How Not To Design An Adventure Game
- by -
Of all the game genres around, my absolute favorites are the Adventure games -- a kind of interactive story in which you drive the plot forward by taking appropriate actions (such as overcoming obstacles, solving puzzles, etc.).
Over the years I've played many, many adventure games ... some well written, and some not so. The games that I've played have ranged from simple text games with no sound or pictures at all, to elaborate "Hollywood productions" complete with movies, orchestral music, and actual movie stars!
Creating a good adventure game is not an easy task. (I know, because I've produced several adventure games of my own.) You not only have to come up with an interesting story line (complete with dialogues for all the game's characters), but you have to integrate into that story line all the other supplemental amenities as well (such as background music, artwork, puzzles to be solved, etc.). And then, when you think you're all done, the whole mess has to be programmed so that users can actually play the game on their computers!
Even though creating an adventure game is not easy, there is at least one cardinal sin that must be avoided at all cost (and for which there is absolutely no excuse for even occurring in the first place). And that cardinal sin is: Letting the player commit an action that prevents him from ever being able to finish the game, and then not even letting him know about it! (Are you listening, Roberta Williams?) For example, if the player needs a custard pie to throw at a "bad guy" in order to get past him later in the game, and if there is only one such custard pie in the game, then the player should not be allowed the option of eating that pie (unless he then chokes to death from doing so). All the enjoyment of playing an adventure game quickly dries up when you end up spending countless hours trying to find "the way out" of a given scenario, and aren't even told that there isn't any way out! (If, for some reason, you do want the player to commit such "dead end" actions, then please have the courtesy of at least killing him off or something so that he knows he must restart the game.)
Another design error (but a less severe one) that adventure game writers sometimes make is to assume that the player will always execute a sequence of actions in the particular order that the game writer expects them to be performed. For example, suppose the player finds himself standing outside the main door to a hotel lobby. But, instead of entering the lobby and meeting the desk clerk (like the game writer assumes he will), the player first decides to go around to the back door of the hotel (which the game writer assumes wouldn't happen until later on). There the player meets the desk clerk for the very first time, and the clerk says to him, "I already told you ... The hotel is full! So beat it!"
Another minor flaw in the design of many adventure games is what I refer to as: "Illogical Cause and Effect." For example, the player finds himself standing inside an office containing a filing cabinet and a desk. When he tries to open the filing cabinet, it is locked. But after reading a note on the desk, he suddenly finds that the filing cabinet is now unlocked!
A close relative of the "Illogical Cause and Effect" flaw is the idea that it's OK to incorporate puzzles that have absolutely nothing to do with the game's storyline. For example, the player finds a chess puzzle on a table next to a locked door. By solving the chess puzzle, the door suddenly becomes unlocked. (Having puzzles in an adventure game is great. And solving puzzles can be fun too. But a "game" that consists of little more than a collection of unrelated puzzles shouldn't be called an "adventure" game.)
These are just a few of the many design problems that have plagued the adventure games of the past. And most of these problems could have been avoided if the game designers had just exercised a little extra care and forethought. Today, new adventure games continue to appear on the scene. And many of them still suffer from similar design flaws. Only time will tell if tomorrow's adventure game designers will be any wiser in these matters than were their predecessors.