It’s an awful genre label, isn’t it? RPG isn’t much better though — I seem to recall playing the roles of Guybrush Threepwood, Ben Throttle, DeathSpank, etc.

Semantics aside, I would say: strongly (and usually linear) story-driven narrative, and gameplay that is driven by logic puzzles instead of reflexes. (Full Throttle being an adventure game with some arcade elements, Psychonauts a platform game with bits of adventure game elements, etc.)

Good definition.
The thing I like most about traditional adventure games like MI were the way that they are the furthest removed from the "arcade" continuum.
For me that's always where things go wrong...
Played Prince of Persia (2008 game) and was disappointed at how arcadey it got. I find story-driven narrative and more logic-driven elements always add to gameplay experience.
Hmmm... make that CREATIVE and UNFORCED storyline and LOGICAL logic-driven elements.

I'm curious about the 'Low Sales' comment; Did the old SCUMM-based games have low sales? Or are you referring to what happens to Adventure games nowadays?

of note: “adventure” literally means “when things go wrong.” Thus something like a Disneyland “Jungle Adventure ride,” or most vacations and excursions, are invariably the opposite of actual adventures. The narrative of an adventure game is maybe more true to the word than what people typically call adventures. I think?

I think you may be mixing up adventure (a risky undertaking, exposing onself to hazards, particularly in seach of exitment) and misadventure (an unfortunate exent, or as you have it, when things go wrong).

Interesting point of view.
I think the term "Adventure" for games born from gamers who weren´t able to catalog a game in the correct genre (because it got diferent genres in it, because they didn´t know the name of the correct genre, because it show a new type of genre, because of multiple and/or confusing/new/different gameplay... etc)

BUT they saw that it got a story were someone iniciate an adventure in order to do something, ant the gameplay, the puzzles, the bosses, etc of the game, are all part of the adventure and it resolution.

So, in resume, Adventure games genre is a really vague and undefined term. Is like "Anonymous" for a game: They all are, until someone gave it a name.

I don't think I'm being naive when I say that if you made a new adventure game it wouldn't have low sales.

But to the question. Adventure games as we know them need the "Point n Click" or "Graphical Point n Click" (if you're old school) to really identify them as adventure games. But this is flawed, because as they move onto iPad, and even the consoles this becomes less relevent. Try explaining point and click to a 3 year old who's grown up with an iPad in their hands.

I've tried on other terms such as "Story based adventure" before but this doesn't really fit. For my games I've used the term "Non-action adventure", but this won't fit all point and click adventures, especially favourites like Quest For Glory.

The things I love about 'adventure games' are:

• Strong focus on narrative and characters
• Beautiful, compelling world to explore
• Gameplay usually allows you to move at your own pace, depending on your wits more than your reflexes

Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, et all had these things and were great adventure games. But so do Limbo, Braid, Psychonauts and SW:KOTOR. Even BioShock felt more like an adventure game to me than a lot of recent adventure releases. I don't think the gameplay matters; if it's story and character driven, with a rich world to explore, it feels like an adventure game to me.

Adventure games to me have most of the following features:

* Primarily story driven
* Puzzles, usually inventory driven
* Little to no "twitch" gaming
* Little to no non-story development of character (e.g. no levels, stats are mostly irrelevant or static)

'Adventure' to me, suggests a focus on the Journey. Monkey Island and the rest of the Lucasart stable (not to mention the classic Sierra, Infocom, & the rest) are all about 'The Journey'. The unfolding a story, the solving of a mystery. That's what 'Adventure' means to me. A focus on story. Puzzles facilitate the telling of the story, and the best Adventure games make the puzzles inherent to the story, rather then arbitrary obstacles.

Other genres often incorporate this, that's where you get the 'Action/Adventure (like Zelda games). But the pure story, sans Action, is what makes Adventure games Adventure games.

If they made a faithful Monkey Island film, without adding a billion sword and tall ship battles, I would call it an 'Adventure Movie'. They do exist. The TV series Doctor Who, for example, is what I would refer to as an 'Adventure Show'. The focus is not on the action, its all about presenting a story/mystery and seeing how its cast deal with it.


