List of non-traditional adventure games.
Anyone willing to make a list if non-traditional adventure games? By this I mean games whose style varied from say the classic Sierra style to feel very different. Different style of puzzles, strange hybrid moments, etc.
I'll start;
Inca & Inca II
Strange adventure that combined space simulator, rail shooters, maze shooter moments with classic adventure game inventory puzzles.
Beyond Zork
Another Zork adventure but incorporated an RPG element to the game. At the start you could even choose your own stats.
Quest for Glory 1-4
Another set of adventure games that incorporated RPG elements into adventure games. The fifth game switched genres into Action/RPG genre. It only maintained a few adventure elements.
Goblins series and Woodruff and the Schnibble
Perhaps what happens when lemmings, humans, or the Lost Vikings is crossed with the adventure game genre. Each character has unique skills suited to solving certain puzzles in each area.
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity
Roberta turns KQ into 3D and incorporates RPG and platforming elements.
Heart of China
This Dynamix game has sections of adventure game with other sections of simulators such as tank simulator.
Mean Streets
The first Tex Murphy game. Much of the game involved a speeder simulator flying around post apocalyptic California.
Loom
One of the earliest adventure games to get rid of inventory, in place puzzles were solved with the novel approach of musical staff.
Dune
Strange game that started out as an adventure game the first half of the game, last half turned into a strategy game.
Myst
A game that did away with inventory puzzles instead the worlds were explored by solving puzzles scattered around the world and by reading books also scattered around. The game was so popular it inspired many clones.
Azriel's Tear
An early true-3D adventure game. It incorporated some RPG and combat sequences. The player plays as an explorer in a rad suit, exploring an underground city filled with dinosaurs and templar knights. While solving Myst-style puzzles. There may have been inventory puzzles as well but it's been so long since I played it.
I'll start;
Inca & Inca II
Strange adventure that combined space simulator, rail shooters, maze shooter moments with classic adventure game inventory puzzles.
Beyond Zork
Another Zork adventure but incorporated an RPG element to the game. At the start you could even choose your own stats.
Quest for Glory 1-4
Another set of adventure games that incorporated RPG elements into adventure games. The fifth game switched genres into Action/RPG genre. It only maintained a few adventure elements.
Goblins series and Woodruff and the Schnibble
Perhaps what happens when lemmings, humans, or the Lost Vikings is crossed with the adventure game genre. Each character has unique skills suited to solving certain puzzles in each area.
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity
Roberta turns KQ into 3D and incorporates RPG and platforming elements.
Heart of China
This Dynamix game has sections of adventure game with other sections of simulators such as tank simulator.
Mean Streets
The first Tex Murphy game. Much of the game involved a speeder simulator flying around post apocalyptic California.
Loom
One of the earliest adventure games to get rid of inventory, in place puzzles were solved with the novel approach of musical staff.
Dune
Strange game that started out as an adventure game the first half of the game, last half turned into a strategy game.
Myst
A game that did away with inventory puzzles instead the worlds were explored by solving puzzles scattered around the world and by reading books also scattered around. The game was so popular it inspired many clones.
Azriel's Tear
An early true-3D adventure game. It incorporated some RPG and combat sequences. The player plays as an explorer in a rad suit, exploring an underground city filled with dinosaurs and templar knights. While solving Myst-style puzzles. There may have been inventory puzzles as well but it's been so long since I played it.
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Comments
Seriously though, I think of some of the games you've listed, eg. Mask of Eternity, more as hybrids than as "non-traditional" anything. Or as genre-X games with genre-Y elements. I said somewhere around here a few days ago, that far more games are like this than is often acknowledged, and it's not necessarily a new thing -- even "classics" like Indy and Full Throttle had combat sequences, Space Quest had mini-games, Telltale's best Sam & Max series had driving games, etc.
Moreover, the term non-traditional implies that something differs from some established norm. I prefer to look at games like Loom and Myst as offering innovations that contributed to the genre, rather than deviations from some tradition that never really was.
I just don't see the dichotomies that you seem to see. I think the parameters of graphic adventures vary along spectrums with no clear-cut dividing lines. It's like, either every adventure game is traditional or every adventure game except the first one is non-traditional.
Yep, moved.
Baggins, it's likely that more people will see it here anyway.
As such some don't consider Myst adventure games at all for example.
Basically it's great apes vs. humans.
Whereas Myst did evolve out of adventure game genre, rather than RPG.
1. You play as a pre-defined character. You don't get to choose certain skills for that character. The character is the same no matter how many times you play the game.
2. The character has an inventory, maybe limited, maybe unlimited.
3. You interact with pre-defined scenes. Inventory items are placed in areas defined by the game designer, and they are always in the same place if you play multiple times.
4. There is some ultimate goal to the game, though you may not know what it is when you start playing. There is some way to "win."
5. Puzzles require logical thought to solve, not good reflexes.
I think that sums it up pretty well. Note that there are some very old games people consider adventure games that depart from one or more of the above, and that would make them "nontraditional" in that aspect. Maniac Mansion let you choose multiple characters with different skills, for example. I also remember an old text adventure that used the same scenes, but randomized certain things at the beginning, so that one way of solving a problem the first time you played wouldn't necessarily work the next time you played.
This pretty much determines the games I like to play
Hence, adventure games, and puzzle games (ones that don't have stupid time limits) are my favourites.
Your list is a good summary, WarpSpeed, although there are some adventure games where you have a choice of protagonist/skill set (e.g Maniac Mansion), but if you choose the *wrong* character(s)/skill set and can't complete the game (as was the case in MM) then that ain't all that grand
I think MODERN RPGs (Think Baldur's Gate) took a lot from the adventure genre. Wide worlds, character and puzzle based, story driven, etc. Old RPGs, from the '80s and '90s, are clearly a different breed altogether, but I think the modern (post '98 or so) RPG took a lot of the driving elements of adventure games and rolled them into the modern "RPG" genre.
That doesn't make them adventures.
But it wasn't an RPG. It was all about conversations, exploration, and inventory puzzlers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvurouOwbt4
Another weird one is Jane Jenson's hybrid puzzle/adventure game "BeTrapped" in which Jane combined the the Mystery adventure genre, with Minesweeper. Basically creating a game with conversation style puzzles, inventory puzzles, and using 'minesweeper' style gameplay to find and disable traps in each room of the mansion. Again the game uses a kind of bird's eye isometric view. Once you clear the traps out of the room, you can then interrogate characters, find hidden items, and solve inventory style puzzles.
I dunno. I just like it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clue!
And its sequel
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/sting/index.html
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An unbelievingly underrrated burgulary simulator.
I'm gonna quote wikipedia to explain it's uniqueness:
Give it a shot!
Clay, puzzles, no inventory, almost no dialogue, first and third person view.
Great game.
Sanitarium is FANTASTIC!
Otherwise generally straightforward First Person Adventure Game.