George Broussard's tweet about the future of PnC adventures

[TimeGentleman]

George Broussard (Duke Nukem Forever guy, to be reductive) tweeted this earlier:

 

Quote

There's a sad state of affairs in regards to point and click adventure games. The genre needs to survive and do well. It's core strength is one of storytelling mixed with exploration and some puzzles, all without being reflex based, so it has the potential to be a much larger and wider genre of gaming. Most people enjoy story, puzzles and exploration. Not everything has to be a roguelike, soulslike or hardcore shooter. Virtually every review, Steam review, or even online retweet mention says "fans of LucasArts and Sierra style games will like this". It'd be like every FPS today being referenced as "fans of id and Epic games will like this". The genre can't seem to escape the shadows of it's grandparents. Now then I realize that Sierra and LucasArts were astounding and nostalgia is strong. But even PnC developers are complicit in keeping this going with most games doing tongue in cheek references to those old games way past it being cool to do so. You can't blame the fans for doing this as everyone compares games to the big games of their childhood (or recent hits) but it illustrates how basically nothing in the last 20 years has really eclipsed the adventure games of the 80s and 90s to become new reference points vs "looks like Monkey Island". People don't mean anything bad by it. It's just how humans reference things. Same with genre reviewers, most of whom are hobbyists or volunteers themselves in the genre. Even genre podcasts can't escape the past and nearly all of them continually just talk about 30 year old games.

Add to that, that few customers seem to show up for Steam releases and a lot of the games go unnoticed. Even the community doesn't show up for a lot of the batter releases. Very few do very well comparatively speaking. I realize it's a really small sub-genre and niche and has limited appeal but most games sell very few copies especially considering the apparent love for the old days of the genre. I can count on one hand with fingers missing the point and click games that have close to 2000 reviews on Steam. That's the current genre sales ceiling unless you're Ron Gilbert or Tim Schafer and had a real budget and a team of more than 1-3 people. The shame of it is that it's the small solo, indie, hobbyist turned wanting professional who are even keeping the genre alive to begin with. They are the ones who most need the support as they are largely making games out of passion with little to no resources. It's a shame if an entire sub-genre of gaming cannot escape the gravity of the games that birthed it and do financially well enough to be more than a hobby or passionate side hustle. It's hard to bootstrap yourself up when you build it and no one comes.

I'd encourage developers in the genre to think about wider appealing settings and themes. Drop all of the in-genre winks and nods to games of 30 years ago. It's tired and played out. Create and be your own thing. It could well be that it's a genre lost to time and only fans who are 40 years old or older even care. But I reject that as plenty of people like non action games with good stories. I feel the audience is there. I don't have any answers but end of the day if you like the genre seek out some point and click adventure games and buy them and tell your friends about the games you like. Hopefully without referencing Monkey Island, who nobody under 30 will have ever even played!

 

What are people's thoughts? Bear in mind that he's specifically referring to the classic point and click adventure format - not genre hybrids or TWD style 'interactive narratives' or whatever. Just stop referencing Monkey Island and come up with a cool setting is his advice.
I don't really think he's right, tbh.  Some sub-genres (which I think we can call the classic PnC now) are just niche and that's that. Splatter horror, say, is a niche movie genre, it's got its fandom and it will keep going forever and making money as long as budgets are pitched correctly and the occasional great one comes out, but you're not going to be able to make a billion dollars with one. You've got to do something different with your PnC otherwise it could be the perfect game and every single review would still include the words "but it's still the exact gameplay that Lucasarts perfected 40 years ago". Removing in-jokes and coming up with a "wider appealing" setting isn't going to solve that.

[Jake]

Im of many minds on this, in that I think I agree with you and with George.
 

The part that I fully agree with is that developers should stop saying “I’m making my own spin on Monkey Island,” which is a sentiment that somehow keeps coming up directly from developers mouths. 1) no you aren’t, and 2) if you’re trying that, you probably shouldn’t be. (are you asking yourself what the actual developers of monkey island thought they were doing that led to the creation of that game? what media they were engaging with? they definitely did not set out to make “a monkey island game” when none existed before.)
 

