Let's complain about adventures...

[Scummbuddy]

NEW games which use the OLD interfaces:

Adventure Game Studio (AGS for short) allows you to create your own point-and-click adventure games, similar to the early 90's Sierra and Lucasarts adventures.

soooo we shouldnt be using ags to make super spectacular 3d games with lensess flares for Gui buttons.  there goes my game

[After]

Oh, and how could I forget the ever popular
Auto-dequip item with unfindable hotspot on every USE attempt, complete with inventory that must be explicitly opened, mode selected, scrolled, clicked, and closed to equip anything.

[Hinders]

games mad in sci0 agi graphics was good, but the sci looked like a mess, you couldn´t see what it was supposed to look like. for example lsl3 AAAAAAAGGGHH!

[edmundito]

NEW games which use the OLD interfaces:

Adventure Game Studio (AGS for short) allows you to create your own point-and-click adventure games, similar to the early 90's Sierra and Lucasarts adventures.

soooo we shouldnt be using ags to make super spectacular 3d games with lensess flares for Gui buttons.  there goes my game

Adventure games are not about guess the verb puzzles... thery're about problem solving with your mind. The problems should be clever enough for you to figure out what to do without having also to guess which verb to use. They (LEC, sierra, etc) learned this a while ago and decided to drop everything down to the 4 basic verbs: Walk, Intereact, Look, and Use Mouth (speak, taste, etc.). So, what this guy meant was that he doesn't like the old 9+ verb interface....

[big brother]

How about pixel hunting puzzles with unlabeled hotpsots?
At least in Lucasarts games you can move the cursor over the entire background and watch the text line for the hotspot's name to appear.

[Cerulean]

Equivalent objects that each have one use and are not interchangable. This rock you can throw at a bird, and that rock you can drop in a well. The knife is for cutting the string, the scissors are for opening the envelope. A game designer should always try to be sure that when the character says, "That doesn't make sense," the player doesn't scream at the screen, "Yes it does!!!"

[After]

Perhaps we should declare a ban on all default messages.

[Joelman]

Perhaps we should declare a ban on all default messages.

YES! ROCK! I second!

[ratracer]

The worst thing I can think of an adventure game is it having no plot! Apart from that, my gripes are for those darn type of puzzles like:

slider puzzles (or worse, timed slider puzzles)
illogical labyrinths (even logical labyrinths, if too complex)
mechanical puzzles (like Myst's)
dying!
(although Tex Murphy's games has many of the above and they still qualify in my favorite games)


or

bad dialogue trees (I didn't like Mystery of the Druids', although after playing the second time, I thought there weren't that bad - in fact, I quite liked the game when I played it the second time)

I'll say it again, no plot (just puzzles or going from one place to another to get stuff to make something that some character asked for - although I can perfectly accept that in short games)

or

many, many things from my favorite Bad game: The City of Lost CHildren (amazing graphics and ambiance, but NO PLOT, terrible pixel hunting, absolutely no purpose in the game, and, really, no ending!!!!)

[Ghost]

1) Characters that are flat, silly cutouts. Like in Phantasmagoria. Half the time I sat there saying, hey, there must be something interesting in that lady. There must. I paid 80 bucks, so there must be something. but there wasn't.

2) Puzzles that don't translate. The root beer and monkey wrench stuff in MI was bad enough, even a german (like me, i wasn't very good at english these days) can figure that out. The stuff in Simon2 (with the hush puppies) was worse. And sometimes I get the feeling that people don't realise that their game will be puplished out of their own country. Sad but true.

3) Recycled inventory items. Okay, earlier in this threat someone said it's not sensible to have a scissor for cutting, a knife fur opening envelopeds, but some games (Sam&Max is among them) make you use one inv item with x others to make all sorts of funny geegaws. the hand on the spring i'm talking about.

4) Puzzles that require very specific knowledge. I can't recall the name, but recently my friend has a Myst-style adventure where you had to spot the mistakes in a classic painting!!! That's not a puzzle, it's sadism!

