This month's Depressingly Common Adventure Game Design Flaw:
TELL ME A STORY
A game with a poor story gives you the entire background in a few paragraphs just before playing, with some crude objective like 'rescue Princess Dumbo', and then the game trundles on with no major events until her royal braindead majesty is recovered. A good story is told all throughout the game, not just right at the beginning. Think of Grim Fandango. That's got one of the best plots in adventure gaming history, but how much of it are you aware of at the start? Very, very little, and it's only towards the end, through conflict after conflict, that you finally realise your true objective. Treat exposition like cheesecake. Give it out in small portions and no one will get a sick tummy.
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