
Why Adventure Games Suck (1989) - networked
https://grumpygamer.com/why_adventure_games_suck
======
the_af
Interesting and amusing read. Of course Ron Gilbert is a well-known authority
on Adventure Games, but the original Old Man Murray article is even better
(and funnier). In case anyone hasn't read it yet: "Who Killed Adventure
Games?"
[http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html](http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html)

(As an amusing aside, point-and-click adventure games were considered to be
for "clever" gamers in 90s Spain and Latin America; gamers who mocked action
games as simplistic. But there was nothing "clever" or "cerebral" about most
adventure games; they were mostly arbitrary and nonsensical. And fun, of
course!)

Before I read the Old Man Murray article I was already frustrated with (some)
adventure games, even though I absolutely loved the Space Quest series (the
original, 16 colors and text input!), and of course Interactive Fiction (aka
text adventures). IF games in particular had something of a rennaissance some
years (or decades?) ago and they evolved into something way more complex and
with better UX than what we remember from the old Zork days.

~~~
soneca
Interesting thing about life in the 90s without internet is that we were able
to consume something without being part of any larger culture around it.

I loved and played a lot of adventure games. All LucasArts' and a few others.
I never even heard of this cultural trace of adventure gamers thinking of
themselves as more clever and looking down to action games players.

For me it just something easier to play because it didn't depend on reflex or
accuracy (I was never good those types of games) and I liked the story. I am
the type who loves cutscenes up to today. In any game.

~~~
el_benhameen
Man, LucasArts' 90's games were the best! I have vivid memories of feeling
totally immersed in Monkey Island and Loom in particular.

Do you have any recent favorites with a similar feel?

~~~
lentil_soup
I really enjoyed "Thimbleweed Park" also by Ron Gilbert.

It came out a couple of years ago, the look and feel is just like the old
ones, the humour as well. I was completely immersed.

------
egypturnash
_" If I could have my way, I'd design games that were meant to be played in
four to five hours. The games would be of the same scope that I currently
design, I'd just remove the silly time-wasting puzzles and take the player for
an intense ride. The experience they would leave with would be much more
entertaining and a lot less frustrating. The games would still be challenging,
but not at the expense of the players patience."_

 _looks at her unfinished copy of Thimbleweed Park (Ron Gilbert et al, 2014)_

hahaha sure Ron, sure you would

~~~
the_af
I couldn't go past the first few scenes of Thimbleweed Park either. I think I
would have loved it when I was a teenager, but the point-and-click genre is
just not for me anymore. (Also, and I know this is heresy, I couldn't finish
the much lauded Psychonauts back then either). I think I simply had more
patience for this kind of games when I was younger.

I'm more willing to give experimental Interactive Fiction a go though. Some
real gems there.

edit: also, and this is stretching the "adventure" definition, I absolutely
_loved_ "The Return of the Obra Dinn" by Papers Please author Lukas Pope. I
loved that game. At this point I'll play anything made by Pope, that's how
much I trust the guy.

~~~
jerf
"(Also, and I know this is heresy, I couldn't finish the much lauded
Psychonauts back then either)"

I really loved Psychonauts, but... I've tried several times to replay it and I
have a really hard time with it, because even as someone who loved it, the
first 5-10 hours is a _slog_. There's this incredible premise under the game,
and if you get to the point they start using it, it's pretty good, but they
really frontloaded a whole lot of levels that are basically "Yeah, I mean,
sure, this is nominally taking place inside of someone's head and is all like
psychic and freaky and psychological & shit but actually it's just a
completely standard 3D platformer". And not _that_ great of one. And those
levels just go on _forever_ , with hardly any fun elaborations or anything. I
tend to get to the lungfish, right where at least the game gets _interesting_
(though I don't think it truly lives up to its premise until the Milkman
level, which IIRC is next), and gas out from all the slog.

I hope for the sequel they sat down in the early design session and had some
serious discussions about what did and did not work in the first game.

~~~
the_af
Yes, what you describe is _exactly_ what happened to me. I simply couldn't go
past those initial hours. It felt like a (cute) platformer to me. Everybody
said there was something amazing once deep into the game, but honestly 5+
hours of jumping around was too much for me.

------
derefr
I haven’t seen a good analysis of it yet, but has anyone seen a list of
“Guidelines for creating a good/entertaining ‘Troll’ Game” (e.g. IWTBTG, most
Mario Maker levels, etc.)?

It seems like such a guide would almost be an inversion of some of the
principles in this guide: in troll games, you tend to learn _only_ by dying;
the puzzles _always_ require things you forgot in the previous room, and you
can’t go back, so you must commit in-game suicide to try again; etc.

