When they speak about dying economies and dying industries in The Economist, I know what they mean. They use the terms synonymously with "stagnant economy," and "stagnant industry." Some people prefer the term stagnant, but it is semantically the same when you are discussing the non-living context of market and economic factors. Remember the context.
When they speak about dying economies and dying industries in The Economist, I know what they mean. They use the terms synonymously with "stagnant economy," and "stagnant industry." Some people prefer the term stagnant, but it is semantically the same when you are discussing the non-living context of market and economic factors. Remember the context.
Sorry, but a dieing genre doesn't have as many good games being released regularly. That is the bottom line. Claim the sky is falling all you want, I disagree.
If you want to say that the industry isn't growing, that is fine... but as long great games keep coming and their developers are making profits, the genre is simply changing. Smaller companies need less sales. We don't need huge companies like sierra pumping out mediocre sequels... I prefer small companies make great games with souls than big companies with soulless games.
The landscape has changed, but it is not dieing, just changing. Who needs a huge company to make games like escape from monkey island when we have small companies making barrow hill!?
I didn't know ppl would make a big deal over one little word. Honestly, I usually use the wrong words when describing things and I am well aware of it. I don't know if I used it here or not (1 hour of sleep may contribute to my use of the word,) but in this case, I like to compare this genre to forgotten consoles where small companies and fans still makes games for. If you don't agree with me or are in denial, fine.
Regardless of the situation, adventure games isn't what they were 15 years ago. Call it a dying or stagnant, whatever. The fact of the matter is that adventure games is a genre that is mostly played by people who grew up by them. You can call it a transitional period for adventure games, but the bottom land is that the younger crowd would think that adventure games are games like Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver. It is sad, but true.
As for difficulty of the game, I am quite certain Telltale games will not make it any more difficult, hence the reason why I stop pestering them about it. As for challenging=illogical, true it isn't in every adventure, but I still don't think it is a myth since it is clearly present in some. If you guys don't like reading about it, fine. It doesn't mean it will magically becomes myth because of it. Some Germans do not like hearing ppl repeating that the holocaust even happened, claiming it is a myth. Even so, it still happened.
The Phantasmogora 2 comment was actually mentioned in a PC gamer years ago.
From my personal experience of playing adventure games, challenging and illogical puzzles does happens. It may not seem illogical to one person and the company creating the game since we've in adventure game playing mode where picking up a rock involves using a device that McGvyer can only dream of. However, to people new to the genre, it may be difficult to get in that phase. We all process information differently, based on the enviornment we lived in. Doing something we think is common, we may not be common for another person. As said, it is probable that people may not like very challenging puzzles because of possible frustration and insanity. This frustration may cause the player to generalize adventure games as being mad hard. It doesn't make them any less intelligent than you and I, just that their brains isn't processed that way. Moreover, they may don't want to spend that much effort in solving puzzles that takes a lot of creative thinking or back tracking. True, they can use hint guides, but personally, hint guides take the fun of solving a challenging puzzle yourself. I myself used hint guides once in a while and even though I do, I usually end up kicking myself for solving a puzzle I knew the situation to, but forgot to apply it because of getting sidetrack; even though I haven't used a hint guide on this one particular puzzle, me being sidetracked happened quite recently though due to a pc crashed.
Overall, adventure games, like fighting games, no longer dominate the market like they have years ago. Instead, they are mostly enjoyed by players who remembered them during their golden era. To the chargin of vetern adventure gamers, Telltale is simply trying to give new life into the genre by eliminating the frustrations (a possible turn off to new gamers,) present so that players who haven't experience adventure games before, will not be intimindated by it and continue to play more.
Sorry, but a dieing genre doesn't have as many good games being released regularly. That is the bottom line. Claim the sky is falling all you want, I disagree.
If you want to say that the industry isn't growing, that is fine... but as long great games keep coming and their developers are making profits, the genre is simply changing. Smaller companies need less sales. We don't need huge companies like sierra pumping out mediocre sequels... I prefer small companies make great games with souls than big companies with soulless games.
The landscape has changed, but it is not dieing, just changing. Who needs a huge company to make games like escape from monkey island when we have small companies making barrow hill!?
Even though I still say adventure is on life support, truer words have never been spoken, shadow. "We don't need huge companies like sierra pumping out mediocre sequels... I prefer small companies make great games with souls than big companies with soulless games." Sums up my thoughts on gaming altogether. ID Software lost their touch when they became huge, 3D Realms lost their touch when they became huge (and thats hard for me to say, as I still whistle the Apogee fanfare when reminiscing about the good ol' days of gaming lol), hell, even Sierra suffered the fate of becoming too money-hungry to make good titles.
Anyone remember the tidal wave of homebrew games between 1989-1997?
Some of the greatest games were made by these 1 to 4 man teams of people. Pixel Painters, Soleau Software, Morraffware, that guy that made the Hugo quadrilogy.... the list goes on and on. THOSE were games in their purest form.
