Day of the Tentacle vs. Escape from Monkey Island
According to Chris Crawford, in the Art of Computer Game Design,
"Adventures are closer to puzzles than to games. As discussed in Chapter One, puzzles are distinguished from games by the static nature of the obstacles they present to the player. Adventures present intricate obstacles that, once cracked, no longer provide challenge to the player. It is true that some adventures push closer to being games by incorporating obstacles such as hungry dragons that in some way react to the player. Nevertheless, they remain primarily puzzles."
This relates to our discussion about games and narrative... there were two interesting, and opposing, responsed to my questions about this topic.
Kyrun looked at Day of the Tentacle, and felt that, although it has a highly linear structure, it is still engaging and allows for a certain amount of interactivity.
A highly unstable psychopath, on the other hand, felt, based on her frustration playing Escape from Monkey Island, that adventure games are "like a storybook, very linear, and the only way to flip to the next page and move the story forward is to do what is required in the game".
What do you all think? Swift, I'm sure you have an opinion about this... :P
And here's some more food for thought on adventure games, from Ernest Adams and Greg Costikyan.
"Adventures are closer to puzzles than to games. As discussed in Chapter One, puzzles are distinguished from games by the static nature of the obstacles they present to the player. Adventures present intricate obstacles that, once cracked, no longer provide challenge to the player. It is true that some adventures push closer to being games by incorporating obstacles such as hungry dragons that in some way react to the player. Nevertheless, they remain primarily puzzles."
This relates to our discussion about games and narrative... there were two interesting, and opposing, responsed to my questions about this topic.
Kyrun looked at Day of the Tentacle, and felt that, although it has a highly linear structure, it is still engaging and allows for a certain amount of interactivity.
A highly unstable psychopath, on the other hand, felt, based on her frustration playing Escape from Monkey Island, that adventure games are "like a storybook, very linear, and the only way to flip to the next page and move the story forward is to do what is required in the game".
What do you all think? Swift, I'm sure you have an opinion about this... :P
And here's some more food for thought on adventure games, from Ernest Adams and Greg Costikyan.
posted by alex at 10:37 PM
2 Comments:
Bleah, Escape from Monkey Island sucked anyway (Well I'm biased- having only really enjoyed the first two Ron Gilbert-designed games. Curse was good, but nowhere near the standard of the 1st two either). The original Maniac Mansion- the precursor to Day of the Tentacle, was more game-like than many other prior (and subsequent) adventure games. It offered multiple paths to the endgame and the possibility of defeat (something removed from later LucasArts adventures).
It's mostly true that most adventure games are puzzles. The adventure game Grim Fandango, one of my all-time favourites, actually offers players a movie viewer so you can see any previously unlocked movie sequence in the game. I've only played the game all the way through once- no point mah, I know how to do everything- but I still quite enjoy watching the movie bits from time to time.
And finally, the Adventurer Gamer has arrived! (Dun dun dun DUN!!!)
I'd say that there are two types of adventure games. The first type more of a puzzle with a linear storyline, much like what Chris Crawford described. Escape from Monkey Island and The Longest Journey would fall under this category. The second type is like what Hazylium described, games that focuses on multiple story paths and solutions to complement the storyline, and failure is possible. Maniac Mansion and Quest for Glory (which I blogged about) fall under this category.
The second type is far more ideal imo as they offer high replay value, but they tend to be difficult to design properly, which is why we have so many instances of the first type. The fact that Hero6 is taking so many years to produce a game of similar design to QFG and AGDI is still remaking QFG 2 four years down the road shows how complex such games are.
I'll post more later, but for now, the link to A Highly Unstable Psychopath is broken. It should be http://svnue.blogspot.com/2006/02/escape-from-monkey-island.html.
Also, do check out the replies if you haven't done so. ^_^
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