And yet, given that _these_ guidelines are for the sake of making an
entertaining game, how does inverting them then _also_ make for an
entertaining game?

Can troll games even _be_ entertaining without the context of having played
good games that _do_ follow these rules? It seems like having a mental model
of these sorts of guidelines from previous gameplay, allows the player to
predict a sort of meta for how things like puzzles should work; and only in
that context would an inversion of good design principles carry a comedic
punchline.

I guess it’s similar to the question: can you create satire that makes sense
without knowing what it’s satirizing?

~~~
jtolmar
Defender, one of the Mario Maker trolls, wrote a big guide:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ZoqeblLs45HuEfTtsOrq6X0...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ZoqeblLs45HuEfTtsOrq6X0LAuEnA8nB721_doxE38/edit#heading=h.2imojds67fn4)

I'm sure it's possible to make an original troll game (never bet on an
artistic idea being impossible), but it certainly seems to make it harder.
I've noticed that when the Mario Maker troll community tries to make Super
Mario World trolls instead, it's just not as funny. The hacking tools for SMW
allow vastly more freedom than MM's editor, since you can always patch the
game's code. The decrease in quality might be from a lack of restraint, but I
think the element of fair play that MM has is important as well. Everything in
MM behaves the way it was programmed by non-trolls (more, Nintendo seems
actively anti-troll), so every subversion comes from the level maker showing
that they know something about how the game works that the player doesn't.

------
jstimpfle
I finished Grim Fandango because it is a wonderful, beautiful, heart-breaking
game. Still dear to my heart. But let me be honest, I looked up most of the
solutions. I don't have a sense for the weird solutions to a good chunk of the
problems. Often I don't even know what is the problem.

I purchased the HD remake of the game on Steam in 2015 to experience it once
again. Just followed the solutions. It was much like watching a movie (a very
good one).

I remember I once played a Broken Sword game (I believe it was The Sleeping
Dragon) and that was an exception in that it was super easy to solve.
Disappointingly easy :-)

~~~
jmckib
I haven't tried it, but there's a website where you can get hints for these
adventure games, if you don't just want to follow a walkthrough. You've
reminded me I need to give another shot at Grim Fandango. [http://www.uhs-
hints.com/uhsweb/grimfand.php](http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/grimfand.php)

------
lordleft
I so desperately want to like adventure games. I love the visual styles, I
love the storytelling opportunities, but the idea of being defeated by an
opaque puzzle infuriates me.

~~~
gentleman11
The Walking Dead telltale games are worth checking out. Almost all narrative

~~~
kyuudou
I played the first one and legit cried at the end it was so intense. Been
meaning to play the rest of them.

------
tibbon
There did seem to be a huge gap for many years in the existence of good
adventure games. I have fond memories of many ones from yesteryear, but then
it largely felt that anything that was out was pretty boring or just trying to
copy them.

And last week I started playing Disco Elysium, and it's everything I ever
wanted from something like an adventure/rpg and more.

~~~
TremendousJudge
I was going to say exactly the same about Disco Elysium. While classed as an
RPG, I'd say it's more of an adventure game disguised as an RPG. The game is
just point and click, talk to people, interact with the world, and solve
puzzles. The leveling up mechanic makes it much more interesting to play, but
it's not really the core gameplay

~~~
pampelondan
Well it is RPG indeed (unless someone understands it as "Ravage, Pillage,
Grind"), but on the adventure spectrum it is more lika a choose-your-own-
adventure game. The game interface is pretty much dialogue trees, at some
point close to the end of the game, the game even poke at it not-so-subtly.
Puzzles in those kind of games are prone to brute-forcing all dialogue
choices.

------
djsumdog
I subscribe to Grumpy Gamer's RSS feed and I think this was the article that
got me started on this blog.

I recently played Milk Maid of the Milkyway. It's a super cute indie title and
it's an adventure game. Despite the beautiful dialog and wonderful music, it
still had a lot of the issues that Grumpy Gamer touches on that killed the
original genre.

You end up clicking everything on everything, looking up hints for objects you
didn't realize were even clickable, and have stupid puzzles like putting a
frog in a random hole and poking it with a needle so a guy oils a gear.

By contrast, Red Strings Club is an indie adventure game that gets this
totally right. It's story telling with game mechanics and you don't need any
hints or need to solve any insanely stupid puzzles to get through it.

Night in the Woods is another great Indie adventure game that's more about
story. It doesn't have the same level of puzzles as other adventure games, but
the puzzles all make sense. The game has a lot of mechanics that keep it going
forward so you don't get stuck.

Life is Strange is another one that's more story driven. I had trouble with it
initially. It's slow and was difficult for me to get into, but I'm glad I
stuck with it as the story is really interesting and does some very bold stuff
for a game. I haven't tried the 2nd one yet.