Personally I'd call Limbo a 'Puzzle/Platformer'. Because its largely about solving Puzzles, and navigating obstacles. Its not an Adventure game, because its not entirely about uncovering its story.

I would like to give you a thumb up, because i am too lazy to write a reply but i see it the same way. Or maybe not? (Thats the thumb-up mistery!)

But there is no thumb, damn!

I think for a long time now, people have used the term "Adventure Game" to mean any game that requires you to figure out how to get to the next bit that doesn't involve repetitive game-play elements such as shooting things or jumping over things.

Basically, in an FPS, you're constantly shooting, the game may present challenges that force you to think about where or how you shoot, but mostly it's a game about shooting (I'm aware that I'm generalising a lot here).

With RPG's, it's a lot more complex, but still similar, you use abilities to kill some enemy and eventually get to the end. You're again presented with certain unique challenges, but overall, you're just targeting and using abilities (yes, more generalising).

And then this goes for pretty much every video game genre, except for adventure games. In adventure games, every single part of the game is presented to you as a brand new challenge, not simply a variation on old challenges. To get past the troll, you need to answer 3 questions, to get the magic sword, you need to find the special salve, to get the key to the door you need to seduce the guard, all entirely new and unique experiences.

That said, there is definitely a difference between an adventure game and a puzzle game, even if a puzzle game has a narrative. And I feel that difference is whether or not the "puzzles" you solve have are self-contained, or happen in the world and among the narrative. Meaning, if, when solving a puzzle, your screen literally cuts to a screen with a puzzle of some kind on it, it's a puzzle game. If your game requires you to participate and interact with the world around you in a certain way to "solve" your puzzle, that's an adventure game.

To that end, a few years back, I heard someone almost jokingly refer to the game "Hitman: Blood Money" as an adventure game. When I thought about it, I found it was fairly apt. There's no pointing and clicking and you can, should you want, take your gun out and shoot your way through the game.

But the game encourages you to take a much more methodical route through each assassination, plant bombs, lay traps, sneak around, don disguises, work on things like timing and so on. It's an adventure game disguised as a stealth shooter.

Yeah I guess that's it. First one was called adventure. I keep confusing young gamers with the word "adventure". But since we called it first, we get to keep it.

They can call their favorite genre "Soccer", even if it is a football game ;)

similar to some other genre names, it has historical reasons to be called that, but during the years, it has gained it's own meaning.

consider "alternative music" from the early 90ies. it was called that because it was different from mainstream at that time. but when more and more bands began playing similar music, it became the new mainstream, but was still called "alternative".. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_music

"What is an Adventure Game?"

It´s a story based game that bases it´s gameplay mechanic on ways to tell a story. That´s why they differ from RPG´s, action games and platform games.

So, no, neither low sales or an inventory are required for a game to fit in the genre. Portal 2 is the best example on a succesful modern adventure game

Maybe adventure game is a dumb name for it, but even if you would call them story games, puzzle games or whatever, the games in the genre is what they are, the genre is what it is, and games like Gray Matter show why no other genre can do such games justice.

Not to split hairs. But to me, Portal/Portal 2 is a Puzzle/Platformer with an exceptionally immersive story. But not an Adventure game. Its Puzzles do not directly convey story beats, rather they are largely compartmentalized brain teasers that just flow into each other rather seamlessly.

At its core, its a Puzzle game, and a Platformer game. Its Adventure game elements are no more tangible then they are in Half Life 2 or Fallout 3.

I agree to some part to you can classify Portal 2 as a puzzle game. Not as a platform game, it really isn´t that much more of a platform game than any other FPS.

But every adventure is puzzle based, more or less, and the whole backdrop of the series with Aperture Sciences testing and their test chambers fits the puzzles in the story in, what I feel, a completely natural way. It´s not a structure with "cutscene > puzzle > cutscene > puzzle > and so on". It´s story and puzzle in each other all the time, so in my book, it qualifies.

It´s a close call though, and I can see your point, but you´re making the genre definition pretty narrow there.

