
> Adventure genre has fragmented into sub genre like Myst Clone
> or FMV or even Traditional or combination or out of this world.
What's wrong with that? Someone who doesn't like so-called
"Myst clones" would certainly appreciate being warned that
something is a "Myst clone" before he/she pays money for it.
Jenny100
> > flaws that I consider minor - or not flaws. They have given bad
> > or mediocre scores to games I really enjoyed. Their older
> > reviews seem to be more balanced than their newer ones.
> > Now why do you suppose that is.
>
> Perhaps that is their opinion.
Certainly it is their opinion. But it is not the opinion of someone
who prefers adventure games.
> I think most people would probaly agree with Gamespot.
But "most people" is not "most adventure gamers."
> Most people didn't think Grim Fandango deserve game of
> the year especially when it came to the Gamer's Choice.
Most adventure gamers think it's wonderful, despite its
clumsy inventory management.
> Gamespot is very jaded when it comes to Adventure games.
That is true.
> Those reviewers played all types of games and perhaps they
> aren't very keen on the Adventure genre. They probaly don't like
> Adventure games. Don't you think a good Adventure game
> should appeal to all gamers regardless that they are
> action or RPG fans?
I would not expect any game to appeal to gamers who prefer
a different genre.
> What games did you enjoy that Gamespot didn't?
Dracula Resurrection
I can't find their Amerzone review. Did they ever have one?
Beyond Atlantis
Black Dahlia (I didn't like everything about it, but I'd have given
it a better score than Gamespot)
Byzantine
Discworld II (They should have rated it better than they did
It was an excellent game and they only gave it 6.8)
Faust (aka 7 Games of the Soul)
Mystery of the Druids
Neverhood (4.9 out of 10? Amazing the low score they gave to this one)
Reah
RealMyst
Riddle of Master Lu (I haven't finished it, but so far it is better
than they say)
Ring (I liked it not so much for its gameplay as the interesting design
of the gameworld and characters - and it had great
music - certainly worth more than a 3.7)
Ripper (A 3.6 ??? They have to be kidding. That's the game that
kept me up until 5:30 AM for 2 nights running because I
found it so engrossing)
Shivers
Timelapse (better than merely "good" though they don't "hate" it)
In nearly every case the average of the reader reviews is closer
to how I'd rate the games.
> Could you give some specific examples of what games? What flaws in
> those games you consider minor that Gamespot consider atrotious?
I can no longer access the Gamespot reviews because I refuse
to pay them for the privilege. From memory, usually it was things
like how they didn't like the puzzles or they found something tedious
and unexciting that I didn't - for example I don't mind poking around
interesting-looking rooms looking for inventory.
> I'm not very good at puzzles. I figure this out after playing
> Adventure games for at least 11 years, I could figure out any puzzle.
> How would I get better? I guess I could figure it out, but it would
> take months or even years if I solved an Adventure game without any
> hints. I could also try every object on an object. That would always
> work. I think the game that had the best puzzle design was Buried in
> Time. Those puzzles were hard and cleaver, but the most fariest. No
> trial and error or try every object on a object to figure it out.
Maybe an ingame hint feature would help. Trying every object
on every other object is tedious. If you get stuck you can always
cheat with hints or a walkthrough. Have you tried the UHS hints?
bsones
> people who provided the majority of adventure games reviews over the years
> never quite "got the point" of adventure games and trashed them, which
> resulted in fewer sales, which has resulted in fewer pure adventure games
> being developed.
Pretty unlikely. As much as I wish it were otherwise, reviews have little
effect on the sales of any game. People like them (reviews, that
is)--according to our surveys while I was reviews editor at CGM, they were
one of our most popular types of article. But games seem to succeed or fail
independently of how we (or anyone else) rate them, so it seem illogical to
assume that negative reviews drove players away from adventure games. What
did drive them away was a steady decline in the quality of "pure"
adventures, and the fact that other types of games (action games, mostly)
started to incorporate some aspects of the genre. At least, that's my
theory.
The unfortunate part is that while I like action games, they really aren't a
suitable substitute for adventures. Someday someone will realize that games
made using a 3D engine don't have to focus on shooting people. RealMyst did
it, and did it well, but nobody seemed to notice (probably because everyone
that has any desire to play Myst already has done so). Still, I think you
could use something like the Quake III engine to build one heck of an
adventure game, if you wanted to.
-Ben
bsones
> What would be wrong if they made Adventure games that were real time?
> I don't mean action or arcade sequences, but where the NPC move
> independently of the main character.
Some have been, and in my opinion, nothing is wrong with them. Check out
Blade Runner (Westwood) or The Last Express (if you can find a copy). Both
good examples of real-time adventure done right.
> > Well if a beginning gamer bought Myst and enjoyed it, but then
> > bought another game that was full of action or timed sequences
> > that they didn't like, they'd very likely avoid any other game unless
> > it was "like Myst." Myst III sold very well. What does that tell you?
Not nearly as well as Riven, though, which in turn did not sell nearly as
well as Myst (although it did sell quite admirably).
> Where are your facts that Myst 3 sold so very well? In order for a
> game to break even, it needs to sell at least 100,000 units and
> Adventure games sell only 1/3 of that ammount meaning they bombed
> badly.
This is not true, actually. The break-even point varies from game to game,
but most games (even big budget productions) break even long before they
sell 100,000 copies.
> A hit is consider 500,000 units and 1 million is a blockbuster,
> but even 1 million might be consider a flop in the future. Adventure
> games cost at least 2 million dollars. I remember GK3 cost at least 4
> million to make, but it was over budget by 2 million, though.
Most adventure games--particularly today's adventure games, are made on a
fraction of that budget. How many copies a game needs to sell to be a
success directly corresponds to how much it cost to make, so blanket
statements ("500,000 is a hit") are meaningless. Dreamcatcher would probably
be thrilled to sell through 100,000 units of any one game.
> I am only saying that other genres have gotten more complex and more
> depth while Adventure games have gotten simplier through out time.
That is a bit of a simplification, although adventure games certainly
haven't evolved much. Most of today's adventures are functionally identical
to adventures released seven or eight years ago. Adding needless complexity
isn't a good solution for any kind of game, but exploring new avenues of
gameplay and new design ideas might help revitalize the genre.
-Ben
Toony7600
> who prefers adventure games.
That's true.
> But "most people" is not "most adventure gamers."
Most reviewers are pretty tough towards Adventure games. Do they
deserve the right to be? I think sometimes they do and the other hand
maybe not.
> I would not expect any game to appeal to gamers who prefer
> a different genre.
I guess Adventure games are what they call niche games.
> Dracula Resurrection
> I can't find their Amerzone review. Did they ever have one?
> Beyond Atlantis
> Black Dahlia (I didn't like everything about it, but I'd have given
> it a better score than Gamespot)
> Byzantine
> Discworld II (They should have rated it better than they did
> It was an excellent game and they only gave it 6.8)
> Faust (aka 7 Games of the Soul)
> Mystery of the Druids
> Neverhood (4.9 out of 10? Amazing the low score they gave to this one)
> Reah
> RealMyst
> Riddle of Master Lu (I haven't finished it, but so far it is better
> than they say)
> Ring (I liked it not so much for its gameplay as the interesting design
> of the gameworld and characters - and it had great
> music - certainly worth more than a 3.7)
> Ripper (A 3.6 ??? They have to be kidding. That's the game that
> kept me up until 5:30 AM for 2 nights running because I
> found it so engrossing)
> Shivers
> Timelapse (better than merely "good" though they don't "hate" it)
In my opinion they were wrong about Shivers 2 and Curse of Monkey
Island. They were a bit harsh on The Last Express. Well, I do admit
that they nitpick on that game's flaw; real time. I thought the real
time aspect was great. I still admit that the review was fair to a
certain point. The reader's reviews were much fairer. I guess Gamespot
is just synical. I never played Byzantium, but I did think they were a
bit harsh on it. They said the acting suck. Most FMV games have bad
acting and that could be overlooked.
> I can no longer access the Gamespot reviews because I refuse
> to pay them for the privilege. From memory, usually it was things
> like how they didn't like the puzzles or they found something tedious
> and unexciting that I didn't - for example I don't mind poking around
> interesting-looking rooms looking for inventory.
I can't believe they charge money for reviews. I agree too, I wouldn't
pay any money for their reviews. All these web sites charging money
before it was free. Gamespot is good, but not that great. I don't mind
some bad puzzles once in a while, not every puzzle in an Adventure
game will be perfect. I didn't buy Black Dahlia because of the
puzzles. I fear that I would have to use a walkthrough on every puzzle
and that is not why I buy games for. I want to figure things out, but
not to the point of going insane or taking years to figure out.
> Maybe an ingame hint feature would help. Trying every object
> on every other object is tedious. If you get stuck you can always
> cheat with hints or a walkthrough. Have you tried the UHS hints?
I meant no hints what so ever or help either. I think an in game hint
system is a cheap way for the game designers to get lazy and make bad
puzzles. I have use hints and walkthrough on many Adventure games. The
only two without any hints would be Loom and Journeyman Project 1. I
have tried UHS hints, but I felt like I wanted more like the whole
solution. I must be too impatient or something.
Toony7600
Would you mind more games like that?
> Hyped where and how? How does anyone hear about a game except through
> marketing and advertising?
Word of mouth. How did Blair Witch Project became so popular? Through
the internet and word of mouth. That was such a good marketing
strategy. I think in order for an Adventure game to become popular is
for it to do something unique in Advertising. Marketing cost so much
money, so some other way has to be found.
>
> Only if they enjoy adventure games.
Maybe those people that played Myst and finished it didn't enjoy any
Adventure games. You bought more Adventure games after playing Myst,
so you are the exception Murray. I might be wrong. The mass market is
there somewhere.
>
> Again, how does "hype" get generated except through advertising and marketing?
I think Previews and Reviews are one way.
> Myst III was anything but a flop, and there are other games that have sold
> quite well.
It didn't sell as well as the original Myst. I think the hit of Myst
was just a fluke. It just happen for some reason.
> www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/May2002/SalesMarch2002.shtm
> www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/Mar-02/sales2001.shtm
What is YTD? Assuming that is units. Only the top three Adventure
games made the market. From JustAdventure graph, they look like they
added games that aren't even Adventure such as Education titles like
Freddy the Fish. I'm sure it's Adventure, but probaly
Adventure/Edutainment. Some of these games seem to have break even but
very few and non bypass 50,000 copies.
