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General discussionLosing my touch with adventure games...(43 posts)(43 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 11, 2017
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jamyskis: Daedalic is another for obnoxiously illogical puzzles.
Now that is simply untrue. I have completed Deponia 2, Chains of Satinav, Memoria, 154 Alcatraz and New Beginning all without ever using any walkthrough or hints. And I think Edna & Harvey the Breakout. And in Deponia 3 I only used a walkthrough one single time, and in Harvey's New Eyes I did look up a few things, but honestly, that was just me being impatien and dumb.

Night o the Rabbit and Anna's Quest presented more of a problem, and were not quite as well designed on the puzzle front, but still, Overall Daedalic is a shining example of a adventure game dev for me.
Posted February 11, 2017
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Leroux: Which game was it, btw?
Alpha Polaris. It's literally after the first puzzle, I got the polar bear in a cage, then the other guy told me that he's gonna take a leak and left. I have no clue where to go next. I am very certain that I'm just too dense.
Posted February 11, 2017
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drealmer7: *snip*
but, yes, it is very very very likely that you've gotten worse at them, but don't fret!!! The brain is a muscle and tool and if exercised, it can get back in to shape!

As you get older, depending on how you take care of yourself, the synapses in the brain get "cloggy' and things don't compute as easily or as quickly and the brain function itself has probably deteriorated over time from simple lack of use.
*snip*
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KneeTheCap: This... doesn't sound good :D
It isn't, unless you dilute it with water. Sure, it's "apple cider vinegar," but it's still vinegar. I tried it about a week ago; surprised I kept it down.
Posted February 11, 2017
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jamyskis: To be honest, I think the point & click adventure genre really needs to evolve beyond this "one puzzle, one solution" mentality. Gaming technology has evolved to the point where adventure games can be much more emergent in how they approach problem-solving and could theoretically incorporate physics and dynamic AI to allow alternate solutions to organically evolve.
That's actually a good suggestion. I've always had this love-hate relationship, which has evolved towards a hate-hate relationship, to adventure games. I like to immerse myself to the world and story... but I just hate the gameplay where I am constantly stopped to a halt by puzzles where there is only one possible solution, sometimes not logical at all.

What the OP described, I've had that feeling with adventure games pretty much always, since my childhood. Text-based adventures where you have to write commands were especially bad for me, trying to figure out in what syntax the game wants me to write something I want to do.

I usually get seriously stuck with adventure games early on, and either I stop playing it, or start reading a walkthrough and go by it. I just get so easily bored if the game doesn't advance at all and I am just wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what I am supposed to be doing next.

Most games (in other genres) at least advance almost all the time. Like now that I am playing Fallout Tactics in the insane difficulty level, sure it is quite challenging at times and the biggest missions drag on, but still I feel like I am advancing bit by bit all the time, killing enemies one by one etc.

Not necessarily so with adventure games, I may be stuck with the same puzzle forever.
Post edited February 12, 2017 by timppu
Posted February 12, 2017
Maybe it depends on the game you're playing. I've really enjoyed the more recent adventures by Wadjeyteye games because puzzles in them are logical and you're given enough hints to figure out in general what you should be doing (I still had to use a walkthrough about once or twice in most of those games but I can live with that). By contrast, I find many old adventures from the 1990s, even classics like Monkey Island 2, really frustrating because of their design.
Posted February 12, 2017
I'd agree with jepsen on that nowadays, it's just a lot more difficult to muster up the patience to properly play through tricky adventure games - the temptation of knowing a walkthrough is but a few clicks away can be very hard to resist.
I feel that "modern" adventure games tend to be a lot easier (and often, less frustrating) than the stuff I used to play.
As an example, I remember getting quite severely stuck in each of the Gabriel Knight games, I never once got really stuck properly in either Möbius or Gray Matter...
I don't remember games of yore having game journals that tell you exactly what to do and where to go next, if anything, that's more of a thing now (highlighting hotspots, in-game hints, locking off of "useless" locations).
I prefer games that go for more or less logical solutions (dat goddamned rubber chicken...) that still give you a sense of discovery and accomplishment. Otherwise, they'd just be walking sims ;)
No idea if one can actually "get a lot worse" in playing adventure games... I don't know Alpha Polaris, but maybe it just wasn't a good pick? Maybe try something else to "ease into it"?

