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New "golden age" of Adventure games?

AshtonAshton
edited September 2010 in General Chat
We all know the golden age of adventure games was back in the early 90s, when Sierra and LA were kings, however I feel that the genre is getting a revival now (with TTG likely being one of the larger players and motivating others) Will this lean to a new "golden age"? or is it going to just be a minor change with a couple thousand fans desperately supporting it and little more?

Comments

  • JenniferJennifer Moderator
    edited September 2010
    I do think we are in a new golden age of adventure games. I believe the first golden age ended because the genre failed to keep evolving. It evolved fast, with static graphics coming only a few years after the first text adventures, controllable characters coming only a few years after that, then mouse-controlled games coming just a few years after that. Then, the studios just kind of settled into a nice groove, and the feel of the games remained pretty much the same with a few minor tweaks for over a decade. If the episodic games concept had appeared with the popularity boost of the internet in the late 1990's, I think studios like LucasArts (and maybe Sierra, but who knows with all the buyouts they suffered) would still have found the games profitable, and would have kept churning out new adventures.

    I don't think the demand will dwindle this time, as I think Telltale seems to have learned from the mistakes made by other companies in the past. Their games keeps evolving over time, and since their games are successful other adventure developers will follow their lead.
  • Harald BHarald B
    edited September 2010
    It feels like Telltale is spearheading a little renaissance, but disappointingly few other companies can match their quality in writing, voice acting or animation. No single company can sustain a golden age: to really get one we'd need another company to step forward and play the Sierra to Telltale's LucasArts. There are a few possible candidates, but it may be a while before they up their game enough.
  • doodo!doodo!
    edited September 2010
    Harald B wrote: »
    It feels like Telltale is spearheading a little renaissance, but disappointingly few other companies can match their quality in writing, voice acting or animation. No single company can sustain a golden age: to really get one we'd need another company to step forward and play the Sierra to Telltale's LucasArts. There are a few possible candidates, but it may be a while before they up their game enough.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWio-Umb424
  • RibsRibs
    edited September 2010
    Humongous Games is still around, you know! They just haven't made adventure games in 10 years!
  • AshtonAshton
    edited September 2010
    The same company that remade KQ (I+II I think) just released their own adventure game.

    Look at all the fairly recent games released in the GAB recently.

    There are still *some* adventure game companies, though I agree with Harald B that TTG needs somone to play the Sierra to their LA, but enough small competition *could* spur on a new golden age... right?
  • Olaus PetrusOlaus Petrus
    edited September 2010
    I think that we haven't reached new golden age, but now after a dark age we live on a silver age. There are plenty of new interesting adventure games, which have interesting stories, but unfortunately most modern adventures lack in puzzles. Sometimes I feel that games tell me what I have to do next and there's no joy of figuring it out myself. In the adventures of the olden days you had to figure it out yourself what you had to do next or you were stuck there for days till you figured out the solution or in case of dead end had started over from the beginning or from earlier save.

    It's not an imaginary thing as I have almost never been stuck in recent adventure games, but when I recently bought some old Sierra titles which I hadn't played before I was stuck quite frequently.
  • AscovelAscovel
    edited September 2010
    You should try some indie and amateur adventure games, Olaus. They might not exactly make it on the front pages of gaming magazines or become the talk of Internet, but many of them have exactly what you want. For the gameplay and puzzles I recommend in particular Time Gentlemen Please! which feels a lot like a classic LEC adventure game. And if you really love to be stuck The Whispered World will be your kind of game.

    I agree that there isn't currently a single company to match Telltale's regular delivery of quality adventure games, but there are plenty of studios doing interesting things once in a while, at least the last 2 years were filled with new releases. For players looking for something more Sierra-like, the creator of the Gabriel Knight series is releasing a new adventure game this autumn. It's called Gray Matter.
  • GuybrushWilcoGuybrushWilco
    edited September 2010
    It won't be a new golden age until Space Quest returns in some form :)
  • AshtonAshton
    edited September 2010
    GuybrushWilco wrote: »
    It won't be a new golden age until Space Quest returns in some form :)

    oh how I'd love to see new adventure of Roger Wilco! that would be so awesome and profitable for a small game studio... *HINT HINT TTG HINT HINT*

    (thou didnt TTG address this in the past saying "never"?))
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