Zombies, Monkeys, Maniacs and Other Adventures

A fine example of gentlemanly behavior.  Image source    

Recently I was given a copy of The Walking Dead video game series through Steam (Valve's online distribution channel for games). For those of you who are unaware The Walking Dead is an adventure game, in that it is a point-and-click adventure (sort of). This was quite a surprise to me, as I'd expected a much more action packed title, however, as I've been playing through TWD I feel that this was a really good choice and style for this game. It's also made me notice that there has been a small but sure resurgence of the adventure game genre over the past several years.

From remakes of The Secret of Monkey Island series to the first two volumes of Penny Arcade's On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness, adventure games have been slowly making a return.

Monkeys, Pirates, and Voodoo, Oh my!

As adventure games hit their peak of popularity during the Eighties, starting off with simple text adventures, and quickly making the leap to graphical adventures (AKA point-and-click adventures), it seemed like the genre had a bright future ahead of it. However, as action-adventure games, platformers, and first person shooters began coming to market to critical acclaim and large numbers during the mid-to-late Nineties, adventure titles saw a sharp decline in popularity; despite the fact that many of the best adventure games to ever be released came out during this same period, they quickly faded away. As fewer games came out, sales also became sluggish for what many people thought of as outdated gameplay. With flagging sales and a shrinking market many highly anticipated sequels, such as Full Throttle: Payback, were subsequently cancelled.

This cover art, while good,
doesn't do the game justice.

While to many the premise of gameplay that consists entirely of waving a cursor or a crosshair over a spot and clicking a mouse button, or hitting a single key/button, may seem outdated and unexciting, it's honestly a genre that's held it's own over the years. Because the control systems of such games are usually very basic, and the fact these titles aren't action heavy games, most of these games tend to be very heavily story based. In some titles very little action can be taken other than reading dialogue or notes, or watching cutscenes that further the storyline. While some may find this uninteresting, the slower pace of adventure games can be far more thought provoking and enduring than games from other genres. Not to mention that with stories from studios like Lucasarts, Double Fine and Telltale games, the point-and-click adventure genre has some of the most immersive and involving storylines ever made available to gamers. I would go so far as to say that most of the heartfelt and touching moments I have ever had with games have come from adventure games such as The Dig, Loom, and the odd but lovable, The Neverhood.

Actual gameplay from The Neverhood.  Image source. 

It also seems that while many games are tough to go back to years later, due to dated graphics, lack of precision control, or the numerous other problems that seem to plague older titles, point-and-click adventures seem to hold up well. Because many studios took advantage of the fact they didn't have to program room after room, scene after scene, or add thousands of complicated control and movement commands, production values and time were spent elsewhere. Many adventure game titles were loaded with fantastic art and graphics, or were even live action or claymation, meaning their graphical charm has endured well over the years. These classic looks, combined with the simplified gameplay style that some see as detrimental, make many adventure titles feel timeless rather than clunky, and most of these games sounded as beautiful as they looked. In fact many of these games were directed like movies, in fact, Steven Spielberg was involved with the release of The Neverhood, a point-and-click adventure during the nineties! While not it's director, Speilburg approved it's development, and it was created by his studio, DreamWorks Interactive. A truly amazing state-of-affairs considering that the adventure game genre would be all but dead in just a few short years.

Seriously, that's nuts. 

As I mentioned earlier though, while on life support, adventure games never died out completely, and have recently been making an impressive, if modest, comeback. With many current adventure games being made by small and/or independent studios, it's not much of a surprise that the genre hasn't seen the blockbuster budgets it once commanded. However, some people are trying to change that. Recently Double Fine Productions, a very respected maker of adventure games in years past, made news in a big way with the wild success they found on Kickstarter earlier this year. The as-of-yet unnamed "Double Fine Adventure" raised over three million dollars from over eighty seven thousand backers during it's Kickstarter campaign. Reaching its $400,000 goal in less than a day Tim Schafer and the wonderful people at Double Fine Productions proved that while old-school adventure games are not currently at the forefront of the gaming scene, they are still in demand by many, many gamers, including myself.

Seriously, even fighting off the possessed corpses of dead
pirates is relaxing when it comes to adventure games. 

To me the level of success found by Double Fine, combined with releases of adventure games based on currently popular comics, movies, and television, like The Walking Dead, is extremely exciting. It shows that classic gameplay, no matter how simple, still holds a spot in gamers hearts, and that larger studios with access to big brands are willing to spend the money, and take the risks involved in releasing adventure games on the market. Sure adventure games aren't going to satisfy every craving a gamer has, but it is nice to be able to slow down, chill out, and think your way through a game instead of trying to out-twitch your opponents with lightning fast reflexes.

The very shallow grave...

So whether you think that adventure games are manna from the heavens, or you wish they'd go back to the shallow grave they seemed to have somehow crawled out of, you have admit, they have their audience, and they're certainly not the same old thing, or are they?

Until next time,

Keep on gaming.