I don't know what games you've been playing, but just because they don't use verb interface doesn't mean adventure games today do everything for the player wh just clicks on everything. You still have to choose the right action, you still can and usually need to look at things and if a door requires something to open it, it's still up to you to figure it out, no adventure game I played ever automatically used an item for me. The interface does exactly the same things, it's just more streamlined.

I love the Monkey Island games, but honestly, the puzles in adventure games I think are often better designed now then they were then, when not making any damn sense was pretty much the norm. The absurdity of many clasic adventure games was such that even to this day it's the prevailing image of adventure games most people seem to have.

Pretty much every game developed by Daedalic (except for Whispered World, becasue seriously- fuck that game). Book of Unwritten Tales. Broken Age (at least the first part).

And one thing- I'm not saying Gilbert is "wrng about everything". I'm sure there will be plenty of fun puzzles in the game, and possibly the pixel hunting will be very limited. I'm saying he's being arogant, rejecting an optional feature helpful for some basically just to satisfy his ego, and ego of "hardcore" gamers somehow hurt by people who'd like to save a little time also being able to play the game and have fun.

It's as if I made an RPG where the player HAS to read every peace of fluff about the game world, every book, newspaper, note or whatever, in it's entirety, even though the game would be just as playable if there was an option no to, because I think that's how one should play RPGs and every other way is wrong, thereby making it super annoying fo people who just want to have fun with the combat or whatever. It's no skin off my back, it doesn't hurt me how they play the game and have fun with it, so why be a dick about how "hardcore" a roleplayer I am?

This should be adobted as the new gold standard in highlight functionality. If you press space you see magnifying glasses where hotspots are. When you click on one and that hotspot is only for the character to talk about it, the character will say his line, and the next time you press space, that magnifying glass is actually GONE, after a while only leaving magnifying glasses of stuff YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE DONE. marvellous.

Also, the help system of the newest Tex Murphy. You need help? Instead of youtube, you can keep in the game, press "help level 1", be ridiculated by the game that you are an idiot (this should be taken out of future incarnations of that system), and if you don't get it, press "level 2" until you get it spelled out for ya. Nobody's getting hurt here, either.

And while I'm on a rant... Did we actually like the 320x200 resolution back in the day? OF COURSE NOT, we all wanted to have infinite squared with trillions of animation frames to make it REAL. So don't treat us now like bad resolution has somehow positive traits.

Too much of politics. Really unnecessary​. And a polemical tone in general. To be fair he stated right away that he's grumpy.

WOOOHOOOO! Thanks GOG! Keep continuing getting good games :-)
If I remeber correctly this was already in one of the first Broken Sword games. Still a very good idea.

Yeah, while I don't think a game has to have a hint system, I definately think it should. Let's be honest, it's not like all those old-school hardcore gamers who now want to see hint systems as something for the stupid and lazy didn't use walkthroughs back then. I'm pretty sure most of us did. It's just that they were harder to get, but we still did end up using them, at least sometimes. A hint system is actually LESS of an "idiot help" than that, and helps keep the game fun, as it only gives you, well, a hint, and not the whole answer like a walkthrough or a YT video. And obviously it's also something totally optional to use or not as the player pleases.

It does have positive traits. When the art is at a lower resolution it becomes more abstract. Things are no longer perfect representations, they become kind of an idea, which people have to fill in the blanks for themselves.

I remember when Ron Gilbert pitched the idea of this game, he wanted to find the "charm" of the old lucas games, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was, so he made a game that looked like it could have came out back then. And looking through the trailers, I certainly think the low res pixel art *was* a part of it.

Well that certainly is true, more serious games never got similar reception as more absurd ones. But that also reflects what most players want from the genre. Newer games like Deponia owe a lot to old Sierra/LucasArts wackiness. On the other hand, we could have a bunch of games that carry the same serious approach, as for intance, Police Quest series. But just like back in the day comedy titles were more popular, they are still more popular today. There are of course exceptions, but generally speaking comedy sells in adventure games.

The same happens in every genre though. Some style becomes the dominating style. There are hilarious FPS games, but the most popular shooters are more serious WW2 games or something.


Yeah well... at least you added that "first part" there.
The second part of Broken Age is hardly well designed, at least if user-friendliness is the measuring point. You need to be running from one far end to another to retrieve a single object, so it's exacly like game were 30 years ago. The knot puzzle doesn't make much sense even if you know how it works. And the last puzzle with several resetting elements is one of the most annoying puzzles ever created.
(I could complain about the transporter too, but let's leave it be...)

I actually started writing a walkthrough for it, but never finished it, because it was just too annoying to replay it. I respect the developer's visions, but personally I think Broken Age is nowhere near as playable as the classic titles are even today.


Well everyone can have their own opinions, but in the end it's the game creator who sets the rules of the game, and other people just have to follow. If developers want to make more money, they probably make the product more appealing to a larger playerbase. But if they want to be true to their own ideas, ideals and visions, they can choose something different.

If you don't like it, don't play it, it's as simple as that.

There are rules in every game. I might like fast sports cars better than horses on the chessboard, but whoever invented chess, chose to have horses there. I can play the game as it was designed, choose some other game, or perhaps create a game of my own. The core problem remains though, not everyone likes the design no matter what the game is, so it's better to be true to whatever vision is behind it rather than compromise it.


