Alkis that sounded like a cry from the heart! By hybridisation you mean mixing elements of Adventure games with FPS etc?

On click through games there's already been Sinkha and Hyleyn where all you do is turn the pages.

Would attempting to create style guides for what Adventure games should be help? People have tried in the past to do this, but I don't think they've had much impact apart from felling virtual trees.

For those who do have a bias against lower-end graphics, I urge you to try and overlook that. There are so many older games that rival anything put out in the past few years. Not only that, there are so many truly newer excellent underground (some reviews here) and indy games as well with excellent storylines and puzzles.

Oh yes my friend... A desperate one.



Yes, that's what I meant. I call it degenreration (degeneration + genre, a poor pun but you get the idea).



I don't consider myself important enough to write such a guide. But if I'm not boring you, please hear this notion that's been on my mind for a couple of years:

I (and several of us who like to call ourselves "old adventurers"), had this impression for quite some time: We believed that people who have been playing adventures for a decade or less did not like the 'classics' because they actually preferred minimum interaction, non-existent puzzles and everything else I talked about in my previous post. I began changing my mind after I released the freeware title Other Worlds, ugliest game in the world, which was somehow played by thousands of people who weren't even born when Monkey Island 1 was released.

I asked myself, what proof do we have that modern gamers do not like old style adventures? That they refuse to play the classics? But isn't that natural, considering the outdated graphics? That they buy recent titles? What alternatives do they have, with no 'traditional' point & clikers out there?

So I had this crazy idea, what if I tried to give the people a commercial game that stayed loyal to all the values that made the genre popular 20 years ago? Because believe it or not, adventure games were THE genre in the late 80s - early 90s. What if I gave them an "old style" adventure game in a modern package (at least as modern as my budget allows)? How would they react?

That's what Diamonds in the Rough is: My proposal to the world. A game where every pixel is a hotspot that can be described and interacted with, a game that requires some thought, and provokes some as well. It might feel weird to some, the multiple cursors may seem less convenient than an all-purpose magic arrow that makes the choices for you, and perhaps you'll get stuck more often than usual, but who knows, you people might end up liking the "old ways" after all. Or not. But at least I will have tried.

Hi

"But at least I will have tried."

And all credit to you for doing so, Alkis !!

Cheers.

Mad

Thank you misa & Skeeter - I've never played any text based games so not so familiar with the term!

alkis, after reading the description in your last post I am so looking forward to Diamonds in the Rough! - I know it's a game I am going to enjoy!

You don't bore me Alkis. I'm very glad you and others are trying. The rise of casual games says to me there is still room for games with puzzles and story.

I do wonder if the range of Adventure gamers, from those who major on the puzzles and feel the story gets in the way, to those who play games for the story and the puzzles are how you turn the pages, from those who like 3D 360 free movement to those happy with 3rd person pre-rendered, causes difficulties for game makers.

To the original topic starter, and everybody really. Not an aggressive post, but just got out this way...:

graphics, music, voice acting, animation, cinematics, all are tools to the developers. Primitive years you couldn't really have huge story or anything like that, due to RAM limitations. PC MAN is... pretty much tiny! Tetris as well! Rogue even worst!

And still, people are playing rogue, even the original, for years now, with no intention of stoping. Even if it's in ASCII! And you are talking about coloured VGA graphics and midi music??!?!?

I understand completely where you're coming for and I agree in todays Bioshock, or Hellgate, MI graphics are lame. Then again, in my case, nostalgia works it's way up, and I still enjoy monophonic tunes from various games, or 2 coloured games, even more great games like MI, or KQ series (the early ones), or anything like that.

Now, it does take a bit of education to what was possible 20-25 years ago, in order for the younger generation to understand why these games look so 'bad'! Otherwise there's little chance of persuading the Wii generation that the keyboard can also be used for playing!

Still, while this is the norm today, I can't see why great graphics, must mean bad story, or gameplay... There must be games of any era which had it all, no?

I agree wholeheartily with Alkis, in all honesty with one exception. While Ditr had budget issues, if the next game doesn't, I would mind seeing 3-d graphics. Of course I don't mind Ditr as it stands today! For the record I did work for Alkis and made all music for Ditr!

_____________________

You know what, though?

In todays time, we get a "relatively new" genre of games, which lack pretty much all comodities as found in AAA games! Flash games! Graphics? Quite ammateurish at best. Audio? Close to 0. No loading time! Voice acting? you're kidding?

And yet, these games, make it, and pretty good as far as I know!

So... Can't see anything wrong really!

What Alkis said. For a Greek, your English is excellent. Better graphics is better, better sound is better. But no enhancements in these areas will EVER make up for the story. I think Jane Jensen said it first. My most cherished games are the Oldie Goldies. I like the Oldie Goldlie movies on late night TV the best too. I record them on my VCR\DVD unit to watch at a more convienient time. A Great story in black and white will trump super color trash any day. I've been in the game blahs lately. I think a visit to The Secret of Monkey Island might fix that, though I recently bought a few new games that might inspire me.

Albert