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Games Entertainment

The Death and Rebirth of Genres 41

Posted by Zonk from the it-liiiives dept.
Via GameSetWatch, an article at the Manic Pop Blog about the way in which game genres disappear and reappear based on current trends. The post's author discusses the death of the Adventure game genre, and its reincarnation thanks to casual gaming: "A casual game like Azada takes that basic "Seek and Find" formula, adds in some additional bridging puzzles, and you end up with a game with a series of static screens filled with items to discover. You put these items in your inventory and combine them in order to open up additional areas. And some areas require that you solve puzzles to advance. And it's all wrapped up in a storyline, further driving your desire to "finish" the game. In other words, it's an old-school adventure game."
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The Death and Rebirth of Genres

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  • In other words, it's an old-school adventure game.

    Er, old school adventure games were not static screens. What he's talking about sounds more like Myst.
    • Myst was a puzzle based adventure game which has never included an inventory, this an inventory based adventure game. A better example would be Starship Titanic, a game I loved but in the end loathed due to a bug which meant a false move in the begining stopped you ever completing the game.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dpilot ( 134227 )
        There was a not-well-publicized version of Myst called RealMyst. Think of the basic Myst plot, combined with nearly full freedom of movement common to 1st/3rd person shooters. But RealMyst was really a technology demo/test platform for Myst Uru.

        Myst Uru was a Myst-style game with 1st/3rd person selectable viewpoint and full motion. It was supposed to become a full MMPG world, but Cyan ran out of money. There are still people hacking the server code and running the MMPG on their own, but I never got aroun
        • Uru Myst does not have an inventory nor does realMyst, realMyst was a demo piece for the 3d rendering engine Cyan Worlds bought for their next project "DIRT" which evolved into the mutliplayer project "mudpie" which later became known as Uru: Ages beyond Myst. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was to have a online component known as Uru Live, this was cancelled in its beta stages (known as Prologue) by Ubisoft. Last year Gametap and Cyan Worlds relaunched Uru Live and renamed it Myst Online: Uru Live, this is still goi

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dpilot ( 134227 )
            Thanks for the link. I'd dug some stuff (links) up a while back, and lost them. This is much more direct.

            I'll agree that the Uru inventory was limited, but there was something to it beyond putting eye candy in your relto.
            - You collected linking books which were inventory-like, in that an artifact collected here enabled you to go there, even though they were only visualized and used in the relto.
            - The wrist-band in the world with the spinning forts that allowed interfacing with later parts of the game.
            - The
    • Er, old school adventure games were not static screens.
      It depends how old school you're going, no? "Adventure" was pretty static...
  • I think it's just that people play the hell out of awesome games in waves as a group then one person decides to play it again years later and tells their friends and posts about it online and they all start playing it again. Who doesn't like another Mario Kart spree or Sonic the Hedgehog on Genesis now and then? I personally went back to the ancient Exile 3 from Spiderweb Software, a 2D RPG with a storyline and gameplay that kicks the ass of just about any RPG. But every time I start playing it again it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RuBLed ( 995686 )
      Much like playing a Sims game in my case, whenever I had those "what-should-I-play-now" moments. I usually get bored in a week or two or whenever I decide to ruin the lives of the "sims" whichever comes first.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
        My all-time favorite games have infinite replayability (and can be played alone). NetHack, Civilization, Master of Magic, and Pirates. It's nice to be able to fire up those old games and play them whenever the urge hits me. Some of the other games I like are harder to play over again because I either need others to make it fun or it's just repetetive once you've beaten it a few times (Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island are great, but it really kills it when you already know the story).

        Layne
  • I really miss the days of Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and most importantly SPACE QUEST. Those games were truly involving and made you enjoy playing them. The writing was also fantastic. I break out those collections now and then, and while the graphics always seem more and more crude, the gameplay is still great!
    • Its true. I just finished playing Leisure Suit Larry 6 using dosbox.

      The game play got irritating at times when you got stuck but it was fun to be part of the story and take your time without all the flashy graphics. Adventure games have really nice and well written stories to go along with the game since thats really the selling point behind them. I still remember the hours of playing Kings Quest VI with my friend. Took us about two months to beat that game and we only had to seek out help maybe once or

    • LucasArts! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cduffy ( 652 )
      Sierra's writing? Bah. The writing in the best of modern IF (try Spider and Web [wurb.com]) is significantly better than what Infocom and Sierra used to put out in KQ and PQ. As for Space Quest, I have very fond memories -- but going back and trying to play them again, the games are a mixed bag, and I spend far too much of my time frustrated.