> The numbers in the links above belie your assertion. Quite a few
> adventure games are doing better than break even.
Read this: http://www.bighugegames.com/jobs/industryjobtips.html
Note that Brian Reynolds uses the word copies of games rather than
units. Myst sold 5 million copies more than any other game. That is
massive.
This means that most Adventure games sell well, but cost too much to
justify the cost. This is just an asumption.
I wonder what the sales are with action games are.
Toony7600
A bit ludicrous, but why not? A soap opera could appeal to football
fans by having a character in the soap that plays football. The two
could be combined and probaly are. Note, I don't like soap operas and
football games. I am a history buff and enjoy sci-fi movies. I haven't
read that many sci-books, through.
Jenny100
> > I would not expect any game to appeal to gamers who prefer
> > a different genre.
>
> I guess Adventure games are what they call niche games.
Maybe they are, depending on what you consider to be
a "niche game."
Do you consider puzzle games to be "niche games?"
Do you consider strategy games to be "niche games?"
Do you consider flight sims to be "niche games?"
Do you consider sports games to be "niche games?"
> Gamespot is just cynical.
I think that is it. They are just bored with adventure games.
And the things that might have bothered them a little bit a few
years ago now seem like big problems to them. And the things
they really enjoyed a few years ago don't thrill them anymore.
It is easy for me to see how someone who has become used
to fast-paced games might think an adventure is boring.
> I never played Byzantium, but I did think they were a bit
> harsh on it. They said the acting suck. Most FMV games have
> bad acting and that could be overlooked.
Byzantine didn't have great acting in it, but the writing of
the dialog wasn't great either so I'm not sure exactly where the
problem was . I think all or most of the actors were from the area
around Istanbul, so there may have been some problem with
English not being their native language.
Murray Peterson
news:kNpL8.10019$i17.2...@twister.nyroc.rr.com:
> As much as I wish it were otherwise, reviews have little
> effect on the sales of any game. People like them (reviews, that
> is)--according to our surveys while I was reviews editor at CGM, they
> were one of our most popular types of article. But games seem to
> succeed or fail independently of how we (or anyone else) rate them, so
> it seem illogical to assume that negative reviews drove players away
> from adventure games.
And I disagree with your theory. Reviews are the *only* mechanism I have
for determining the suitability of a game, since the publishers/developers
are usualy less than forthcoming about action/arcade/timed sequences. I
will admit that a single review won't sway me much one way or the other,
but multiple reviews tend to give me a very good feeling for the game and
if I would enjoy it.
> What did drive them away was a steady decline in
> the quality of "pure" adventures, and the fact that other types of
> games (action games, mostly) started to incorporate some aspects of
> the genre. At least, that's my theory.
I also have to disagree about your "decline in the quality" assertion; some
of the more recently released games are as good as it gets.
Murray Peterson
>> I believe The Last Express meets that criteria.
>
> Would you mind more games like that?
I don't know -- Ihaven't played it yet.
>> www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/May2002/Sales
>> March2002.shtm
>> www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/Mar-02/sales2
>> 001.shtm
>
> What is YTD? Assuming that is units.
Year To Date (usually starting from January 1).
> Only the top three Adventure games made the market.
You need to extrpolate those figures, since the numbers were published at
the beginning of March. e.g. MystIII sold 270,818 copies of the game in
the months of January and February. By those numbers, a large number of
the listed games are above your benchmark figure of 100,000, and that's
just for the single year.
> From JustAdventure graph, they look like they
> added games that aren't even Adventure such as Education titles like
> Freddy the Fish. I'm sure it's Adventure, but probaly
> Adventure/Edutainment. Some of these games seem to have break even but
> very few and non bypass 50,000 copies.
Only for the first two months of the year. Add the numbers up over the
years and the numbers are quite large. For example, Grim Fandango was
released in October, 1998, and it still sold over 16000 copies in the first
two months of 2001. That's a lot better than break-even, at least by your
criteria.
Robert Norton
> Robert Norton <r...@execpc.com> wrote in message
> news:<3cfd6eae$0$3576$272e...@news.execpc.com>...
>> toon...@my-deja.com (Toony7600) wrote in
>> news:6abc218a.02060...@posting.google.com:
>> > Don't you think a good
>> > Adventure game should appeal to all gamers regardless that they are
>> > action or RPG fans?
>> For TV, that's like saying "Don't you think a good soap opera should
>> appeal to football fans?" Or for books, like saying "Shouldn't a
>> good Sci-Fi novel appeal to history buffs?"
> A bit ludicrous, but why not? A soap opera could appeal to football
> fans by having a character in the soap that plays football. The two
> could be combined and probaly are. Note, I don't like soap operas and
> football games. I am a history buff and enjoy sci-fi movies. I haven't
> read that many sci-books, through.
The question was not whether it is possible to devise an adventure game
that would appeal to an action or RPG fan. The question was whether a
really good adventure game should necessarily appeal to an action or RPG
fan. Keep checking the RPG or action news groups, and see if they ever
start chatting favorably about a pure adventure game. I don't think so.
Robert Norton
news:Xns9223D34F...@24.71.223.159:
>> What would be wrong if they made Adventure games that were real time?
>> I don't mean action or arcade sequences, but where the NPC move
>> independently of the main character.
> I believe The Last Express meets that criteria.
"The Colonel's Bequest" too, I think.
Robert Norton
> And I disagree with your theory. Reviews are the *only* mechanism I
> have for determining the suitability of a game, since the
> publishers/developers are usualy less than forthcoming about
> action/arcade/timed sequences. I will admit that a single review
> won't sway me much one way or the other, but multiple reviews tend to
> give me a very good feeling for the game and if I would enjoy it.
You might use comments from the news group as well, unless you are counting
"game X stinks!" as a review. You might also be able to judge something
about a game from a demo, or at least get an idea of the quality of the
artwork by seeing some screen shots.
Murray Peterson
> Murray Peterson <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote in
> news:Xns9224A819...@24.71.223.159:
>
>> And I disagree with your theory. Reviews are the *only* mechanism I
>> have for determining the suitability of a game, since the
>> publishers/developers are usualy less than forthcoming about
>> action/arcade/timed sequences. I will admit that a single review
>> won't sway me much one way or the other, but multiple reviews tend to
>> give me a very good feeling for the game and if I would enjoy it.
>
> You might use comments from the news group as well, unless you are
> counting "game X stinks!" as a review.
I consider the posts from most members of this newsgroup as "reviews" in
some sense or another. The big advantage is that I have gotten to know
their tastes over time, so the comments about a new (to me) game make more
contextual sense.
> You might also be able to
> judge something about a game from a demo, or at least get an idea of
> the quality of the artwork by seeing some screen shots.
True, but I rarely let artwork determine my game selection; otherwise I
would have never purchased Eric the Unready.
David Adrien Tanguay
>>> What would be wrong if they made Adventure games that were real time?
>>> I don't mean action or arcade sequences, but where the NPC move
>>> independently of the main character.
>
>> I believe The Last Express meets that criteria.
>
>
> "The Colonel's Bequest" too, I think.
How about the pirate and dwarves in Adventure? The other you in Zork. The
adventurer in Enchanter. Maybe Starcross and HHGttG.
More in line with the intent, though, is Avarice (an OS/2 only game).
Rikard Peterson
>> You might also be able to
>> judge something about a game from a demo, or at least get an idea
>> of the quality of the artwork by seeing some screen shots.
>
> True, but I rarely let artwork determine my game selection;
> otherwise I would have never purchased Eric the Unready.
I think Eric looks pretty good.
Rikard
Murray Peterson
news:Xns922581D84C9B1tr...@195.54.122.72:
I have to agree with you; the graphics that it does have are very
attractive. They certainly aren't in the same category as the graphics in
Myst or Road to India.
Toony7600
It's a really good game. You might not like it the fact that it has
some combat in the game. It is very different from any Adventure game.
> You need to extrpolate those figures, since the numbers were published at
> the beginning of March. e.g. MystIII sold 270,818 copies of the game in
> the months of January and February. By those numbers, a large number of
> the listed games are above your benchmark figure of 100,000, and that's
> just for the single year.
Wow, that's pretty good assuming copies are equal to units.
> > From JustAdventure graph, they look like they
> > added games that aren't even Adventure such as Education titles like
> > Freddy the Fish. I'm sure it's Adventure, but probaly
> > Adventure/Edutainment. Some of these games seem to have break even but
> > very few and non bypass 50,000 copies.
>
> Only for the first two months of the year. Add the numbers up over the
> years and the numbers are quite large. For example, Grim Fandango was
> released in October, 1998, and it still sold over 16000 copies in the first
> two months of 2001. That's a lot better than break-even, at least by your
> criteria.
That list was for all of 2001. So it is pretty good. The genre is
selling well, but why aren't companies making any more? It must be
that Adventure games cost far too much too make and their not
recouping their value because of the cost. Maybe the game has to sell
100,000 units in one month.
Toony7600
> Some have been, and in my opinion, nothing is wrong with them. Check out
> Blade Runner (Westwood) or The Last Express (if you can find a copy). Both
> good examples of real-time adventure done right.
Blade Runner doesn't have real-time anywhere compare to The Last
Express. The Last Express didn't even advertise it on the box and had
the feature wheras Blade Runner said it is the first real time 3D
adventure.
> Not nearly as well as Riven, though, which in turn did not sell nearly as
> well as Myst (although it did sell quite admirably).
>
I guess that's good.
>
> This is not true, actually. The break-even point varies from game to game,
> but most games (even big budget productions) break even long before they
> sell 100,000 copies.
Well it isn't? What is true and not true? Any examples of this?
> Most adventure games--particularly today's adventure games, are made on a
> fraction of that budget. How many copies a game needs to sell to be a
> success directly corresponds to how much it cost to make, so blanket
> statements ("500,000 is a hit") are meaningless. Dreamcatcher would probably
> be thrilled to sell through 100,000 units of any one game.
>
If they cost so little and sell okay, then why aren't companies making
more of them? I guess the industry wants blockbuster hits like Myst or
else they won't make it.
> That is a bit of a simplification, although adventure games certainly
> haven't evolved much. Most of today's adventures are functionally identical
> to adventures released seven or eight years ago. Adding needless complexity
> isn't a good solution for any kind of game, but exploring new avenues of
> gameplay and new design ideas might help revitalize the genre.
Good idea though. What avenues of gameplay and new design ideas might
help the genre? Is 3D one? A complex game might not be the best way to
approach things when simplicity might be a good thing.
