The genre

[numble]

Hi Dave,

You remarked in a recent interview that you saw the future of the adventure game genre as being "less geeky." Could you elaborate on what that means? (Feel free to talk about anything possibly related to such a topic)

[dgrossman]

Hah! Yes, I did say that. Well, I suppose what I mean is that a lot of traditional adventure games have focused on the puzzles, and on making them fairly difficult to untangle. This is very, very satisfying to a small segment of the population who really enjoy having to think hard about a puzzle, but tends to turn off the majority (no, really, ask around). While I think the puzzles are necessary for the form, I also think that for adventure games to gain the wider adoption they need to succeed, they need to focus a bit more on things like story and character and a bit less on the brain teasers (= "geeky"). And once they HAVE a broader audience, there will be room for some games to have brain-busting puzzles and some not to, which will make everybody happy.

Sometimes I think about crossword puzzles, and I wonder if they would have become as wildly popular as they were in the early twentieth century had most of them been as difficult as the Saturday New York Times puzzle is now. I think probably not.

[Steve Ince]

Sometimes you can make it more complex rather than more difficult by layering the puzzles on top of each other. The individual parts aren't difficult just the fact that you have so many things to consider at the same time.

[dgrossman]

Indeed, the number of things the player has to think about at once is a critical factor in how interactive drama works, particularly in an adventure game.

Sometimes you can make it more complex rather than more difficult by layering the puzzles on top of each other. The individual parts aren't difficult just the fact that you have so many things to consider at the same time.

[Agustin]

I'm afraid it's true, using difficult puzzles can have a price. Only a small segment can really appreciate them right now. I agree with Dave - the strategy is to draw more people to adventures, and then hope for a newfound diversification in the future. As it is right now, too difficult puzzles can be very risky.

[Diduz]

Interactivity for me is more important than puzzles.
I like to discover new lines, new jokes, exploring the narrative possibilities the game offers to me.

[Kaptain Brawe]

I think that you need to gradually introduce players into your world and build puzzles harder with each step/segment of the game.

For instance, when I released Kaptain Brawe demo, some people had trouble actually using the User Interface. So I added a small tutorial at the start of the game, and adjusted the puzzles to gradually become harder (not harder in terms of using your brain cells, but the amount of information that can lead you to a solution).

Considering myself as an experienced adventure player, had alot of trouble with some games, just because they didn't present you with a clear goal on what you have to do. It ended with me abandoning the game.

On the other hand, pacing is what should really be kept in mind. Since adventure games are a derivative of drama, some rules should be followed, atleast to keep the player/reader interested and wanting for more.

Just my 2 cents.

[Steve Ince]

And working out how to trigger the new lines can be gameplay in itself, of course.

[dgrossman]

Interactivity for me is more important than puzzles.
I like to discover new lines, new jokes, exploring the narrative possibilities the game offers to me.

My wife would agree with you. She doesn't really enjoy the puzzle solving at all. On the other hand, she's completely addicted to Animal Crossing, which seems to me like it would be a good basis for doing some more in-depth story stuff.

[tenochtitlan]

My wife would agree with you. She doesn't really enjoy the puzzle solving at all. On the other hand, she's completely addicted to Animal Crossing, which seems to me like it would be a good basis for doing some more in-depth story stuff.

Animal Crossing as part of an adventure, why not? That would be really new ;D

I also don't like puzzles very much (because I'm not very good at that stuff). But better puzzles than those "hackings on the keyboard" like in Fahrenheit ( that was completely horrible for me).

[Diduz]

On a side note, do you think that "playing"="facing a challenge"?
I mean you can "play" in your life without being challenged. Think about a kid playing with legos. He's not facing a real challenge, but he's still playing, isn't he?
Usually we think that the game designer challenges the player. What if the game-designer played with the player? When Brendan posted the list of random stuff you could do in "Culture Shock" I thought: "That's the real walkthrough to Culture Shock..."

[HeatherLee]

I agree with you Diduz. I think "playing" a game is not the same as "winning" a game. I like doing both.

My favorite games are always those where there are lots of things to play with, but at the same time there are clear goals presented to me so that I know what to do when I'm done exploring.

[dgrossman]

On the subject of play vs challenge, I tend to note these two things:

1) People don't like to be told what to do.
2) People don't like to feel lost.

So I try to come down somewhere in between in terms of how much is a goal I give you and how much you get to dink around on your own.

(Also: 3. Everybody is different about where they like to be between 1 & 2....)

[Davero]

I look at it from a different point of view.
I buy adventure game not to click and watch. Easy adventure games are like interactive movies - if the story is good it can be pleasant (of course!) but it is still just click and watch.
When I want to play not to watch, I want the game to be challenging. Imagine that playing let's say Far Cry or Prince of Persia is limited to easy click here and there because number of people find playing FPS or TPP games too hard for them! Great idea, phew.
If the game doesn't have puzzles (real puzzles, not only tasks like: take a shovel and dig in the only one place where it is possible) it isn't adventure game. It may be sell good, but it is different genre for me close to interactive movie, as I said. And I won't buy it until I want to watch movie.

Of course without story the game would be just logic one not an adventure. Story is important - it is even main part of game for me, but it isn't enough in itself to feel that I'm playing, doing something.