For many years, adventure games have been prevalent in the gaming arena. Many gamers have found adventure games to have similar characteristics to watching a movie or reading a book. This genre can be ideal for thoughtful and engaging people who love challenges.
Adventure games are all about exploring worlds, solving puzzles and unfolding stories. Whether you are traveling the globe in Broken Sword or making the most out of Sacramento’s live escape room adventure, you will come across unexpected fantasies, mysteries and experiences that you will never get in other genres.
The definition
Adventure games are primarily based on puzzle solving within a narrative framework. There are three general characteristics that are always present in adventure games:
- They are narrative. Story is the focal point of game. The plot and setting is essentially important. Adventure games are basically known for their depiction of original stories. However, in some games the player itself have to fill in the story. There are no predetermined events involved.
- Puzzles are essential to adventure games. However, it can come in all sizes and shapes which are integrated into the game in its own unique way. From inventory puzzles to dialogue-based puzzles, adventure games entail a lot of logic-application on part of the player.
- There is some degree of exploration involved in the game. Depending on the interface, you have to navigate the character by using some mechanism. But one thing is for sure, you will need to explore the area.
Five major kinds
Here are five major schools of adventure games listed:
Interactive fiction
Adventure games that are primarily textual fall under the category of interactive fiction. Games that are based on RPG principles are exempted from this classification. Interactive fiction is the largest community of all other kinds of adventure games.
Graphical adventure
These games are also known as ‘point-and-click’. These games feature limited animation, pre-drawn backgrounds and old school graphics that are cartoonish in style. The games are in third person.
First-person adventure
These are adventure games rendered from a first-person perspective. However, there was a dramatic progression in the classification over time. Early games had a feel of interactive slideshows whereas later games employed pre-rendered panoramic visuals.
Interactive movie games
These are the game which employs considerable use of photo-realistic images or full motion video. These game tended to be highly popular since its inception but cost and technology acted as an obstacle to its progression.
3-D adventure game
We are in an era where fully 3-D adventure games are a norm. The action-adventure game format has now been gaining popularity at a rapid pace. A sub-genre of the category named environmental narrative games emerged in recent times which emphasizes on storytelling and exploration. Gabriel Knight 3 is one popular example of such category.
Above was a description of what adventure games are and the different kinds of it. It is important to understand the details for all the avid gamers out there.