"Regardless of the situation, adventure games isn't what they were 15 years ago. Call it a dying or stagnant, whatever. The fact of the matter is that adventure games is a genre that is mostly played by people who grew up by them."
First sentence is an opinion. One I disagree with. People tend to substitute critical reviews with their nostalgia. Personally, I enjoyed The Longest Journey, Discworld 2, and Barrow Hill/Dark Fall just as much as I did Sam and Max and Day of the Tentacle. I also think a lot has changed for the better. Smart cursors are much more user friendly and less frustrating than text parsers. Obnoxious mazes/too many deaths(King's quest I am looking at you!) are not as commonplace.
The second statement is a guess. Unless you have demographic data, you are just assuming. My wife just started adventure gaming about 6 months ago... I started with Day of the Tentacle. There is no hard evidence suggesting that the demographics are skewed towards people who grew up on adventures. Matter of fact, many of the complainers about current adventure games and even the first graphic adventure games have been the "original" adventure gamers.
"From my personal experience of playing adventure games, challenging and illogical puzzles does happens."
It does, but it is not necessary. They are not directly correlated.
I just wanted to ask you guys what you think about Runaway 2 regarding difficulty, if you have played it.
It's sometimes annoying, although it makes the game harder in a natural way. Their take is that the character must know about the problem in order to be able to find the solution.
For instance, even though you as a player know what to to, the character must perhaps talk to people first so that the character is aware of the problem. The downside is that you have to talk to a person about everything. This means that if you haven't talked to a person about a certain thing (the problem), you cannot make any progress. And sometimes the topic isn't available until later on, which means you have to go back to everyone and talk to them about all topics. And then the mouse-clicking-conversation-skipping-frenzy begin.
Another take is that sometimes when you look at a certain place the player says "I didn't find anything useful" at the time, but if you go back and look another time when you have a problem (e.g. you need to break something), he might find a solution (a hammer).
---
I think the first take is very natual, although annoying. The second one is also very natural, although not that annoying. So there are ways of making a game harder without making illogical puzzles (which are fun sometimes).
I was going to write this incredibly long and persuasive argument about how "adventure" gaming was actually starting to bounce back, about how i think Sam & Max is true to source, about the good ol' days of LucasArts and Sierra games ... but then i read most of this thread and I'm just too drained.
I will say that the thing that bothers me most about this thread and the arguments presented was what 'adventure' gaming seems to equate to. There is a reason we classify games as action/adventure -- don't think you're not playing a true adventure game because you get to swing around a sword occasionally. Adventure gaming never died, ever, it just evolved and merged with other genres to create new experiences. Mentioned above is tomb raider, that's a perfect example. How do you think that game was classified when it came out? It's got puzzle solving, exploration, and story ... you just get to shot some guns too.
That being said i deeply miss the old sierra KQ, SQ, PQ, GK, QFG, LSL games etc. etc. But it's important to ask yourself what exactly you missed from these games. What adventure gaming stood for isn't a single attitude like say Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle -- There were always intricate games with deep and rich story lines that were not funny. Quest for Glory was a perfect example; completely classified as an adventure game when it was out, but you can probably bet that if a new one were to come out today it would be an action/adventure or RPG. It's important to realize that what we loved about adventure games never changed, the classification just expanded to be more robust.
I just wanted to ask you guys what you think about Runaway 2 regarding difficulty, if you have played it.
It's sometimes annoying, although it makes the game harder in a natural way. Their take is that the character must know about the problem in order to be able to find the solution.
For instance, even though you as a player know what to to, the character must perhaps talk to people first so that the character is aware of the problem. The downside is that you have to talk to a person about everything. This means that if you haven't talked to a person about a certain thing (the problem), you cannot make any progress. And sometimes the topic isn't available until later on, which means you have to go back to everyone and talk to them about all topics. And then the mouse-clicking-conversation-skipping-frenzy begin.
Another take is that sometimes when you look at a certain place the player says "I didn't find anything useful" at the time, but if you go back and look another time when you have a problem (e.g. you need to break something), he might find a solution (a hammer).
---
I think the first take is very natual, although annoying. The second one is also very natural, although not that annoying. So there are ways of making a game harder without making illogical puzzles (which are fun sometimes).
True, I think another apporach to hard puzzles is making something for that event like some villain hog ties you, take all your stuff, and locks you up in the basement. You probably have to do some searching my hoping on side to side to find what useful items to untie your self like say if you see a mirror hangin, you can hop over there, use your head to hit the wall, making the mirror shatter and you falling on your side, and somehow use the shatter mirror shards to cut you loose.
