… you glance at the mouse still held in your hand. Its head has turned: it’s staring at a genre that has fallen from the branches of the nearby tree.
>EXAMINE FALL OF GENRE
While investigating the genre, you are attacked by The Late 90s! The fiend knocks you over and steals several of your items.
“Bwahahaha!” it says. “The rising popularity of fast-paced gameplay – combined with a waning interest in point and click adventures – eventually led to a recession in adventure gaming that many classified as the death of the genre. Mainstream titles were few and far between: with the exception of notables such as Grim Fandango, the age-old tradition of adventuring was left to diehards and underground indies who kept it alive and well while mainstream gamers had their attention focused elsewhere.”
The beast runs towards a nearby cave marked “The 21st century”.
>GO TO THE 21ST CENTURY
You chase the monster through the cave and eventually find yourself in a large chamber. Your items are lying here, but the creature is nowhere to be found. You pick up the scattered pieces of your adventure kit.
Adventure games are making a comeback nowadays. It’s slow, it’s painful, but they’re on the rise nonetheless. Recent titles such as Broken Sword 4 are giving the industry a glimpse of point-and-click adventuring as it was back in the genre’s golden ages, albeit with a nice technological makeover and an approach that tries to cater to modern gamers. The new Sam and Max series from Telltale Games uses an episodic format and the appeal of a more casual gaming experience to appeal to a broader market.
A lot of other titles are relying on experimentation and new interpretations of the genre to catch the public’s attention. A prime example of reinvented adventure gameplay is Fahrenheit – a fascinating, QTE-based adventure that has received critical acclaim for its innovative gameplay concepts and its emphasis on immersion and emotions. Fahrenheit makes extensive use of analog sticks for character actions – most notably in Simon-like action sequences which require player reflexes and careful adherence to a sequence of lights on the screen – and places an emphasis on quick decision-making in situations as trivial as conversations. There existed puzzles and other traditional adventure mainstays, but these took a back seat to the idea of interactive storytelling.
Today’s adventure games also have a very strong presence online: for example, there’s a growing fanbase for the puzzle adventure genre known as “room escape”, and large communities of independent developers are offering their own original titles and remakes of classics. Tools such as Adventure Game Studio are also doing the rounds and bringing fresh attention to the fun and viability of the old point-and-click spirit.
Where adventure gaming will go from here is yet to be seen, but one thing’s certain: the genre is not dead yet.
>LOOK
You are nearing the end of this column. It is pitch black here. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
>FINISH COLUMN
You have been eaten by a grue. Your final score is 982/1000. Thanks for reading.