Miss the Old Days...

Miss the Old Days. Miss games like Myst,Alida,Shivers 1,Dracula, Riven,etc. Games with good story, Writing,and didn't have to jump/run or solve against a clock. Yes, I know. I am whining-but, there it is. There used to be a good selection of those types of games-you could almost look forward to one a month. I would look forward to buying a new 70 sheet,college ruled,spiral notebook to use for 'note-ing' for that game! Well, sadly those days are gone. If it weren't for Jonathan Boakes, Wm. Fisher, and the Barrow Hill developer(Matt ?)I wouldn't have a decent(from those guys a GREAT GAME)g, well written, atmospheric, game to look forward to playing. The Carol Reed games are fine (but not my fave-but very good. It doesn't take a lot of rain or smoke/fog to creat atmosphere. good writing is the key! the extra visual stuff is 'dressing'..a great sound effect for rain and some drops is sufficient-you don't have to be always in a downpour.(and it bogs down the pc unless is a pretty current one! Which most of us can't afford right now in this economy). I remember in Boake's first game-you saw the seaside area, heard the gulls and birds, heard the wind, the bouy bells,-noises you'd HEAR at/in a seaside area. I felt like I was There! AND also felt the spookyness.
Darn it! Here I am retired and now really have the time to 'get into' some good, long, well done games and the supply is almost gone. pfuii. Have taken to playing the 'casual' spooky IHOGS at bigfish but it is not the same thing. Besides which, for what I spend on those would buy 2 REALLY good games a month(long, satisfying, spooky, and/or mysterious)-so that's going to have to stop. The Agatha Christie games were a good idea to do-unfortunately(in my opinion) they weren't that well done. There have been a few others in the past couple years-Loath Nolder (the first one-great atmosphere-but did leave you hanging) and Scratches! However-not nearly enough really good games. Games that Grab you!. Well, guess that is way it is going...new, really good games far and few between. So very sad..but so thankful for the people who are hanging in there trying to bring us the really good games we want-and want to spend our money on and our Time -in enjoying them. I always look forward to a new game by the 3 developers mentioned at the beginning-I get my thermos of hot tea ready, my notebook and pen, my soup heated and sandwich made and for the next hours/days--well, can it be any better?? Just wish it could be more often!

It's funny because I remember waiting much longer for releases than I do now. I think we took longer to play them back then because there wasn't many places to get help (at least I did) and therefore it seemed like you always had something to play.

Ana

Hi and I would like to add to this thread. I too miss the old days of adventure games. The cartoon style games just don't do it for me. I have tried a few and now don't bother with them. Oh how I would love to see more games like, Tomb of the Pharoah, Temajen,(not sure I spelled that correctly) but you get the idea. Also I don't want to always download my games. I like getting the boxed version and looking forward to playing them at a later time. Please don't think I haven't enjoyed any games of late but not nearly as many as a few years ago. Anyhow thank you for listening to me. I hope that in the near future more games with be developed and published for us
adventure fans. The causual games are fine but I can only play so many hidden object themes before I find them tiring.

I was just thinking about this too. I keep looking for games now, it seemed like for a while they were everywhere! Now it's nearly impossible to find a good adventure game. Good luck going to any game stores, they don't even know what adventure games are (the last one I went to suggested LA Noir..I didn't enjoy it at all).

I tell them "you know like Myst" when Myst really isn't my favorite but everyone seems to know it. Syberia, The Experiment, Keepsake, Return to Mysterious Island, The Longest Journey were all amazing games, story lines you could really get into.

I think if I could find a game with the freedom of Skyrim (not necessarily fantasy), but as an adventure game I would be in gaming heaven!

My last time out asking about adventure games the guy at the store suggested LA Noir. I tried it. Nope. Not for me.

Not only do I not really care for cartoon-y games, I much prefer first-person games. They are next to non-existent these days. I've been playing some casual games, but again, they are mostly 3rd person, too.
I say "ditto" to all that was said by those who posted on this thread before me.

Are adventure games a dying genre?

I hope not, but I fear it to be true.

I haven't seen any death to the Adventure Genre. There are plenty of games being made.

Definitely not, Oregon_Duckie !!