Another thing I think companies should do is have alternate ways to solve a puzzle
Also, (playing Runaway) you often need to practice some good (?) old (?) pixel-hunting to find the objects you can pick up, that's obviously not exciting but, hey, it increases the difficulty even if it's annoying.:rolleyes:
Ok, that's not a pro, but I remember that in CMI you could easily figure out the items you needed to get, because they had a lower resolution compared to the backgrounds. That bothered me a bit, honestly.
Another thing I think companies should do is have alternate ways to solve a puzzle
I really couldn't agree more! Too bad it's something we've already seen in a game like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and, who knows why, after that experiment no other point & click adventure was made that way Apart from Indy Atlantis, that was practically made as if it was 3 different short games with a common ending for each of them.
After that, adventure games became more linear, I dunno why.
I don't put Another Code and Day of the Tentacle in the same bag, I'm sorry. Then if you do, it's all right, just consider when I say there is for me nothing such as Season 1 since so many times, I don't refere to the adventure game kind, but to the humouristic LucasArts (and co) style. I liked Another code, I didn't played Hotel Dusk, but as I can see, from Ruanway to Hotel Dusk, it's not as funny as a single episode of Sam&Max. Then, they surely are great games, I find Runaway boring but it's not a bad game, I don't know well hotel dusk but some people seems to like it. I prefer humouristic adventure games, that's all I loved Sanitarium, I can't compare it to Curse of Monkey Island... I love them both, but it's not the same thing.
If you consider humor to be the important thing, then Psychonauts is the better game.
I'm not sure why the action-adventure genre is considered a child of graphic adventure games. They generally de-emphasize inventory-based puzzles, don't put too much emphasis on character interaction or dialogue, and put far more emphasis on exploration than most graphic adventure games. A story-driven nature isn't considered one of the staples of the genre either, at least, not much more than games in general right now. They're pretty dissimilar genres in a lot of ways, and I usually enjoy them for totally different reasons.
If you consider humor to be the important thing, then Psychonauts is the better game.
You're surely right I never played this game more than say... thirty seconds, I hate the gameplay. But I only read good critics about, so maybe one day I'll retry I don't like the chara design either, and videos I saw shows too much "action" phases, just like broken sword 3... but one day maybe ^^
I'm not sure why the action-adventure genre is considered a child of graphic adventure games. They generally de-emphasize inventory-based puzzles, don't put too much emphasis on character interaction or dialogue, and put far more emphasis on exploration than most graphic adventure games. A story-driven nature isn't considered one of the staples of the genre either, at least, not much more than games in general right now. They're pretty dissimilar genres in a lot of ways, and I usually enjoy them for totally different reasons.
I can see your point, however, i didn't say that every action/adventure game was, in essence an adventure game. The criteria i take to define 'adventure' game are the following:
Exploration
Logic Puzzles (be it inventory, or in the case of say the 7th guest straight up puzzles)
Storyline
Character Interaction
If you look at that list you can probably see the point i was aiming for. All of the things that defined adventure gaming as a genre (to me at least) are so broad and overlapping that they're included in almost every genre.
Action / Adventure = Adventure game with swords and or guns and such.
RPG = Adventure game with numbers, and some combat
Puzzle game = 1/4th of an adventure game
FPS = FPS stands alone mostly -- except with the case of something like half-life 2 (i'm not sure if i include the physics puzzles in 'logic puzzles, but it wouldn't be a stretch to do so)
etc. etc.
Now this doesn't always ring true of course, games like say DOOM 3 i wouldn't consider an adventure game, even though there's an inventory system, a story, and -some- character interaction. The point is that the genre definition itself, albeit very verbose in its definition, is still very vague. So, when i say that adventure gaming never died i mean that the genre itself is so omnipresent that it simply exists in most games. Now we can keep going and re-dub them 'graphic adventure' games or 'point-and-click' adventure games, but at what point are we simply splitting hairs? Or, in my QFG example in the previous post, break the predefined definition and simply invalidate the previous categorization?
I would say that games like KOTOR and Fables managed to put together the best of worlds. I would LOVE to play a graphic adventure with that kind of scope someday.
I agree to the point episode 3 was too short. However looking at episode 4 pics and trailer, I can see why. They seem to have sacrificed 3 for 4. Episodes are a must I believe however to cut down the cost. We as Sam & Max fans will most likely enjoy the game, but I don't think they can acquire many new fans right now.
I hope that by season 2, they will have their base rich to develop longer ones. And hey, many episodes ended by being full movies in cinema like Simpson, so why not have Sam & Max full game later on when the company establishes its roots.
Adventure games have been around forever, and probably always will be.
The real problem (well, not really the only problem, but it's a snappy rhetorical phrase) is the oversaturation and the brainwashing of the modern game market by four culprits: FPS games, RTS games, MMORPGs, and 3d card manufacturers.