Toony7600
> effect on the sales of any game. People like them (reviews, that
> is)--according to our surveys while I was reviews editor at CGM, they were
> one of our most popular types of article. But games seem to succeed or fail
> independently of how we (or anyone else) rate them, so it seem illogical to
> assume that negative reviews drove players away from adventure games. What
> did drive them away was a steady decline in the quality of "pure"
> adventures, and the fact that other types of games (action games, mostly)
> started to incorporate some aspects of the genre. At least, that's my
> theory.
Wow! thanks for writing that. I always wanted to say something that.
That is so evidently so with Myst. There were reviews that said they
loved it and hate it. Do you mean that the Adventure games went from
really good to just simply bad? Has bad Adventure games drove people
away? I can believe that since many of Sierra's latter games were just
simply awful. Does puzzle design have anything to do with it's demise?
Interesting theory.
> The unfortunate part is that while I like action games, they really aren't a
> suitable substitute for adventures. Someday someone will realize that games
> made using a 3D engine don't have to focus on shooting people. RealMyst did
> it, and did it well, but nobody seemed to notice (probably because everyone
> that has any desire to play Myst already has done so). Still, I think you
> could use something like the Quake III engine to build one heck of an
> adventure game, if you wanted to.
Because an Adventure game has a good story, and there is a sense of
exploration. I agree with you totally about using a Quake 3 engine to
build one great Adventure game. I can't see why 3D and Adventure games
aren't compatible. Exploration is one thing that Adventure games have,
3D will eliminate pixel hunting. Looking through every nook and crany
to find that object would be the best use of 3D in an Adventure game.
3D could make Adventure games more movie like without taking away
interactivity. Gabriel Knight 3 used 3D, causing people to say 3D
doesn't work in an Adventure game. It wasn't a very good game and the
graphics were really bad. It was slow and very sluggish and other 3D
games that I played were much faster.
Toony7600
> a "niche game."
> Do you consider puzzle games to be "niche games?"
> Do you consider strategy games to be "niche games?"
> Do you consider flight sims to be "niche games?"
> Do you consider sports games to be "niche games?"
Well, I can't say for sure, but I think puzzle games are niche games.
The other 3 are quite popula'r.
>
> I think that is it. They are just bored with adventure games.
> And the things that might have bothered them a little bit a few
> years ago now seem like big problems to them. And the things
> they really enjoyed a few years ago don't thrill them anymore.
> It is easy for me to see how someone who has become used
> to fast-paced games might think an adventure is boring.
They were too nice to Shivers 2, which made me buy it or was that
after the fact I bought it. I don't remember, but I still shouldn't
have did so. I probaly wouldn't have minded so much if it was. Curse
of Monkey Island wasn't so bad as Shivers 2 because I waited till it
was $9.00. I learned from that mistake. I didn't like it and thought
it was awful. The Last Express was great, but gamespot gave it a very
lukewarm review. The way they have a scoring system seems to obsure
aspects of their writing. They say a game is bad, but anything above a
5 is consider average. What is wrong with an above average or an
average game? Gamespot and most reviewing web sites seem to overrate
games. They rate some of them way too high when most games are average
to above average and few are bad and few are extremely spectacular.
Quandaryland is smart not to have such as system since it is the
writing that is most important. Even if you disagree with them their
is no questioning their reviews, they are mature, fair, and well
balanced.
Gamespot is probaly tired of Adventure games, but not that they are
boring or maybe they are. It is possible that they are tired of same
features that are prevalent in the Adventure genre that haven't change
much since the early 90's. The Adventure genre was all about change in
the 80's and then in the early 90's but stop after Myst came out. The
gameplay seems fix in stone since King's Quest 5 which dump a text
parser for a mouse only interface. It is obivious that they want to
see something new and different in the genre. It's not that they want
action in Adventure games. They choose Outcast over Gabriel Knight 3
as Adventure game of the year for 1999, I think. GK3 was a very flawed
game and so I agree with that choice. I never played Outcast to
compare to GK3.
It might also be that they played older Adventure games which are much
better than their newer cousins which can't be compared. There are
some new instant classics such as Gabriel Knight 2, which is a very
good game indeed. It has a great story. Gamespot has include The Last
Express is in it's "games that you never played" or "Best Game endings
series". That game is highly regarded even in best game of lists. It
comes up quite frequently. It is an instant classic in my opinion. It
is a breath of fresh air to the genre. Gamespot gave it an above
average score like a 7 or something, when it is way better than that.
It should have gotten somewhere close to a perfect 10. They do respect
that game much more so than Curse of Monkey Island. That game did
nothing new to the genre, but cover old ground that has been done
before and got a higher review score than The Last Express did.
> Byzantine didn't have great acting in it, but the writing of
> the dialog wasn't great either so I'm not sure exactly where the
> problem was . I think all or most of the actors were from the area
> around Istanbul, so there may have been some problem with
> English not being their native language.
Most FMV games have bad acting except Pandora Directive and GK2. Those
are the two best FMV games ever. The only thing I never liked about
GK2 is that it really limited interactivity to the point of that it
was frusterating. Click on something and a entire movie would appear.
Although thankfully the great story compensated for that. Did you
think that Byzantium was a bad game? What is your opinion of the game?
After reading so many reviews and opinions about games, I came to the
conclusion that it is what I think of the game that matters. My
opinion is more important than gamespot. I doubt Gamespot's negative
reviews do anything to the genre. Do you think Gamespot's reviews do
anything negative?
bsones
> for determining the suitability of a game, since the publishers/developers
> are usualy less than forthcoming about action/arcade/timed sequences. I
> will admit that a single review won't sway me much one way or the other,
> but multiple reviews tend to give me a very good feeling for the game and
> if I would enjoy it.
But how you use reviews is not a benchmar for how gamers as a whole use
them--the facts just don't support it. Very often games that the press
strongly criticize end up as best-sellers. Just as often, games that the
press strongly recommend end up doing dismally at retail. No One Lives
Forever was our Game of the Year last year--we gave it a score of 5 out of 5
and hyped it to high heaven, because we thought it was a fantastic game.
Most other publications gave it similar treatment, and it earned Action Game
of the Year from just about everyone. But it sold extremely poorly. The year
before that it was System Shock 2--same deal. Great game, average sales. I
don't think I saw a bad review of the Longest Journey *anywhere* (most of
them were in the very high range--4.5 stars, 9 out of 10, and the like), but
it didn't help it move more than 20,000 copies or so in the US.
I think people like reviews because they like hearing other opinions about
games, or perhaps because they like to see their own opinions validated
(which explains a lot of the review-related hate mail that we get... "how
could you POSSIBLY hate/like Game X?!"). But as far as I can tell, few
people use them to make buying decisions.
> I also have to disagree about your "decline in the quality" assertion;
some
> of the more recently released games are as good as it gets.
I know you disagree, and as you said before, we're going to have to agree to
disagree on that count.
-Ben
bsones
> years and the numbers are quite large. For example, Grim Fandango was
> released in October, 1998, and it still sold over 16000 copies in the
first
> two months of 2001. That's a lot better than break-even, at least by your
> criteria.
Yes, but 16,000 copies sold out of the bargain bin for $10 a pop is a little
different than 16,000 copies sold at full retail for $40 or more. It's
unlikely that LucasArts is seeing any money at all from those sales. And
even at full retail, Grim Fandango would have needed to sell a lot more than
that to break even. But it didn't (sell that many or, from what I've heard,
break even).
-Ben
bsones
> Express. The Last Express didn't even advertise it on the box and had
> the feature wheras Blade Runner said it is the first real time 3D
> adventure.
It was handled differently than the Last Express, true, but it was a
realtime game at its core. Certain events were trigger based (i.e. you
needed to perform a certain action or talk to a certain person to trigger
the next event), but much of the game ran in realtime (characters would move
between certain locations, and you might catch certain events if you were in
the right place at the right time).
It was not, however, truly 3D. The characters were voxel-based (basically
"volume pixels;" an alternate to the polygonal modelling used in most 3D
games), but the sets were all 2D renderings with depth information painted
on top of them. Similar to The Longest Journey was (which also used 3D
characters on 2D sets).
> > This is not true, actually. The break-even point varies from game to
game,
> > but most games (even big budget productions) break even long before they
> > sell 100,000 copies.
>
> Well it isn't? What is true and not true? Any examples of this?
Like I said, it depends on how much is spent on development and marketing. A
game that spends $2,000,000 on production and marketing probably needs to
sell around 100,000 copies to turn a profit. But most adventure
games--particularly most of today's adventures, which are made by small
teams on small budgets and get very little marketing--don't need to sell
nearly that much. HPS turns a profit on wargames that sell as little as
15,000 or so copies, for instance, because they keep their costs down. Many
of Dreamcatcher's games are imports--they don't even have to cover
development, because they probably just take royalties from the sales in
this country. I don't know exactly how their business model works, though,
so take that with a grain of salt.
The point is that you can't toss around numbers for how many copies games in
general need to sell in order to make a profit, because it varies from game
to game.
> If they cost so little and sell okay, then why aren't companies making
> more of them? I guess the industry wants blockbuster hits like Myst or
> else they won't make it.
That's a really good question, and one that I ask publishers and developers
all the time. The answer, as you point out, is the "blockbuster mentality."
It's not a phenomenon limited to games--Hollywood is plagued by it as well.
Publishers want their games to do big numbers, even if they have to spend
lots of money to do it. Try to talk to publishers about "micro" games--games
with strong production values but smaller scope and smaller teams and
smaller budgets--and they look at you like you just sprouted a third head.
But the truth is that there is money to be made in spending less money to
make games for a more limited audience. And who knows? Your game might just
be a breakaway hit. Every time someone in this industry tells me that they
days of small development teams is past, I point to Rollercoaster Tycoon (a
game, made by Chris Sawyer and a couple of artists, that is currently giving
Myst a run for its money as best-selling PC game ever).
The industry will figure it out eventually. Just give them time.
> Good idea though. What avenues of gameplay and new design ideas might
> help the genre? Is 3D one? A complex game might not be the best way to
> approach things when simplicity might be a good thing.
I think it is. Gamers like to scoff at the notion that pretty graphics make
games more fun, but really, they do. A game needs more than just pretty
graphics, of course, but the pretty graphics help.
An area that needs even more attention is the general design approach behind
adventure games, which really hasn't changed much (or at all) since we
abandoned the text parser. Adventure games are all about interactive
storytelling, but nobody ever spends much time considering new ways to
actually do it. Any sort of new idea would be preferable to none, which is
what we currently have.
