I suppose if I’m going to write about and review Adventure Games; I should probably define what an Adventure Game actually is.
For a long time, I regarded the term “Adventure Game” in a “I know one when I see it.” manner. I didn’t seriously start thinking about defining it until I worked on and reviewed a few of them myself.
This post attempts to explain how I think about Adventure Games. And I think that Adventure Games are defined by three points.
1: An Adventure Game is not defined by its mechanics.
A number of other game genres define how you play them. A First-Person Shooter is a game where you control a character from their point-of-view and shoot at things. A Beat-Em-Up has you punching things, etc. An Adventure Game has no such restrictions.
That’s not to say that Adventure Games can’t have shooting mechanics, puzzles, fight systems, or role-playing elements. In fact, a lot of Adventure Games do borrow some of these things. These methods of play are just not the focus of an Adventure Game.
But if the genre doesn’t tell you how the game will play, what do you do in one?
2: An Adventure Game is progressed by navigating and exploring a space.
There are many ways to interact with a virtual world. What’s important in an Adventure Game is not how you explore a world. What’s important is that you do explore.
From my experience; this is the deciding factor of defining an Adventure Game. The act of navigating through a space and exploring it is the main method of making progress.
But what, exactly, does this exploration progress?
3: An Adventure Game tells a story.
A narrative is the thread that ties an Adventure Game together. An Adventure Game simply does not exist without a story. Some stories are incredibly slim but the hook is still there. The player and/or the characters are “going on an adventure.”
In summary:
Adventure Games are narrative based games progressed through exploration of a space.
The Spectrum of Adventure Games
Now obviously, this definition is a bit fuzzy. In fact, a lot of sub-genres fit into this. That’s why I have devisedThe Spectrum of Adventure Games!
The Spectrum of Adventure Games is a gradient that goes from completely narrative focused on the left, to completely puzzle focused on the right.
I admit, I am somewhat arbitrarily focusing on puzzles. The reason for this is (in my personal experience) as an adventure game shifts away from a story focus, it has no other genre-based mechanics to fall back on. It thus has to (hopefully) fill up the rest of the game with puzzles.
Let’s fill in the gradient with some sub-genres.
Point-and-Click Adventure Games
These are probably what you think of first when you read the term “Adventure Game”. Gabriel Knight, King’s Quest, Myst, Monkey Island, and more recent entries like Deponia, SBCG4AP, and Broken Age.
As the name implies Point-and-Click Adventure games use the mouse to move around, find items, solve puzzles, and navigate conversations. Actions are either context sensitive or based on a set of predetermined actions.
The Point-and-Click started on PCs but the genre has moved to pretty much every device with various compatible control schemes. If you hear the term “Adventure Game” used in the generic it’s probably talking about these.
Point-and-Click Adventure Games generally have a good balance between puzzle and narrative but can lean puzzle side occasionally.
Text Adventures
The Text Adventure is the father of the Point-and-Click. Mostly overlaps with Point-and-Click Adventure Games but leans more towards narrative focused because everything is text.
You play a Text Adventure much like an extremely granular Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. To progress, you have to type out where you want to go, what you want to do, and what you want to say. They can be extremely frustrating if you don’t know what verbs to type.
Includes such games as Amnesia, Amnesia, and Amnesia (yes, there are three named that). Also The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and This Book is a Dungeon.
Walking Simulator
Walking Simulators take the exploration of Adventure Games and then remove most of the rest of the interactions. A story is revealed by having an atmospheric constitutional. They are thus strongly on the narrative side.
In my experience with Walking Simulators; the story they present generally happened before the game’s setting. The games are usually a reflection or an investigation of earlier events and the story you play is an epilogue.
Examples include Dear Esther, Kona, and What Remains of Edith Finch. Possibly even Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Escape the Room
Escape the Room games are on the other side of the spectrum. These take the item-finding and puzzle solving from classic Point-and-Click Adventure Games and distils them into one objective: You are in a room – find a way out.
Story in these is usually just a narrative hook and some even ignore story altogether and just play with a theme. Examples include The Room and it’s sequels, potentially the Submachine series, and… Deserving Life.
Hidden Object Games
At its most basic, Hidden Object Games are I Spy books on your computer. Here’s some nice art, find all the electro-magnets, etc. It’s apparently a huge market though so a lot of them now have a story, exploration, and more than just the one puzzle type. These still sit on the puzzle side however.
Some like Mystery Series: A Vampire Tale lose the Adventure Game status by being a linear story that doesn’t let you navigate around. The connection is tricky sometimes.
Examples are too numerous to count but include Lost Civilization and… Murder, She Wrote.
Visual Novels
And finally, WAY on the narrative side we have visual novels. Most of them don’t allow for exploration so they pop off the left side of the spectrum.
By my definition of an Adventure Game, there’s little overlap between Adventure Games and Visual Novels. When it happens though, the stories are always top notch.
Again, there are way too many VNs to count but the genre does contain Adventure Game titles like: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, and (I would argue) The Walking Dead.
Conclusion
If you’ve read this far, you now hopefully have a better understanding of what I mean when I say “Adventure Game”. I personally play and enjoy all of these if they are done well.
While I am happy with this model, I am aware of its shortcomings. Games have evolved and genres mix so much that it is getting harder and harder to put anything into neat little boxes. The Visual Novel genre, for example, is nowadays combined with basically everything. This spectrum is merely a guideline; just one way to think about a game and what it does.
I will be using this format at the end of my game reviews. I hope you will join me as I continue to go on adventures.