Edit: I prefer WadjetEye to Daedalic by a big margin. From what I've played so far, I find the former to have better flowing gameplay, more "logical" approach to puzzles (less "try everything with everything till something works") and Daedalic's humor is sort of meh for me. Horses for courses, obviously...
Post edited February 12, 2017 by WildHobgoblin
Posted February 12, 2017
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Leroux: Which game was it, btw?
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KneeTheCap: Alpha Polaris. It's literally after the first puzzle, I got the polar bear in a cage, then the other guy told me that he's gonna take a leak and left. I have no clue where to go next. I am very certain that I'm just too dense.
Hm, I haven't played that one, so I can't judge its puzzle design. Good point and click adventures usually give you hints on what they expect from you; if you really don't have a clue at all, it might just be badly designed. And like others have pointed out, a lot of them are. There hasn't been that much progress in the genre anymore since the early 90's, many just repeat the same tropes and faulty designs*. Then again, there are actually people complaining when the games are "too easy" because the puzzles are logical, as if getting stuck was half the fun in playing point and click adventures, which is something I don't really get ...

* At the time I played though Gabriel Knight, whenever I got stuck and had to use a walkthrough, I wrote down the reason why I hadn't managed to solve the puzzles myself, just to see if it was actually my fault or due to the design. It turned out to be a good case study on what's often wrong with point-and-click adventures and/or their puzzle design, like:
- pixel hunting
- very far-fetched and illogical solutions without in-game hints
- lack of consistency, sudden change of rules / commands without reason or warning
- railroading, making areas or items inaccessible at certain points in the game, and then have them accessible all of a sudden without giving any notice or hints about that
- messed up chronology (e.g. in dialogues the player character suddenly knows things the player hasn't discovered yet, because the developers didn't take into account that someone might do things in a different order than they had planned)
- labyrinths
- dead ends (to be fair, I didn't notice any dead ends in GK2, but all the other issues were present)
Post edited February 12, 2017 by Leroux
Posted February 12, 2017
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Leroux: Then again, there are actually people complaining when the games are "too easy" because the puzzles are logical, as if getting stuck was half the fun in playing point and click adventures, which is something I don't really get ...
Neither do I, but it's not like that's only specific to point & clicks. In pretty much every genre you'll find "hardcore alpha gamers" who love it when the game is ultra hard in some ridiculous ways, and then even then they decide they need to use an electric toothbrush as a controler to make it even harder so they can really show off their mad skillz ;)
Posted February 12, 2017
yes, the problem is more a flooded genre with poor titles that it is hard to find what you're looking for

STASIS

The Longest Journey

did you all see BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION hopefully getting made?!

these guys are rejuvinativng, revitalizing, and revolutionizing the genre
Post edited February 12, 2017 by drealmer7
Posted February 12, 2017
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drealmer7: yes, the problem is more a flooded genre with poor titles that it is hard to find what you're looking for
Bah, given how the genre was almost dead a decade ago or so, it warms my heart to think of it as "flooded" nowadays.
Posted February 12, 2017
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drealmer7: yes, the problem is more a flooded genre with poor titles that it is hard to find what you're looking for
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Breja: Bah, given how the genre was almost dead a decade ago or so, it warms my heart to think of it as "flooded" nowadays.
I think there are different interpretations of the genre being "dead". One is no new games being produced anymore, the other is no true evolution, even the new titles being stuck in the past. I haven't played Stasis yet and now I'm even more curious to try it and see whether it actually brings something new to the table, but I think for many point-and-click adventures it is true that the ones that are created these days aren't that different from the ones that were created back then, which can be both good and bad, depending on your viewpoint. The resolutions are higher sometimes, but the gameplay and puzzle design is often exactly the same as in the early 90's. That's because point-and-click is a niche genre with no real money to support it, but lots of nostalgic fans and developers who are nostalgic fans themselves.