-Ben
Jenny100
> after the fact I bought it. I don't remember, but I still shouldn't
> have did so. I probaly wouldn't have minded so much if it was. Curse
> of Monkey Island wasn't so bad as Shivers 2 because I waited till it
> was $9.00. I learned from that mistake. I didn't like it and thought
> it was awful.
Which one did you think was awful? Curse of Monkey Island or
Shivers 2? I liked Curse of Monkey Island except for the
appearance of the characters. I enjoyed the puzzles and the
jokes and the voice acting. I didn't like Shivers 2 at all.
> The Last Express was great, but gamespot gave it a very
> lukewarm review.
I don't have access to their review anymore. I wonder if
they counted off because of it's weird save system
where you rewind time instead of going back to a
previous save.
> The way they have a scoring system seems to obsure
> aspects of their writing. They say a game is bad, but
> anything above a 5 is consider average. What is wrong with
> an above average or an average game? Gamespot and most
> reviewing web sites seem to overrate games.
Especially non-adventure games.
>They rate some of them way too high when most games are average
> to above average and few are bad and few are extremely spectacular.
> Quandaryland is smart not to have such as system since it is the
> writing that is most important. Even if you disagree with them their
> is no questioning their reviews, they are mature, fair, and well
> balanced.
>
> Gamespot is probaly tired of Adventure games, but not that they are
> boring or maybe they are. It is possible that they are tired of same
> features that are prevalent in the Adventure genre that haven't change
> much since the early 90's. The Adventure genre was all about change in
> the 80's and then in the early 90's but stop after Myst came out.
I don't think you can blame Myst for everything.
It wasn't the first game to have a "Myst-like" interface.
For example, "Labyrinth of Time" had a similar interface
and predated Myst.
> The
> gameplay seems fix in stone since King's Quest 5 which dump a text
> parser for a mouse only interface. It is obvious that they want to
> see something new and different in the genre.
Like 3D graphics which don't have an interface that gets in
the way of the gameplay?
> It's not that they want
> action in Adventure games.
Some of them seem to say that.
> They choose Outcast over Gabriel Knight 3 as Adventure
> game of the year for 1999, I think. GK3 was a very flawed
> game and so I agree with that choice. I never played Outcast to
> compare to GK3.
You mean you haven't played Outcast?
I've played Outcast but I haven't played GK3.
Outcast was great, though I'm not sure it works with the latest
DirectX 8. Outcast has a god mode so I was able to finish it OK.
The gameworld is immense. Some people have trouble with
the control system because there were so many options.
It was one of those games where I had to have the manual
open to the controls page while I was playing.
> It might also be that they played older Adventure games which
> are much better than their newer cousins which can't be compared.
They may also have a few different reviewers by now.
Most new adventure game reviews at Gamespot seem
to be by Ron Dulin. But if you look at older reviews, they
have different reviewers.
> There are
> some new instant classics such as Gabriel Knight 2, which is a very
> good game indeed. It has a great story. Gamespot has include The Last
> Express is in it's "games that you never played" or "Best Game endings
> series". That game is highly regarded even in best game of lists. It
> comes up quite frequently. It is an instant classic in my opinion. It
> is a breath of fresh air to the genre. Gamespot gave it an above
> average score like a 7 or something, when it is way better than that.
> It should have gotten somewhere close to a perfect 10. They do respect
> that game much more so than Curse of Monkey Island. That game did
> nothing new to the genre, but cover old ground that has been done
> before and got a higher review score than The Last Express did.
>
> > Byzantine didn't have great acting in it, but the writing of
> > the dialog wasn't great either so I'm not sure exactly where the
> > problem was . I think all or most of the actors were from the area
> > around Istanbul, so there may have been some problem with
> > English not being their native language.
>
> Most FMV games have bad acting except Pandora Directive
> and GK2. Those are the two best FMV games ever.
I also liked the acting in Ripper and Black Dahlia.
> The only thing I never liked about
> GK2 is that it really limited interactivity to the point of that it
> was frusterating. Click on something and a entire movie would appear.
> Although thankfully the great story compensated for that. Did you
> think that Byzantium was a bad game?
No.
> What is your opinion of the game?
It wasn't bad but it wasn't great. I found it annoying to enter
an area and be killed with little or no warning and no hint
what I was supposed to do to avoid being killed. I finished
it with a walkthrough.
The story wasn't bad and I liked the idea of being able
to enter a simulated virtual world in a computer and find
clues there that would help with problems outside the
simulation. You have to search for items to provide
data to complete the simulation and it sort of goes back
and forth.
The simulations were of various buildings from antiquity
which no longer exist or which are substantially changed in
the present. I've never seen another game that did that
with real places. In Nightlong you also entered the virtual
world inside a computer at one point, which was cool,
but it wasn't ever a real place.
> After reading so many reviews and opinions about games,
> I came to the conclusion that it is what I think of the game
> that matters. My opinion is more important than gamespot.
That's why Quandary is better. They give you a better idea
of what the game is like without being judgmental.
> I doubt Gamespot's negative reviews do anything to the
> genre. Do you think Gamespot's reviews do
> anything negative?
They may deter new gamers who don't know any better and
look at only one review that they find with a google search.
I haven't checked all the adventure game reviews at gamespy
or happypuppy or etc. Most experienced gamers probably
realize that what Gamespot says isn't necessarily correct.
Since Gamespot is now charging admission to see their
reviews, it seems pretty certain they'll exclude new gamers
from their readership. New gamers are probably going to
want to keep costs at a minimum until they decide gaming
is something they want to get into.
Jenny100
> aren't compatible. Exploration is one thing that Adventure games have,
> 3D will eliminate pixel hunting.
Pixel hunting isn't necessarily a problem with 2D games.
And I've yet to see a really good inventory management
system in a 3D game - especially when it comes to
collecting inventory. It's a lot more tedious to go around
aiming yourself at things and hitting the "collect" key than
it is to hunt around with a mouse. You need a much bigger
hotspot for the "aim yourself and hit the collect key" method
and you could easily collect something you didn't realize
was an inventory item - thereby solving a puzzle by accident.
Murray Peterson
> That list was for all of 2001. So it is pretty good. The genre is
> selling well, but why aren't companies making any more? It must be
> that Adventure games cost far too much too make and their not
> recouping their value because of the cost. Maybe the game has to sell
> 100,000 units in one month.
>
I think the reasons are probably purely financial in nature. If a company
can get a 5% expected return on an adventure, versus a 10% expected return
on a different genre, then they won't hesitate for more than about 30
seconds. Companies rarely like taking risks, usually for good reasons.
Murray Peterson
news:aHOL8.6521$2h1.1...@twister.nyroc.rr.com:
> But how you use reviews is not a benchmar for how gamers as a whole
> use them--the facts just don't support it. Very often games that the
> press strongly criticize end up as best-sellers. Just as often, games
> that the press strongly recommend end up doing dismally at retail.
Which brings us back to the very start of this thread -- I pay very little
attention to the "press", especially any of their reviews. I don't think I
am all that unique in this respect; gaming mags don't seem to be a very
good source of information about adventure games.
> No
> One Lives Forever was our Game of the Year last year--we gave it a
> score of 5 out of 5 and hyped it to high heaven, because we thought it
> was a fantastic game. Most other publications gave it similar
> treatment, and it earned Action Game of the Year from just about
> everyone. But it sold extremely poorly. The year before that it was
> System Shock 2--same deal. Great game, average sales. I don't think I
> saw a bad review of the Longest Journey *anywhere* (most of them were
> in the very high range--4.5 stars, 9 out of 10, and the like), but it
> didn't help it move more than 20,000 copies or so in the US.
You obviously haven't read the sales figures posted at JA. I can't speak
about any sales figures for action games, but TLJ sold 71,962 copies in
January and February of 2001 (North America only). That implies total
sales a darn sight better than your 20,000 figure.
> I think people like reviews because they like hearing other opinions
> about games, or perhaps because they like to see their own opinions
> validated (which explains a lot of the review-related hate mail that
> we get... "how could you POSSIBLY hate/like Game X?!"). But as far as
> I can tell, few people use them to make buying decisions.
I can only answer for myself, but I have to ask you this -- how else would
someone make any sort of informed decision about which games to buy? The
producer/publisher will obviously tell you how great it is, and the cover
art and blurbs on the boxes will do the same. An unbiased review (or
reviews) are the only remaining way to weed out the crap. BTW, "word of
mouth" also qualifies as a review.
David Adrien Tanguay
>> aren't compatible. Exploration is one thing that Adventure games have,
>> 3D will eliminate pixel hunting.
>
> Pixel hunting isn't necessarily a problem with 2D games.
And 3D just turns pixel hunting into voxel hunting. If bad game
designers want to hide something from you by making it small and
undistinguished, they can do it just as easily in 3D as in 2D.
Going 3D isn't going to eliminate bad design.
> And I've yet to see a really good inventory management
> system in a 3D game - especially when it comes to
> collecting inventory. It's a lot more tedious to go around
> aiming yourself at things and hitting the "collect" key than
> it is to hunt around with a mouse. You need a much bigger
> hotspot for the "aim yourself and hit the collect key" method
> and you could easily collect something you didn't realize
> was an inventory item - thereby solving a puzzle by accident.
Why not use both mouse and keyboard? Use arrow keys for your legs, and
the mouse for your hands. Sort of like Under a Killing Moon, without the
modality.
Toony wrote:
>> Looking through every nook and crany
>> to find that object would be the best use of 3D in an Adventure game.
How is that any less annoying than pixel hunting?
Robert Norton
> If a company
> can get a 5% expected return on an adventure, versus a 10% expected
> return on a different genre, then they won't hesitate for more than
> about 30 seconds.
But why is it "versus"? I wouldn't hesitate for more than about 30
seconds, and then take BOTH!
bsones
> about any sales figures for action games, but TLJ sold 71,962 copies in
> January and February of 2001 (North America only). That implies total
> sales a darn sight better than your 20,000 figure.
That is actually not correct, even by Just Adventure's reports. According to
PC Data, it had sold a total of 40,000 copies (year to date) by July of
2001, so I don't see how it could have sold 70,000 copies in January and
February:
http://www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/01-08/August
_01.shtm
According to NPD (the firm formerly known as PC Data), TLJ sold a total of
71,962 copies for the entire year in 2001. Perhaps that is what you are
referring to. This was following a price cut (to $19.99), so this is not
entirely the same as moving units at full retail price. At this point,
distributors are merely clearing inventory.
