If you are a real gamer who checks all of the new releases available on the market, you might have noticed, the mainstream industry is not offering too many options when it comes to adventure games. Certainly, adventure games are adventurous enough to make you feel the thrill of playing and keep you absorbed into gaming for hours. Yet, such games are somewhat different if you compare them to various simulators, RPGs and action games overcrowding the modern game stores. Actually, they are still resembling their first versions which were text adventures.
Characteristic features of adventure games
If you are not particularly familiar video games in general or prefer some particular genres such as simulators or strategies, you might not be aware of the exact meaning of the adventure game term. Actually, you might even mistake some other genres for adventure games. For instance, the term action game might suggest adventures as well, however, this is an absolutely different type of a video game.
A crucial part of adventure games is interacting with other characters as well as the environment. This is usually achieved through solving various puzzles. You might get clues for completing the tasks in order to progress the story of a game. Such games might have occasional mini games, however, this might be the only action element of traditional video games. Even though the modern technology increased the options available for the development of adventure games, their idea resembles the first games a lot. That is the major reason many gamers who are particularly attracted by the dynamics of video games do not choose adventure games.
Types of adventure games
The categorisation of adventure games is based on the type of their gameplay rather than their content or storyline.
Text adventure games
Another popular name for the first adventure games is interactive fiction. As you can imagine, text information has a particular significance for such games.
Actually, the entire gameplay of the first adventure games was based on text. When a particular situation occurred in a video game, a player was supposed to write a respond in order to progress on the game. For instance, a command might have been a text like “go South”.
As you can imagine, a great part of work for the developers of such games was based on creating the responses to the commands provided by players.
Graphic adventure games
The first graphic adventure games did not differ from text adventures a lot. They still heavily relied on text which was used as a source of commands and a medium for controlling the game. Yet, these games also included images which was a brand new approach back to that time. Certainly, images supported the text information a lot.
With time, the technology allowed graphic adventure games to use a computer mouse for controlling rather than a keyboard. Since players did not have to insert their commands any more while using a convenient mouse, it was possible to switch the control system of the game to a “point-and-click” mechanism.
Visual novels
Today, you can come across visual novels which are especially loved by the Japanese players. Note that these video games are thus popular in Japan that almost 70% of all of the PC games produced in this country are actually adventure visual novels. The majority of games of this subcategory include the part of building up the statistics and character traits of your character in order to make a progress on the game. In addition to it, there are multiple possible ending of such games which are determined by the choices you are making while playing.
Some of the most popular themes used by visual novels are legal simulations as well as dating.
Interactive movies
Interactive movies were the next step in the development of adventure games coming after graphic adventures. Now, the games also include sequences of animation as well as live action sequences. Such games are played from the perspective of a third person.
Real-time 3D
The latest technology used in adventure games is real-time 3D. As you can imagine, now there are no pre-rendered scenes. The world game takes place in a real time.
Examples of the most notable adventure games
Have you ever thought about the time when the gaming industry switched to the CD-ROM technology? Interestingly, the game which introduced the technology of CD-ROM to gamers was an adventure one. To be precise, this game was Mysr which is regarded as one of the best adventure games. It was released in 1993.
Note that even though today adventure games are not thus popular as some other genres, Mysr even became the best-selling video game.
Another crucial adventure game is Dragon Lair which is considered to be one of the best interactive movies. Dragon Lair was animated by Don Bluth who used to be a Disney animator.