There are certain modern developments in the general adventure genre, like the so called Walking Simulators that do away with the puzzles for the sake of storytelling and exploration, or the Telltale way that puts more emphasis on (literally) roleplaying your character by making decisions, and many other genres have evolved to include rich storytelling and puzzle elements that were the prominent features of point-and-clicks back in the days (action adventures, boss battles, story driven FPS etc.). But the classic point-and-click adventures, even though they are still made and bought again, are still the classic point-and-click adventures, with all their old fortes, weaknesses and flaws, using the same old formulas. And if they don't and try something new, chances are the nostalgic fans of the niche genre will claim that these aren't "real" or "classic" point-and-click adventures anymore, so maybe by definition alone, classic point-and-click adventures can't really evolve anymore?
Post edited February 12, 2017 by Leroux
Posted February 12, 2017
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jepsen1977: It's just harder today to have patience with a game than it was 10-20 years ago if you get stuck.
UI differences, what was popular at the time, the grindy level of programming/planning, overhead for making your own grid maps or notes, etc. A lot of this stuff has been phased out or changed. Getting back into them is difficult to say the least, especially when you've aged enough. Some of us aren't as young as we used to be, or as forgiving and hard headed to staying on the hardcore path as we used to be.
Posted February 12, 2017
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Breja: Bah, given how the genre was almost dead a decade ago or so, it warms my heart to think of it as "flooded" nowadays.
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Leroux: I think there are different interpretations of the genre being "dead". One is no new games being produced anymore, the other is no true evolution, even the new titles being stuck in the past. I haven't played Stasis yet and now I'm even more curious to try it and see whether it actually brings something new to the table, but I think for many point-and-click adventures it is true that the ones that are created these days aren't that different from the ones that were created back then, which can be both good and bad, depending on your viewpoint. The resolutions are higher sometimes, but the gameplay and puzzle design is often exactly the same as in the early 90's. That's because point-and-click is a niche genre with no real money to support it, but lots of nostalgic fans and developers who are nostalgic fans themselves.

There are certain modern developments in the general adventure genre, like the so called Walking Simulators that do away with the puzzles for the sake of storytelling and exploration, or the Telltale way that puts more emphasis on (literally) roleplaying your character by making decisions, and many other genres have evolved to include rich storytelling and puzzle elements that were the prominent features of point-and-clicks back in the days (action adventures, boss battles, story driven FPS etc.). But the classic point-and-click adventures, even though they are still made and bought again, are still the classic point-and-click adventures, with all their old fortes, weaknesses and flaws, using the same old formulas. And if they don't and try something new, chances are the nostalgic fans of the niche genre will claim that these aren't "real" or "classic" point-and-click adventures anymore, so maybe by definition alone, classic point-and-click adventures can't really evolve anymore?
Well, I guess that by definition something "classic" can't evolve and remain "classic", be it point & click adventure games, RTSes, dungeon crawlers, FPSes... all genres can evolve, but such a "evolved" game won't be a "classic" one any more.

You could switch it around and say that if the entire genre evolves and the classic-style games are no longer made, then that "classic" sub-genre is dead, even if the genre as a whole, in it's new form, thrives.

I like to have the best of both world (who doesn't?) and know that some games like Stasis (which I have not played and likely never will due to my utter lack of interest in horror games) push the envelope, while I still get the classic p&c games I love so much. It would be a shame to lose them for the sake of "innovation above all". I like the fact that when I play a new one I instantly know exactly how to play it, don't have to learn the ropes, just dive right into the story and the game world. There is purity in their simplicity, it's just you and the puzzles, it's not about your reflexes or grinding, or fidning ways to exploit something about leveling up or finding a perfect build for your character. And they're perfect for telling good stories. And as long as we get new original stories, characters, settings I don't think we can speak of stagnation, even if the basic gameplay remains the same.
Post edited February 12, 2017 by Breja
Posted February 12, 2017
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Leroux: Then again, there are actually people complaining when the games are "too easy" because the puzzles are logical, as if getting stuck was half the fun in playing point and click adventures, which is something I don't really get ...
Not necessarily. I did point out that logical puzzles often do tend to be too easy, but also that illogical puzzles tend to be almost impossibly hard without systematically combining actions with the contents of your inventory. These are the two extremes of poor game design in P&C adventures.

The best P&C puzzles are the ones that have you scratching your head and leave you with a distinct feeling of satisfaction when you've solved them, or alternatively, have you kicking yourself that you should have thought of that yourself when you read up the solution in a guide.

The least satisfaction is to be gained from a puzzle that you happened to solve by systematic combination or a guide and you cannot figure out for the life of you how you were supposed to have chanced upon that solution by logical, rational means.

For me, Revolution is the only developer to have come close in this regard (the goat puzzle in the original Broken Sword notwithstanding).
Post edited February 12, 2017 by jamyskis
Posted February 12, 2017
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jamyskis: For me, Revolution is the only developer to have come close in this regard (the goat puzzle in the original Broken Sword notwithstanding).
Broken Sword 5 was disapointing though. Easy puzzles in the first half, which they got criticism for. followed by some impossible puzzles near the end and a ridiculous story arc. Worth playing for fans of the series none the less.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionLosing my touch with adventure games...(43 posts)(43 posts)
(43 posts)