      No, if you want to get reminiscent about games with outstanding plots that still have playability (almost) a decade and a half later, I think it needs to be LucasArts. The Secret

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mprx ( 82435 )
        Spider and Web gets a lot of praise for its main puzzle, which is admittedly innovative, but it does not make a good story. In almost all other IF there is great effort to identify the player character with the player - the player character is "you". Spider and Web starts by tricking you into thinking this is the case, as the main puzzle would be too easy it it were honest. The puzzle actually relies upon the separation of player and player character identity, so it's effectively a metagame puzzle. When
    • If you haven't already, give Peasant Quest [homestarrunner.com] a go. It helps if you have an appreciation for Trogdor.
    • I miss Quest for Glory (AKA Hero's Quest) personally. I played every game in the series and loved all of them (even if they had a few bugs.) They had direct combat, but it was not a dominant theme and they also had numerous puzzles set in a high fantasy setting. I don't think there were any games I ever enjoyed more. I also liked Police Quest.
  • The interface is a big factor. Console gaming is bigger than PC gaming right now, and adventure games don't do as well on the console. However, some are crediting the DS with bringing awareness back to the genre.

  • Retro gaming (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kn0tw0rk ( 773805 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @12:01AM (#20300551) Journal
    Genres don't die, they just are out of the spot light of popular culture.
    People are going back and investigating games (and gaming systems) that they didnt have as kids, either legitimately by buying/acquiring the original hardware/software or by emulation and/or warezing.

    This is partly because of
    - emulation (ala MAME, MESS, etc)
    - XBox Live and the Wii offering great classics,
    - retro gaming sites
    - people making prettied up versions of classic games (like the great stuff hosted at retrospec)
    - and most 30 year old males who now have kids want to share some of the good gaming experiences that they had when they were young.

    But the single biggest reasons (IMO) is that there are old games that OOOZE playability which people still rave about even now many years since they were released.

  • While I realize that the Freespace 2 engine has a pretty impressive open source community [hard-light.net], I still pine for the days of good space combat sims.

    The closest thing I've played in a long while is Project Sylpheed [microsoft.com] (not to be confused with the old 3d-shooter Silpheed [wikipedia.org]), but it's closer to a "macross [wikipedia.org] space combat emulator" than a space combat sim in the tradition of Wing Commander, TIE Fighter / X-Wing, Freespace, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gringer ( 252588 )

      it's closer to a "macross space combat emulator" than a space combat sim in the tradition of Wing Commander, TIE Fighter / X-Wing, Freespace, etc.
      Well, there's always privateer [solsector.net], which is in a bit of development at the moment.

  • Adventure games never died... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by atomicstrawberry ( 955148 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @01:56AM (#20301255)
    ... they simply evolved. Take Psychonauts, for example. Scratch the platformer surface and you'll find a detailed, well-written adventure game.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by EtoilePB ( 1087031 )
      ... they simply evolved. Take Psychonauts, for example. Scratch the platformer surface and you'll find a detailed, well-written adventure game.

      Mmm, true, but the field is more sparse for those who would rather do all the work with their brains and none of it with their thumbs. The old-school adventure (I still count the LucasArts classics as my favorite games) really has its modern incarnation on the Nintendo DS: Phoenix Wright (1, 2, soon 3), Hotel Dusk, and so on. Granted, the modern version, usually

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
      I think the major innovation in gaming these days is in how best to combine genres successfully (emphasis on successfully). There are several "classic" genres in gaming, but more and more often, you are finding games that tap into more than one of these. Psychonauts and several others (Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, etc.) have combined the Adventure and the Action (sub-genre: Platformers) genres together to make great games. I think in order for Adventure games to make a resurgance, they need to incorpor
  • In The Adventures of Willy Beamish, is there a way to see the principal and teacher fucking on top of the school, or were my junior high friends just pulling my leg?

  • The Death of Adventure Games (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zarkill ( 1100367 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @07:42AM (#20302753)
    Everything I know about adventure games (and their death) I learned from Old Man Murray [oldmanmurray.com].
    • huzzah for you, and for Old Man Murray. I had the epiphany that adventure games suck while trying to play leisure suit larry - attmpting to make a grass skirt i needed to cut the grass. I had the ginsu knife, but it was too dull. I needed to sharpen the knife, but on what? Rocks? Sandpaper? A wheel? No, upon finding a walkthrough I was informed that I needed to sharpen the knife on the concrete steps of some building. "Of course!" I exclaimed, "This is retarded!"

  • Recent adventure games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @11:21AM (#20305065) Journal
    Dreamfall: 2006
    Runaway 2: 2007
    Paradise: 2006
    Sam & Max: 2006-2007, six episodes

    The genre isn't dead, it just hasn't grown to the same extent as action games. When a third-rate shooter can sell five times as many games, it takes some determination to release an adventure game. As a result, there's fewer of them coming out, but they do exist.

  • :%s/trends/fads/gc

    "There are no trends, only fads." - me

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