5) While I really like the old interfaces, especially the SCUMM-based ones, they should not be present in a game just so's one can say, "Classic retro style adventure". If you can live without buttons for push/pull, don't include them. "I Must Scream, And I Have No Mouth" had a huge interface just like in DOTT, but at least GIVE, OPEN and CLOSE could be ignored- USE worked just as well. That#s especially depressing if the game pre-selects CLOSE but sometimes comes up with "I can't close that"- but USING the object closes it.

6) Open Puzzles. I fondly remember "Lurking Horror", an old interactive fiction (text adventure). It was great, but there was a small puzzle in the very beginning where you had to pick up a stone in a small "dream sequence". Without the stone the game became very tricky close to the finish. If you're in a sequence containing a crucial object you should not be allowed to leave it without having it.

Apart from that I still LOVE adventures

[Gonzo]

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!

Monkey Island 2 / Indy FoA / DoTT SCUMM style is my favourite interface. I like that people still use it for their AGS games, I think it's brilliant. 3 of the best adventure games ever used it, to me that says there's nothing wrong with it.

Also I'm not that keen on Broken Sword-style interface of an intelligent click. It doesn't ruin a game for me but it removes a bunch of options and makes the thinking element of adventure gaming less of a challenge I think.

As AdventureSoft pointed out, giving someone a chainsaw and using a chainsaw on someone are two very different things. Long live multi-verb interfaces.

The thing that annoys me is games that don't reward you, or move the story on, enough. If you solve 3 puzzles in a row and there isn't some interesting animation, cutscene, new area or something, then I can get fed up very quickly.

[Raven_Gray]

Hey peoples, I just now found my way back to this thred. I didn't know that my opinion caused an all-out war concerning GUIs.

Lets review, shall we?....

Yada yada yada...."its 2003! New games who use the standard 9-button Give, Pick up, Use, Open, Look at, Push, Close, Talk to, Pull GUI's"...blah blah blah

-Me!

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

Look, its just this. I like to have to do as little clicking as possible to get my point across to the game. Its my personal belief that we dont need so many buttons! Just 4 work.

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."

Equivalent objects that each have one use and are not interchangable. This rock you can throw at a bird, and that rock you can drop in a well. The knife is for cutting the string, the scissors are for opening the envelope. A game designer should always try to be sure that when the character says, "That doesn't make sense," the player doesn't scream at the screen, "Yes it does!!!"

These kinds of confusions just get worse with more complicated actions. You have to open and close objects and doors, you have to GIVE objects to people instead of just using them together. Bah, it just annoys me and makes the game longer and not in a good way.

soooo we shouldnt be using ags to make super spectacular 3d games with lensess flares for Gui buttons. there goes my game

Though you probobly know this now, i wasn't talking about how fancey or pretty the GUI looks.

Adventure games are not about guess the verb puzzles... thery're about problem solving with your mind. The problems should be clever enough for you to figure out what to do without having also to guess which verb to use. They (LEC, sierra, etc) learned this a while ago and decided to drop everything down to the 4 basic verbs: Walk, Intereact, Look, and Use Mouth (speak, taste, etc.). So, what this guy meant was that he doesn't like the old 9+ verb interface....

I couldn't have said it better myself, and "this guy" appreciates your clarifying my post for everyone.

Monkey Island 2 / Indy FoA / DoTT SCUMM style is my favourite interface. I like that people still use it for their AGS games, I think it's brilliant. 3 of the best adventure games ever used it, to me that says there's nothing wrong with it.

Yeah, MI, Indy and DoTT were awesome games, and I'll be the first to tell you that I loved their plots, characters and graphics. But I have always hated the multitude of unneeded buttons.

Now look, I'm not out there starting a campaign to reform all adventure games and bring unto the world a new age of GUI enlightenment. The title  asked what I, ME, MYSELF found irritating about adventure games and so I said what I thought didn't work. As to dying in adventure games, yeah. I'm up for it when it makes sense. But not plunging to your death off a cliff because you accidently clicked a river in Kings Quest

Merry xmas.

