See part one two posts up. This second part is really great and one of the better reads in this thread.

The Cold Hotspot Part 2

Quote:

---

You've heard it countless times before. According to the media the adventure game is dead. Or dying. Or at least no longer important. The irony is that other genres, like role playing games (RPGs) and first person shooters (FPSs), have been borrowing key attributes and techniques of the adventure game for years, and even some of them are doing it better now than most modern adventures. You can discern this in titles like No One Lives Forever 2, Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, Deus Ex, Beyond Good & Evil, and Fable. When this happens, the game expands into new territory, it grows, deepens, and the player often discovers a new way to have fun. The game innovates and the genre diversifies. Silent Hill 3, despite its survival horror pedigree, features wickedly difficult puzzles on par with that of Myst or The Longest Journey. Fable, an RPG, rewards players for thorough exploration by allowing them to discover peripheral but enriching stories about the game's world and characters, very much like an inquisitive dialogue tree in any adventure game.







So then, why are adventure game designers not doing the same by plucking elements from other genres, being inspired by them? And why this tunnel vision notion from the adventure community that any outside influences will destroy the genre as we know it? Today developers and many gamers treat any suggestion of experimentation and - god forbid - innovation, as if it were heresy.

---

There has been a 12th Adventure Architect posted. This series covers the creation of a 2D point & click adventure game from start to finish. When the series ends, the game is complete and will be given away for free:

Adventure Architect Series #12

Quote:

---

Think about your favorite adventure games. Gabriel Knight. Monkey Island. Broken Sword. Grim Fandango. The Longest Journey. The stories are very different, but they each have one thing in common: great characters. Whether the goal is to make your way through the Land of the Dead or solve the mystery of the Templars, the reason you care about your quest at all is because you like the characters in the game.

---

See the first eleven parts here:

http://www.chapter11studios.com/newsupdates.htm

Tim Schafer on taking risks

Quote:

---

[Executive at large publisher]: "This [Psychonauts] is really great. This is creative. It's too bad people aren't going for creative stuff right now."

---

Brief history of action/adventure genre

Quote:

---

As more and more new gamers appeared, to them, both genres were new, and the similarities, as well as the way the games were promoted by certain magazines or Internet sites, created the misconception that it was the same genre, just with different elements.

---

YOu can see their point of view, though. It costs puplishers millions to market a single game, and most of them don't turn a profit. It's comfortable to go with proven success formulas and big name franchises. As the costs of production increase (fasten your seatbelts as the new X-box and Play Station are released), so does the risk.

However, for the same reason, it would seem fair that a really good speal might get you a look in. Since publishers are expecting a good percentage of games to fail anyway, an outstanding original idea should get a chance, though that doesn't seem to be the case too often.

And the Loser is...

Quote:

---

Clearly adventure games are a 'problematic' category for the industry. But is the AIAS 'solution' of lumping adventures with other genres fair? Can you imagine the motion picture academy (Oscars) with a best acton/romantic comedy category?







The changes to the categories over the years show that AIAS have tried to be accommodating by changing things around, RPGs are a case in point. Role-playing games were recognised as a game type that was deserving of its own category and there has been no move to lump them together with general action games. Adventure games too have their own unique style of gameplay and their own audience. So wouldn't it be great to see adventure games endorsed by AIAS with a category of their own once again?

---

10 Adventure Games for Lovers

10 Best Adventure Games that (almost) no one has ever Played

10 Biggest Turkeys of all Time

10 Games You Won't Believe

Son of 10 Games You Won't Believe

10 Scariest Games of All Time - already posted but it goes with the series

This is friggin' fantastic:

Foundations of Interactive Storytelling

Inside the Minds of Gaming's Master Storytellers

Quote:

---

In a feature article at Gamespot, Editor-in-Chief Greg Kasavin muses that the only way to truly move and transport us in our experience of games is through storytelling. It's the one love in games that he enjoys most. And he's not alone in this.








As games become increasingly sophisticated technologically it seems that fundamentally human elements - narrative and characterization - are being ignored. But there are still a handful of passionate developers for whom story, not so much awesome gameplay or graphics, is the real motivating force.









Kasavin talks to well renowned designers about this. Among them are adventure game giants Tim Schafer (Grim Fandango, Full Throttle) and Ragnar Tørnquist (The Longest Journey, Dreamfall). Tørnquist says that his upcoming Dreamfall "...[plays] with structure and pacing in a way that just hasn't been done in this medium before, and that's incredibly fascinating." He also talks with three other masters: Hideo Kojima, Chris Avellone, and Ted Levine.

---

@ Orange Brat - thanks for this thread... currently my favourite, and i'm learning loads!

Oughtta Stay Out of Pictures

Quote:

---

Today's games are strongest not when they're slavishly emulating cinema, but when they borrow from disciplines like urban design and architecture. Few of my friends got particularly jazzed about the story in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. But everyone raves about the open-ended environment—the hundreds of buildings you can enter, the dozens of souped-up cars you can jack, the fact that you can ignore the missions and just perform sick BMX stunts for a few hours. As a story, GTA is no Boyz n the Hood. But as a theme park? It's better than Disneyland.

---

The State of Adventure Gaming

Quote:

---

Far be it from me to question the opinions of Tim Schafer, whose last game in 1998 was the now classic Grim Fandango (which, supposedly, never lived up to Lucas Arts sales expectations), so I’ll leave that choice in your hands.








[context omitted...see article in link for the parts that lead to the author's remarks below]








Graphics killed adventure games?! Adventure games are dead!? Well, for once, I’m at a loss for words, and the few that do come to mind would probably get me in hot water so I’ll just shut up.










But, if you would like to respond to Tim's comments, his email address at Doublefine – as provided in the CGM article – is info(@)doublefine.com. Maybe the developers of the upcoming Dreamfall, Myst V, Still Life, Lost Paradise, Keepsake, Martin Mystere, Around the World in 80 Days, Nancy Drew & The Secret of the Old Clock, Runaway 2, Tony Tough in a Rake’s Progress, Agon, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Vampyre Story, Delaware St. John and others would like to write Tim and commiserate over the death of the genre.












(Neither Doublefine nor Highwater Group, Majesco’s p.r. firm for Psychonauts, have yet to respond to multiple requests to speak to Tim Schafer regarding his remarks in Computer Games Magazine)

---