A history of adventure games, and how interfaces affect puzzles

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20080804/newheiser-a.shtml

by MarkN • 17 years ago

28 2 17 years ago

mblakele• 17 years ago

Interesting, but why did the author restrict the discussion to PC games? I would expect to see some mention of Portal's interface, and of adventure games for the Wii.

MarkN• 17 years ago

Author here! I enjoyed Zack and Wiki on the Wii, and some of the adventure game titles on the DS like Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton, and I've referenced some of those in my other writings about adventure games. My main reason for focusing on PC games and older titles was that that seemed to be where the majority of interface evolution and changes took place. Zack and Wiki is an entertaining concept, but the interface is primarily point and click with some supplementary controls using the motion sensing of the controller and all the buttons the wiimote allows for... similarly with the DS adventure titles, it treats the touch screen as a point and tap world.

As for portal, drawing the lines between adventure games and other genres can be fuzzy. Bringing games into real-time 3D is a much more significant shift than bringing a game from a text adventure to a graphic adventure. While there are definitely many types of games which involve puzzles, I prefer to define Adventure Games as being based around solving abstract puzzles that aren't dependent upon a real-time engine.

A history of adventure games, and how interfaces affect puzzles

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