Category Archives: adventure games

A Treasure of LucasArts and Sierra Oddities

By Rubes | Published: September 27, 2008


I caught this one from GameSetWatch, through Unseen64.net. A website by ATMachine that showcases a pretty impressive amount of info on some of the old LucasArts and Sierra adventure games, much of which was probably unseen. Not sure why or how it came to attention at this point in time, considering the site appears to have been around for a few years, but I’m glad it did since I hadn’t noticed it before.

There’s a wealth of cool stuff there. Development and design images from games, early (WIP) screenshots, alternate art and GUI interfaces that were never used, comparisons of the same games on different platforms, comparisons of demos and full releases, and other oddities. Some of the games featured include LucasArts’ Monkey [More...] Read the rest

Posted in adventure games | 3 Comments

Playing the Protagonist Part, Partly

By Rubes | Published: August 27, 2008

A blog entry and discussion over at Corvus Elrod’s Man Bytes Blog about character and plot got me thinking about that tricky relationship between the player and protagonist, and the expectations (and allowances) game authors often place on their players.

In some games — typically non-first person games — the player is asked to play the role of a particular character. In Dreamfall, the player starts out playing the role of Zoe; in Tomb Raider, Lara Croft; in Deus Ex, J.C. Denton. In many interactive fiction games, the same applies, such as the Abbot in Vespers. In many instances, the protagonist has a history, and in some cases a personality, but inserting the player into that role can produce a frustrating [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in game design, story in games | 2 Comments

The Rise and Fall of Full Throttle

By Rubes | Published: August 26, 2008

If you’re anything like me (and really, you know you are), then the classic LucasArts adventure game “Full Throttle” holds a special place in your gaming heart. It was a great combination of artwork, gameplay, writing, and design that few games have been able to match since its initial release for DOS in 1995. Some didn’t like the fact that it was a very short game (able to be completed in a few hours), but personally I think that probably led to the game being more polished, well-designed, and memorable.

Over on Adventure Classic Gaming, Marshall Ratliff and Philip Jong have posted a nice summary of the history of Full Throttle, particularly of the time following the game’s success and during the planning [More...] Read the rest

Posted in adventure games | 3 Comments

Conversation: They’re All Talking (About It)

By Rubes | Published: July 21, 2008

I guess conversation is where it’s at these days. Recently I began a series of blogs on conversation mechanics and how interactive fiction games can perhaps show the mainstream game industry how to do better dialogue (starting here, continuing here, and most recently here). Others have also recently jumped in on the action.

Over on Gamasutra, an article written by Brent Ellison popped up not long ago to define dialog systems because, as he says, “very little literature has addressed the mechanics behind character interaction in games.”

Ellison essentially covers the basic mechanics of different dialogue systems in games, including branching and non-branching dialogue, hub-and-spokes dialogue, and even parser-driven dialogue. He does a fair enough job of summarizing the more common systems, [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in characters in games, interactive fiction | Leave a comment

Conversation Sophistication

By Rubes | Published: July 14, 2008


I used to think that the only way we will see good, satisfying conversations in games is if some developer comes up with a combination of a highly advanced parser, capable of accepting a broad range of user input, and sophisticated AI code that can dynamically respond to this input. However, a more careful examination of some recent interactive fiction games has led me to believe that most of the tools already exist, and that what’s really needed are skill and patience. Skill to write well and to construct systems that account for dynamically changing conditions, and the patience required to do so.

Last time out, I discussed the conversation system used in Emily Short’s Galatea, a game that focuses on a single conversation [More...] Read the rest

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