I don't have a problem with graphics as old as the VGA version of Monkey Island 1. I even enjoy the visual puns the designer sometimes adds, which wouldn't work with high resolution graphics. I start to have a problem with 16 color graphics. I don't think I could play something that looked like this
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/dj-vu-a-nightmare-comes-true/screenshots

Hi Jenny100

Oh, dear !! A bit vivid to say the least

Without a list of "games by date", I can't say which is the oldest game I've played - but maybe around "Maniac Mansion " time .... 1987 ??

I know many people have played older ones than that .... but I was a late starter

Cheers.

Mad

Ha! I think I could play it. My first adventure game I ever played was the original King's Quest 1 on a green monochrome monitor! Actually that game you linked looks very interesting.

First game I played was the first Space Quest. It isn't the graphics I mind now, its the command parser. I don't enjoy having to type what I want to do.

But could you play it now?


It was remade for PocketPC, and looks much better there
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/games/deja_vu.htm



It wouldn't be so bad if most parsers weren't so stupid.
Remember this?
http://justadventure.com/articles/SeriouslyWhacked/SW_Jan4_2002.shtm

That was great.

I can stand bad graphics much more easily than I can stand some other things which are extremely frequent in modern adventure games.

-Simplistic storylines

-Paper thin characters

-Overused themes (Atlantis, Egypt, murder, curse, enchanted object, etc.)

-Little to no research on the game's subject. After 677 Atlantis games, you'd think the developers would take the time to read a book or two on the latest theories regarding the lost continent. But noooo, the little 'historic' info they include revolves around the same theories that have been discredited since the early 90s. As for the 12,298 games set in Egypt... I'm surprised they don't make the pyramids rectangular.

-Less than 5 inventory items, less than 10 actual adventure puzzles, less than three hotspots per screen.

-Difficulty level suitable for 8 year olds. This seems to follow the trend of modern times. For instance, remember the time when you needed to know everything from the price of rice in Kenya to the population of Tongo in order to have a chance in winning a TV show contest? Now all you have to do is open boxes. Adventure games of today seem to be no different.

-The oh-so-popular "The game is too short let's add 20 slider puzzles and 75 levers that are in no way related to the story"

-Hybridization

-Less and less interaction. At this rate, the adventure games of 2020 will be movies with nothing but a 'Click here to continue' button.

-It seems to me that the sum of {story quality} + {puzzles quality} + {graphics quality} in adventure games is constant. And the graphics get better and better.

OK I'd better stop because I'm babbling.

I don't claim that my games will be flawless, but I'm positive that whether you like them or not, you will be able to say "now there's someone who spent more than 20 minutes to write this story, and actually read it a couple of times before releasing it".

As for the gentleman who wrote that article on text adventure parsers, he obviously didn't play the right games. How about these parser commands:

-MEMORIZE OZMOO
-OPEN TUB THEN LOOK IN IT
-TAKE ALL FROM CUPBOARD
-DROP ALL BUT NOTE AND SWAG BAG
-BET ON GREY RAT WITH NOTE

Hi

"Jenny100 .... Remember this?"
I do !!!! Priceless !!!!

Alkis ....
I agree with so much of what you say and it would be nice if we could all have what we want but then again we do all want something different
And there is probably someone out there RIGHT NOW who would be quite happy to just "click the continue button" as their way of enjoying an adventure

Cheers.

Mad

I have actually played some of those games and the amazing thing is people still get stuck. I love your list!

Ana

One thing that the people who are interested in playing old games might find useful:
If you play a game that was originally designed for a 14'' screen at a resolution of 320x240 in your 22'' wide screen monitor, full screen, it is only natural that it looks awful. The best thing you can do is to use a tool such as DOSBox and play it in Window mode.

Hi all,

I don't mind outdated graphics if the game is older. I recently played Monkey Island for the first time and had a great time despite the graphics (mind you, the graphics in MI2 are worse) because at the end of the day it's the story that counts. I love the Gabriel Knight series and I don't care about the graphics because these games have awesome storylines and puzzles; same goes for Broken Sword.

I do enjoy good artwork, of course; Black Mirror, Syberia, Nostradamus, Secrets of Da Vinci, Keepsake, The Longest Journey - these were games that had me open-mouthed because they were so beautiful to look at and provided a good to excellent storyline. The gorgeous looks aren't worth a dime, though, if the story is boring or I don't care for the main character(s). I enjoyed the looks and style of Runaway, for example, but found the game overall to be not entirely my cup of tea - even though the story was ok. Just didn't care for the characters.

Hi Jehane, and welcome to GameBoomers!

mmm! ... just need to ask - never come across the terminology of 'parser commands'. What do you mean by these?? (I feel very um ... thick at the mo! )

Chrissie, they mean text commands like in the early days of adventure games (both completely text based and graphical).

parser as in "look at tree" typed in and the game would use keywords to look at the tree in the scene. Etc.