No Puzzles ??

I always thought Adventure games comprised a story through which one progressed by solving puzzles.

And Wikipedia state :

"An adventure game is a computer-based game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge."

Yet some people here at Gameboomers state categorically from time to time that they don't like puzzles in their Adventure games.

Doesn't that defeat the object ??

"Doesn't that defeat the object??"

One would think. <g>

Gil.

Well I think it depends on the kind of puzzles. Most adventure lovers are addicted to exploring beautiful environments and making discoveries that lead to solving puzzles that move you forward in the adventure.

I'm with you Mad

In my opinion, puzzles are critical to the enjoyment of an adventure game. If all that needs to be done in a game is to click on one character or another for dialogue, before moving to a different area (however graphically gorgeous it might be) and clicking on someone else for more dialogue (repeat to fade) then you might just as well switch off the computer and go watch a film instead. What's the point?

Even games that are dialogue heavy -- The Longest Journey and Moment of Silence, for example -- still have plenty of ingenious puzzles. They wouldn't be the classics they are considered to be without them.

I agree "You do need some puzzles" In an AG..

I dislike puzzle after puzzle...
<Example>

A puzzle to open a door, puzzle to turn the stove on, puzzle to walk up the stairs,etc..etc

To me thats not an Adventure...Its an Adventure to solve puzzles

My problem is when the puzzles are just plonked in there totally unrelated to what is going on the game - 7th Guest type games...Urghhh! Shudder!

Those are my favorite kind -- because they tend to be the most fun as puzzles.

Puzzles that make sense are great, those that just combine odd things just so the developers can says its a puzzle reallyl bug me. But good puzzles are an aadventure game main stay.

What puzzles me is the type of puzzles, like which puzzles are adventure and which are simply puzzles. Take Myst, which is called an adventure game, but to me it is a puzzle game with a story somewhere. Some games mix the 2 styles.
These days a third type can be added to the whole scene, meaning casual interactive games. These are rapidly gaining ground with more gamers playing them every day. Check out the numbers of viewers watching the 2 forums here at GameBoomers.

For me a good AG is a game focused on story where you have to work out how to progress it. The ideal for me involves a combination of dialogue & inventory type puzzles - some games that did that for me include Broken Sword 1 & 2, the Gabriel Knight series & the recent Art of Murder & Chronicles of Mystery games. I do enjoy games with other sorts of puzzles just as long as they are integrated well into the progress of the story e.g. Yoomurjaks Ring & Frogware's version of Jack The Ripper. I favour less games that focus more on the puzzles where the story is secondary - I did like Myst but the whole series is a good example of puzzle first, story second as is one or two of the Nancy Drew games.

But, I do enjoy the variety of games we are still getting for us AG fans & it's good to know they keep coming!

I totally agree with this...in fact I dont consider 7th guest an adventure game at all...not my cup of tea...and i consider myself an avid adventure gamer.....mind you I didnt enjoy mata hari either....to boring for me




totally agree here aswell...I never did play Yoomurjaks Ring ...I dont know if i would have the patience for the audio is Polish?? I believe....will it ever be done in English?

Sometimes puzzles can be fun because they are "over the top" ridiculous - as anyone who enjoyed the Discworld games can testify

There has been enormous variety in the style of Adventure games since their conception - logical, illogical, dialogue heavy, puzzle heavy, huge story, hardly any story, etc etc etc ....

And long may that go on !!

Hamer -- the audio in Yoomurjak's Ring is in Hungarian. The last I heard, the game was not going to be localized in English. The current version (downloaded from The Adventure Shop) has English subtitles. I found that I didn't mind the Hungarian voices at all, but I always read subtitles anyway. If you find you usually turn subtitles off, you may have a different experience with this game.

It would be great to have Yoomurjak's Ring fully localized, however dubbing an FMV game is very costly and cumbersome (more difficult to do than in case of a movie).
As for playing a game on another language: here in Hungary we are quite used to this. Hungarian voice is rare in games released here, and if there is a voiceover at all sometimes you wish there wasn't... So it is a common thing here to play a game with its original voice and have subtitles on. I would encourage everyone to try - the actors in Yoomurjak's Ring help a lot with their gestures and the translated dialogs are recorded in a log which you can check any time.

As far as I know professional actors were used in Yoomurjaks Ring. It takes some time to get used to reading subtitles but you do & I now remember YR as if it was spoken in English (as I do with any worthwhile subtitled film in another language)

I would far prefer a game with subtitles whilst listening to good actors speaking in a language I don't understand than listening to bad dubbing where the characters & their emotions don't fit!

What an amazing, crazy, fantastic story that was!! Thanks for reminding me how great these games were!!

I still play them, about once a year, and never cease to appreciate the imagination shown !!