On my right side there is a door, the door squeaks when I try to open it and alerts the guards.

"NO PROBLEM", I say. I will just go to the guy who was talking about some tropical oils few conversations back and I will use that to lubricate the door.

The guy doesn't appear anymore.

There is a key on my left side that opens a different area, but I can not reach it.

"NO PROBLEM", I will just go to they guy that I know has a pair of extendable hands he uses to pick fruit and ask him to lend them to me.

I go to him and can not even start a conversation about it.

That was five hours ago...

I love classic adventure games, but this is why I don't play them as often as I would want. Last game I played was Dragonsphere and [spoiler alert] in one part you go through a portal. You know portals, magical non-physical things, you can't even touch them, you go through it. But, NO ! I had to use a pair of tentacles to pickup up the portal, a non-physical objects I went through several times, like it was physical like glass. [spoiler end] I got so frustrated I haven't played a adventure game since and now I'm in this impossible looking situation again. Sometimes you really need to think outside the box, and sometimes the solution looks so logical and obvious, that when it doesn't work, you start thinking maybe you encountered a bug in the game code. Also there were games where the interaction command didn't register and I ended up missing a thing I actually already tried.

Just wanted to release some steam...

I recognise what you're saying and I agree that that kind of game design is flawed, but I'm more or less okay with it as long as the game doe point me in the right direction, i.e. the game should contain hints and indications towards the solution of the puzzle.

To be fair, adventure games are like any other genre: Some games do stuff right, others just suck and screw up the stuff that you'd think they'd have ironed out in playtesting.

The "this puzzle makes no sense" thing is often referred to as "moon logic", whereby the logic is so loony that pretty much only the dev's brain could figure out what was supposed to be going on there. Perhaps even worse is the dreaded "I have 5 different things sitting here that could all work, but the game wants this ONE THING to solve the puzzle".

I've never personally played Dragonsphere, but from what I understand of it, it's pretty rough to say the least. In truth, most "classic" adventure games (i.e. Sierra era) were often frustrating and had the player dying every 5 minutes in a struggle to figure out what the heck was happening. I would highly advise sticking to the LucasArts era and onwards. And remember, if it's just THAT bad, there ain't no shame in using a walkthrough. It's a game. You're supposed to have fun, not bang your head against a wall for 5 hours.

Dragonsphere is definitely for the hardcore adventure game fans (in other words, not me). There's puzzle in, one in the maze with different coloured pixies and even with a walkthrough, the puzzle is STILL obtuse as hell. Other parts of Dragonsphere I got stuck on because of the clumsiness of the old interface.

Ever try Lure of the Temptress? I rage quit that game. There's a part in the game where you have a certain amount of time to search a house but due to time being wasted by NPCs bumping into each other, you can't time it properly. I tried doing the logical thing like close the door behid me because the door is mean't to be locked and if the door is closed, it won't arouse suspicion, but the orc thingy still enters the house regardless, punching you out, causing game over.

Adventure games are a weird genre for me, either I really like them or really hate them.

Oh, gosh. That whole game was just so terrible. I didn't dare play it without a walkthrough, which was frustrating enough. I spent the entire time wondering how in the world anybody could figure any of that out WITHOUT a walkthrough.

I did the same thing when I got to the town area, got myself a walkthrough, but getting anywhere was a hassle when the PC and NPCs keep bumping into each other. getting frustrated before eventually asking myself why I even cared to finish it :P.

To be honest, I thought the game started off promising but went downhill fast when you get out of the dungeon area.

Some adventure game devs must be huffing glue or something when they make games. Teen Agent is another stupid adventure game that I needed a walkthrough to finish because the puzzles made no sense.

SPOILER ALERT: You need to get past a beehive. The logical thing would be to just ignore the hive and walk past anyways but according to the game, you get safely past the beehive by knocking it out of the tree onto the ground that you walk INCHES AWAY FROM and you knock the hive out of the tree with a dart you make from a needle, pine cone and feather. The pine cone is stuck on the back of a hedgehog. You have a glove in your inventory but that's not the solution. You have to distract the hedgehog with a wax apple ignoring the fact that hedgehogs are insectivores...

Seriously, who thinks up this stuff......?

Was it Ron Gilbert, in an interview, who was saying that old adventure games were the first multiplayer games ? In the sense that discussing solutions and exchanging hints with other players (in real encounters, not on internet time speed) was a whole dimension of the pleasure, and made the obscure logic of the solutions more amusing...

I disagree about adventure games being more flawed than any other genre. Pretty much every game genre is full of extremely stupid stuff. It's just that most gamers don't really care.

AI in most FPS is just there to provide fodder for the player, but monsters (and any other kind of enemy) in most FPS are always inane and only admisible in flawed game logic. And let's not forget that many of them also have some kind of puzzle. I guess noone cares that the key to a door on the other side of a level is just at the end of a long dead end corridor. Just because. Or bullet sponge enemies. And then we have the loot...

...which leads us to RPGs, that encompasses all the issues from every other genre. Plus stealing and killing people in
front of everyone with no repercussions or abstract combat systems that most of the time makes no sense if you look at it logically, and that new improved and "real" graphics have made all the worst (real rpg systems like Alpha Protocol really suffered from this disconnect).

Strategy games also suffer from many of the flaws. Turn-based systems (which I really like) never made any logical sense. And you get stuff like civilization, with and swordmen destroying and army of tanks or whatever...

There are many examples more than those listed, but for whatever reason most people are ok with all of that, but not on adventure games.