I think an adventure game is a game where:

1) The interaction is not reflex-driven. There may be sections which require fast reactions, but they aren't prevailing and/or they're skippable.
2) Locations, characters and gameplay spring from the story and its evolution;
3) Character's management is simple and not RPG-like.

...and no, Limbo isn't an adventure game. I'd say it's a puzzle-platformer, it's too much reflex-driven. Limbo reminded me of Chai's Another World/Out of this World.

Chahi, not chai, his a French not a Chinese :)

Whooops, sorry. :-P

I've learned not to take the names of genres too literally, semantically speaking. Almost the whole of the 'JRPG' genre has little to nothing to do with roleplaying in the classic sense, where you can invent and play a role at your own leisure (roleplaying is not playing a pre-defined role without any interactivity, you have to be able to create your own role). These things just grow out of some fluke and we stick with it. With the free crossing of genre elements in almost all modern video games, genre definitions hold less and less water.

The classic adventure game is a puzzle-based, interactive story where the largest part is comprised of interactions with NPCs through dialogue and environmental puzzles. There are few or no action or time constraints. There are various off-shoots of the classic adventure such as Myst-style mechanical puzzle games.

I don't think one should get into visual specifics when talking about genres. Adventures can be 3rd or 1st person, point and click or controller/keyboard-driven, 2D or 3D. It's pretty flexible.

Wow, it's been a while since I gave adventure games some thought!

I always assumed it was a reduced down form of "Point 'n' Click Adventure"

Well, no. Because before there was Point-and-click adventure games. There were Text Adventure games.

Precisely - it's a tad cumbersome dragging the interface in to it whenever you want to talk about a genre. Perhaps the whittled down term was the easiest goto for that particular branch of story based puzzled.

1.  an exciting or very unusual experience.
2. participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.
3. a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

Treasure-hunting seems to fit in with the definition of adventure.

To me, genre definitions are getting less and less meaningful. I loved the old LEC adventures primarily for these reasons:

1. They were imaginative and evocative - memorable and moving ideas, scenarios, worlds, characters, visual art, music, etc.

2. The player was usually free to explore at any pace, rather than being threatened with imminent death at every moment.

3. Progressing through the game involved a variety of different solutions, rather than a single repetitive mechanic (killin' stuff).

4. Every person in the game had a distinctive look and personality and could be engaged in conversation, unlike games filled with thousands of soul-less clones for cannon-fodder.

I think a game could hit all the right 'adventure' notes with or without a point&click interface, with or without linear storytelling, with or without RPG-like character management, in 2D or 3D, first or third-person, with or without elements from any existing genre or the land of undiscovered ideas.

The deeper the environmental interaction, the better. The deeper the character interaction, the better. The more non-linear exploration and progression, the better.

I never been satisfied by the term "Adventure". Any game should be an adventure, even Tetris, maybe an abstract and squary one, why not? I think that all the characteristics that define the genre were all technological limits. An adventure is nothing and everything both. It emphasises on player's reasoning capabilities, but doesn't exlude shooting, exploring, personalizing or what else. They had one possible narrative course, because all technological, technical and artistic resources were focused to represent film-like scenes (once upon a time, RPGs were more verbose and had a raw graphic, because they had a more complex structure). But, with modern technologies, that wall is breaked down, so, theorically, the adventures could have a "labyrinthical structure" that change with the choises of the player, with many micro and macro-variations in its body (like some RPGs). So, what defines the limits of an Adventure Game? Nothing. And that's why they "exploded" (and absorbed by other genres) and there is so many confusion on what is an Adventure and what is not.
So, the question should be "what made an adventure game an adventure game (in the past)?". A combo of technological limits and film-like narration necessity.

Sorry for the english.

Something which doesn't include "Portal" in the definition.

'If you faithfully made Monkey Island into a movie, I doubt it would be called an Adventure Movie...' And could that movie be 'Pirates of The Caribbean'?
What an awesome Adventure Movie!
What? Are you saying Disney copied MI? Nah...