I kinda agree that the episodes can be a bit too short , but i dont think the episode thing is a bad idea i end up really looking forwartd to the start of the month for the next one.
if it is designed for 10yrs old who care id like to state im nearly 29yrs old and am having a great time playing it and before it pointed out its cuase im a girly :P my boyfriend plays it with me we work it out together it great for a couple that loves games but dont usually agree on um
If they do the next sam and max like this thats col but maybe do it a little bit longer each episode but overall im very happy and I know this isnt the thread but i have to say I think the service by Tobacco and Emily is outstanding ive never known such caring staff
If they do the next sam and max like this thats col but maybe do it a little bit longer each episode but overall im very happy and I know this isnt the thread but i have to say I think the service by Tobacco and Emily is outstanding ive never known such caring staff
I kinda agree that the episodes can be a bit too short , but i dont think the episode thing is a bad idea i end up really looking forwartd to the start of the month for the next one.
if it is designed for 10yrs old who care id like to state im nearly 29yrs old and am having a great time playing it and before it pointed out its cuase im a girly :P my boyfriend plays it with me we work it out together it great for a couple that loves games but dont usually agree on um
If they do the next sam and max like this thats col but maybe do it a little bit longer each episode but overall im very happy and I know this isnt the thread but i have to say I think the service by Tobacco and Emily is outstanding ive never known such caring staff
With your spelling, grammar, and lack of punctuation, I have a hard time taking you serious. Run-on sentences much?
I consider myself a big fan of Sam & Max. I'm 22 and have been a computer geek since I was 6 1/2, and remember the original Sam & Max sensation. I never played the game or read the comics back then, but about two years ago I played the game. I really liked it, I was an instant fan.
So when this new series came out I kept my eye on it all, and signed up for Gametap to watch the old cartoons and get the games over Gametap. I also pre-ordered the collectors edition, so basically I paid for it twice. (fine with me, as long as there's a Season 2 ;p)
I was a bit concerned at first about it being entirely 3D and all, old 2D classics that were made into 3D games are almost always cheap budget worthless knock-offs that are so terrible they make you cry. I was reassured though because Telltale seemed to want to treat it with respect, which was much deserved in every way.
So the first episode came out, and I signed up for Gametap. I liked the first one a lot. The voice acting was good, the humor was perfect, the game world was rather cramped, but it was of an acceptable length. The villan was rather lame though. Most people don't like references to The Brady Bunch period, urhg.
The second episode seemed even more cramped, the humor was still great, the voice acting even better, and the story acceptable. I'm also not a big fan of day-time telivision, but it makes for good humor. I was dissapointed because the second episode was shorter then the first, it was about 3/4 as long. I figured that was normal though, afterall the first one was probably worked on more and it should be a bit longer.
The third episode had a more interesting story, no doubt. The voice acting is perfect, and the humor still great. But it's getting even emptier, less of everything, and the repition of everything is getting monotonous and rather dull. The length of the third episode is actually rather alarming, it's half as long as the first episode. At this rate the sixth episode will be 30 minutes long.
The humor is great, by far the strongest point is the humor. Honestly if it wasn't for the humor, people wouldn't even be slightly dissapointed, they'd be long gone.
What is needed, desperately, right now is more content, and less repitition. It's really too late now as most of the rest of the episodes are probably already made. I just hope the trend of less content and continuing repitition doesn't continue, or lots of people will be sorely dissapointed.
Even if the rest of Season 1 doesn't do so well as the first half, I would still stick around if they would be willing to do a Season 2 (as they should, regardless of the final outcome). I think that the leasons learned from Season 1 should be paid attention to and applied liberally to Season 2. If Telltale is willing to do that, then everyone will be happy. The main points so far seem to be...
1) Slightly more content is needed. (Say at least the size of episode 1, maybe 20% larger)
2) More complicated gameplay. (Too simple, just collect items and use on other items in the game world. Actual problems are also a bit too simple, but shouldn't be significantly harder.)
3) More diversity! (Keeping the main neighborhood is ok, but there needs to be some freedom, some extras. City map and driving ability anyone? Two or three new main characters in a Season 2 is a must.)
4) Keep the humor!!! Without it Sam & Max is doomed. (Be a bit outrageous if you have to, but don't lose the humor. Sam & Max are rather adult oriented afterall.)
Also on a note, I would definately like to see a new Sam & Max cartoon series. I know Telltale isn't in the cartoon business, but maybe something could be arranged with Purcell? Try to push him into making a new series anyway. I'd be willing to pay to watch a new cartoon series, especially if they are between 15-20 minutes an episode.
I also would like to say that everyone here is really screwing up a good opportunity to get Telltale's attention and give good feedback and suggestions. That's what they're looking for here, not talk about science fiction and the state of the industry. Please try to keep that in mind, because if you don't then they won't know how they're doing (which I would rate a 85% at right now) and Sam & Max will fall into oblivion for another decade.
