Adventure Game Interfaces and Puzzle Theory 149
MarkN writes "It seems like whenever broad topics of game design are discussed on Slashdot, a few people bring up examples of Adventure Games, possibly owing to the age and interests of our members. I'd be interested to hear the community's thoughts on a piece I wrote on Adventure Games, talking about the evolution they underwent in terms of interfaces, and how the choice of interface affects some aspects of the puzzles and design. My basic premise is that an Adventure Game is an exercise in abstract puzzle solving — you could represent the same game with a parser or a point and click interface and still have the same underlying puzzle structure, and required player actions. What the interface does affect is how the player specifies those actions. Point and click games typically have a bare handful of verbs compared to parser games, where the player is forced to describe the desired interaction much more precisely in a way that doesn't lend itself to brute force fiddling. It's a point Yahtzee has made in the past; he went so far as to design a modern graphic adventure game with a parser input to demonstrate its potential."
Read on for the rest of MarkN's comments.
MarkN continues:"In addition to talking about the underlying concepts of the genre, the other main thing I touch on are the consequences of the simplification of interfaces — puzzles are more likely to be cracked by trying everything until it works since there are fewer possibilities for interaction. There are a few simple alternatives: requiring a number of actions in sequence, or requiring the player to achieve a more complex configuration or state to demonstrate their intent. But that can reduce the world of puzzle solving to explicit logic puzzles in order to get around the problems that more creative types of puzzles run into, since they depend upon actions that are simpler to specify. It's a topic I'd be interested to get the community's thoughts on, and what they see as the best way to craft a puzzle solving experience."
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:5, Funny)
Don't replace anything and you have World of Warcraft.
Invert the object paradigm? (Score:4, Funny)
"So I ended up figuring out that the best way to port nethack was to actually invert the interaction paradigm, going from action->object to object->action."
So you translated it into German!
Re:Old-style adventure games (Score:5, Funny)
Does it have the class "coward" which gains XP from running from the enemies?
Still crying... (Score:2, Funny)
That they killed Floyd. Man, that just crushed my whole life. I haven't been right since... that shaky, almost annoying robot, so brave so suddenly, about to go into that room. Planetfall, you broke my soul.
Re:Old-style adventure games (Score:3, Funny)
I know a certain wizard who's reached the level cap...
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Funny)
Forget being unable to handle team based puzzles. Many MMO players are unable to do much at all without help.
[region] NooBob: does any1 know how 2 open this door?
[region] Jimbo: you need the key
[region] NooBob: can some1 give me key?
[region] Jimbo: You have to finish the quest first
[region] NooBob: i cant see any qst markers
[region] Biff: quest markers?
[region] Ipwnzu: they're arrows that some games have that show where the objective is
[region] Biff: thats teh lame
[region] NooBob: WoW has quest markers it rox
[region] Jimbo: This isn't that game.
[region] Biff: Just read the quest and it says where to go.
[region] NooBob: It says top of tallest mountain can any1 show me?
[region] Ipwnzu: just look up noob
[region] NooBob: u guys suck how come no1 helps new players here?
[region] NooBob: thats why this game fails
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Funny)