Ron please develop SCUMM 2.0 !!!
Kinect voice recognition interface + standard controll !!!

It would be great !!!
I have immagined it many times....

Err, um, Good point... why do we call them Adventure Games? One theory might be that early 80's-90's games mostly consisted of platform games or basic action titles, where as most 'Adventure Games' had a story, items and puzzles and gave you the time to put them all together in some fashion. An Adventure Game required you to solve the game and not merely finish the game through some basic skill based action and when you played it, It felt closer to say an Adventure Movie than a video game.

Well those are my theories, I  feel that most Adventure games are still stuck back in the 90's somewhere and probably don't deserve to carry the title any more, they should be called 'linear puzzle game with semi interactive / cinematic story included'.

To me an Adventure game, should be like playing a movie, but altered to the point where you have freedom to change events and have a feeling like you are guiding the story (even if that isn't true).

An adventure game,

-Is point and click.
-Has no console release, ever.
-Needs a floppy drive to be installed.

The end.

Then Maniac Mansion is not an adventure game.

Some exceptions here and there.

I'm playing an adventure game if I feel like the fist time I played Monkey Island or the first time I watched The Goonies :)

I think any game in which you don't know what your goal is, or/and you don't know how to reach that goal, can be called an adventure game.

That's what I call "Life".

Oh right I forgot, you cannot die in adventure games.

You can die in a lot of adventure games.

And i don't think the name is vague. In Argentina we called 'Aventuras Graficas' (Graphics Adventures). May be because they try to make a reference to the books for childreen 'Elige tu propia Aventura' (Choose your Adventure), those where you choose your path in the story line of the book every 2 or 3 pages.

That would be a Visual Novel.

Let me rephrase that: you cannot die in good adventure games.

well, in The Secret of Monkey Island you can die (guy.brush can hold his breath only for 10 minutes), so by your definition SOMI is not a good adventure game.
Even in Indiana jones and the fate of Atlantis you can die!
And I have not taken Maniac Mansion into consideration! :)

Those 3 are in my top 5 so my definition might not be entirely valid.

Here's a revised definition: you have to be a complete idiot to die in a good adventure game.

As Hitchcock said, movies are "real life with the boring parts cut out" - at least good movies are.  To me, [good] Adventure games are the same, but with more adventurous things in them.

Adventure Games dont exist anymore. The Genre died in the 80s/ 90s...
Its a shame cause that kind of games were awesome and very entertaining.
BTW Ron, u should continue making games... of any kind, cause u rock dude! ur brain worth gold.

A Hugh from Argentina!

The adventure genre is very vaguely defined. Still, I like this better than the RPG genre. Where the very clear definition of "involves some sort of levelling up functionality" is simply completely random.

It's not that vaguely defined, it's just that people label everything that has quests or focus on narration "RPG".

I think that the most accurate description is: a combat game where your character's statistic are explicit and change throughout the game. You play the "role" of you character because that character is completely "explained" to you. In action games you don't know your statistics, nor do you in adventure games, and so on.

To me, the "Adventure" genre indicates a focus on exploration and interaction with the environment.
In adventure games, like Myst and Monkey Island, you can't go on if you don't explore and use the right items or if you don't interact with your surroundings.
In action adventure games, a similar thing happens: in Zelda you need to use certain items, which you first need to find by exploring dungeons. Since you also fight in order to proceed, you also have the "action" side.

Sometimes you have to do it in games that aren't "adventure" games as well, but it's not prominent. Even in games like Final Fantasy XII sometimes you have to talk to the right character or use the right item, but the main focus of the game is on combat.

Since we're at it, I don't think games like Professor Layton are adventure games: there is some exploration, and you do interact with some items, but the focus is on "puzzles". Everything is an excuse to present a puzzle, the bare interaction is minimal.

A liquid branch of the mystical liquid tree growing in the courtyard of the sausage factory.

Well, If we take the first Monkey Island, I see it as an adventure. You have to sail to unkown places to save a girl. You have to find a crew and a ship.
In the end, the Elaine can take care of herself, the crew doesn't do a thing a the ship stinks, so it's kind of a parody of an adventure.