Whilst I, too, prefer many of the older Adventures ( and replay them all the time ) in my opinion the genre itself is most certainly NOT dying.

I have many in my collection that I've not even started yet

I don't see that happening Oregon-Duckie.

Like many others here - I have a bunch of games on the shelf too I have not gotten to yet.

I am seeing new games all the time and by new I mean new to me - yep - older games I have not heard of til now and new games on the horizon.

I think they will be around a while.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to peek in because I feel the same way as Gamenut does. SIGH. I remember and will never EVER forget, that moment in 1995 when I loaded up Myst for the first time and had my eyes and my mind blown away by an adventure game for the first time. It was so pretty and being able to move around in the world was such a new thing, that I felt like I'd won the lottery that day! SIGH

I havent' felt like that in a long time--like alot of you guys I've enjoyed some good adventures along the way and am grateful to Matt Clark, Jonathan Boakes, etc. for their hard work and wonderful games. I just wish we had games of that quality and passion (or like the old Myst games) more often! I can't remember the last time I actually got excited before a game came out and was dying for it for months, except maybe Skyrim and that's an RPG.

Well, the good news is that I found all of the Myst games, including some that I either hadn't finished like Myst 3 or ones that I never started like Myst V. So ironically, for me this week, I've swung back to the beginning and am doing Myst games again. And you know, as I walked around in Myst V last night, I DID have a little shivery thrill thinking, "OMG how did they do this?" And I wanted to stay in age I was in and not leave. How cool to feel that way after such a long time of NOT feeling it! LOL

Just had to share---thanks for bringing this up---you guys have made me realize that I'm not alone with this feeling of loving and craving the feelings from the "old days" of gaming.

Tracy

So where do I go for games? If you look up "adventure games" on amazon you get a list of games that are not remotely adventure games. If you go to a game store they look at you like you're crazy. Stores like Target and Walmart that used to carry a few titles now have stopped altogether. Steam has a few Nancy Drew titles, but most of their "adventure games" aren't really appropriately labeled either.

Even the list of newly released games on here is pretty sad. I only saw a couple on the list that looked interesting at all. They seemed like they had cartoony graphics or graphics that were distractingly bad.

Not trying to be a downer or argumentative, I'm just really discouraged trying to find a new game.

Tracy, I know EXACTLY what you're talking about: I still get such a great feeling when I replay the original Myst and hear the music and sounds, and get to walk all over ALL BY MYSELF!

How far back and what type are you looking for, Oregon_Duckie ??

Have you already played most of the new Adventure releases of the last couple of years ??

Or are you restricting your search to a very definite type ??

Mary--We're definitely on the same page-glad to hear you feel the same way I do!

Tracy

Well I have Windows 7 and a lot of the older ones I've tried don't work. I haven't played the Aura series yet, but I'm actually excited to try those.

I'm finishing up Mystery Case Files and I enjoy those, I really haven't seen much of anything for the past two years that looks like an adventure game.

I don't care if it's fantasy or more realistic, but I prefer realistic graphics, better is better but it doesn't have to be great quality as long as they're not so bad it's distracting.

Story and mystery are important to me, and to a degree suspense but I don't like them overly scary. I can forgive a bad ending if the overall story is engrossing (i.e. The Experiment is one of my all time favorites, but the ending was terrible IMO).

Which ones don't work, Oregon? If you check the Glitches forum, you will find a thread called Windows 7 and Games with a list of many older games that work in Windows 7. We've found relatively few that won't work. Compatibility mode has gotten quite a number of them to play. If you have a particular game that you're having problems with in Windows 7 and it's not on the list in the thread, just post down in the Glitches forum and we can help you out down there.

One person's trash is another's treasure I guess. What is called cartoony here is what I have nostalgia for. I cut my adventure teeth on Sierra on Line, Lucas Arts and the Broken Sword Genre and those are the type of games that I have nostalgia for. Some of the current 3d person games are so well drawn and detail oriented that they are as good graphically as the myst type games.

Although I remember fondly the "old days" games, I revel in the advancements that have made and enjoy both those days and the current crop of adventures.

