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Adventure remakes

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First post, by robertmo

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Don't know if anyone noticed but there is just one game of each series left with typing interface:
-King's Quest 4
-Space Quest 3
-Larry 3
-Police Quest 2
-Les Manley 1 In: Search For The King
-Codename: Iceman

The following ones at least allow mouse looking:
-Laura Bow 1
-Conquest of Camelot

While KQ4 is being worked on, other games are left abandoned.

The funny thing is that it is only mouse interface that is needed for those games, while fun remakes often add a lot of extra stuff, like voice, new graphics/animation and even extend gameplay and often finish cancelled.

Commercial remakes on the other hand remake mostly games that already have mouse interface and even look way better.

Do you think there is a chance above games will finally get their mouse control or at least mouse looking?

Reply 1 of 42, by jesolo

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I think that, with the "demand" for adventure games declining since the mid 90's, most of these have been left in the hands of the "fan made" community.
In the end, it comes down to time and willingness from a handful of fans (bearing in mind that some of these fan made games are made by people who do this in their spare time with no financial backing or compensation).

PS: What about Larry 2?

Reply 3 of 42, by robertmo

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In latest years we got mostly commercial remakes:

Monkey Island 1
Monkey Island 2
Larry 1
Gold Rush!
Gabriel Knight 1
Grim Fandango
Maniac Mansion 2
Full Throttle

Unfortunately apart from Gold Rush! none of them was really needed...

And we had a second fan remake of King's Quest 3...

Reply 4 of 42, by jesolo

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Interesting - you mind posting links to some of these remakes?
I know of some of them (like Monkey Island) but, ones like Gabriel Knight and Full Throttle seems to have alluded me (guess I've been to engrossed in vintage hardware and didn't read up much about the vintage software trends).

Reply 6 of 42, by Shagittarius

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To me removing the text interface made all these games worse. Part of the magic in these games for me was the illusion of being able to do almost anything you could type in, even if they were very limited the illusion was still there, the answer could be anything! Then the point n click interface took over and suddenly its just a game of trial and error.

I do believe the point and click interface is the reason for the decline of the adventure game. I think if you brought back the text parser interface for a modern adventure game and you really worked it out to modernize its abilities it would rebirth the adventure game genre.

Reply 8 of 42, by appiah4

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mrau wrote:

could You show examples of this? how is this better? its certainly a ton slower..

While I was, back in the day, a rabid fan of icon adventures, in hindsight I can only appreciate text based graphic adventures a lot more. The simple reason is immersion. Although the text command interpreter behind the scenes was nothing groundbreaking, it gave you the sense that you could do anything within the game world. It was an illusion, but it was there. In Larry 1, you could go to the toilet and type "Masturbate". Did it make the game? No, but it was something you could try.

While icon adventures really streamlined the experience and opened it up to an a lot more casual audience, they also had the effect of changing the genre into a Pixel hunt and Use X on Y trial and error experience, which got only progressively worse after the icons were consolidated and eventually out of the equation and all you had left was a cursor.

The overall experience was a lot less frustrating but also a lot less involving. Aside from a couple of games with great writing, this is around the time the genre dived off the cliff.

For what it's worth, I hope nobody messes with Police Quest 2.

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Reply 9 of 42, by Shagittarius

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I can't show examples it's just an opinion, but to me the early text adventures and by extension graphic adventures pulled you in because you were unsure of the limits of what you could do. Sure, with enough experience playing them you start to see the limitations, but the initial draw at least to me was the idea that anything was possible. The further removed from ultimate freedom of action the more the illusion was spoiled and it no longer felt like adventure, just figuring out what the designer wanted you to do to progress. Now I know this is essentially true of all the experiences I'm describing, but the illusion was more complete when the user had more freedom of interaction and giving them the ability to progress gameplay by typing in complete or close to complete sentences made it seem that much more open.

Just, my opinion but I really believe that illusion being destroyed was the reason for the fall of adventure games. You know what I would like to see, a modern evolution of the text adventure. How about one without a planned story but one that can adapt the story to whatever you do, or at least present you with the oppportunity to interact with the story despite how you choose to play the game. How about a parser with a modern interpreter like google or apple siri where you can get really specific about your interaction and a smart enough AI to know the rules of the world and how to react to your instructions on the fly without just forcing someone down an exact path. I do believe this is accomplishable, and I do believe it would be enthralling. The real adventure would be figuring out the game.

Appiah4 brings up a good point, it was to bring in a wider audience that this was done, which ultimately led to a watering down of the experience, which ultimately lead to the death of the experience. This is very much like what is happening to MMORPGs right now. Game designers designing for an increasingly more casual audience streamline the experience until all of the magic is gone and only a skeleton of what made that genre great is left.

Reply 10 of 42, by robertmo

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http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/kings-quest … ameShotId,2079/
Yes text interface allows everything 😉
I want to check what is lying on the barrel. But I cannot look at it cause I don't know what it is 😉 Of course if I knew what it is I wouldn't have to look at it 😉

I also wonder what's on the wall under the shark 😉

Reply 11 of 42, by Marek

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The first two Broken Sword games also got commercial remakes.
Also the first two Simon the Sorcerer games got an overhaul, but I wouldn't call those remakes.

appiah4 wrote:

In Larry 1, you could go to the toilet and type "Masturbate". Did it make the game? No, but it was something you could try.

You don't need a text parser for that. In Larry 6, you can actually do that.
Also Larry 7 is an interesting take on the typing interface. While it has a pop up verb interface like most adventures at the time, it gives you the option to enter any verb not listed. I wonder how many uses for that is actually scripted in the game besides the few mandatory actions.

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Reply 12 of 42, by robertmo

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I guess there may be a lot of extra actions for extra points and a lot of extra funny descriptions/comments and many alternative solutions.

I think all adventure games should be made this way. And definitely all remakes mentioned in first post. And I guess all other remakes with added extra comments, descriptions, actions and solutions.

To satisfy every single player.

Reply 13 of 42, by EdmondDantes

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Ummm... what does the OP mean by "Mouse Looking?"

If he means the ability to auto-use the "look" command by right-clicking on something, Space Quest 3 had that, so I'm not sure why its on his list. Maybe he meant Space Quest 2? But that one had a fan remake...

Personally I'm fine with these games the way they are.

Reply 17 of 42, by robertmo

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robertmo wrote on 2018-05-27, 18:38:
In latest years we got mostly commercial remakes: […]
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In latest years we got mostly commercial remakes:

Monkey Island 1
Monkey Island 2
Larry 1
Gold Rush!
Gabriel Knight 1
Grim Fandango
Maniac Mansion 2
Full Throttle

Unfortunately apart from Gold Rush! none of them was really needed...

And we had a second fan remake of King's Quest 3...

And we may have a second fan remake of King's Quest 4...

Reply 19 of 42, by Jorpho

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Shagittarius wrote on 2018-05-27, 21:46:

To me removing the text interface made all these games worse. Part of the magic in these games for me was the illusion of being able to do almost anything you could type in, even if they were very limited the illusion was still there, the answer could be anything! Then the point n click interface took over and suddenly its just a game of trial and error.

I read an article once about an early parser-based version of Superhero League of Hoboken. At one point in the game you are tasked with finding out how to get to Carnegie Hall, and the trick is to find a piece of sheet music and figure out that you are supposed to type "practice music", which will magically warp you there. In the final version, once you find the sheet music, the "practice" verb automatically appears and you just have to click on it, completely eliminating the riddle.

I really wish I could find that article again.