[Hollister Man not log]

I like dying, especially in KQ6.  My favorites were on the island with the catacombs.  One: you could fall off the steps going up the mountain several times and Alex would eventally tell you to stop.  BUT once you finally finished the puzzle, you didn't need to click carefully every time you go there.  TWO: I like where you end up falling into the dark roo, and if you don't light your tinderbox soon enough, the minotaur pops your eyes out. All you see are these two white spots falling on the floor.  I don't mind it when the game says to me, "That was VERY dumb.  Ihope you saved your game....."

What I do hate is poor plots.  Torin's passage, in particular.  MoE doesn't EVEN count.  Also, during beta testing, it would make sense to check for illogical puzzles and fix them.  At least give better hints.  Like in pleurghburgh.  What would make you think to paint the soap with the chocopaint?  Besides, I thought the poster said Chocoprint.

[Meowster]

I hate linear gameplay.

[c.leksutin]

The only thing I hate about adventure games is that I've yet to make one...



....and walking dead sucks too I guess....



C.

[Meowster]

Huh. Here are some more things I hate.

Pixel Hunt Puzzles, in the fucking pitch darkness, you sons of whores. What, do you get some kick out of that? Is this some sort of sexual fetish? I mean, pixel hunting is one thing, but on a completely black screen, that's sadistic. You're sadistic. God, I hate you all. Examples of these puzzles are The Tunnels at the end of MI2, which I didn't mind so much because it added to suspense... but god DAMNIT, the Dig Site in FOA, what the HELL was that for?!

Fighting sequences that involve clicking the mouse on the enemy to throw a punch, like every single fight sequence in FOA.

Puzzles that revolve around revolving stones with pictures on them, like in FOA.

[Erwin_Br]

Puzzles that revolve around revolving stones with pictures on them, like in FOA.

FOA was one FANTASTIC game, don't you agree? Well, don't you?    

--Erwin

[Shattered Sponge]

Fighting sequences that involve clicking the mouse on the enemy to throw a punch, like every single fight sequence in FOA.

You actually used the mouse-control for those?  Are you mad, woman?  Use the fucking numpad, like everyone else in the entire world.

[Meowster]

Yes, smartass, but first you have to press F to turn ON keyboard fighting and then you have to find the keys for it, which is probably fine when you have the MANUAL, but when you ILLEGALLY DOWNLOAD the game, like I did, you don't GET a fucking manual, DO you, SMARTASS?

[MillsJROSS]

Um...if you illegally downloaded a game, you can't really complain about it not having a manuel. And please curb you language and use of Cap Locks. Its not something an Immensly Happy stanta-style Elf-type thing would do.

I don't like the 9 word MI2 style. The games mentioned that use it, are good games, but I prefer the eye/hand/mouth for games. I also don't consider those games the best three adventure games there are. There is no definative top three, to each their own.

I don't like fighting, either. Not in my adventure games anyway. Like in Mask of Eternity, I couldn't play the game, because I didn't feel like I could spend time thinking about puzzles, but had to think about enemies (given the fighting wasn't horribly hard).

I don't like not having the ability to move quickly off of a screen. Like in The Longest Journey, I had to walk all the way accross the screen, I felt like I should be able to double click and instantly go to the next one. Watching April run just wasn't entertaining.

Speaking of which, I don't like hidden rooms. Sometimes exits and entrances aren't marked clearly enough, so you could be stuck, thinking you've done enerything, for hours or days, until you realise you missed one room with one item that makes the difference.  

I get annoyed when characters repeat things. To some extent, this needs to be done. But let's say to save so and so a character tells you what you need to do, (and this applies more with AGS games), I feel that option should be removed and a "How do I save so and so" should be used.

That's all I can think of for now.

-MillsJROSS