The first games I ever played were the Monkey Islands 1 & 2 and from there I went backwards to catch up on what I might have missed and then forwards to find more delights

A good story and a friendly interface have always been my priorities- irrespective of what type of graphics - and although I prefer 3rd person perpesctive I play 1st without any problem

And I agree with oldman .... "One person's trash is another's treasure"

I'm not saying that the cartoony ones are bad, I'm saying there aren't many anymore that aren't cartoony. I enjoyed the Sierra Games and Monkey Island, but I really am looking for ones that have the more realistic graphics. No offense meant.

Myst (and its clones) bore me to tears.

Hey, Oregon,

I'm sure no offense was taken. Personally, I'm going mad waiting for Testament. Care to join me? And don't forget, you can always contribute to the Tex Murphy kickstarter and get a brand new Tex Murphy FMV game this year if they meet their funding goal.

Have you played Society of the Serpent Moon? Lost Horizon? Black Mirror 2 and/or 3?

Gil.

It could very well be new adventure games are in the works, but have yet reached the crowing stage.

One reason new adventure games may seem absent could be due to the time frame HO/HOGs, and the like, are released. It seems a new HO/HOG is released each and every week.

Because the frequency with which these games are released, we may be expecting new adventure games to be released within that same time frame. How long was it between release of the older games? It wasn't a week, that's for sure.

For people like me who really like Myst-like games and really don't like other types (3rd person, horror, cartoony), the choices are non-existent. I haven't played an new adventure game since Rhem 4 and Slip Space.
Trends come and go, and I hope that 1st person fantasy puzzlers make a comeback.
For now, I've been relegated to casual games which just don't have the exploration and challenge that adventures have.

I'm 100% with oldman. Everyone has their preferences and for me the idea of a voluminous notebook would send me off to an RPG in short order! I loved Shivers and up to a point enjoyed the Myst games. I love some of Jonathon Boake's games and find others boring. Scratches and Barrow Hill were hits with me. But I also loved A Vampyre Story, Book of Unwritten Tales, Machinarium and most recently Botanicula.

Like Colpet says, trends come and go. Hopefully, there is something out there for everyone. It just seems that those who prefer the Myst-like games are in the doldrums right now.

I agree with Colpet. There aren't many first person puzzle-oriented games to look forwards to. We used to have games from Kheops. Before that we had games from Detalion (Schizm/Sentinel/Reah) and the Atlantis series from Cryo. We had the Dracula series from Index+. We had games like Faust, Ring, and the Pilgrim/Legend of the Prophet games from Arxel. We had the Riddle of the Sphinx games. We had Byzantine and Connections from companies that didn't normally make games. Even Sierra, more famous for their 3rd person games, published the Shivers games, RAMA, and Lighthouse. And of course there were the Zork games, the Journeyman Project games, and the Myst series. And there were a host of games from developers that didn't publish all that many adventure games -- Morpheus, Obsidian, 9: The Last Resort, Comer, Amber, Timelapse, and Titanic: Adventure Out of Time.

It's great that we are still getting some 1st person adventures like the Dark Fall games, Barrow Hill, Rhiannon, Scratches, and The Last Half of Darkness games, but it seems that the RHEM series is the only series that is NOT a horror/supernatural themed game. Not that I have anything against those, but there's a distinct lack of variety in the subject matter. The Nancy Drew and Carol Reed games aren't exactly Myst-like because of the amount of character interaction that is necessary, and the Nancy Drew series varies in gameplay quality (too many repetitive "chores" and dexterity challenges in some of them). Fortunately the Carol Reeds are more dependable, though their puzzles aren't difficult enough for some of us.

It's not like those who enjoy mainly 3rd person games that aren't "cartoony" have it much better. With publishers like dtp going broke, there will probably be fewer 3rd person adventures.

This is what i did.I was forced to change for mats
Windows XP to Vista,now Windows 7.
I like all the new stuff but i could not play all
the old games i like.
I went to my computor store and ask if i could but a Windows 98 laptop.
He said yes i have some collecting dust.
Bought it for 25.00.The battery is shot so
it must be plugged in to play.
I loaded Amber Journeys and was in heaven.
I am playing all my old games again.
Next is Shivers................Ron

Ron, how great: You get to play Amber: Journeys Beyond. How I envy you--I loved that game.