I got my figure in 2000, so obviously it would have changed since then.
Still, the "important" sales for any game are typically the ones that occur
within one to six (at the very outside) months of release, while the game is
selling at full retail price. TLJ wasn't a disaster or anything, but I got
the impression from the folks at Funcom that they had expected it to do a
lot better than it did, particularly considering all the good press it got.
> I can only answer for myself, but I have to ask you this -- how else would
> someone make any sort of informed decision about which games to buy? The
> producer/publisher will obviously tell you how great it is, and the cover
> art and blurbs on the boxes will do the same. An unbiased review (or
> reviews) are the only remaining way to weed out the crap. BTW, "word of
> mouth" also qualifies as a review.
I never said that people make informed decisions. The majority of games
sales take place before reviews (even web reviews) come out, typically in
the first few weeks the product is in stores.
-Ben
David Adrien Tanguay
>> If a company
>> can get a 5% expected return on an adventure, versus a 10% expected
>> return on a different genre, then they won't hesitate for more than
>> about 30 seconds.
>
> But why is it "versus"? I wouldn't hesitate for more than about 30
> seconds, and then take BOTH!
Because if you have the resources to do both, you make two at 10% return.
Murray Peterson
news:f8XL8.1599$Dw1.9...@twister.nyroc.rr.com:
> [snip]
> According to NPD (the firm formerly known as PC Data), TLJ sold a
> total of 71,962 copies for the entire year in 2001. Perhaps that is
> what you are referring to. This was following a price cut (to $19.99),
> so this is not entirely the same as moving units at full retail price.
> At this point, distributors are merely clearing inventory.
I was referring to that page, but mistaking it for a 2001 report.
Toony7600
> realtime game at its core. Certain events were trigger based (i.e. you
> needed to perform a certain action or talk to a certain person to trigger
> the next event), but much of the game ran in realtime (characters would move
> between certain locations, and you might catch certain events if you were in
> the right place at the right time).
I diagree. Blade Runner isn't a real time game. Gamespot wrote a
review saying that Westwood lied about that. I did what you did about
having the character stay still and time doesn't move independently of
the character's action. There are no NPC characters that move
independently of the main character. I guess the bottom of what you
said is true. How did much of the game ran in real-time? Besides, Last
Express was the first-real time Adventure game or was it one of those
Infocom games?
> It was not, however, truly 3D. The characters were voxel-based (basically
> "volume pixels;" an alternate to the polygonal modelling used in most 3D
> games), but the sets were all 2D renderings with depth information painted
> on top of them. Similar to The Longest Journey was (which also used 3D
> characters on 2D sets).
It was also so ugly and look like just another Sierra game.
>
> Like I said, it depends on how much is spent on development and marketing. A
> game that spends $2,000,000 on production and marketing probably needs to
> sell around 100,000 copies to turn a profit. But most adventure
> games--particularly most of today's adventures, which are made by small
> teams on small budgets and get very little marketing--don't need to sell
> nearly that much. HPS turns a profit on wargames that sell as little as
> 15,000 or so copies, for instance, because they keep their costs down. Many
> of Dreamcatcher's games are imports--they don't even have to cover
> development, because they probably just take royalties from the sales in
> this country. I don't know exactly how their business model works, though,
> so take that with a grain of salt.
Dreamcatcher has a good business model, at least they are keeping the
genre somewhat alive, but unfortunately they are making Myst clones,
through. They also import the French myst clones from Cryo, too.
> The point is that you can't toss around numbers for how many copies games in
> general need to sell in order to make a profit, because it varies from game
> to game.
That's true.
> That's a really good question, and one that I ask publishers and developers
> all the time. The answer, as you point out, is the "blockbuster mentality."
> It's not a phenomenon limited to games--Hollywood is plagued by it as well.
> Publishers want their games to do big numbers, even if they have to spend
> lots of money to do it. Try to talk to publishers about "micro" games--games
> with strong production values but smaller scope and smaller teams and
> smaller budgets--and they look at you like you just sprouted a third head.
> But the truth is that there is money to be made in spending less money to
> make games for a more limited audience. And who knows? Your game might just
> be a breakaway hit. Every time someone in this industry tells me that they
> days of small development teams is past, I point to Rollercoaster Tycoon (a
> game, made by Chris Sawyer and a couple of artists, that is currently giving
> Myst a run for its money as best-selling PC game ever).
As I said before, the blockbuster hits are usually sleeper hits. They
are the games that aren't hyped before released. I agree and still
think a hit game can be made in the garage of someone's house. There
are lots of small movies that one can find, but in order to find out
that they exist. I need reviews and information that such a movie
exists. I was watching The Winslow Boy just yesterday, what a great
movie. It was released in 1999 and it was distributed by Sony Pictures
Classics. Most Hollywood movie studios also run independent or low
cost creative movies on the side that are cheaper, but hopefully will
do well. Miramax is another and I can't think of the others, though.
Hopefully game companies will soon run their own independent game
studios that encourage creativity. Their is no indies for Adventure
games except those fan produce products.
How are action and strategy games more popular than Adventure games?
How did the RPG genre get out of it's slump? Did Fallout save the RPG
genre? Are action and strategy games cheaper to produce and make more
money than Adventure games?
> The industry will figure it out eventually. Just give them time.
I guess it pays to be patient.
> I think it is. Gamers like to scoff at the notion that pretty graphics make
> games more fun, but really, they do. A game needs more than just pretty
> graphics, of course, but the pretty graphics help.
>
> An area that needs even more attention is the general design approach behind
> adventure games, which really hasn't changed much (or at all) since we
> abandoned the text parser. Adventure games are all about interactive
> storytelling, but nobody ever spends much time considering new ways to
> actually do it. Any sort of new idea would be preferable to none, which is
> what we currently have.
Did Last Express do anything new to the genre in you opinion? Did Myst
break any ground in telling a story? What was Myst's impact on the
genre? Why was it so popular? What newest Adventure game did anything
new that could be explored down the road? Any of LucasArts recent
games such as Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango didn't explore
any new ground for the genre. I was so dissapointed with Curse of
Monkey especially after The Last Express. Last Express rose my
expectations. I never bothered with Escape from Monkey Island. Grim
Fandango had drop the mouse only icon feature with an all keyboard
interface.
Toony7600
> Shivers 2? I liked Curse of Monkey Island except for the
> appearance of the characters. I enjoyed the puzzles and the
> jokes and the voice acting. I didn't like Shivers 2 at all.
Shivers 2 was an awful game. What made you dislike Shivers 2? Curse of
Monkey Island is much better game than Shivers 2, but I don't like
that game either.
> I don't have access to their review anymore. I wonder if
> they counted off because of it's weird save system
> where you rewind time instead of going back to a
> previous save.
That is probaly what they said, why they didn't like it. They said
something about the real-time aspects. I thought the save game system
was great. No need to worry about saving every 10 seconds. The game
did it for me and I just enjoyed the story.
> I don't think you can blame Myst for everything.
> It wasn't the first game to have a "Myst-like" interface.
> For example, "Labyrinth of Time" had a similar interface
> and predated Myst.
What is Labyrinth of Time like? How old is it?
> Like 3D graphics which don't have an interface that gets in
> the way of the gameplay?
Redguard is the exception to that rule. It had a great keyboard only
interface. It wasn't clunky at all. I was very surprised at how
intutitve it was. Gabriel Knight 3 has a good interface to a certain
extent. It is easy to use and isn't clunky, but the camera is
disconnected from Grace and Gabriel. It's hard to describe. The
interface was limiting although more interactivity than GK2 but much
less so than GK1. Theif and System Shock 2 although cross genre
blender games had very good interfaces with 3D.
> You mean you haven't played Outcast?
> I've played Outcast but I haven't played GK3.
> Outcast was great, though I'm not sure it works with the latest
> DirectX 8. Outcast has a god mode so I was able to finish it OK.
> The gameworld is immense. Some people have trouble with
> the control system because there were so many options.
> It was one of those games where I had to have the manual
> open to the controls page while I was playing.
No, I haven't played Outcast. I really should, but I haven't found it
anywhere in the stores.
> They may also have a few different reviewers by now.
> Most new adventure game reviews at Gamespot seem
> to be by Ron Dulin. But if you look at older reviews, they
> have different reviewers.
Oh well, I still don't know about Gamespot. Their charging now, so
that will save people from looking at their reviews.
> I also liked the acting in Ripper and Black Dahlia.
At least 4 good FMV games, but I don't consider Pandora Directive
prequel to be a great FMV. It has awful cheesy acting.
> It wasn't bad but it wasn't great. I found it annoying to enter
> an area and be killed with little or no warning and no hint
> what I was supposed to do to avoid being killed. I finished
> it with a walkthrough.
> The story wasn't bad and I liked the idea of being able
> to enter a simulated virtual world in a computer and find
> clues there that would help with problems outside the
> simulation. You have to search for items to provide
> data to complete the simulation and it sort of goes back
> and forth.
> The simulations were of various buildings from antiquity
> which no longer exist or which are substantially changed in
> the present. I've never seen another game that did that
> with real places. In Nightlong you also entered the virtual
> world inside a computer at one point, which was cool,
> but it wasn't ever a real place.
Then Gamespot seem to think that was a real problem. They were just
being really harsh. I don't think their reviewers are following their
hearts, maybe. Let's say that they were being harsh to ensure that a
gamer had his full value.
> That's why Quandary is better. They give you a better idea
> of what the game is like without being judgmental.
Except that King's Quest: Mask of Eternity review. You know that they
want to trash that game, but tried very hard not too.
> They may deter new gamers who don't know any better and
> look at only one review that they find with a google search.
It probaly doesn't make a difference. Gamespot praised The Longest
Journery along with every game mag, that didn't persuaded people to go
out and buy it. Usually the games that the press critisized are the
biggest hits and the ones that are praised aren't so.
> I haven't checked all the adventure game reviews at gamespy
> or happypuppy or etc. Most experienced gamers probably
> realize that what Gamespot says isn't necessarily correct.
> Since Gamespot is now charging admission to see their
> reviews, it seems pretty certain they'll exclude new gamers
> from their readership. New gamers are probably going to
> want to keep costs at a minimum until they decide gaming
> is something they want to get into.
I don't think new gamers look at reviews. They just buy a game and
just play, perhaps. It's hard to say, though.
