What's more important in an adventure game?
The puzzles or the atmosphere?
By "puzzles", I'm talking about puzzle quality, difficulty, abundance, etc., and by "atmosphere", I'm talking about story, characters, graphics, music, etc.
I think I might be in the minority in saying that puzzles aren't all that important for me. I play adventure games not for a challenge, but to experience the story. In fact, it sometimes annoys me when I can't get past a puzzle because it stops me from advancing the plot.
Some people would disagree, though, and argue that while the story is important, it can't hold a game up by itself. A good adventure game needs some good puzzles and brain-teasers to be worth playing. What's the point of advancing the plot if there's no challenge?
What do you think?
By "puzzles", I'm talking about puzzle quality, difficulty, abundance, etc., and by "atmosphere", I'm talking about story, characters, graphics, music, etc.
I think I might be in the minority in saying that puzzles aren't all that important for me. I play adventure games not for a challenge, but to experience the story. In fact, it sometimes annoys me when I can't get past a puzzle because it stops me from advancing the plot.
Some people would disagree, though, and argue that while the story is important, it can't hold a game up by itself. A good adventure game needs some good puzzles and brain-teasers to be worth playing. What's the point of advancing the plot if there's no challenge?
What do you think?
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for instance kings quest 1 had an extremely simple story compared to the rest of the series, but the puzzles were good and challenging, and they included the points system which added replay, so it spawned 7 sequils... meanwhile the first episode of "the silver lining" (unnoficial kings quest 9) was just released and it's getting horrible reviews because it's basically nothing but storyline with only 1 puzzle of any consequence, the story's pretty good so far but the lack of puzzles kills the first episode
When all's said and done, you play games for a specific reason. You play first person shooters to shoot stuff (hence the name). You play platformers to jump around a lot. You play RPGs to beat up enemies in increasingly less turn-based battles. You play online games to be insulted by 13 year olds. And you play adventure games to pick up everything you possibly can, solve puzzles and talk to people.
Good puzzles can only happen if there is a good story, setting, characters, etc.
The puzzles don't even need to be challenging, just give you something to ponder for some minutes and then you can say "heh, clever".
I clicked Puzzles, since if I want athmosphere, I'd just watch a movie or read a book. An adventure game defines itself through the puzzles (which as said are based on the athmosphere), therefore, if there's no good puzzles (or at least SOME gameplay that justifies the genre), then the developers should better have made a movie out of that thing.
Re: the early King's Quest games: they may not have had much in the way of stories, but I really loved the atmosphere. The weird, surreal blending of Disney-inspired fairy tale settings and Greek mythology in the form of blatant Clash of the Titans rip-offs and terrible puns and morbid jokes and death sequences really appealed to me for reasons I can't quite explain. King's Quest IV is one of my favorite games in the series because it has such strikingly creepy and morbid moments (such as the zombie/grave-digging/haunted house segments) that feel almost completely incongruous with the Disney-like fairy tale whimsy of other parts of the game (the seven dwarfs' house, etc.)
That's what I was getting at with "atmosphere"
The puzzling part is that you're still doing this.
Only for atmosphere, mon chéri.
The content might have been deemed racy when it originally came out, but by today's standards it's really tame. There were only a few sex scenes, and there was a setting for the raunchiness level of the game's descriptions. Even on the highest setting, things were pretty well left to the imagination (it was a text adventure, after all). Most of the game was just parodies of '30s pulp science fiction, and it had the most wonderfully cheesy puns. The puzzles were brilliant and verged on the surreal and the metaphysical;
Oh, and the scratch-and-sniff card isn't what you're thinking. They were all non-sexual things, mostly food, that you could find in various rooms. The only specific one I can remember at the moment was a slice of moldy old pizza you find in a bathroom.
But yeah. Great game. Wonderful atmosphere and puzzles.
That's the most amazing thing I've ever heard
Otherwise I would just play a pure puzzle game, and they are not really interesting.
If i really had to choose, i would go for the puzzles and read a book for the mood thing because videogames are an interactive medium and puzzles fit better to it than a moody driven thing with puzzles which suck.
To give an example: "Secret Files: Tunguska" was really on the dividing line - I still had to look up some things (and I hate to admit defeat like that) but I don't think I would never have found them on my own if I had enough time to spend on these games. And to be honest, I still don't know how I stumbled upon the right solution for the coins and safe lock puzzles as fast as I did.
We mean traditional adventure games, not action-adventure games.
EDIT:Holy crap this is an old thread, uhh why did you revive this?
I good example of this would be 'Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within' or 'Phantasmagoria II'. I rank both games in my top 25 adventure games of all time but the puzzles are unimpressive in both games. It hardly seems to matter though when you're thoroughly absorbed within the atmospheric story.
However, all of the adventure games in my top 10 list boast both atmosphere and wonderfully designed puzzles. Essentially it's the difference between 'The Longest Journey' and 'Dreamfall'. One is a bona fide classic and the other has a great story and atmosphere but is completely lacking in actual gameplay.
I actually hate the majority of The Longest Journeys puzzles. I love it though. I love Dreamfall too, but it went too far in the opposite direction.