But I think the real adventure is to resolve the puzzles and discover new places. I always LOVED those "chapter X" titles and HOP, new island, new people. What makes your games so special (at least what makes me want to play them even 20 years later) is that they couldn't be made into films. They use a language that is specific to video games. You launch the game and you're in another world, with different (silly) problems. It's great. It's better than films. Make more games !

I think to me the main thing that characterises an adventure game is the world that it takes place in.  An adventure game is the type of game that causes the player to look at the environment not just the things in that environment - portal for example has a world created for the cubes and lasers etc to be in that create the puzzles for the player to solve, but the actual environment is not important other than the danger it possesses. This is the same in rpgs and fps' (most of the time) as the player looks towards the characters who will give quests or the enemies that need killing.
To me an adventure game, even when it has combat focuses on the world - such as figuring out how to use the surroundings or items found in the world to defeat such an enemy. Obviously the story is important to an adventure game but I think the story is what makes it compelling to play i.e. a good adventure game but it can still be an adventure game without a good story.

I think it was some judge that said that he doesn't know how to define porn, but he sure knows what it is when he sees it.

So adventure games are like porn - once you've played them once there's little reason for a replay...

Just kidding...

In my opinion, some kind of inventory, some puzzles wrapped into a good story. That makes an "adventure" game. A good game has good puzzles, so good that you don't recognize the pattern they were designed with. For example, what I don't like about the new Telltale games is that the puzzles are so obvious and they usually come in 3's. Maybe it's just me.

Now, when I hear "graphic adventure game", I think it's more about a specific genre. The game should be in 2D, with some nice graphics, some clicking, preferably a person walking around as you click etc...

The category "Adventure Game" has always confused me. It's been an option on multiple questionaires put out by console makers and game magazines, but simply put, most games could be considered an adventure of some sort. Even most web-based word games attach some sort of adventure story-line to their games, which in my opinion could classify them as adventure games.

Most games fit into several categories anyways, rendering "adventure game" just a redundant category overall.

What makes MI 1&2 best adventure games ever is that they have a heart. Curse is well designed, DOTT is funny, Indy and the Fate of Atlantis is "adventurous" and so on, but after you finished them you get nothing. In Ron's MI we grow up with Guybrush as we go on, and we can feel his "maturation"..till the completely reverting end which for me is great!
So the real Secret of Monkey Island is our childhood immagination that is still alive inside of us..thank you Ron go on making awesome game, always with that kind of magic that you can put in our stories!

Its very simple, adventure games called like that because they are not RPG, FPS, RTS and etc, adventure games breaking rules, breaking rules and explore is main purpose of any kind of ADVENTURES, you are kind of that should know that Ron.

Forget ADVENTURE GAMES...

Lets call them SOLVE 'EM UPS.

Seriously though, an Adventure game is a game where you must solve logic puzzles to progress through a story. The story doesn't even have to be linear. It could vary based on how you solve each problem.

To be truthful, they're the most realistic games ever made. You're given a problem and have to look around for a solution.

Monkey Island has always been a sort of interactive movie. Where you discover a story by completing certain actions and goals.

Ron, does it means that you are making an adventure game?!?!?

Are you behind the Kickstarter adventure game or it is Tim solo thing?
I hope you are also behind that...

But Ron, just immagine how much money you would be able to rise to finance your Monkey isalnd 3!!!

- There is a danger, or there is a big motivation to do something

- It all seems to big to handle

- You evolve (you learn from mistakes and you find friends along the way)

- You find yourself in the middle of the adventure and after it seems you made some progress you see no end (big questions, finding new ideals)

- Great opportunitys come along

- They will lead to your goal.

I really don't care what an adventure game is. As long as it features clever storytelling with clever interaction, it's interesting. If classic adventures are a platform that can provide that, I'm fine with classic adventures. If it slightly deviates from that template, whatever, it's not like a classic adventure is automatically great and the only way to go.

It's just after Will Crowther's Adventure. It's the same way Rogue-likes are named for their likeness to Rogue, and not for the roguiness of their heroes.