Jenny100
news:f8XL8.1599$Dw1.9...@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> > You obviously haven't read the sales figures posted at JA. I can't
speak
> > about any sales figures for action games, but TLJ sold 71,962 copies in
> > January and February of 2001 (North America only). That implies total
> > sales a darn sight better than your 20,000 figure.
>
>
> That is actually not correct, even by Just Adventure's reports. According
to
> PC Data, it had sold a total of 40,000 copies (year to date) by July of
> 2001, so I don't see how it could have sold 70,000 copies in January and
> February:
>
>
http://www.justadventure.com/articles/State_of_Adventure_Gaming/01-08/August
> _01.shtm
>
> According to NPD (the firm formerly known as PC Data), TLJ sold a total of
> 71,962 copies for the entire year in 2001. Perhaps that is what you are
> referring to. This was following a price cut (to $19.99), so this is not
> entirely the same as moving units at full retail price. At this point,
> distributors are merely clearing inventory.
TLJ did not get the best distribution initially. A lot of people had
to order it online and online sales aren't counted.
Now that copies can be found even in non-game shops like
Best Buy, I'd expect its non-online sales to go up. I don't know
exactly when places like Best Buy started to get it in and it seems
sporadic. But I don't see how you can compare sales with those
of games which were always well distributed from the start.
Jenny100
news:Xns92268125B653n...@142.77.1.194...
>
> Why not use both mouse and keyboard? Use arrow keys
> for your legs, and the mouse for your hands. Sort of like
> Under a Killing Moon, without the modality.
Modality? Not sure what you mean by that. If you mean
switching between movement mode and interacting mode
(or whatever they called it), I think the modality might be
more acceptible in an adventure than in an action game.
> Toony wrote:
> >> Looking through every nook and crany
> >> to find that object would be the best use of 3D in an Adventure game.
>
> How is that any less annoying than pixel hunting?
It takes longer. It was one of the problems with the recent
Hitchcock game. It's a lot easier to search around a 2D
screen with a mouse than it is to have to walk your character
around and aim him at everything. The Avault reviewer
(Bob Mandel) described the problem in his review of the
recent Hitchcock game. He probably explains the problem
better than I could. Look under the Interface heading in the
Hitchcock review at
http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=fincut&page=3
- especially the second paragraph where he talks about the
difference between adventure game inventory and action
game inventory.
If you've played Arthur's Knights, you are aware of the difficulty
with picking up even obvious inventory in that game. You have
to step to a location you judge to be not too far from the item
and then rotate your character by degrees, clicking the
"collect key" each time, hoping you've got the right angle.
And what a nuisance to even open a door. Arthur's Knights
may be the worst case example but it isn't the only one.
I'm not sure what the problem is, but maybe coding for picking
up objects with a mouse in a 3D world introduces difficulties
that aren't present when you have to walk the character over
to the location. There's 3 coordinates to worry about in a 3D
world instead of 2.
Rikard Peterson
news:adrb3t$g8e$1...@slb2.atl.mindspring.net:
> I'm not sure what the problem is, but maybe coding for picking
> up objects with a mouse in a 3D world introduces difficulties
> that aren't present when you have to walk the character over
> to the location. There's 3 coordinates to worry about in a 3D
> world instead of 2.
It's not that complicated and for someone who has already made a 3d
engine (or understands it well enough to make a game with it) it should
be no trouble. I think it is a conscious design choice. They want to
make the interface invisible, or innovative.
Rikard
David Adrien Tanguay
>> Why not use both mouse and keyboard? Use arrow keys
>> for your legs, and the mouse for your hands. Sort of like
>> Under a Killing Moon, without the modality.
>
> Modality? Not sure what you mean by that. If you mean
> switching between movement mode and interacting mode
> (or whatever they called it), I think the modality might be
> more acceptible in an adventure than in an action game.
Yeah, that's what I mean. In UaKM you hit space bar to switch between
movement mode and interaction mode. But there's really no need for
having to switch if you're requiring both mouse and keyboard. I think
Timelapse let you do that, where you could move about with the keyboard,
but still point and click on the environment, but it had problems.
>> >> Looking through every nook and crany
>> >> to find that object would be the best use of 3D in an Adventure game.
>>
>> How is that any less annoying than pixel hunting?
>
> It takes longer. [snip Final Cut / Arthur's Knights problems]
That's why it's *more* annoying -- I was wondering how Toony/anybody
would find that *less* annoying, i.e., better.
> I'm not sure what the problem is, but maybe coding for picking
> up objects with a mouse in a 3D world introduces difficulties
> that aren't present when you have to walk the character over
> to the location. There's 3 coordinates to worry about in a 3D
> world instead of 2.
It's not a problem in theory, you just have to do a quick reversal of
the pseudo-photons from the camera through the cursor hotspot into the
scene (a simple ray-trace). The current 3D engines probably don't
have that facility build in, but it wouldn't be hard to add.
Robert Norton
> Robert Norton <r...@execpc.com> wrote:
>>> If a company
>>> can get a 5% expected return on an adventure, versus a 10% expected
>>> return on a different genre, then they won't hesitate for more than
>>> about 30 seconds.
>> But why is it "versus"? I wouldn't hesitate for more than about 30
>> seconds, and then take BOTH!
> Because if you have the resources to do both, you make two at 10% return.
I'm buying the resources, am I not? I can buy as much as I want! If I
have game ideas, two of which are for shooters that will return 10% and
two of which are adventures that will return 5% (these numbers are way to
low, a T-bill will give a better annual return) then I would do two
shooters AND two adventures.
If I were doing it all myself for money, I'd do one shooter. If I were
doing it all myself for fun, I'd do the adventure.
Jenny100
news:Xns9226E8F66CCBn...@142.77.1.194...
> Robert Norton <r...@execpc.com> wrote:
> >> If a company
> >> can get a 5% expected return on an adventure, versus a 10% expected
> >> return on a different genre, then they won't hesitate for more than
> >> about 30 seconds.
> >
> > But why is it "versus"? I wouldn't hesitate for more than about 30
> > seconds, and then take BOTH!
>
> Because if you have the resources to do both, you make two at 10% return.
I think I'd do one of each.
The action game would have a lot more competition from other
action games on the market than the adventure would have from
other adventures. And you can't be sure ahead of time what sort
of return your game will give you.
Murray Peterson
Companies rarely have the resources to choose both, so the lower risk
option is almost always the one they choose.
Jenny100
> "Jenny100" <Jenn...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> How is that any less annoying than pixel hunting?
> >
> > It takes longer. [snip Final Cut / Arthur's Knights problems]
>
> That's why it's *more* annoying -- I was wondering how Toony/anybody
> would find that *less* annoying, i.e., better.
I thought you were asking the question.
> > I'm not sure what the problem is, but maybe coding for picking
> > up objects with a mouse in a 3D world introduces difficulties
> > that aren't present when you have to walk the character over
> > to the location. There's 3 coordinates to worry about in a 3D
> > world instead of 2.
>
> It's not a problem in theory, you just have to do a quick reversal of
> the pseudo-photons from the camera through the cursor hotspot
> into the scene (a simple ray-trace). The current 3D engines
> probably don't have that facility build in, but it wouldn't be hard
> to add.
Well that's the question, isn't it. How hard would it be to add
something like that into a 3D engine?
David Adrien Tanguay
>> >> If a company
>> >> can get a 5% expected return on an adventure, versus a 10% expected
>> >> return on a different genre, then they won't hesitate for more than
>> >> about 30 seconds.
>> >
>> > But why is it "versus"? I wouldn't hesitate for more than about 30
>> > seconds, and then take BOTH!
>>
>> Because if you have the resources to do both, you make two at 10% return.
>
> I think I'd do one of each.
> The action game would have a lot more competition from other
> action games on the market than the adventure would have from
> other adventures. And you can't be sure ahead of time what sort
> of return your game will give you.
That reasoning was already made, to arrive at the numbers. I'm not saying
the numbers are correct, and I don't think Robert was either, but they
are the premise of the debate.
David Adrien Tanguay
>> It's not a problem in theory, you just have to do a quick reversal of
>> the pseudo-photons from the camera through the cursor hotspot
>> into the scene (a simple ray-trace). The current 3D engines
>> probably don't have that facility build in, but it wouldn't be hard
>> to add.
>
> Well that's the question, isn't it. How hard would it be to add
> something like that into a 3D engine?
Um, I said it wouldn't be hard. I've made a 3D rendering package (not
real-time). You don't even have to worry about efficiency, since the
calculation only happens with the user clicks the mouse.
I think I even overstated the difficulty. It's just drawing a line from
the camera through the cursor hotspot and seeing what object it first
intersects.
Jenny100
> > Shivers 2? I liked Curse of Monkey Island except for the
> > appearance of the characters. I enjoyed the puzzles and the
> > jokes and the voice acting. I didn't like Shivers 2 at all.
>
> Shivers 2 was an awful game. What made you dislike Shivers 2?
m
a
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b
e
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
The biggest thing IMHO is probably the game bug.
It was the 4th computer game I played. I wasted a whole day
because of a game bug that prevented an event from
triggering. And the game was linear enough that I wasn't able
to progress because of the bug. It was the first bug like that
I'd ever experienced in a game and so it has a specially
reserved place on my $h!t list.
I didn't like the music either. It sounded very prefab and
canned to me.
And I didn't like the characters - bunch of losers. The big
bad guy turned out to be a big wussie speaking through a
voice augmentation machine. And the ghost was such a dope.
Some of the puzzles were OK and some I didn't like.
I liked the tangram puzzles in the cave OK, though I didn't
like being zapped while I was searching for them.
> Curse of Monkey Island is much better game than Shivers 2, but
> I don't like that game either.
Is it because of the way the characters looked or what?
I liked it overall, but didn't like that the characters were drawn
so they looked different from in the earlier Monkey games.
Guybrush looked different in Monkey 2 than in Monkey 1, but
I got used to him there. I didn't get used to his appearance in
Monkey 3.
> > I don't think you can blame Myst for everything.
> > It wasn't the first game to have a "Myst-like" interface.
> > For example, "Labyrinth of Time" had a similar interface
> > and predated Myst.
>
> What is Labyrinth of Time like? How old is it?
It's from 1993. It's point-and-click, like Myst.
With Win 98 I could only get it to play in DOS mode.
Otherwise I'd get a stack transfer overflow error.
In my opinion it is noticeably more primitive than Myst.
