Let's complain about adventures...

[edmundito]

I'm sure we're all hear for the good reason that we like adventure games, right? But I bet we all agree that there are some things in adventure games (sometimes based on the developer) that we really dislke. So, I created this thread to point out these things; maybe we can learn from them. Maybe I'll write a website with the information that'll be gathered here or somethign.

I'll point out a few examples to see what I'm talking about:

Walking dead - when you miss something in an earlier puzzle and you're basicly stuck forever without really knowing it. This happens in sierra games from time to time. This just... pisses me off

Dying for stupid reasons - Ok, maybe in the days of text adventures this made sense, but with point and click it's extremely hard to click in the right place sometimes. It's like you were playing warcraft and all of the sudden you click in a deep region of water all the people you have selected go there and drown. Dumb!

I think it was Pumaman/Chris who said once that he hated the whole LucasArts thing where you try to use an object, and the main char walks all the way to it and says "I can't do that!" wasting your time waiting for him to get there and do absolutely nothing. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, now it's your turn. I have more things to point out, but I'll just wait and give the chance to someone else to do it. If nobody does, then I'll point them out later.

[DragonRose]

Sudden endings with loose ends: Kings Quest 8. Torins Passage. What the heck happened here?  There is nothing left to do so... we'll end the game right now! We'll leave Connor stranded in that funky Temple! We'll ignore the fact that Torin supposedly fell in love and is supposed to be King! We'll just end. Boom. Done. Cut and Print.

[Esseb]

Kings Quest 8? I believe the topic was adventure games Dragonrose.

I hate badly designed puzzles, which is endemic to amateur adventure games sadly.

[MillsJROSS]

I hate newer games that make the character walk over to something to use it. But only when, lets say, the character goes up to something to flip a switch, so they walk there and their is no animation of the character flipping the switch, it flips on its own. I think older adventure games, it was more accepted, because the games were so short, and you could only fit soo much into a game, that it made the game take longer (which for some old games, works well, considering today you could beat them in an hour). With new adventure games, that are long, though, this isn't needed. The game is long enough, just have the switch do it's thing without the character moving, or have the character move to the switch, just make an animation where the character does just that.

I also don't like games where you don't have a map, or a fairly easy way to get everywhere in the game. If it takes me more than three screens to get somewhere, it aggravates me, more so, if I have to go right back. This is also tied in with, characters that go accross the whole screen, where one isn't able to simply double click and go to the next screen.

I also don't like when I play a game, and can find a solution that makes more sense than the one that actually is involved. I don't blame anyone, because different people think in different ways, but sometimes I'll be stuck thinking logically, and that doesn't always work.

Looooong cutscenes, where you can't save.  A gripe about ags, and actually any game engine, it would be nice to be able to save while using a diolog. Becuase I can't count the times (in TLJ more than any other game), where a cutscene would start and it would be sooo long, and I'd end up having to leave for something, and having to quit the program and restart the cutscene from a previosly saved game, some other time.

Walking dead, but only in new adventure games. I think sierra's walking dead were needed, when one considers the length of the games.

Bad voice acting, or just bad diolog. It just pisses me off (unless its a free AGS game).

Not enough hotspots to interact with. An adventure game should open up a world to you, not just only really allow you to solve the puzzles (Syberia).

No music. I like to listen to something while I'm playing a game. Mind you, I don't want anything that makes me want to tear my hair out. Something catchy, or just something that provides atmosphere.

And this has more to do with amatuer games, but games that don't provide a menu screen so that everytime you play them you have go through the intro cutscene.

That's all for now.

-MillsJROSS

[DGMacphee]

Endless shitty sequels.

[Eggie]

Twiddle Puzzles/ Action sequences.
Okay, these CAN be done well but more often than not they're just bunged in there with no warning.

Also, Dialogs that don't feel like a real conversation. Y'know where you just have a list of options and character says the same thing each time.

[Finer]

Building a complex solution to a yet unpresented puzzle.

Whenever I am half stuck, I start using inventory items with other inventory items in the hope for something to happen, suddenly I find that some do mix into some complex or bizarre contraptions, seemingly without any reason for these objects to go together. Of course this is supposed to be an original solution to a puzzle. Problem is, often I haven't yet encountered the puzzle! Or maybe I have seen the puzzle and didn't take any notice of it, in which case, it's fair enough.