I think making a genre work that fits in a well-worn groove is a fine and good thing to do. But the reason the LucasArts games hit as hard as they did when they were new was the surprise and variety of them - you never knew what you were going to get next, even with the ones that were sequels. (With the exception of Last Crusade to FoA, but I think they’re the exception that proves the rule.) So is “LucasArts” a genre on any front? I’m not sure. It’s a mostly common user interface, it’s a design philosophy (as written out explicitly in many of their manuals), but I don’t think those are the things devs mean when they say they’re making a LucasArts game. I think they usually mean “has 9 verbs and has jokes in,” and probably has a guy say “look behind you a four headed monkey” in it.
 

I obviously have muddled thoughts on this  but I mostly think, taking from a game or developer or genre you like is fine, but I’d hope you are trying to actually examine their work and figure out what in it was successful and unique and spoke to you, and try to figure out how to make your own version of that. Just quoting the references or lifting the art style or name dropping the games won’t get you much, beyond something to pander to lowest hanging fans with. 

[Laserschwert]

My thought on this has always been: don't create a game that includes references to popular games, instead create a game that other games will reference in the future.

[LuigiHann]

I don't think he's entirely right or entirely wrong.

 

The concept of "a point and click adventure" is almost anachronistic in itself at this point. The genre is a product of a time when it was the best possible marriage of story and gameplay. Back then no other genre of game could incorporate as much of a compelling narrative and still have enough interactivity for the games press and audience to accept it as a "game."

 

Nowadays, every game of every genre can potentially have just as much story content as The Secret of Monkey Island. Every game can have cinematic cutscenes and relatable characters and comedy and drama beats that land. Everything from the old text adventures to visual novels to Myst to Monkey Island to Ace Attorney to The Cave to Gone Home to The Walking Dead to Life is Strange to The Stanley Parable to Coffee Talk to Harold Halibut are all part of that same legacy, and even games like Psychonauts and Half-Life 2 and Portal and Mass Effect and Fez and The Last of Us and who knows what else are building off of that legacy. If you set out to make a game that just tells a great story, it can look like anything and feel like anything and play like anything. The Adventure Game genre didn't die out at all, it just invaded every other genre.

 

Which means that if somebody sets out specifically to make a "pure" point and click adventure game in the current era, it is a conscious decision to make a game that feels more like Monkey Island than it does any of the thousand other things that it could feel like. Nothing wrong with that, but when that's the direction a game takes, those are the comparisons that it will invite, and those are the fans that it will attract, whether it overtly references the older games or not.

Edited September 2 by LuigiHann

[Vainamoinen]

Well, I'm definitely to blame. I didn't "show up to" any "Steam release" in my entire life. 😅

I understand Duke Nukem guy to a large degree, but the brunt of his 'advice' is easier said than done. The in jokes, the references, the slavish use of the same old formula, that's the stuff that sells. Take a look at Hollywood, heck, take a look at the game industry. The recipe that works is going into innumerable iterations. I hear even Star Trek: Resurgence did pretty well, and that's really The Walking Dead 1.01A.  He's asking for larger development teams, well bad news Mister B., we have wall-to-wall game sales in the industry right now. Even in the popular genres, it seems that only two types of game developers can succeed, either a two people development army backed by a bunch of freelancers or a quadruple A 20,000 staff company desperately clinging to making the nth iteration of their most popular game.

Wadjet Eye games tried 'something new', and their later games are really great point & clicks with great storylines (and ... less than great puzzles), but apart from 'the other Gilbert', I struggle to think of adventure games that aren't stuffed to the brim with references to Monkey Island.

 

 

On 8/31/2024 at 7:01 PM, Jake said:

But the reason the LucasArts games hit as hard as they did when they were new was the surprise and variety of them - you never knew what you were going to get next, even with the ones that were sequels. (With the exception of Last Crusade to FoA, but I think they’re the exception that proves the rule.)

 

In their later years though, it seems they had lost the power to innovate. They still innovated, naturally, but the new things weren't accepted any longer. Their fans largely expected very concrete things and when these expectations were not fulfilled, bam, Grim Fandangbomb. The problem of the living legend maybe, people expect the same great things from you over and over. Back then LucasArts still had staff willing to innovate with each new games, but the audience had such fixed expectations, petrified the whole company into a statue, a memento of former greatness unable to move its arms and legs.

