Adventure Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 549

than fast-paced action games do; as a result, they get less attention from the gam-
ing press, contributing to a misconception that the adventure game genre is dead.
In fact, adventure games are alive and well; they're just not as highly publicized as
their high-adrenaline cousins.
The first graphical adventure games came with gorgeously painted but static back-
drops for every scene that looked much like theatrical stage sets. Players could see a
lot of things but could touch only a few of them. But when graphics technology
began to render every object in three dimensions and it became possible to move
freely among them, the world became much more immediate and alive. Many
adventure games now display a 3D world.
The static-backdrop adventure game is still around, but nowadays it may use scenes
created with 3D-rendering software and ray tracing rather than pixel painting.
Myst , the first commercial game to use 3D-rendered backgrounds, owes some of its
success to its sophisticated graphics.
Other genres are now adopting the puzzle and storytelling features that were once
unique to the adventure genre.
ACTION-ADVENTURES
The arrival of 3D hardware also gave rise to a new sort of game, a hybrid of action
game and adventure game called, unsurprisingly, an action-adventure . The action-
adventure is faster paced than a pure adventure game and includes physical as well
as conceptual challenges. Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine provides a good
example of the type. The modern Zelda games might be considered another, although
with their levels and bosses, they are closer to being pure action games. Exactly
when a game stops being an adventure game and becomes an action game is a mat-
ter of interpretation. Some might consider the Tomb Raide r games to be action-
adventures because they include puzzles, but the puzzles are quite simple, and the
games rely so heavily on physical challenges that they are really action games.
Many adventure game purists don't care for action-adventures; generally, they dis-
like any sort of physical challenge or time pressure. If you plan to make your game
an action-adventure, you should be aware that, although your design might appeal
to some action gamers who might not otherwise buy your game, you might also
discourage some adventure gamers who would. Without doubt, however, action-
adventure hybrids are now more popular than traditional adventure games.
THE REPLAYABILITY QUESTION
At first glance, the lack of replayability seems the greatest disadvantage of adven-
ture games. Most adventure games consist of a sequence of puzzles, each of which
has a single solution; when you know the solution, there's not much challenge in
playing it again. An adventure game that requires 40 hours to finish the first time
might take only 4 hours the second time.