What about the AGON series? A new one is in development - the 5th in the series. And Testament of Sherlock Holmes is coming up as well as a new game from Unimatrix Productions, developers of Lifestream and Shady Brook (although that one looks like it will probably be horror).

I too dislike the cartoony style and get little joy from games like Whispered World or Book of Written Tales. They're just too commonplace and silly to be anything more than a diversion. 3rd person just doesn't draw me in as much. Directing a character around the screen isn't as intriguing as BEING that character and using your own eyes and ears to explore and solve puzzles.

"Directing a character around the screen isn't as intriguing as BEING that character and using your own eyes and ears to explore and solve puzzles"

It's a matter of personal taste ....

I really enjoy directing my character around the screen to solve puzzles and explore. And after all, it is actually MY eyes and ears he/she is using

AGON 5 would qualify -- if it ever comes out. It's been over 4 years since the last one was published.

Sherlock Holmes is more of a story-based game than a puzzle-based one. Besides, for me it's 3rd person because Frogwares' 3D engine gives me motion sickness in the 1st person mode. I'm not sure how many other people use the 3rd person mode when playing it.

And Christopher Brendel's (Unimatrix's) upcoming game Stonewall Penitentiary does look like a horror game.

King's Quest:
>Look at waterfall
- "My, what a beautiful waterfall!"

Developers in 1st person games need to make the essential parts of the environment visual or audible. In 3rd person games they can be hidden and the character can describe the important aspects to the player. Having to "look at" an item vicariously through the character is less pleasing to me than looking at it myself. That's why I find 1st person more sensual and less reliant on words. Some 3rd person games avoid this - Machinarium for example.



I'm pretty sure Stonewall Penitentiary was put on hold indefinitely, and the new title in development is a different one. At least that's the impression I get from the FAQ on the Unimatrix website, but I may be wrong.

"King's Quest:
>Look at waterfall
- "My, what a beautiful waterfall!""

My goodness, you are going back a very long way for that example, Wincey !!

I'm quite sure in more modern games there is much less use of those older "indirect" ways of seeing what is round and about.

But I have no wish to labour the point. As I said before, it's a matter of personal taste

I enjoy both first and third person, though I would agree that first person is superior if you favor exploration over story.

You can still tell a story in a first person game, but the story tends to require diaries or other characters to tell it. And you can focus on exploration in third person games, but (to me) guiding a character makes the exploration feel "mediated" unless the controls for the character are particularly easy and fluid.

I agree that third person games do tend to have more "wasn't that obvious?" environmental descriptions. I'm not sure why. If you can't say something that doesn't advance the story or reveal personality or hint at a direction to go -- then don't say anything at all.

Hmmm. Is the above too harsh?

Amerzone is a prime example of that. Evidently, Sokal didn't think it worked so well since he didn't use it again (did he?) and if you ask me, he was right. The only first person games I can think of right off hand that I've really enjoyed are the LHOD games, which are, of course, horror.



Explorers are a special type, methinks. The games are usually (if not always) so light on story that they can't hold my attention at all. Or they take so blasted long to get into the story that I am cross-eyed with boredom before that happens. I still haven't finished Scratches (another one with LOTS of reading). Snore.

I find the Boakes games particularly frustrating on the "mediated exploration" count but since I doubt anyone else agrees, I edited out that comment. He does, however, drive me nuts with his "mediated dialogue", never asking questions anyone else in the protagonist's shoes would want answers to.



Well...gimme an example and I'll tell you. Try not to make it from a text adventure.

Although, I'm not sure I follow you. A 3rd person game usually shows you what happened, thus saving the need for tons of descriptive text passages. A picture being worth quite a few words, as they say.

Gil.

Isn't it the opposite? Surely you have played a 3rd person game where you have to click the eye on the object to reveal more information about that object BEFORE you are even able to start solving the puzzle. For example, in Broken Sword you have to look at a sack to find out that inside is some plaster of paris, and only then can you take some. It's this kind of gameplay which makes 3rd person tedious sometimes, because it means you have to "look at" everything in case it might have something relevant to a puzzle.