No we didn't, because we didn't have any measuring point or alternative. But as soon as games started to "develop", and went 3D, like Simon the Sorcerer 3D or King's Quest 8, it was obvious (to the most of players anyway) that the beatiful handmade pixelart was not only visually better, but also supported the narrative better.

Many variations and experimentations in adventure game art over the decades have shown that the old pixelart is timeless, and using such approach works well even today. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no remake of any game where a later incarnation of the same title would be better than the old graphics.

Monkey Island remakes were generally disliked (and for a good reason). Gabriel Knight remake was not convincing either. Double Fine remakes like DOTT turn the old arts which was hand-crafted to perfection to look like any random Flash game, even if it's quite fateful to the material otherwise.

And no adventure game has used any cutting edge graphical technology since the mid 90s, so I think discussing resolutions or polygons is not really the right approach for adventure games. If someone wants to overheat (and overclock?) the graphics card, it's better to explore other genres. Taking any game from Wadjet Eye shows how the pixelart can be used even today and the games are not in any way hurt by such graphics.

And for the record, pixelart is not easy to create. I have been experimenting with a game idea of my own, and it would be more time consuming to create pixelarts than HD cartoon style.

You're not getting me. I'm not talking about humorous puzzles. I'm talking illogical, nonsensical puzzles. Deponia is a comedy game, but the puzzles make sense. The second and third game in the series are pretty much perfect examples of games that can be completed without any outside help, it all just flows naturally and makes sense, although it is a twisted, weird kind of sense. On the other hand The Dig for example is a "serious" game, but it is unfortunately full of puzzles that make no sense at all.

The second part is a serious dip in quality, no argument there. The first I found to be very fun and interesting and perfectly sensible in it's puzzles, which is why I brought it up.

I never said anything different. But I find it a pretty weak defense. It's basically saying that the best defense of his desing choice is that he is not breaking any laws by making them :D And it's not really adressing my example at all. Of course every developer is and should be free to make desing choices they want. But it does not change the fact that Gilbert is rejecting sensible, fully optional features not for any reasons related to the game itself- they are optional to use, they don't require changing anything in the game - but just because people who have less time to spend on the game or simply are more interested in interacting with the world and characters and the story than solving puzzles still being able to have fun with the game and finish it somehow insults his ego. He's free to design the game like that. I'm free to find that mentality arogant, toxic, and the design choices themselves plain bad.

Not trying to dig too deep into the ongoing debate right now, but I've been waiting my shapely butt off for this.

I haven't, strictly speaking, got much of a nostalgia pang for Zak and Maniac Mansion, though yes actually those were my first p&c adventure games (on the C128). It didn't really click until Monkey Island (Amiga 600). But, woo-hoo, the genre became my absolute favorite and I guess Fate of Atlantis is still my favorite game.

The budget friendly choices Ron Gilbert made here gave him the chance to be writer and coder again at the same time. It enabled him to basically reprogram the SCUMM engine from scratch and make a game mostly with one of his friends, a former LAEC artist. That's it, that's Thimbleweed Park.

It isn't meant as abusing your nostalgia tickle though. It isn't strictly speaking meant to be a game just like those old LucasArts games, as Ron has repeatedly said. It's a game that's supposed to be like you THINK those old LucasArts games were like when you're wearing these thick nostalgia glasses. So, yes, the gameplay will be infinitely less annoying than it really was back in the shit spattered golden days of the adventure game when every game was meant to include a couple of completely senseless ultra hard puzzles which were meant to drive up sales for printed walkthroughs in order to compensate for rampant piracy.

And, really, the understanding Ron has of this genre, which he helped create, is incredible. I expect great things from Thimbleweed Park.

Day One even if he's ramping the price up to 35 or even 40€.

Ha, that's great!
But I assume it's not regularly updated? (no date either)

David Fox will be forever written into video game history books because of the hamster joke, Ron Gilbert's contribution is the monkey wrench :D
I have to admit: It took me some time to figure it out back then. At least I know for sure I solved this puzzle in less than 10 minutes!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e-zdLkpfJkY/U2SAhY_3PjI/AAAAAAAALQ4/F4t64TkQWdA/s1600/scummvm01640.png

Yeah, right. That's what the developers of Monkey Island wanted. Clearly. And not the best realistic graphics possible to make everyone's jaw drop.
Laughing out loud.

If you click on the text below the image you'll see that the website shows the inflation-corrected price for 2016 ($36.73). The 2017 equivalent of $20 from 1990 is slightly higher: $37.16. :P

"We all" was my whole school posse back in the days, the ones who, you know, the games were actually produced for. Of course you're a special snowflake who likes bad resolution. If people like you WOULD HAVE been the majority, companies like Matrox or 3dfx would not have driven the market forwards for us all because people would have been content playing text adventures and/or use old technology. Let me assure you, you were not and thank god for that.

Regarding Ron Gilbert: He didn't really like those and decided against close-ups in TWP for this exact reason!

A non-underlined hyperlink? How should I have guessed that! (well, without a hint system anyways)

Thanks!

I might add that there are also important improvements worth mentioning, first and foremost the ability to actually buy this games again (and secondly that most of them have classic mode included...).
Also being able to play MI1 and MI2 with those now known voices was nice.

Even if features are optional they cost non-optional money/time to implement.
And if it's not an important feature, and he doesn't even like it, well there is a good chance he won't implement it.