Adventure Game Revival

One of my favorite gaming genres has always been the point and click adventure game. In North America, it’s been tough to point at a game in the last few years that was on par with the offerings from Sierra On-Line and LucasArts in the 90s - both studios that have since been eviscerated.

Europe, on the other hand, has generally been known as a more casual market, and maybe that’s why most of the scant few adventure games of any quality that have emerged in the last few years have come out of Europe. I’d love to throw some attention at FunCom’s masterpiece - The Longest Journey, but it came out eight years ago, and the sequel Dreamfall wasn’t up to par with the original. While it might be premature, I have a very good feeling about an upcoming title from Daedalic called The Whispered World.

The Whispered World follows the adventures of a young clown named Sadwick and his companion Spot through a melancholy world doomed to crumble and fall. The artwork and music are beautiful, and I suspect good things will come of it, but we’ll have to wait until launch I suppose.

Although, perhaps I have reason to hope yet. One of the critical factors that killed off the Adventure Game genre to begin with was the emergence of 3D graphics, and the games that technology ushered in. We’re now seeing a reversal in fortunes as the gaming market reaches out to those who were once outside their domain. That the industry is trying to gain appeal with the masses is one of two things that have changed in favor of adventure games. I suspect as the casual masses explore the new land they’ve found, interactive adventure stories are going to become interesting again.

Secondly, platforms now exist to market games which have niche appeal for reasonably low cost through digital distribution networks. Services like Gametap, Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and Nintendo Virtual Console has created a space where these freaks can be shown in the daylight, without offending their muscular, brawny siblings. Creating these spaces is important - not just for adventure games - but for the future of the medium. Without these spaces, the story of game development becomes eventually more like the science of creating an addictive drug - increasingly refining only to what is known to work - and less like the exploration of the human psychology that it should be.

New Force Unleashed Video

I’ve always wanted to choke a wookie.

The Force Unleashed

Summer 2008. Want.

If LucasArts is telling me that this is what a talented team can create when several highly specialized engines are integrated, then I will tell you that you’re looking at the future of development. Despite my earlier criticism of Assassin’s Creed, they had a similar philosophy in that the gameplay should be inherently fun. Assassin’s Creed did that in spades, the problem was that they beat the same mechanics until they lay raw and bloodied on the floor, and I lost interest in doing the same tasks over and over again. Hopefully The Force Unleashed will do a better job of wrapping more into the game than throwing people around like dolls. If they do, this game will set a new bar for action developers.

A natural consequence of this is that engine developers will begin to create standard interfaces to which they will conform. This will enhance the interoperability of these engines, and make it far less expensive and difficult to get the effects you’re seeing in the video below.