 

 

 

Edited September 3 by Vainamoinen

[ThunderPeel2001]

If you ask me, Schafer nailed the big problem with PnC adventures: When you're stuck on a puzzle, everything stops. With other (more popular) game genres, you never "stop". There's always something more to do, or to try again and get better at. 

 

Also, another selling point has become diminished by triple A titles: Once upon a time SOMI and its ilk were considered "cinematic". Now adventure games are some of the least cinematic games you're going to play.

[Gins]

The stopping certainly hurts more casual audiences, who are in the market in this quantity now because of the low barrier of entry.

 

Back in the day of adventure games though, the personality, mindset and circumstance it took to enjoy a PnC was not far from that needed to bother with the machine that plays them in the first place. Both required patience, curiosity, frustration tolerance and time. Not to mention games were expensive and to have a game that you got stuck on and were able to continue to play in your head while the PC was off, was awesome.

 

Console players and phone players entered the market without needing these things, so the games they enjoy reflect that.

 

PnCs in their classic form cater to a very specific audience who is as small now as it was back then. The market around that audience grew an absurd amount.

 

It's good that a lot more people can find entertainment in video games today. But it makes a lot of sense that these people wouldn't have the same taste as the pioneers in that market, or they would have been there from the start.

[Jayel]

On 9/5/2024 at 6:07 PM, ThunderPeel2001 said:

If you ask me, Schafer nailed the big problem with PnC adventures: When you're stuck on a puzzle, everything stops. With other (more popular) game genres, you never "stop". There's always something more to do, or to try again and get better at. 

 

Also, another selling point has become diminished by triple A titles: Once upon a time SOMI and its ilk were considered "cinematic". Now adventure games are some of the least cinematic games you're going to play.

 

Sometimes even when I'm not stuck on a puzzle, it feels like everything stops! I was playing The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 recently and I think 90% of my time was spent waiting for characters to walk slowly across the screen, do a little turn, do a little side step to position themselves, then playback interaction animation or whatever. It's so infuriatingly slow I wanted to claw my own skin off.

 

And yeah I agree with PnC adventure games not being very cinematic. I might have said that this genre is the best vehicle for storytelling in games at one point. I don't know if I believe that anymore. I'm sure some of it has to do with production values, but traditional PnC games are just tiny figures standing in still dioramas and I can hardly read their facial expression or body language. it's like watching a community theatre from the back row - it asks just too much of me and I've been thoroughly spoiled by more accessible forms that require less imagination on my part.

[Jake]

This sounds goofy but I think that the decision to try and make adventure games seem more cinematic (eg: characters turn beautifully, they reach out with a full animation to open the door, they raise their hand then reach into their pocket and rummage around before pulling up an inventory item) had the effect of making them actually feel significantly less cinematic to play. Monkey Island or Fate of Atlantis moved as quickly and responsively as any other game at that time. It’s true they didn’t have a bunch of detailed embellishments as you clicked around, but the story advanced as quickly as it possibly could at the micro-level in response to your actions. 

[Gins]

4 hours ago, Jake said:

This sounds goofy but I think that the decision to try and make adventure games seem more cinematic (eg: characters turn beautifully, they reach out with a full animation to open the door, they raise their hand then reach into their pocket and rummage around before pulling up an inventory item) had the effect of making them actually feel significantly less cinematic to play. Monkey Island or Fate of Atlantis moved as quickly and responsively as any other game at that time. It’s true they didn’t have a bunch of detailed embellishments as you clicked around, but the story advanced as quickly as it possibly could at the micro-level in response to your actions. 

 

Immersion does not equal high end graphics 👍

 

When you play a game a lot is designed to be filled in by your mind:

When Guybrush holds out his hand and a door opens, naturally I don't interpret it as him being a Jedi but as him touching some door handle and turning it. To some of us the Scummbar has a doorknob. To some a doorhandle. To some it's a swingdoor. Some never thought about it at all. (Some might actually think Guybrush IS a Jedi, considering there is at least one other in the game canonically )

 

People call books immersive and their graphics suck and didn't get better in the past millennia.