I think the look at function is out of date. Games are now capable of showing you everything, when back in the days of text adventures and simplistic graphics they couldn't, and descriptions had to be given by words.

Um...I really don't follow you. In the real world you'd have to look in the sack to see what's in there. How on earth could the game show you the plaster of paris without your having to go to the tedious extreme of looking?

Gil.

You'd see it. With your eyes, and not the character's. 1st person is capable of doing that, but not 3rd person. Unless it gives you a close-up.

And you'd know what it was?

As I said, explorers are a special type.

Gil.

You'd click on the sack and see it, which would take less time than listening to the character say that there was a sack of plaster of paris in there. Not tedious at all, and some 3rd person games do it that way too, giving a 1st person closeup when you look at things, and going back to 3rd person when you back out of the screen.

I loved lots of the older games, especially the cartoony ones. I also love the new adventure games, maybe even a little better.
Also I don't see adventure games dying at all. IMO there are more now than ever before.
Also, I enjoy both 1st and 3rd person games. The choice by the game designer is always right on for that particular game.

Speaking as an "explorer" type of gamer -- nearly every third person game I've ever played has examples of environment/item description that don't add much.

Examples:

Descriptions that simply identify.

"It's a fountain." "It's a bird." "It's a painting."

I can nearly always tell that it's a fountain or a bird or a painting without clicking on it. I don't need to be told.

Other examples -- something is described, but in an entirely obvious way.

"What a beautiful rose!" (I haven't seen many ugly ones in my time.)

"The sky is perfectly clear." Well, yeah, I see that.

"That store sells fish." Yep, sure enough, there's a sign near the entrance in the shape of a fish that says: "Fish Market" on it.

Environment and item descriptions should be as important as dialog, and the same care should be given to writing them. IMHO.

Plaster of Paris probably isn't a very good example of what you're talking about, then. In the real world, if I did look in the sack (with my own eyes) I still wouldn't know what it contained unless the sack had a label on it or I was dumb enough to put a wet hand in there. White powder is rather generic.

Still, I see what you're saying but I do not see the tediousness of it. I didn't find that (or any other) segment of Broken Sword tedious except trying to get past that goat. Saying that hearing or reading a short description such as"That's Plaster of Paris" is time consuming when a first person game can require you to read a book at certain times during play is really reaching for a criticism, IMO.


"I can nearly always tell that it's a fountain or a bird or a painting without clicking on it. I don't need to be told."

I'll grant you that. Although, you are more perspicacious than most people, Becky.


Gil.

That was your example. I'm just saying it takes less time to click on something and see a closeup than to listen to the character talk about it. So if you think clicking on something is tedious, I don't see why you wouldn't think listening to the character describe it is even more tedious. And as I said before, seeing a closeup of the object when you click on it is something you see in some 3rd person games to.


Having to read a book is not a characteristic specific to either 1st or 3rd person games. How would having to read a book in a 3rd person game be any less "tedious" than in a 1st person game?

Actually, it was Wincey's example, not mine. I never said I thought clicking on something was tedious. What does it matter if it takes a tiny bit more time to see or hear the character talk about something? I really don't understand the need to gain a half second of time in an adventure game that is not about getting things done quickly.



It wouldn't. But it's less likely to happen, IMO. Admittedly, I don't play that many first person games but in Scratches, for instance, I was faced with having to read a book almost as soon as I entered the house. In a 3rd person game, every bit of that book could have been covered in much less time in a cut scene. And probably would have been.

Gil.

OK. Sorry.

Because it takes more than half a second to listen to the character talk, and it happens every time you click on something, so it's not just once. There are always complaints where a game doesn't allow you to "click through" the speech. It's not just about whether you or I think listening to the character takes too long or is repeated too often.


Not necessarily. It depends on the game. Reading is usually much faster than covering the same material in a cut scene -- unless a lot of the text is description of the environment, which it usually isn't. Remember the long descriptions in The Longest Journey. And the Neverhood was famous for its wall. Uru could be played either in 1st or 3rd person (with the default being 3rd, where you see your avatar) and it had that whole room full of books that you could read to learn Uru's history. It's not exclusively 1st person games that give you a lot to read.