Oh, it definately is the shortest. The content is better, but it's lacking in size. Then there's the few puzzles and repitition of content issues. Personally I would rate the first episode at 93%, the second at 85%, and the third at 78%
i dont think we really want to go back to 2D. i love the old series but i would rather experiment with cartoony rendering or shaders than go back to 2D. Comic like 3D realtime rendering, now that would be cool.
as for the complexity that is one issue that has always been a problem in this kind of game. you have to admit that the old games were often really really overcomplicated. millions of possibilities to combine things, often totally pointless resolutions to problems. we only played them because they are indeed fun but also because we 1. had nothing else 2. had an incredible patience because these games were still new.
to make it clear: i would not at all want to be totally lost in a game and wait half a year before i find the answer by accident or a friend telling me like back then in the olden days. i would just give up or look it up on the net, wheres the fun in that. if you want to raise the difficulty, then it has to be in another way than just hiding pick up items so that you wont find them. maybe it would be fun to combine items and have more multi-usable or even combinable items yes, but we dont want to have to guess at random or spend ten minutes clicking every pixel of the screen in case we missed something. we need something new there...
I like the simple and cartoonish models. :P It actually seems like a 3D cartoon, which is no small feat. Here's a couple ideas... Implement cartoon effects like action lines (don't know what to call them, when something moves you make lines in the opposite direction? stuff like that) motion blur... oh, wait, the soda poppers did that :P... um... maybe some kind of model warping? Like, say, if you bounce a ball it warps... That would make things seem more cartoonish and dynamic.
Shadow9d9, knock it off with the attitude, please. That comment was completely uncalled for.
Was it untrue? Not one period or other punctuation, terrible grammar, and one big run-on sentence... How is pointing out the truth considered having an attitude?
Was it untrue? Not one period or other punctuation, terrible grammar, and one big run-on sentence... How is pointing out the truth considered having an attitude?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... If you know what's good for you, you won't argue with administrators. Trust me.
First off, when I heard Telltale Games was making a Sam & Max game, I was excited, because I never really got to play the LucasArts version (long story short, had a really primitive computer, and my friend played it one time before letting it go to another guy, never to be seen again), and the one planned for Xbox (presumably) and PC turned out to be a bust.
I'm 38, and I've got the Sam & Max Surfs the Highway GN, and I loved the animated series, despite what Fox Kids did to it. So personally I like the Telltale Game episodes for reviving the series.
Though the games are short, and some of the puzzles are easy, you have to realize TTG isn't like a major developer where they can conjure up something like Oddworld's Stranger's Wrath, or Psychonauts, and expect you to pay $8.95 per episode. And at least I like the fact they don't pull this false security jazz like most console games do, where the first level are ridiculously easy to conquer, then in the middle they get difficult to where you want to give up.
Thus you wonder why those $50 and $60 games have no lasting appeal at times. I love the humour and interaction with Sam & Max and though Sam sounds different, the voice actor for Max has the character dead on. Until I read the site, I thought they used the same actor for Max.
Personally, I would love other regular characters for S&M to interact with like Myrna, but I realize TTG has their hands full keeping up with Bosco and Sybil. As with all things, though you might feel disappointed with the games at the moment, we're only halfway through the season, and eventually they can only get better. I, for one, can't wait to see what Episode 4 brings.
Better yet, I can't wait to see if Sam & Max can make it to the Nintendo Wii.
Its actually 3D with 2D backgrounds. They can't afford full 2D:
We started off with a 2D engine, but quickly discovered that 2D animation production was too slow and would eat up too much of our budget. Also, games like Syberia and Runaway: A Road Adventure came out and showed that point & click 2D/3D hybrids could work both technically and aesthetically. Plus our animator has a lot of experience in 3D animation and works faster in it. It just made more sense. We will even experiment with a celshaded 2D filter to help the characters blend better with the 2D backgrounds.
Was it untrue? Not one period or other punctuation, terrible grammar, and one big run-on sentence... How is pointing out the truth considered having an attitude?
I guess calling someone with a disability a retard is also the truth and not offensive at all...
EDIT: Ok, ok, I know it's a harsh example, but it's not like you are going to say to such a person, "I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously because you're disabled."
Comments
Sorry, but a dieing genre doesn't have as many good games being released regularly. That is the bottom line. Claim the sky is falling all you want, I disagree.
If you want to say that the industry isn't growing, that is fine... but as long great games keep coming and their developers are making profits, the genre is simply changing. Smaller companies need less sales. We don't need huge companies like sierra pumping out mediocre sequels... I prefer small companies make great games with souls than big companies with soulless games.
The landscape has changed, but it is not dieing, just changing. Who needs a huge company to make games like escape from monkey island when we have small companies making barrow hill!?
Regardless of the situation, adventure games isn't what they were 15 years ago. Call it a dying or stagnant, whatever. The fact of the matter is that adventure games is a genre that is mostly played by people who grew up by them. You can call it a transitional period for adventure games, but the bottom land is that the younger crowd would think that adventure games are games like Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver. It is sad, but true.