Telltale got a lot of this gene right I think. People complained how you don't
really affect the story in Telltale games and that is true, but it is also
very difficult to create those types of games with true multiple outcomes
(especially if you have sequels planned. You only want 2 ~ 3 maximum outputs
at the end. Mass Effect was good about being more complex; they had to plan
for certain characters simply not being in future games -- but Bioware too
ultimately collapsed the story down into very few possibilities by the end
anyway).

Finally, Quantic Dream does a super good job of this (Heavy Rain, Beyond Two
Souls, Detroit). They've been PS4/Sony exclusives for a while, but I heard
some of these games are making their way to PC. They are slow games you can't
run through, but they don't require insane puzzles and keep moving. Detroit
does a really good job with totally different narrative paths and endings, and
they don't skimp on the writing, even on endings people would rarely get to.

------
RootReducer
Adventure games are still not dead! Amanita Designs is making some of the
finest games around - in particular, their masterpiece Machinarium. Anyone who
even has a passing interest in adventure/point and click games owes themselves
the pleasure of playing it. Sublime music and art, a lovely wordless story,
interesting setting and characters, and well-designed puzzles.

~~~
vetinari
There's a bad taste left by Machinarium developers.

It was originally sold for Android here:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.net.machin...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.net.machinarium.Machinarium)

That is now abandoned and left to bitrot. I don't know, whether they were
expecting that people will purchase it again, but for me the effect was, that
I won't touch anything made by them again.

------
pixelperfect
Sierra adventure games were my favorite single-player games from my childhood.
I understand why a lot of people don't like them, e.g. many of the puzzles
have nonsensical solutions, it's possible to get stuck because you didn't get
an item in an area that you can't return to, etc. And the games haven't really
aged well. But for the time they were my favorite.

~~~
TheBlight
It'd be interesting to me to play the KQ series but with the parser replaced
with something more state-of-art.

~~~
bzzzt
The later games in the series used a 'point and click' interface, but are
still filled with arbitrary or unfair puzzles, some badly written dialogue and
cringe-worthy story moments.

------
justaguyonline
Interesting, I feel like the Author is describing what a well done Visual
Novel does in their critics of the whole Adventure Game Genre. To summarize
lazily: "remove the stupid puzzles and just take the reader on a wild ride for
a couple of hours"

Maybe they kinda predicted YUNO and the whole VN explosion in Japan that came
soon after their article was published. Or a least the reason why the demand
was there.

Granted, these games still cost 40+ bucks and deliver 20+ hours of gameplay,
which differs from the vision the Author outlined. But that seems to be
because the extra effort does lead to better returns (and maybe that consumers
want 20+ hour games), so it's a good thing.

------
jmilloy
> There is nothing more frustrating than solving pointless puzzle after
> pointless puzzle. Each puzzle solved should bring the player closer to
> understanding the story and game.

A friend of mine was recently complaining about how adventure games and even
rpgs (in both video and board game formats) lack significant character
development, even the best ones with great worlds and stories. I don't
personally have enough experience to have an opinion, but I thought it was
interesting that the relevant guideline here shows exactly that: it mentions
"story" but not "character". (I'm not sure what is meant here by "game").
Maybe my friend is not wrong.

~~~
zokier
For (C)RPGs the problem might be that developers try to give players so much
freedom that the character ends up being more of a blank slate, and it is
pretty difficult to write meaningful development for that. And even when the
character is not a blank slate then it might be something very bland/average
so that most people can identify with and immerse in that character. As it
turns out, most people don't really seem to want to play a role, they want to
play their own thing which is very different.

Think how much character development a play writer can write if they expect
the actors to form their characters on a whim? And the actors being not
professional ones who would be very good at it but your average common people.

------
Eric_WVGG
a classic blog post on this topic from "Old Man Murray":
[https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html](https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html)

"Who killed Adventure Games? I think it should be pretty clear at this point
that Adventure Games committed suicide."

------
logfromblammo
While playing through the Deponia series, I noticed that all the fiddly little
puzzles, like the rail-car switching puzzle, had a "skip this puzzle" button.
Yay for learning that some people don't want to go insane on brute-forcing all
the possible solutions to advance the story.

Even so, there were still a lot of attempts made at overcoming an obstacle,
using normal logic, that failed because they required a joke punchline
instead, such as... finding a straw in a needle stack.

Modern I.F. games are a lot better in that respect, because you can code in a
half-dozen solutions for the same puzzle, without creating new voice and
graphic resources for all those alternate solutions.

------
acabal
> Never require a player to pick up an item that is used later in the game if
> she can't go back and get it when it is needed. It is very frustrating to
> learn that a seemingly insignificant object is needed, and the only way to
> get it is to start over or go back to a saved game.