I didn't say it was tedious - that's your argument with Becky. I just dislike hearing verbal descriptions when I can use my own senses. And the plaster of paris example was a bad one, I admit. I was trying to think of another specific example, maybe where you have to click the eye on an item in your inventory to get another object - like having to look at a comb to get a hair from it. Plenty of 3rd person games have those.

One of the refreshing things I find about Myst-style games is the freedom from verbalization. I get enough of that in my own head when I'm playing and listening to someone else verbalize at the same time tends to grate on me. It's different with a book because that's all you've got. That's very much personal preference, though - I don't expect everyone else to feel the same.

Reading a book inside a game is not quite the same as hearing from the character "that's a beautiful sunset". You can see the senset yourself, and that it's beautiful. When the book gives you information it's the only source that it comes from.

Well said. I want a peaceful solitary experience from a game. I don't want to have chatter or conversation. There are some games where's it's ok, but we used to have more choice to play a 'quiet' game in between dialogue driven ones.

Wow !! Some pretty pernickety stuff in parts of this thread ....

However, I actually like clicking on an item to let the game tell me what it is or what it might contain. Even if it does take a whole half a second !!
Guess I must be a "loner"

I loved all the really old 3rd person games and I still prefer that mode for modern games.
But that doesn't stop me enjoying 1st person.
It is just a preference.

After all, a good game is a good game whatever mode it's in

It's not just a preference when there are so few games of one of the other type being made, which is the reason for this thread -- the lack of choice. I used to enjoy 3rd person a lot more than I do now. Now that I can't alternate them with new 1st person games, it's only a really outstanding 3rd person game that interests me enough to finish it. It's not just about 1st or 3rd person -- it's about the number and type of puzzles you're apt to find in 1st person as compared to 3rd.

This thread has "evolved" rather a lot from gamenut's original post - with many opinions having been expressed and several issues discussed - so I thought it OK to join in and add what I thought myself.
But if you feel I'm missing the point, Jenny100, then I do apologise

I'm sorry if I offended you, Mad. It's just discouraging that the new adventure games I can really enjoy are so few and far between lately. Like Colpet, I seem to be enjoying more casual games than I do adventures these days, even though I can't "get lost in them" the way I used to be able to with adventures.

I don't feel at all offended, Jenny100 !!

And I hope some of your favourite style games come along very soon

[I, too, dabble in Casuals - when I haven't as much time for playing - but they certainly don't have the depth of an Adventure "proper".]

Some good points about what appeals to fans of 1st person adventures. The solitary adventuring is at the core. I'm not sure if it's the level of graphics, the voice acting, the writing, all three, or something else entirely, but I've not come across many games where the in-game characters were convincing. IMHO, the gamer's imagination does a far better job here in conjuring up other "characters" from old texts, diaries and notes found in the game environment.

Too, some don't like "pixel hunting" but fundamentally, an adventure is analogous to a search for something in your own home. Would you expect to be led to a an overly conspicuous hotspot in each room you entered? No--you'd conduct a methodical search, item by item, corner by corner, inch by inch, until you turned up something potentially useful. Intuitively, that's the way we do things. That's why third person games have never logically made sense to me. It feels more like watching someone else do something than doing it myself.

First person games that allow this kind of intensive searching offer a level of satisfaction, IMHO, I can't find in a game that leads me through it in a narrative fashion that feels more like I'm a character in a film. I appreciate being able to pick up all of the overpriced junk in the gift shop in Lights Out, for example, that Jonathan Boakes has painstakingly taken the time to put on the shelves there, even though it may have no significance to the plot. It creates and builds atmosphere. Racing through that setting to find one or two clues or puzzle pieces and moving on somehow wouldn't seem as much fun.

Just wanted to add my .02 centavos to Gamenuts original observation: I agree completely. I hate to be pessimistic but I see a dismal future for Adventure games; It is obvious to anyone who has been tracking the trends that the future of adventure gaming is animated cartoon creatures wandering through a cartoon landscape gathering a ridiculous array of inventory items and trying to fulfill some sort of "quest". In other words, glorified "hidden object" games....

Well I absolutely refuse to be pessimistic !!

Trends come and go and always have done