As for difficulty of the game, I am quite certain Telltale games will not make it any more difficult, hence the reason why I stop pestering them about it. As for challenging=illogical, true it isn't in every adventure, but I still don't think it is a myth since it is clearly present in some. If you guys don't like reading about it, fine. It doesn't mean it will magically becomes myth because of it. Some Germans do not like hearing ppl repeating that the holocaust even happened, claiming it is a myth. Even so, it still happened.
The Phantasmogora 2 comment was actually mentioned in a PC gamer years ago.
From my personal experience of playing adventure games, challenging and illogical puzzles does happens. It may not seem illogical to one person and the company creating the game since we've in adventure game playing mode where picking up a rock involves using a device that McGvyer can only dream of. However, to people new to the genre, it may be difficult to get in that phase. We all process information differently, based on the enviornment we lived in. Doing something we think is common, we may not be common for another person. As said, it is probable that people may not like very challenging puzzles because of possible frustration and insanity. This frustration may cause the player to generalize adventure games as being mad hard. It doesn't make them any less intelligent than you and I, just that their brains isn't processed that way. Moreover, they may don't want to spend that much effort in solving puzzles that takes a lot of creative thinking or back tracking. True, they can use hint guides, but personally, hint guides take the fun of solving a challenging puzzle yourself. I myself used hint guides once in a while and even though I do, I usually end up kicking myself for solving a puzzle I knew the situation to, but forgot to apply it because of getting sidetrack; even though I haven't used a hint guide on this one particular puzzle, me being sidetracked happened quite recently though due to a pc crashed.
Overall, adventure games, like fighting games, no longer dominate the market like they have years ago. Instead, they are mostly enjoyed by players who remembered them during their golden era. To the chargin of vetern adventure gamers, Telltale is simply trying to give new life into the genre by eliminating the frustrations (a possible turn off to new gamers,) present so that players who haven't experience adventure games before, will not be intimindated by it and continue to play more.
Even though I still say adventure is on life support, truer words have never been spoken, shadow. "We don't need huge companies like sierra pumping out mediocre sequels... I prefer small companies make great games with souls than big companies with soulless games." Sums up my thoughts on gaming altogether. ID Software lost their touch when they became huge, 3D Realms lost their touch when they became huge (and thats hard for me to say, as I still whistle the Apogee fanfare when reminiscing about the good ol' days of gaming lol), hell, even Sierra suffered the fate of becoming too money-hungry to make good titles.
Anyone remember the tidal wave of homebrew games between 1989-1997?
Some of the greatest games were made by these 1 to 4 man teams of people. Pixel Painters, Soleau Software, Morraffware, that guy that made the Hugo quadrilogy.... the list goes on and on. THOSE were games in their purest form.
First sentence is an opinion. One I disagree with. People tend to substitute critical reviews with their nostalgia. Personally, I enjoyed The Longest Journey, Discworld 2, and Barrow Hill/Dark Fall just as much as I did Sam and Max and Day of the Tentacle. I also think a lot has changed for the better. Smart cursors are much more user friendly and less frustrating than text parsers. Obnoxious mazes/too many deaths(King's quest I am looking at you!) are not as commonplace.
The second statement is a guess. Unless you have demographic data, you are just assuming. My wife just started adventure gaming about 6 months ago... I started with Day of the Tentacle. There is no hard evidence suggesting that the demographics are skewed towards people who grew up on adventures. Matter of fact, many of the complainers about current adventure games and even the first graphic adventure games have been the "original" adventure gamers.
"From my personal experience of playing adventure games, challenging and illogical puzzles does happens."
It does, but it is not necessary. They are not directly correlated.
Thanks Shag for the nice comment.
It's sometimes annoying, although it makes the game harder in a natural way. Their take is that the character must know about the problem in order to be able to find the solution.
For instance, even though you as a player know what to to, the character must perhaps talk to people first so that the character is aware of the problem. The downside is that you have to talk to a person about everything. This means that if you haven't talked to a person about a certain thing (the problem), you cannot make any progress. And sometimes the topic isn't available until later on, which means you have to go back to everyone and talk to them about all topics. And then the mouse-clicking-conversation-skipping-frenzy begin.
Another take is that sometimes when you look at a certain place the player says "I didn't find anything useful" at the time, but if you go back and look another time when you have a problem (e.g. you need to break something), he might find a solution (a hammer).
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I think the first take is very natual, although annoying. The second one is also very natural, although not that annoying. So there are ways of making a game harder without making illogical puzzles (which are fun sometimes).