Maybe I should revise my definition: an adventure game is a game that publishers won't publish because it's a loss of money and time, but a crowd can fund because true passion has no price and it's forever..

I think we call them Adventure Games because they first derived from the classic Adventure Tales (Dumas, Scott, Defoe, Cooper, Verne, Buchan, Kipling, Twain etc).

In the end that is what an adventure game is all about, telling an adventure  story, in such a way that the player is drawn into it. The puzzles, and the solutions, have to be part of the story, not randomly locked doors that you cannot break down even though you have an axe. The authors skills are required as much as the designers and programmers.

I disagree about your movie comment. The first Monkey Island is jam-packed with adventure: setting sail for a mysterious island, descending to the depths of hell... how does that not fit the definition of adventure?

Day of the Tentacle is certainly an adventure - traveling through time - and the Indiana Jones games go without saying. I don't get the controversy here.

Sometime that struck me about adventure games, is the fact that you'll mostly an "underdog" or anti-hero, compared to traditional action-based games.

e.g:

- Roger Wilco: Saves the universe a few times, but always ends up as the janitor again.
- Leisure Suit Larry: The guy that never gets laid.
- Tex Murphy: PI who saves the world a few times, but never gets the credit for it
- Guybrush Threepwood: Come on, who actually takes him serious as a pirate?
- Indiana Jones: Well, kinda an exception, but still, in the end there is never any proof of all the things he discovered.

...

"What makes an Adventure Game an Adventure Game?"

Insult sword fights!

The vast majority of adventure games are computer games, though console-based adventure games are not unheard of. Unlike many other game genres, the adventure genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based art forms.
Logo design

Belatedly, this question got mulled over from more of a text-adventure kind of perspective by Andrew Plotkin, ten years ago: http://eblong.com/zarf/essays/ifdef.html

In the end, he didn't really know either.

I think there has to be an interface component where the player tries to do something, or use something on something, and the reply is basically "You can't do that." (I'm serious.)

This is great news! I played monkey island when I was a kid, and I gotta say I'm really looking forward to this game.

Adventures are about riddles deeply involved in a story. Some misunderstand the real meaning about the riddles. I've played several so called action-adventures which included riddles but more in a competitive way than in a story-telling manner. Riddles should give you tasks which don't end in "Put items in right order to proceed".

L.A. Noire could be called an adventure, yet it lacks of special things: different dialogue choices and crossover-tasks. The whole game is way too linear in each of its stories. So far I've played eight or nine stories and it's getting boring to do the same thing over and over again: check the whole crime scene until a melody appears or your controller vibrates, guess the truth or lie in facial gestures and choose one of three choices during the dialogues. So far there's no possibility to do crossover tasks, which means you do something for someone who gives you an item or hint at the end, which is needed for another task of another person. There's no connection at all, it seems like it's a game with many stories (don't put spoilers in here if it's getting any different later on).

Of course humor is a good way to sell games. Parodies about real products, puns, irony, sarcasm, situation comedy... depending on the setting of the game you have research which humour fits best throughout the game. Sometimes the protagonist isn't funny when he's all alone, but a companion might fill the gap. Guybrush was funny because of the monologues when he's commenting about things he's looking at. And sometimes, the second or third "look at"-command came up with a different comment on the same thing.

And maybe this is the way how adventures may be the bestsellers again: with deep and yet humorous stories.

Monkey Island IS the canon adventure game. It was not just the puzzle solving, but the unexpected, that made that game great.
My first surprise was that scene with Fetuccini Brothers in which there was upside down text!. I remember thinking "Omg, I never thought you could do that in a computer". From that moment on, I didn't know what to expect from that game, so everything felt like an adventure.
Every time I thought that I knew "how the game worked" the game surprised me again with another feature, and another, etc.
For example, the jars dissolving in the inventory... I thought the inventory was static until then.
Or the buttons changing to other verbs (float, decompose, etc).
Then there was insult fighting: brilliant!
The gameplay always adapting to the story: THAT is what it's an adventure game.


PS: sorry for my English.

This Game is great..