I think it would be more logical to wait until the character we are controlling arrives to the puzzle, so he/she has a reason to mix the previously unrelated inventory items. Before this happens, the character should refuse to mix, argueing that it wouldn't make sense.

I can understand why the game would allow us to do this, so that if we are really stuck, we can at least start building the final inventory item, but this just makes me feel cheated when I solve the puzzle, as I already had the solution built, without knowing why. It would also make the protagonist more believable, as it feels like it's reacting to the game in a realistic and human maner.

[edmundito]

Building a complex solution to a yet unpresented puzzle.

Whenever I am half stuck, I start using inventory items with other inventory items in the hope for something to happen, suddenly I find that some do mix into some complex or bizarre contraptions, seemingly without any reason for these objects to go together. Of course this is supposed to be an original solution to a puzzle. Problem is, often I haven't yet encountered the puzzle! Or maybe I have seen the puzzle and didn't take any notice of it, in which case, it's fair enough.

I think it would be more logical to wait until the character we are controlling arrives to the puzzle, so he/she has a reason to mix the previously unrelated inventory items. Before this happens, the character should refuse to mix, argueing that it wouldn't make sense.

I can understand why the game would allow us to do this, so that if we are really stuck, we can at least start building the final inventory item, but this just makes me feel cheated when I solve the puzzle, as I already had the solution built, without knowing why. It would also make the protagonist more believable, as it feels like it's reacting to the game in a realistic and human maner.

This kind of reminds me of that part from The Longest Journey where you need that tool to open the fuse box by the movie theater, and what you have to go is go back to venice and do all that stuff with the machine and whatnot. I thought It was kind of obscure and didn't make much sense (obviously the first time I did it I had to go to gamefaqs and get a hint from the walkthrough  

[Harvester]

Pixel hunting! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!

[Raggit]

I may get yelled at for saying this but:

I'm kinda sick of seeing AGSers making "joke" games or comedy game all the time.

I don't have a problem with comedy games, but I think we should also try to make some more serious games now and then.  I find serious games to be alot of fun, just in a different way!  

[Duzz]

A disproportionate amount of the longer ags games are serious (compared to short games): Uncertenty machine, pleurgburg, the KQ's, Bestowers of Eternity, etc
The fact that most AGS games are short is one of the reasons that there's so many comedies. It's hard to have a short game that develops characters and plot enough to be serious without being cheesy.  It's definately possible though (look at Mourir en Mer...)
I think a lot of people are daunted by the thought of working on a serious game for this reason (I know I was)
In my opinion, a serious game is much more difficult to create in this genre. (but ultimately more rewarding)


The only thing I can add to the topic is that I really don't like the SCUMM interface.  Unless you can right click to scroll through the functions.  It gives me the irrates.  Plus it takes up so much space on the screen...

[TerranRich]

This kind of reminds me of that part from The Longest Journey where you need that tool to open the fuse box by the movie theater, and what you have to go is go back to venice and do all that stuff with the machine and whatnot. I thought It was kind of obscure and didn't make much sense (obviously the first time I did it I had to go to gamefaqs and get a hint from the walkthrough  

I just recently got through that part. I managed to figure out everything on my own, except the part where you have to turn off the water to get the clamp. I tried hovering over every single hotspot I could find. But somehow I managed to miss the little valve near the top-left area of the screen. I had to cheat just to get that one part. Otherwise, I didn't find it very obscure. Maybe I've been playing too many adventure games.  :o

[Dave Gilbert]

This isn't about the games per se, but I have a problem with AGSers releasing their games and saying that it sucks.  "It's my first game.  It sucks.  Play it."  Whatever happened to being proud of what you do?  Ever hear of PR?  If the author thinks his/her game sucks, I certainly have no desire to play it.

[Raven_Gray]

Well, I agree with alot thats been said so far. Pixel hunting, walking dead, unreasonable dieing. All very very good things, but here are a few that havn't been said which really #*@! me off...