I will say that the thing that bothers me most about this thread and the arguments presented was what 'adventure' gaming seems to equate to. There is a reason we classify games as action/adventure -- don't think you're not playing a true adventure game because you get to swing around a sword occasionally. Adventure gaming never died, ever, it just evolved and merged with other genres to create new experiences. Mentioned above is tomb raider, that's a perfect example. How do you think that game was classified when it came out? It's got puzzle solving, exploration, and story ... you just get to shot some guns too.
That being said i deeply miss the old sierra KQ, SQ, PQ, GK, QFG, LSL games etc. etc. But it's important to ask yourself what exactly you missed from these games. What adventure gaming stood for isn't a single attitude like say Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle -- There were always intricate games with deep and rich story lines that were not funny. Quest for Glory was a perfect example; completely classified as an adventure game when it was out, but you can probably bet that if a new one were to come out today it would be an action/adventure or RPG. It's important to realize that what we loved about adventure games never changed, the classification just expanded to be more robust.
True, I think another apporach to hard puzzles is making something for that event like some villain hog ties you, take all your stuff, and locks you up in the basement. You probably have to do some searching my hoping on side to side to find what useful items to untie your self like say if you see a mirror hangin, you can hop over there, use your head to hit the wall, making the mirror shatter and you falling on your side, and somehow use the shatter mirror shards to cut you loose.
Another thing I think companies should do is have alternate ways to solve a puzzle
Ok, that's not a pro, but I remember that in CMI you could easily figure out the items you needed to get, because they had a lower resolution compared to the backgrounds. That bothered me a bit, honestly.
I really couldn't agree more! Too bad it's something we've already seen in a game like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and, who knows why, after that experiment no other point & click adventure was made that way
After that, adventure games became more linear, I dunno why.
If you consider humor to be the important thing, then Psychonauts is the better game.
You're surely right
I can see your point, however, i didn't say that every action/adventure game was, in essence an adventure game. The criteria i take to define 'adventure' game are the following:
Exploration
Logic Puzzles (be it inventory, or in the case of say the 7th guest straight up puzzles)
Storyline
Character Interaction
If you look at that list you can probably see the point i was aiming for. All of the things that defined adventure gaming as a genre (to me at least) are so broad and overlapping that they're included in almost every genre.
Action / Adventure = Adventure game with swords and or guns and such.
RPG = Adventure game with numbers, and some combat
Puzzle game = 1/4th of an adventure game
FPS = FPS stands alone mostly -- except with the case of something like half-life 2 (i'm not sure if i include the physics puzzles in 'logic puzzles, but it wouldn't be a stretch to do so)
etc. etc.
Now this doesn't always ring true of course, games like say DOOM 3 i wouldn't consider an adventure game, even though there's an inventory system, a story, and -some- character interaction. The point is that the genre definition itself, albeit very verbose in its definition, is still very vague. So, when i say that adventure gaming never died i mean that the genre itself is so omnipresent that it simply exists in most games. Now we can keep going and re-dub them 'graphic adventure' games or 'point-and-click' adventure games, but at what point are we simply splitting hairs? Or, in my QFG example in the previous post, break the predefined definition and simply invalidate the previous categorization?
I hope that by season 2, they will have their base rich to develop longer ones. And hey, many episodes ended by being full movies in cinema like Simpson, so why not have Sam & Max full game later on when the company establishes its roots.
Adventure games have been around forever, and probably always will be.
The real problem (well, not really the only problem, but it's a snappy rhetorical phrase) is the oversaturation and the brainwashing of the modern game market by four culprits: FPS games, RTS games, MMORPGs, and 3d card manufacturers.
if it is designed for 10yrs old who care id like to state im nearly 29yrs old and am having a great time playing it and before it pointed out its cuase im a girly :P my boyfriend plays it with me we work it out together it great for a couple that loves games but dont usually agree on um
If they do the next sam and max like this thats col but maybe do it a little bit longer each episode but overall im very happy and I know this isnt the thread but i have to say I think the service by Tobacco and Emily is outstanding ive never known such caring staff
Don't forget Jake
With your spelling, grammar, and lack of punctuation, I have a hard time taking you serious. Run-on sentences much?
Coincidentally, I happen to have a hard time taking you seriously.
So when this new series came out I kept my eye on it all, and signed up for Gametap to watch the old cartoons and get the games over Gametap. I also pre-ordered the collectors edition, so basically I paid for it twice. (fine with me, as long as there's a Season 2 ;p)
I was a bit concerned at first about it being entirely 3D and all, old 2D classics that were made into 3D games are almost always cheap budget worthless knock-offs that are so terrible they make you cry. I was reassured though because Telltale seemed to want to treat it with respect, which was much deserved in every way.
So the first episode came out, and I signed up for Gametap. I liked the first one a lot. The voice acting was good, the humor was perfect, the game world was rather cramped, but it was of an acceptable length. The villan was rather lame though. Most people don't like references to The Brady Bunch period, urhg.
