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."
If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of them when I played them back in the 90s seemed to require the following player input:
find monsters
kill monsters
level
And then when you go to a high enough level
find newbies
kill newbies
run from angry wizards
And that was about it.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is that that sounds exactly like most modern MMOs.
It's nice to know that decades of experience amongst game designers has led us round in a complete circle but hey, it works, people enjoy it so I guess that's why. Personally though I can't help but think there is room for more interesting, more complex team-based puzzles in games, but I guess games like WoW particularly have to satisfy the lowest common denominator.
Point and click hell (Score:4, Insightful)
I think one of the biggest hurdles with adventure games, which the article touches on, is the fact that it's hard to make a complex world that is still easy to navigate.
For example, I love the idea of Sherlock Holmes games but often they devolve into a laborious click frenzy where you start investigating every object in the environment in the hope that it will be somehow relevant.
Similarly, how many people here have played Resident Evil and spent a lot of time walking awkwardly against the walls while mashing the X button?
I think the most successful adventure games are those that can make their world seem at once complex and immersive yet still easy to navigate and explore without becoming an exercise in endless clicking frustration.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:5, Insightful)
Some examples:
Troika Games [wikipedia.org]
Black Isle Studios [wikipedia.org]
Sir-Tech [wikipedia.org]
As a matter of fact, a lot of people enjoy playing games that doesn't require too much reasoning. The others still play Nethack or ADOM for the lack of new interesting and challenging games.
Re:Interaction paradigms depend on physical interf (Score:4, Insightful)
What you say is wrong because, Nethack doesnt limit you, you can try any action with any object (it may lead to nothing but at least you can try to do it). You select an action, it suggests obvious choices but you can also try everything else.
For example, if you want to "wield a weapon" (== "equip a weapon"), the game suggest items that obviously qualify as weapons (sword, bow,
My point is, if you go from action->object to object->action, you would still have to display all the objects available and then display all the actions available : you didn't reduce choice or the difficulty to navigate the interface at all.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet you managed to name not a single one of them.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with puzzle quests in MUDs or MMO's is that it becomes very tempting to simply follow the walkthrough of someone who went before you.
With adventure games the reward for completing the adventure is the knowledge that you completed the adventure without needing help. If you offer a benefit as a reward, that benefit becomes more important for many people. Thus, people will cheat simply to get the reward sooner. Which means you get left behind on the MMO treadmill if you want to do it on your own, giving you a disadvantage to those who look up the puzzle and get back to grinding boars.
There is a reason why MMO quests are so simple. The more complicated they become, the larger the advantage becomes to those who look up the solution. I think only randomly generating puzzles will lead to a more challenging MMO game.
Different subgenres (Score:3, Insightful)
A very good article. The author knows his adventure games.
The whole concept of "the underlying game is the same, just presented through a different interface" isn't really true. I find that the different interfaces make way to whole different sub-genres of game.
For instance, consider the point-and-click style Sierra / Monkey Island games, in which you have many verbs and inventory. Such games tend to be very much object based and character based. All of the puzzles are about either a) using the right object in the right way with the right target, or b) choosing the right dialogue path.
Compare this to the first-person Myst-style games, which are all left-click based. No inventory, only a single verb. Well these kind of games tend to have very few characters for one thing. The character interaction is usually limited to cutscenes, as opposed to dialogue trees. The puzzles tend to be more mechanical (figuring out how to make certain devices work) rather than purely logical. The solutions tend to be more about what this author calls "implicit information" - having to write down passwords rather than carrying keycards.
For example, consider that you are stuck in a locked room. In Myst, you will probably see some kind of complex lock mechanism, and have to figure out its controls, and how the device works, and then "hack" the device to open the door. In Monkey Island, you will probably be interacting more with the environment; have to use some item you find in the room or already have in your inventory, or bribe the guard by choosing the correct dialogue.
I think the interface directly influences the style of gameplay. For example, the Monkey Island interface is nowhere near complex enough to let you figure out the workings of a locking mechanism in the Myst style, and nor does the Myst interface have the ability to let you use items on the environment or have a conversation with a guard.
Is it a limitation of interface? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stephen Poole made the point that the more things Lara Croft became capable of in the Tomb Raider games (climbing ladders, auto aiming etc.) the more bizarre it seemed that she couldn't use the rocket launcher to blow wooden doors off their hinges.
I think a lot of times the reason puzzles devolve into an endless series of finding blue keys for blue doors is not so much because of an inherent problem in the interface but more because the designers can't be bothered to think of creative uses for that interface. Not saying that I can necessarily but nobody complains that you can solve Sudoku puzzles with a bruteforce online tool. The point and fascination for the participant is that it's more entertaining to do it without just cheating.
If your game isn't entertaining enough even if someone knows every answer ahead of time it sure as hell isn't going to be made more so by the addition of High IQ required brain busters.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not a problem with team based puzzles. That's a problem with persistent worlds.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't replace anything and you have World of Warcraft.
Technically, WoW, as with most other MMOs like it, is a [computer] role-playing game (CRPG), not an adventure game.
Adventure games are distinguished by their puzzle-solving and exploratory aspects, where exploration is a fundamental component of the puzzle solving.
CRPGs, on the other hand, are distinguished by the player taking on some "bad-ass killing dude" persona and performing "quests" (aka "missions") -- which typically means playing the part of a "bad-ass killing dude" on behalf of a beleaguered NPC. Puzzle-solving has no part in it -- "bad-ass killing dudes", after all, don't want to think and solve problems, they want to kill and become increasingly "bad-ass" (aka "level up"). Likewise, "exploration" is merely a necessary side-effect -- often a despised one -- of finding the target(s) of the NPC's anguish, if not the NPCs themselves. This is most recently exemplified in Blizzard's decision to limit flying mounts in Northrend (site of the Wrath expansion), to level 77+. Their reasoning for this: to ensure players have the opportunity to "explore" their new land, rather than merely passing over most of it from above. An understandable desire considering the amount of work they put into creating it. Yet, this one decision has arguably received more criticism than any other from their many millions of beleaguered "bad-asses" who just want to home in on and kill the latest targets.
As before, no puzzles here... move along all you thinkers.
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Insightful)
I beg the differ, why then are games like zelda or portal so popular? The way i see it, people do like puzzles. Usually people would enjoy easy to medium difficulty puzzles with the occasional hard puzzles that actually gives them a sense of accomplishment.
Sure. But how many times can you solve the same puzzle, and how many times can you fight the same (type) of monster before it gets booooring? And how much time has to go into designing either task? When you get payed each month if people still play your game (as with MMOs), which task will you put your money to?
Re:If only most MUDs had the puzzle solving aspect (Score:3, Insightful)
Narration is (almost) everything (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering adventure games just as a series of puzzles is really missing the whole point. The main objective of adventure game is to tell a story, the puzzles are merely a way to engage the player into the world, not a means to an end. And the important part isn't really if you have one or three verbs, but how well the puzzles integrate into the gaming world and how believable they are, many of todays games fail at that, leaving the player with awkward puzzles (tape mobile phone to cat).
Another thing is that the three verb interface didn't just reduce the number of verbs, but it made the verbs more organic. In The Longest Journey or Full Throttle for example you don't have explicit verbs, but body parts. You have a "hand" action, a "mouth" action and a "eye" action for example. "Mouth" is not only used for talking, but also for drinking potions or sucking on a hose to get fuel out of a tank. So the whole game becomes a matter of combining objects instead of applying specific verbs to objects.