I've only played a small handful of classic adventure games, but your plight definitely brings King's Quest V-VI to mind. Although my experiences weren't nearly as bad as those who suffered during the pre-Internet days, I totally understand their frustrations. Forcing players to forfeit long games just because they made an innocent mistake early on is really cruel, and even the "save early, save often" mantra isn't guaranteed to help in every situation. That being said, I kind of agree with rgnrk that this doesn't necessarily make adventure the most flawed genre. Bad design can ruin any number of genres, and there'll always be a bunch of games in each category that get it right.

You should try playing some of the text adventures from spectrum and before era. Not only did you have to type exactly, but the logic was sometimes deliberately obtuse, use chicken on rake, type thing.

Probably because they don't have much else going for them, in terms of gameplay. In other games you can disregard the logic and just have fun regardless, in adventure games the logic is everything that stands between you and progress. If you don't understand it, you'll get stuck, frustrated and bored pretty quickly.

Come on. Atlantic Fleet's turn-based torpedoes are simply very well groomed. Stopping, looking left and right and letting the ships pass, before crossing the road in their turn.

I'd argue that one of the biggest mistakes of the adventure genre has been the necessity to compensate the lack of gameplay with intricate puzzles.

I'm glad that contemporary adventure games have (with the help of technological improvements) realized that they could deliver better experiences by relying increasingly on narrative (world building, character development, dialogue, plot structure, etc.) rather than propositional logic.

Thankfully, the boundaries of the adventure genre are expanding and its definition is getting more complex and inclusive. Games like Oxenfree or Virginia are a testament to that, but also recent games that tend to replicate the classic adventure game formula are much better interactive experiences because of that evolution, Gemini Rue comes to mind for example.

Well, this is only my take on the matter but for me, it's always been more interesting the idea of interactive storytelling (even when my interaction is absurdly limited as in games like Dear Esther) than interaction for interaction's sake (trying to cram nonsensical puzzles here and there to insert artificial challenges, lengthen the game's duration, etc.).

Yeah, while I also enjoyed the puzzle gameplay of adventure games back in the days, I've always been more interested in their narrative side, exploration, funny dialogues and remarks. Personally I'm always a bit baffled when I read other players' complaints that an adventure game is too easy or that it doesn't have enough tricky puzzles, but I guess that's just due to my own preferences. I just enjoy a flowing story more than one that's constantly interrupted by things that have very little to do with the overall plot and just distract from it.

IMO, the biggest problem of classic adventure games is linearity combined with rigid inflexibility when it comes to the puzzles. If we take rgnrk's example of Civ here, it's illogical that a swordfighter would defeat a panzer division, but there are so many alternative options on how you could attack it, or even ignore it, flee it, let it come to you, try to negotiate a peace treaty etc. If Civ was a classic adventure game, it might *expect* you to attack the panzer division with your swordfighter at some point, without explicitly telling you so, any other units or tactics wouldn't work, and you could only make further progress in the game once you've figured out this rather illogical solution, despite of all the alternatives you can think of.

I guess it would be pretty complicated to make an adventure game with lots of alternative problem solutions though, so modern adventure games try to avoid this issue by moving away from rigid puzzles that are harder to figure out, and try to break up the linear storytelling and lack of other gameplay elements by introducing exclusive (pre-defined) choices that feel important (even though they often aren't). That way at least you get some kind of working illusion about there being different solutions on how to deal with situations in the game.

To me, many of the problems in the "quest solving adventure genre" are due to the genre being one of the most archaic genres out there, possibly the most archaic.

The reason why there used to be so many adventure games back then was because adventure games are easy to develop, and they don't take much of computing resources. How many other gaming genres do you know which can be developed completely by using a text-based parser mechanism?

In its simplest form, adventure game is nothing but just going from a room to room (or rather, a situation a situation), and you will be stuck there until you figure out what exactly the game wants you to type (or click or "use"), after which you are allowed to proceed to the next "room" with yet another "puzzle".

A wizard blocks the road. What do you do?

- Kill wizard with sword.
Wizard blocks your strike and laughs at you. You die.

- Kick wizard to balls.
You accidentally kick yourself to your chin. You die.

- Tell wizard to move aside.
Wizard says no, and kills you. You die.

- Use match with spray deodorant.
You burn wizard to ashes with your temporary flamethrower! Congrats! You move west, and an ogre blocks your way. What do you do?

Basically anyone could create a simple adventure game quite easily, as long as one knew some simple programming language like BASIC. Just some if-then-else, one after another.

Sure more advanced computer games have extra something like a parser which understands more complicated and alternative sentences, more advanced (like click and point) interfaces than mere text parser... but in its core, adventure games are probably the simplest gaming genre out there.

I think that is why we see less "pure" adventure games nowadays as well, and why people don't care as much for them. Now we have so much more computing power and stuff that there is no reason to limit oneself to a mere adventure genre. Heck, at least make it a RPG while you are at it, add some combat and stats.


The thing is, many (me included) wouldn't consider it as a game, if it didn't have anything that tries to prevent you from advancing. Something that you must overcome before you can proceed with the game.

In classic adventure games that "something" are the puzzles, quite often related to using items you find in the game at right places, sometimes together. They are the only thing the preventing you just simply walking through the game.

If you take the puzzles out, would it necessarily be a game at all anymore, or merely a digital storybook? You just walk to the next screen to get the next part of the story? A bit like just clicking on "next" to read an electronic storybook.