The second episode seemed even more cramped, the humor was still great, the voice acting even better, and the story acceptable. I'm also not a big fan of day-time telivision, but it makes for good humor. I was dissapointed because the second episode was shorter then the first, it was about 3/4 as long. I figured that was normal though, afterall the first one was probably worked on more and it should be a bit longer.
The third episode had a more interesting story, no doubt. The voice acting is perfect, and the humor still great. But it's getting even emptier, less of everything, and the repition of everything is getting monotonous and rather dull. The length of the third episode is actually rather alarming, it's half as long as the first episode. At this rate the sixth episode will be 30 minutes long.
The humor is great, by far the strongest point is the humor. Honestly if it wasn't for the humor, people wouldn't even be slightly dissapointed, they'd be long gone.
What is needed, desperately, right now is more content, and less repitition. It's really too late now as most of the rest of the episodes are probably already made. I just hope the trend of less content and continuing repitition doesn't continue, or lots of people will be sorely dissapointed.
Even if the rest of Season 1 doesn't do so well as the first half, I would still stick around if they would be willing to do a Season 2 (as they should, regardless of the final outcome). I think that the leasons learned from Season 1 should be paid attention to and applied liberally to Season 2. If Telltale is willing to do that, then everyone will be happy. The main points so far seem to be...
1) Slightly more content is needed. (Say at least the size of episode 1, maybe 20% larger)
2) More complicated gameplay. (Too simple, just collect items and use on other items in the game world. Actual problems are also a bit too simple, but shouldn't be significantly harder.)
3) More diversity! (Keeping the main neighborhood is ok, but there needs to be some freedom, some extras. City map and driving ability anyone? Two or three new main characters in a Season 2 is a must.)
4) Keep the humor!!! Without it Sam & Max is doomed. (Be a bit outrageous if you have to, but don't lose the humor. Sam & Max are rather adult oriented afterall.)
Also on a note, I would definately like to see a new Sam & Max cartoon series. I know Telltale isn't in the cartoon business, but maybe something could be arranged with Purcell? Try to push him into making a new series anyway. I'd be willing to pay to watch a new cartoon series, especially if they are between 15-20 minutes an episode.
This was from Telltale.
EDIT: see this post.
as for the complexity that is one issue that has always been a problem in this kind of game. you have to admit that the old games were often really really overcomplicated. millions of possibilities to combine things, often totally pointless resolutions to problems. we only played them because they are indeed fun but also because we 1. had nothing else 2. had an incredible patience because these games were still new.
to make it clear: i would not at all want to be totally lost in a game and wait half a year before i find the answer by accident or a friend telling me like back then in the olden days. i would just give up or look it up on the net, wheres the fun in that. if you want to raise the difficulty, then it has to be in another way than just hiding pick up items so that you wont find them. maybe it would be fun to combine items and have more multi-usable or even combinable items yes, but we dont want to have to guess at random or spend ten minutes clicking every pixel of the screen in case we missed something. we need something new there...
Was it untrue? Not one period or other punctuation, terrible grammar, and one big run-on sentence... How is pointing out the truth considered having an attitude?
Quit whinging, they already said it's gonna be harder. When the whole 6 episodes are combined, it's actually quite a long game.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... If you know what's good for you, you won't argue with administrators. Trust me.
I'm 38, and I've got the Sam & Max Surfs the Highway GN, and I loved the animated series, despite what Fox Kids did to it. So personally I like the Telltale Game episodes for reviving the series.
Though the games are short, and some of the puzzles are easy, you have to realize TTG isn't like a major developer where they can conjure up something like Oddworld's Stranger's Wrath, or Psychonauts, and expect you to pay $8.95 per episode. And at least I like the fact they don't pull this false security jazz like most console games do, where the first level are ridiculously easy to conquer, then in the middle they get difficult to where you want to give up.
Thus you wonder why those $50 and $60 games have no lasting appeal at times. I love the humour and interaction with Sam & Max and though Sam sounds different, the voice actor for Max has the character dead on. Until I read the site, I thought they used the same actor for Max.
Personally, I would love other regular characters for S&M to interact with like Myrna, but I realize TTG has their hands full keeping up with Bosco and Sybil. As with all things, though you might feel disappointed with the games at the moment, we're only halfway through the season, and eventually they can only get better. I, for one, can't wait to see what Episode 4 brings.
Better yet, I can't wait to see if Sam & Max can make it to the Nintendo Wii.
Well, yeah, for the second or third episode I think Emily said if I can recall correctly, but so far it's only been getting easier, hasn't it?
Dunno how big Autumn Moon are, but they seem to afford doing it in 2D.
good enough for me. I guess you get the best from two worlds -- great detailed backgrounds and great animation.
I guess calling someone with a disability a retard is also the truth and not offensive at all...
EDIT: Ok, ok, I know it's a harsh example, but it's not like you are going to say to such a person, "I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously because you're disabled."