LONG cutsceenes where you can't load/override: Everytime I start up a Carver Island game I want to strangle  the creator for not making a titlescreen which includes a LOAD button. I have to sit through his 3 hour introsceenes, where I usually get up to get coffee or somthing. I mean, at least allow the player skip though it after watching it the first time!!

NEW games which use the OLD interfaces:
It just drives me up the wall! Yes, I know that we all used to use them to when there wasn't anything better, but DEAR GOD peoples, its 2003! New games who use the standard 9-button Give, Pick up, Use, Open, Look at, Push, Close, Talk to, Pull  GUI's should be thrown into the infernal blazes of the Underworld until they are nothing more than squishy blobs of melted pixels!!

Hey, I feel a lot better getting that off my chest. Toodel-oo peoples.

[DragonRose]

Kings Quest 8? I believe the topic was adventure games Dragonrose.

I'm not quite sure whether you're joking or not. Either way, zing!

Another big annoyance of mine is overuse of random stuff.  I'm thinking like in the Kings Quest games where monsters randomly appear and you have no way to prepare.  I think the only one where there wasn't random death was KQ6.  Wizards in 1, 2 and 3; sharks in the water in 4; scorpions in the desert of 5, and the Boogy man in 7.  Also random things that you NEED to appear to finish the game.  Like the whale in KQ4, or that fuzzy brown thing that I can't remember what it's called in the Black Cauldron... Roberta Williams seemed to have a bit of a hang up on randomness.  

Final annoyance, then I'm going to stop posting in this thread. Un-obvious visual clues.  In KQ7, if the "stick that looks like a snake" was pointing down, you could get into the Boogyman's house. If it was pointing up, you should run away.  The problem is, a snake looks like a squiggly line. So does a branch.  Which of the dozens of branches on the screen looks like a snakey squiggle as opposed to a branchy squiggle?

[Eggie]

NEW games which use the OLD interfaces:
It just drives me up the wall! Yes, I know that we all used to use them to when there wasn't anything better, but DEAR GOD peoples, its 2003! New games who use the standard 9-button Give, Pick up, Use, Open, Look at, Push, Close, Talk to, Pull  GUI's should be thrown into the infernal blazes of the Underworld until they are nothing more than squishy blobs of melted pixels!!

So..um...whats the new and better interface we SHOULD be using?

[m0ds]

Walk to, look at, use, abuse.

The things that annoy me are dying in adventure games (seems to be quite a common annoyance to others too!). Also, bizarre, unexplainable puzzles like use brush with spit roast to create Sprootyrooty fumes that kill the Blibabagabab Aliens. I mean, wtf?

But then, I'm not a big fan of fantasy where you might see something like that.

I don't like getting stuck. Well, okay, I can handle it providing there is a clue. Even if the clue is ten screens back, I prefer having some clue to no clue.

I've always wanted a way also to know which Inventory items to mix with each other. I've always mixed them by chance, never because of any hints or anything.

m0ds

[BerserkerTails]

Wow... It looks like I'm the only one who likes the over-abundance of dying in adventure games. I mean, I don't like dying for no apparent reason, but nothing pleased me more back in the day than saving my game, then seeing what happened when I walked too close to that snake... Heh...

I can see how this could be an annoyance in amature games though. With not many game designers taking the time out to make animation after animation, most deaths would just be text based and boring.

[Duzz]

yeah, I like game you can die in, as long as there's no dead ends.  
It's a fine line between unexpected deaths (ie, falling off cliffs), and obvious ones (ie 'drink acid') but as long as the deaths are creative (like the death by Orat in SQ1) I like them.  

the Quest For Glory series (one of my favourite) was an example of when dying in adventure games works perfectly.  It didn't seem to have many dead ends or unexpected deaths that I can think of, compared to other sierra games of it's time anyway.  And the ability to die was a part of what made that game great.

So long live death... (in moderation)

[After]

No progress allowed until one does the one most obviously stupid thing, so that the author can abuse you first.
Especially dialogue where you know what's coming, and you'd rather not start down that line, but there's probably a trigger tacked onto the end of it.

Having one's intentions interpreted the stupid way:
USE cabinet.
"Why would I want to carry that around."
only to be followed by:
TALK TO toilet.
*vomit* "Hey! It's that key I swallowed."
(Well, ok. Not that bad, but you get the idea.)