The various parts of the game aren't as well integrated
as in Myst and it wasn't full screen. I seem to remember
there were icons you could click at the bottom of the screen
if you wanted to access inventory, etc. Or you could use
the keyboard shortcuts. Now that I think about it, there
may have been icons at the bottom of the screen that
you'd click on to move forward or turn right, etc. I think
you'd identify items by clicking on the identify icon and
then on the item you wanted to identify. One of the most
interesting things in the game was an old toilet you could
flush by pulling on a chain.
> > Like 3D graphics which don't have an interface that gets in
> > the way of the gameplay?
>
> Redguard is the exception to that rule. It had a great keyboard only
> interface. It wasn't clunky at all. I was very surprised at how
> intuitve it was.
I'll have to play Redguard some day. I know you thought Tomb
Raider had a clunky interface, but I didn't think so. So I'm curious
about what Redguard's interface is like.
> Gabriel Knight 3 has a good interface to a certain
> extent. It is easy to use and isn't clunky, but the camera is
> disconnected from Grace and Gabriel. It's hard to describe. The
> interface was limiting although more interactivity than GK2 but much
> less so than GK1. Theif and System Shock 2 although cross genre
> blender games had very good interfaces with 3D.
I intend to play Thief some day. I'm a little worried it will give
me motion sickness though so I've put it off. First person 3D
games always seem to give me motion sickness unless I
move very slowly.
> > You mean you haven't played Outcast?
> > I've played Outcast but I haven't played GK3.
> > Outcast was great, though I'm not sure it works with the latest
> > DirectX 8. Outcast has a god mode so I was able to finish it OK.
> > The gameworld is immense. Some people have trouble with
> > the control system because there were so many options.
> > It was one of those games where I had to have the manual
> > open to the controls page while I was playing.
>
> No, I haven't played Outcast. I really should, but I haven't found it
> anywhere in the stores.
If you find it, it will probably be about $10.
It had great orchestral/choral music like an epic movie.
And it had a great feeling of freedom because you're
outdoors most of the time.
There's nothing quite like bounding across the landscape
of Shamazaar on the back of a Twon-ha.
> > They may also have a few different reviewers by now.
> > Most new adventure game reviews at Gamespot seem
> > to be by Ron Dulin. But if you look at older reviews, they
> > have different reviewers.
>
> Oh well, I still don't know about Gamespot. Their charging now, so
> that will save people from looking at their reviews.
hehe ;非
Very true.
> > I also liked the acting in Ripper and Black Dahlia.
>
> At least 4 good FMV games, but I don't consider Pandora Directive
> prequel to be a great FMV. It has awful cheesy acting.
You mean Under a Killing Moon?
> I don't think new gamers look at reviews. They just buy a game and
> just play, perhaps. It's hard to say, though.
That's true. They may not know about online reviews.
They probably just choose something off the shelf - and it's
probably either something cheap or something one of their
friends told them about.
Jenny100
> > >
> Um, I said it wouldn't be hard. I've made a 3D rendering package (not
> real-time). You don't even have to worry about efficiency, since the
> calculation only happens with the user clicks the mouse.
>
> I think I even overstated the difficulty. It's just drawing a line from
> the camera through the cursor hotspot and seeing what object it first
> intersects.
It sounds simple enough.
Can you think of a reason why no gamemakers seem to have
thought of it?
David Adrien Tanguay
[re 3D with cursor-keyboard combined control]
> It sounds simple enough.
> Can you think of a reason why no gamemakers seem to have
> thought of it?
It's only good for adventures? And how many 3D adventures have there been.
It also doesn't port to mouse-free consoles.
Murray Peterson
> Did Myst break any ground in telling a story?
Actually, Myst broke new ground in *not* telling a story. Seriously, I
think it was unique in several ways:
1. Completely ray-traced graphics (visually stunning)
2. Puzzles integrated with the environment
The combination of those two items made it a wonderful experience for me.
It was the first game I ever played that gave me a true feeling of "being
there" -- which is the best thing an adventure game can do.
> What was Myst's impact on the genre?
The cynical answer; it proved that it was possible to get huge sales on a
game. This induced a lot of companies to try making adventure games, some
of them weren't too bad.
The serious answer; it showed how puzzles could be more than just "pasted"
in the game. I am not sure if game designers have yet learned the lesson
they should have.
> Why was it so popular?
I am not really sure, but I believe that the advertising strategy for Myst
was quite different. I remember seeing a billboard ad for Myst in my local
bookstore; which is a darn sight more useful than ads restricted to gaming
mags or web sites.
> What newest Adventure game did
> anything new that could be explored down the road?
Besides the usual?
Faust tried a very different idea for telling a story. It wasn't unique --
Sanitarium beat them to it by a few years.
Nancy Drew is sticking with low production costs for their games, and it
does seem to be a workable business model.
RealMyst tried a complete game in 3D. Problem is, the computer
requirements exceeded most gamer's setup.
GK3 tried a floating camera, with the characters following. I actually
liked the interface, but hated the game. Perhaps this is my best example
why "new" or "innovative" isn't what's needed to imrove the genre.
> Any of LucasArts
> recent games such as Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango didn't
> explore any new ground for the genre.
COMI was a very playable (but derivative) sequel.
On the other hand. I found Grim Fandango to be a delight.
I honestly don't think adventure games are required to "explore new
ground", or be "innovative". What they need is the ability to induce me
with that desire to explore around the next corner or over the next hill.
Enser Manfred
Yes, the market is still here, but it is too small. Adventure games not sell
well but they still sell. A personal idea from me it to make Role playing
games more adventure like. Imagine Baldur愀 Gate with less battel but more
puzzles. This is may an idea which sells better. The adventure market needs
some new ideas but no one develops them.
I think Adventures dont transport a world well. Role playing games can do
that much better. Sometimes puzzling is boring. F.e. I am in Front of an
door but I cant find a key. In real life you smash the door if it is realy
that important. I think sometimes to search for the right solution for a
puzzle is too boring. Maybe the player is too much limited when dealing with
its world. Maybe there is an anproch to make playing adventure more
thrilling. I like adventures but I am afraid to see them dying.
cu
Manfred
"Ashikaga" <ashi...@worldnet.att.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:EGrK8.18529$LC3.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> "Enser Manfred" wrote...
> > HI, there
> > I think it is still a question of return on investment. Adventuregames
are
> > costly to make and dont sell to well. If you are a business men what
would
> > you do? Invest your money into an adventure game or invest it where you
> get
> > a higher return on investment. The adventure game market is dead and
there
> > is only little hope adventures will return. In my opition it is a
question
> > of money, selling figures, number of buyer and not if the puzzles are
well
> > developped these days or not!
>
> I don't think the adventure game "market" is dead, it's just not a lot of
> publishers are willing pour tons of money and praying the investment will
> recouperate. The market still exists! I for one would love to see more
> true-to-the-genre type of adventure games.
>
> I think if there is something "wrong" about a lot of the current adventure
> games is that the newer ones are more action focus, but less mind
> involvement. I think there are some good reasons why we play adventure
> games but not FPS. ;-) And it seems publishers as well as developers are
> not very aware of that.
>
> > cu
> > Manfred
> Ashikaga
>
>
ShapeShifter
news:Xns9227EE3084FDn...@142.77.1.194...
Mouses for PS2 are already available, and I know that there will be one for
xbox as well. That leaves gamecube. Anyway, all three consoles ahs two
analogue controllers, one may serve as the mouse control when ported.
--
§ - The ShapeShifter
Jenny100
news:adsm8m$tnc$1...@troll.powertech.no...
> > Mouses for PS2 are already available, and I know that there will be one
for
> xbox as well. That leaves gamecube. Anyway, all three consoles ahs two
> analogue controllers, one may serve as the mouse control when ported.
> --
Are there any PS2 games that make use of the mouse
to collect and manage inventory?
Robert Norton
@slb7.atl.mindspring.net:
> Well that's the question, isn't it. How hard would it be to add
> something like that into a 3D engine?
It depends on whether the object would then teleport into your inventory,
or whether your character should walk over to the object move the arm,
shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers to grasp the object, and then retrieve
it. Reverse kinamatics are tough!
David Adrien Tanguay
> Actually, Myst broke new ground in *not* telling a story. Seriously, I
> think it was unique in several ways:
> 1. Completely ray-traced graphics (visually stunning)
> 2. Puzzles integrated with the environment
It's hardly unique, or even notable, in the latter. Integrated puzzles go
right back to the beginning.
> The combination of those two items made it a wonderful experience for me.
> It was the first game I ever played that gave me a true feeling of "being
> there" -- which is the best thing an adventure game can do.
Myst was also among the first to use sound as part of the puzzles, rather
than as just an atmospheric enhancer. I don't know if it did anything
first, but it did several things early, and well, so the cumulative effect
was of something new.
> The serious answer; it showed how puzzles could be more than just "pasted"
> in the game. I am not sure if game designers have yet learned the lesson
> they should have.
As above, that was old news already. If anything, Myst seemed to encourage
others in the opposite direction.
Murray Peterson
> Murray Peterson <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>> Actually, Myst broke new ground in *not* telling a story. Seriously,
>> I think it was unique in several ways:
>> 1. Completely ray-traced graphics (visually stunning)
>> 2. Puzzles integrated with the environment
>
> It's hardly unique, or even notable, in the latter. Integrated puzzles
> go right back to the beginning.
I won't dispute that (directly), but Myst seemed to do it so well compared
to the other games. The best I can describe it is that Myst gave me a
feeling of solving "the environment" instead of being in the environment
and solving puzzles. I know, that's pretty vague...
>> The combination of those two items made it a wonderful experience for
>> me. It was the first game I ever played that gave me a true feeling
>> of "being there" -- which is the best thing an adventure game can do.
>
> Myst was also among the first to use sound as part of the puzzles,
> rather than as just an atmospheric enhancer. I don't know if it did
> anything first, but it did several things early, and well, so the
> cumulative effect was of something new.
>
>> The serious answer; it showed how puzzles could be more than just
>> "pasted" in the game. I am not sure if game designers have yet
>> learned the lesson they should have.
>
> As above, that was old news already. If anything, Myst seemed to
> encourage others in the opposite direction.
If so, then I have to ask "why"?
David Adrien Tanguay
> I won't dispute that (directly), but Myst seemed to do it so well compared
> to the other games. The best I can describe it is that Myst gave me a
> feeling of solving "the environment" instead of being in the environment
> and solving puzzles. I know, that's pretty vague...
I think I know what you mean, but I think it's just a combination of the
graphics and sonics, and the puzzles were integrated enough -- and the
world was consistent enough -- not to kick you out of that feeling. If
you write down what you see and do in Myst (or read one of the more wordy
walkthroughs), I think you'll find it not much different from many of the
old text adventures.