 

To be fair, most books don't constantly hint at the Illiad to cater to the fans of the classics but come up with their original stories even if the UI remained largely the same. Maybe this is what the author of the OP article means.

Edited September 8 by Gins

[Jake]

I think you can have both good graphics and responsive and “clean” gameplay, just not by taking the path “cinematic” adventure games took. 
 

Changing the subject back to Broussard’s original post, I think Broken Age is an example of an adventure game made by one of the classic LucasArts designers that tried to be very forward looking in its content, and (in Part 1 at least) in its design ethos. That game doesn’t feel beholden to the past other than it being a graphic adventure game by Tim Schafer. 

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 9/8/2024 at 8:07 AM, Gins said:

When you play a game a lot is designed to be filled in by your mind:

 

It does depend on the game, I think. When I play Red Dead Redemption II, it's pretty damn cinematic and immersive and doesn't require much in terms of imagination from me But I do agree that gameplay beats graphics. A great story is a great story. A text adventure could be a gripping if it's well written. You don't need AAA money to tell a wonderful story or feel immersed.

 

Dave Gilbert is still doing wonderful stuff with that old fashioned, pixelated toolbox of his.

 

Back to the main conversation:

 

My point about cinematic nature of adventure games was that it helped offset the slowness in return for that "cinematic" experience. The way the character walked and animated was a treat. Most sprites in old games were tiny and inexpressive (think Mario). The cut-scenes, the backgrounds, the music. But also: DIALOGUE. There were actually characters in these games. And a story. Other games of the time didn't have them: They were racing games, side-scrolling shooters, platform games. Graphic adventures stood out

 

It all helped elevate the slow/stop-start gameplay experience by rewarding you with things you didn't get from other games.

 

Now the market is flooded with characters and cut-scenes and dialogue and story (even if they're mostly done badly)... It's probably harder to find a game that doesn't have them!

Edited September 10 by ThunderPeel2001

[demone]

With regards to how slow Adventure games can be, what I always loved in MI and others were those puzzles where you were basically stuck in a limited space and your options/solutions were also limited, but you were comforted in the fact that everything you needed is there. 

 

On the smallest scale, it would be the Phatt Island jail or LeChuck's torture chamber and on the larger side, you have LeChuck's ship from Return, a relatively smaller space when compared to the rest of the game. Those help break up the game a bit and reward the players with a different type of difficulty. 

 

When the game truly opens up with multiple islands, I really feel a sense of epicness and cinematic action, but one that I control as go from island to island and explore. So much better and more immersive than a huge cutscene or a quick time event in my opinion. Even as I get stuck, there is still so much to try and places to go, npcs to meet with funny dialogue, etc. For me, when you were limited to a smaller but still big space like an entire island, that's when my frustration can start churning up if I get stuck because I'm constantly going through the same island and characters. I think for this reason, LeChuck's Revenge and Return struck a near perfect balance for me. 

 

One last thing to note for smaller scenarios is a shout-out to Tales, because I loved the puzzle/sequence of fighting Morgan at the start of episode 2. It was a puzzle, but wrapped in an action sequence that I never tired of watching, which was also partially because just having a genuine swordfight and seeing Guybrush being an actual badass was awesome as well. I love that type of puzzle format as well. The crazy escalation in episodes 4 and 5, with twist upon twist, was also peak MI storytelling for me and I became so invested, that I didn't care if I got stuck on a puzzle. 

 

And of course the brilliance of Return, in that there is this large, overarching story, but also all these details that are there for you to connect the dots. A story not dictated to you, but partially told with the rest of the puzzles scattered for you to put together. It makes the environment and characters another puzzle/piece of the story for you to connect. This also increases replayability as you go through again and pick up on additional details you didn't notice before because you didn't have the context of the ending or other story beats and sequences throughout the game. 

 

So, for me, I think the amount of locations open to the player, as well as those more limited scenarios, along with how dynamic the story beats are, always went a long way to make me feel like I was still progressing even when stuck because I was still moving through various locations or going through different scenarios. 

 

Edited September 10 by demone