Gaming How to write... an Adventure game

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/10/08/how_to_write_an_adventure_game/1

As part of our continuing feature on game design, we chat to Dave Grossman (Sam and Max) and David Cage (Fahrenheit) about how adventure games are written. Whether you're a budding game designer or just a fan with a passion for puzzles, you'll be sure to find this interesting.

Digg for win

 

Stonking article! I don't think adventure games are dead though - check out the new Sam and Max Episodes. Also bear in mind the fact that many of the best RPGs now include adventure-esque elements, like Star Wars: KOTOR.

Finally, Penny Arcade AdventureS: OTRSPOD could single-handedly revive interest in the genre, at least among gaming 'enthusiasts'.

 

Leisure suit larrry Cheesecake

(well apart from cum laude)

 

Excellent article!

Tho I was hoping to see some references to a few more classic adventure games, like "Below the Root" or "Zak McKracken" -- they were defining moments in my very young, C64 life

 

Below the root unfortunately passed me by, but Zack Mckraken was an awesome game - though admittedly I didn't get really into adventure games until Monkey Island 1

 

I loved all the old adventure games my favs were DOTT, Full Throttle and Beneath a Steel Sky - the newer games like myst etc didnt apeal to me for some reason. By that time I had already moved onto the 'stimulation' of the first person genre.

Looking forward to what adventure the orange box holds \o/

 

i have just graduated from teesside uni doing computer games design and this is what i specialised in which made it damn hard to get a good final year mark. Excellent article and believe me that genre isnt dead. I can't wait for the london games career fair in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna go throw myself at the feet of the lucasarts recruiters and write the new monkey island game.

One of the things i loved about the old point and click genre is the longevity of the games. I played them when i was a kid and continued to play the same games right up until now. I've completed all of the lucasarts games repeatedly and i never find them boring.

 

Drop me an email and let me know how you get on - it's always good to have developer/journalist connections and we can doubtlessly help each other out in the future if you DO end up making a new monkey island game

 

No problem, a mate of mine put me onto bit tech a while ago and he kept telling me to apply for one of the writing jobs here on bits or game reviews and ive not managed to get round to it due to moving house then breaking my rig and finally landing an office job to survive down here in London. Needless to say if i do get into the industry and i get a scoop on anything youre the first guys i'm coming too {^_^} (assuming im not bound by an NDC lol)

 

I am adventure game fan. However I sure am picky (didn't like maniac mansion etc.), and I regularly check http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/

My favorite has still got to be the longest journey, and the Journeyman Project Games, and myst. Those are the ones I go back to play maybe up to three time now. More recently I played the underrated blade runner game and finally the syberia games. This was a good read but I think you should have opened the article image with Circle of Blood. The only Monkey Island I ever bought and liked was Curse of Monkey island. Of course I am a younger gamer and I guess it's just harder for me to go back and appreciate and play really anything before like 95'ish.

I really want to get my hands on a copy of Full Throttle <_<;

Indigo Prophecy was an ok game. Great story and characters. But it kinda lost itself towards the end with the whole "I'M AN ELECTRIC BAD GUY" stuff, that one sneaking mission on the military base was laaaaame. Also I played the european version and the sex mini-game was terrible. I was like WHYYY?! I think the game gets a little to much credit for being a simon-says adventure game pretty much. It was like the shenmue meets guitar hero or something. The game most definitly just seems like rushed and bad towards the end. Like even the characters become no longer all that realistic.

Coolest part though was the underground hobo movement!

 

anyone who loved the old lucasarts games like me but couldnt get them to play properly anymore in xp/vista may want to take a look at this

http://www.scummvm.org/

works like a dream, i went through the whole monkey island series and the old indiana jones and DOTT games using this.

 

it says in your article, that point and click was arkward on consoles. dont for get the playstation had a mouse...so did the snes.
discworld came out for the playstation, and if i recall correctly, it would allow you to use the mouse.

these were days before analogue..... on the megadrive, and snes, but other mouse games worked well, like cannon fodder.

if you have enough patience to play adventure games, you'd have had enough patience to use a joy pad in place of a mouse. don't forget that adventure games, are usually devoid of fast action, and rapid clicking (except that fight in the Indiana series)

Also, when is someone going to re-make dizzy on the tomb raider engine? wouldnt that be nice

 

hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
if you don't feed the dog early on in the game then much much later you would get eaten by it

 

Don't forget that the early Lucasarts adventure games on the C64 (Maniac Mansion, Loom, Zak McCracken etc) were only playable with an 8-way digital joystick. That made "hunt the hotspot" fun, I can tell you

 

i kind of agree with that, i was never able to find a mouse for the playstation to buy. Instead i willed the cursor accross the screen in broken sword. I did admittedly complete it and i think it was this test of patience that prepared me for call centre work later in life. But alas the 3d efforts of alot of the adventure games that were being aimed at the consoles frustrated me beyond the point of no return.

 

True, the playstation had a mouse - but how many people do you know who actually had one? I was a hardcore gamer even back then and nobody I knew wanted to make the effort!

I must confess I forgot that Maniac Mansion needed the joystick though - I remember only playing it with the keyboard. Before that I was more involved in IF adventure games, and made a few myself.

 

Yeah, and the SNES had a mouse too. It was sorta useful in Mario Paint, and almost useless in Jurassic Park. Anywhere else?

 

the only non-flash adventure game ive played is the neverhood, that game had be stuck for something like 6 years until one day in science when that bloody bobby machine suddenly made soon

 

The fact stays that the playtime of one adventure is longer then any singleplayer shooter combined. I just loved all siera/westwood/lucasarts adventures from the past, and its locked in my "memorylane/nostalgia" part of my brain till i die.

 

Day of the Tentacle is a title I'll never forget. One of the first games i played on PC (or was it amiga?!). I once managed to get a german version on my PDA, but due to lack of deutch-skills i never ended up completing it again.