>> As above, that was old news already. If anything, Myst seemed to
>> encourage others in the opposite direction. [re integration]
>
> If so, then I have to ask "why"?
That's just my empirical observation. Whether you blame Myst, 7th Guest,
Quicktime technology, or whatever, or some synergy, there seemed to be a
lot of adventures afterwards that were low on puzzle integration.
ShapeShifter
news:adtjpk$7kg$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
Nope, not yet, at least not in europe (we get the games months after USA
and Japan). The only game I know of where you use the mouse is Age of
Empires 2... Games like half-life, max payne and red faction (not
adventures!) are examples where you use the analogue sticks for the same
stuff that you use the mouse for in the PC versions, and I guess this could
be an alternative for mouse controlled adventure games on consoles,
allthough I'd prefer the mouse...
There are some for PSOne, though, like discworld noir, broken sword and the
really bad one where you visited stonehenge (is that an adventure cliche or
what?) and lots of other stuff I never cared to try out. Anyone remember
that one? It was point n click, and if I remember correctly, quite funny,
but the game really really sucked in every other criteria; bad graphics,
tedious puzzles and long loading times...
--
§ - The ShapeShifter
Christian Hennecke
wrote:
> The interface being complex full sentence parsers going to a one mouse
> icon pointer that does everything for you.
Full sentence parsers can be nice to have, but only for people who are
very familiar with the game's language. On the other hand I don't like
interfaces like that of Sam & Max where you have to cycle through the
different cursors by right-clicking the mouse repeatedly. Or even
simpler ones where you don't have to choose what to do at all.
Something in between would be best IMHO. Like the classic SCUMM
interface in Monkey Island or Indiana Jones. Oh, and not pixel hunting
please! I have experienced situations where I had to use a walkthrough
just because I didn't notice that something could be interacted with
because the clickable area was to small or the cursor would not mark
things as "interactable" at all too many times.
--
Christian Hennecke
Toony7600
> think it was unique in several ways:
> 1. Completely ray-traced graphics (visually stunning)
> 2. Puzzles integrated with the environment
> The combination of those two items made it a wonderful experience for me.
> It was the first game I ever played that gave me a true feeling of "being
> there" -- which is the best thing an adventure game can do.
Myst has been done before, in the guise of a text adventure called
Zork. Zork is much better than Myst in my opinion but then that game
was based on the first Adventure game Adventure.
> The cynical answer; it proved that it was possible to get huge sales on a
> game. This induced a lot of companies to try making adventure games, some
> of them weren't too bad.
What do you mean that some of them weren't too bad?
> The serious answer; it showed how puzzles could be more than just "pasted"
> in the game. I am not sure if game designers have yet learned the lesson
> they should have.
That was one good aspect of Myst. The puzzles weren't thrown in there
like so many other 7th Guest/Myst clones.
> I am not really sure, but I believe that the advertising strategy for Myst
> was quite different. I remember seeing a billboard ad for Myst in my local
> bookstore; which is a darn sight more useful than ads restricted to gaming
> mags or web sites.
All I remember was that it was a CD only game, I thought it was a huge
game because of the huge storage capacity of the Cd rom. I didn't
think the graphics were all that great, though.
> Besides the usual?
>
> Faust tried a very different idea for telling a story. It wasn't unique --
> Sanitarium beat them to it by a few years.
>
> Nancy Drew is sticking with low production costs for their games, and it
> does seem to be a workable business model.
>
> RealMyst tried a complete game in 3D. Problem is, the computer
> requirements exceeded most gamer's setup.
>
> GK3 tried a floating camera, with the characters following. I actually
> liked the interface, but hated the game. Perhaps this is my best example
> why "new" or "innovative" isn't what's needed to imrove the genre.
I think the Adventure genre needs something, I must be tired of the
same old Adventure game because I have been playing them for 11 years.
How long you been playing Adventure games? I didn't like the way GK3
did it's 3D. It wasn't a 3D game, Redguard is a 3D Adventure game done
right. I hope that Watchmaker does it right or we will all say that 3D
sucks. I didn't like GK3 camera because it ruin the immersation
factor. I felt like Gabriel and Grace were puppets and I have somebody
else in the room an invisible person.
> COMI was a very playable (but derivative) sequel.
> On the other hand. I found Grim Fandango to be a delight.
Grim Fandango had an awful interface, though.
> I honestly don't think adventure games are required to "explore new
> ground", or be "innovative". What they need is the ability to induce me
> with that desire to explore around the next corner or over the next hill.
Yes, well that is important, there are other aspects of consider
besides that such as new innovations. Although that could just be a
gimick that we seen far too much of. Oh well, I guess nothing is wrong
with the same old Adventure game as long as it has a good story and
some decent puzzles, perhaps.
Toony7600
> right back to the beginning.
Nothing new, Infocom has done it since the 80's. Haven't they?
> Myst was also among the first to use sound as part of the puzzles, rather
> than as just an atmospheric enhancer. I don't know if it did anything
> first, but it did several things early, and well, so the cumulative effect
> was of something new.
Myst is just Zork with pretty pictures.
> > The serious answer; it showed how puzzles could be more than just "pasted"
> > in the game. I am not sure if game designers have yet learned the lesson
> > they should have.
>
> As above, that was old news already. If anything, Myst seemed to encourage
> others in the opposite direction.
I agree and most 7thGuest/Myst clones seem to have puzzles thrown in
there for no reason at all just to be there. Shivers 2 is the worse
example of this with Puzzles everywhere, but no intergrated within the
plot. They While I don't like Myst because of it's threadbare story, I
almost felt like that it throwed out what made the Adventure great.
Toony7600
> to the other games. The best I can describe it is that Myst gave me a
> feeling of solving "the environment" instead of being in the environment
> and solving puzzles. I know, that's pretty vague...
I agree with the above. Most Myst clones are actually 7th Guest
clones. Myst didn't have slider block puzzles in it. So the term
should be 7thGuest/Myst clone. Shivers 2 wasn't like that at all, it
had the worse aspects of the genre gone awry. I was in the enviroment
solving puzzles not solving the enviroment in that game.
> If so, then I have to ask "why"?
Because most game designers wanted to make money after Myst did so
well, so they just made the clones as fast as they could and throw in
every bad slider block puzzle in.
Murray Peterson
news:6abc218a.02061...@posting.google.com:
> I think the Adventure genre needs something, I must be tired of the
> same old Adventure game because I have been playing them for 11 years.
> How long you been playing Adventure games?
My wife and I played the original Adventure, and weren't too thrilled. The
next game we played was Myst -- it got us back playing adventures in a big
way.
L. Ross Raszewski
>> I won't dispute that (directly), but Myst seemed to do it so well compared
>> to the other games. The best I can describe it is that Myst gave me a
>> feeling of solving "the environment" instead of being in the environment
>> and solving puzzles. I know, that's pretty vague...
>
>I agree with the above. Most Myst clones are actually 7th Guest
>clones. Myst didn't have slider block puzzles in it. So the term
>should be 7thGuest/Myst clone. Shivers 2 wasn't like that at all, it
>had the worse aspects of the genre gone awry. I was in the enviroment
>solving puzzles not solving the enviroment in that game.
What's interesting about the Shivers series is that it has what I
found to be an engaging and interestign environment, which was totally
disassociated from the puzzles themselves. I generalyl don't like
games where the puzzles feel "pasted on", but the shivers games I
liked on the strength of the environment.
Jenny100
> >
> > Murray wrote:
> > The cynical answer; it proved that it was possible to get huge
> > sales on a game. This induced a lot of companies to try
> > making adventure games, some of them weren't too bad.
>
> What do you mean that some of them weren't too bad?
Timelapse and Obsidian were certainly good.
Toony7600
> next game we played was Myst -- it got us back playing adventures in a big
> way.
Have you played any other text games like some of the Infocom ones?
The one to start out for newbies is perhaps Wishbringer and Seastalker
because they are introductory games. It is hard to get into a text
game, so that is why manuels are a must. Infocom made games according
to skill level which was a pretty good idea. They have Introductory,
Standard, Intermediate, and Expert.
Murray Peterson
>> My wife and I played the original Adventure, and weren't too
>> thrilled. The next game we played was Myst -- it got us back playing
>> adventures in a big way.
>
> Have you played any other text games like some of the Infocom ones?
Not yet. I have the Infocom Treasures II set of games, but haven't started
any of them yet. I have played (and enjoyed) Eric the Unready, Gateway,
and Gateway II, and the free Zork mini-game (the name escapes me at
present).
Arian Hokin
> Myst is just Zork with pretty pictures.
Please don't malign Zork that way - I enjoyed the text-based Zork
games so much more than I did Myst that it wasn't funny. Zork and Myst
have almost nothing in common. :-/
(*) Okay, you literal-minded lot, they're adventure games, and they do
share a fair few of the characteristics of adventure games. But I
meant they share almost nothing distinctive.
Arian
--
Dope-ler Effect: The tendency of a dumb idea
to seem smarter when it's coming at you fast.
ShapeShifter
it in my collection yesterday (urk!)...
--
§ - The ShapeShifter
"ShapeShifter" <mag...@akersmic.no> skrev i melding
news:ae4seh$crn$2...@troll.powertech.no...
erimess
<m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>David Adrien Tanguay <news....@thinkage.ca> wrote in
>> It's hardly unique, or even notable, in the latter. Integrated puzzles
>> go right back to the beginning.
>
>I won't dispute that (directly), but Myst seemed to do it so well compared
>to the other games. The best I can describe it is that Myst gave me a
>feeling of solving "the environment" instead of being in the environment
>and solving puzzles. I know, that's pretty vague...
Not vague at all. And very well stated -- I know exactly what you
mean. Can I quote you if I ever write an offical review of it? (Not
for here -- possibly elsewhere.)
erimess
Who is General Failure and why
is he reading my hard disk?
erimess
<ar...@holly.northnet.com.au> wrote:
>Toony7600 wrote:
>
>> Myst is just Zork with pretty pictures.
>
>Please don't malign Zork that way - I enjoyed the text-based Zork
>games so much more than I did Myst that it wasn't funny. Zork and Myst
>have almost nothing in common. :-/
I agree, except that you have it backwards:
Please don't malign Myst that way. :-)
Murray Peterson
Feel free to quote this all you want. I do need to come up with an
explanation for all those Myst haters -- something that they can at least
understand, even if they can't agree.