This reminds me of Return to Zork, in which on the very first screen the
player sees a small plant growing out of a rock. If the player misses or
ignores it, or if they choose to cut it or tear it out instead of gently
digging it out, they won't able to defeat the last boss.

------
dudul
I'm gonna react to the 2004 date instead of the original 1989 publication
date.

Runaway was released in 2001, Myst in 1993 and the sequel in 1997, Lucasfilm
Indiana Jone in 1992 (a game of such quality that fans demanded a movie based
on it), Broken Sword 1996, etc.

These are just the few I bothered looking up. There has been a good amount of
adventure game masterpieces between 1989 and 2004. Lots of bad ones, but also
a fair count of great ones. There have been rough times for adventure games,
but they were not dead between 1989 and 2004.

~~~
TremendousJudge
You realize that the author is Ron Gilbert, who made a bunch of good games
after he published this article, right?

------
martijn_himself
Tangential question, does anyone have any tips for someone who has lost all
interest in video games?

I used to like them as a teenager and whenever I pick up a game now (I'm in my
early 40's) I am just completely bored. Part of it I think is because it
requires some form of mental engagement after a day's hard work?

~~~
UweSchmidt
Same. My reasons:

1\. I understand software better and can see that my in-game actions are
mostly changing variables, or values in a database.

2\. Games are 'balanced' and therefore limit the upside for a potential great
strategy I might come up with.

3\. Nothing new under the sun: How many more pseudo-scifi research trees or
weapon mechanisms or unit capabilities am I supposed to learn in my lifetime?

4\. They don't make them like they used to. Older games had a hardcore element
to them, were often quite difficult and unforgiving (a result of less market
pressure and less polish). Instead of online guides and pro streamers showing
how they are played, the games had a mystery about them; we often didn't even
have a manual for a game we copied.

4\. Less need to prove myself in competition with my peers through games and
play (which is aparently a fundamental thing for children)

5\. Less magic: The first game that had real voice actors, the first real 3D
game seem to have had a greater impact than today's incremental improvements.

6\. Limited time and energy. I find it tough to spend the prime energy of a
day for a game.

7\. Computer work makes me want to get away from computers eventually.

I do watch streamers and youtube videos of the games of the 90ies occasionally
and find entertainment and closure (through experiencing games I never got to
play).

~~~
schwap
> 2\. Games are 'balanced' and therefore limit the upside for a potential
> great strategy I might come up with.

Wouldn't a 'balanced' game make the impact of strategy even greater? Many of
the most strategic games in the world like chess or go are balanced.

> 4\. Less need to prove myself in competition with my peers through games and
> play (which is aparently a fundamental thing for children)

It's never been easier to find and compete against the best in the world at
games. If you're good enough at an online game you can find yourself
essentially playing pick-up basketball against LeBron James.

> 7\. Computer work makes me want to get away from computers eventually.

Yeah agreed on this one for sure.

~~~
UweSchmidt
#2 Well chess isn't quite balanced, with white having a big advantage. If it
was a modern game, people would complain in the forums and the developers
would try to help out black, maybe with an extra pawn. Even if that was a good
idea, it would take something away from the game.

#4 Just as we get older, it's no longer about computer games, the playground,
or sports where we need to prove ourselves? Don't mind me if that's not
actually a thing, psychologically.

------
reaktion
I played through "A Short Hike" this week (because it was free on the Epic
store.) Easily the most enjoyable indie adventure experience I've had: a
unique but intuitive flying mechanic, simple "quests", and a short (<5 hour)
overall gameplay time.

------
strictnein
Makes me think of the Kings Quest games. In Kings Quest 5 you could find a pie
and then you could eat it. But you needed it later to throw in the face of a
Yeti.

Still loved those games though

~~~
zanderwohl
First thing I thought of, too. There were lots of things you could do that
would make the game unwinnable. Like in the first one, leaving a gate open
would allow a goat to wander off and you needed the goat later. In another
one, you there was a fire that would go out X screen changes after finding it
for the first time, and you needed embers from it.

This article seems to directly call out a lot of the King's Quest mechanics
and puzzles.

------
dukoid
Btw: Can somebody please make a VR version of Machinarium? O:)

------
PaulHoule
One word: Danganronpa.

~~~
degurechaff
and zero escape

------
bregma
YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICK BUILDING. AROUND
YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDING AND DOWN A GULLY.

> enter building

~~~
kyuudou
THERE IS NO DOOR OR OTHER VISIBLE ENTRANCE.

YOU SEE A LARGE SNAKE EMERGING OUT OF THE STREAM.

