Adventure Game



""There has to be a more convoluted way, but how?""

- Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People

A game genre characterized by puzzle-solving, exploration, and narrative, and a relative (or total) absence of randomized combat.

Adventure games are among the earliest video game genres. Their line descends from the original Colossal Cave game (also known colloquially as ADVENTURE), written by Will Crowther and Don Woods in the 1970s, based on the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky, and its immediate successor, Dungeon, which was later marketed commercially as the Zork trilogy.

Adventure games remained one of the dominant genres throughout the 1980s until the mid-90s, as they tended to be far less demanding on computer resources than their action-oriented brethren. Sierra and Lucas Arts became the big players in graphical adventure games. Infocom, on the other hand, was the dominant force for textual adventure games, which they marketed as "Interactive Fiction", which has now become the term for that genre.

Most commenters claim that the Adventure genre is in its final death-throes, and has been for almost twenty years, since the original Interactive Fiction genre ceased to be a viable commercial entity. Adventure games are still produced in approximately the same numbers as before, but their market share has dropped considerably. However, elements of Adventure games have migrated into other genres, resulting in the highly successful Action Adventure genre. In fact, due to the dearth of "true" Adventure games on the commercial market, the Action Adventure genre is sometimes just called the Adventure genre. This would be essentially where adventure-themed games such as the Uncharted series and especially Another World would go, as they are not considered adventure games due to their use of combat.

That's because, ironic to the name, Adventure Games are not about action, and as such, are not what non-gamers might think of as "adventures" in the way that adventure movies or books are often full of action, chases and danger. In fact, Adventure Games are some of the slowest-paced games around, being more focused on story, exploration, suspense, dialogue and puzzle-solving, leading to some criticism of the use of the word "adventure". The upside is that they may consume as many hours of play as a Wide Open Sandbox, but with a script that leaves the player wondering "what happens next" if they can get past this obstacle. Compare, say, the adventures in the Indiana Jones movies to The Fate Of Atlantis, which feels like an extended roleplay of an Indiana Jones movie, and then to Uncharted, which feels like an arcade simulation of an Indiana Jones movie. The former is a Point and Click Adventure Game. The latter is an Action Adventure. Two very different genres.

The genre has had a decent revival on the Nintendo DS starting with the ports of the Ace Attorney series, as its touchscreen allows for an ideal point-and-click interface, and the fanbase includes many older players who favour puzzle and problem-solving games. As well, smaller companies like The Adventure Company and Telltale Games have done well in specializing in adventure games; indeed, the latter has revitalized the Sam and Max Freelance Police franchise and recently began a new Monkey Island series. And there is, of course, the whole Independent Adventure Games scene where small-time developers (often one-man teams) are able to keep themselves running by distributing their games to cult-followings.

Because Adventure Games are story-based, what they lack in body-count they can make up for with suspense. Indeed, the primary death toll in such a game is You. The typical Adventure Game is framed around an elaborate, even novelistic plot which the player must proceed through by trying to get information out of non-player characters and collect any items you come across that May Help You On Your Quest. (These are all Adventure Game tropes, by the way.)

In addition to their own peculiar tropes, Adventure Games, perhaps more than any other video game genre, borrow from the tropes of television and film media.

Probably the most famous Adventure game of all time is the Zork trilogy, and -- of course -- Colossal Cave Adventure, which was the prototypical "Adventure game".

There are six major "schools":

Interactive Fiction:

Interactive Fiction is usually defined as an adventure game which is primarily textual (though there is much debate over the exact scope of the term; some think it should refer only to purely textual games, while others, preferring to take the words "interactive" and "fiction" literally, think the term should encompass a superset of those games typically called "Adventure". The term Text Adventure is less ambiguous, but also less popular). For instance, MUDs and other text games are based on RPG principles, and thus fall outside the category. More than any other school of Adventure (and, indeed, more than most other videogame genres), Interactive Fiction has a large hobbyist community, with as many as a hundred new games produced each year. Examples: Zork, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Jigsaw, and Photopia.

Graphical Adventure:

Sometimes called "2D" or "point-and-click", is the format used for most graphical games of the golden age. Somewhat similar to a Platform Game visually, these use pre-drawn backgrounds, with limited animation, often using watercolors, although pre-1992 graphics were cartoonish in style. The playfields actually are three-dimensional, viewed from a fixed perspective. These games are rendered in the third person, with the player character's Digital Avatar as a sprite in the world. Aficionados often further break this genre down by the style of the user interface. Three popular styles include the "icon bar" (which has a button bar of possible actions above or below the main viewport), the "verb list" (where a list of actions relevant to the current scene appears below the viewport), and the "verb coin" (where possible actions upon a specific object appeared, usually laid out radially around the object when clicked -- see The Sims for a modern version). Earlier games were often assisted by a Text Parser, while later ones often removed the notion of "verbs" altogether, reducing a click on an object to "do the obvious thing to this object". Examples: King's Quest, Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight, and Ozzie And The Quantum Playwrite.

Pre-rendered First Person Adventure:

Also called Myst-clones or Two and A Half D, present prerendered 3D environments from a first-person perspective. Early examples tended to have the feel of interactive slideshows (this is a fair comparison: Myst was originally created on an early Macintosh slideshow program called Hypercard). Emphasis usually moved away from inventory management and toward "set-piece" puzzles involving the manipulation of a piece of machinery. The use of Full Motion Video in cutscenes became common for a time. Examples: The Journeyman Project, Myst, Shivers, and Zork: Grand Inquisitor.

Interactive Movie Games:

Games which incorporate substantial or exclusive use of Full Motion Video and photorealistic images. While this seemed like a natural pairing, the cost and technology stood in the way of interactivity. By the time that it was feasible to do such games properly, the whole notion had left a bad taste in players' mouths. Examples: Phantasmagoria, Gabriel Knight 2, and The X-Files. Other examples of this are the 1998 Visual Novel Yarudora series, the 1998 Dancing Blade: Katte ni Momotenshi! series by Konami, and the 2005 Dating Sim School Days and its sequel Summer Days, which are essentially branching Anime movies, and the recent Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, which even featured interactive action scenes through Quick Time Events.
 * One notable failed Interactive Movie was Any River Entertainment's A Fork in the Tale. Reviewed by PC Gamer, the magazine was quick to point out the low production values, relative lack of interactivity, and the game's incomprehensible storyline. Any River shut down shortly before the game's release.

Panoramic Adventure Games:

Fully 3D Adventure Games are rare, but the Action Adventure game format has become increasingly common. Fully 3D pure-Adventure games include Gabriel Knight 3.

Serial Adventure Games:

With the 2010 revival of the "true" Adventure Game market, a number of nominal Web Comic artists and bloggers have been developing interactive, serialized adventure games released in daily doses over the Internet. These games usually have a loose plot moderated by their artist, but readers are encouraged to decide what happens next "turn" by writing suggestions in a specific comic format reminiscent of interactive fiction games. Live interaction with the writer/artist/moderator results in extinction of the dreaded "You can't use those two objects together" response.

See also Visual Novel.

Adventure games of note:\\
(for series with more than one title, year refers to the release date of the first game.)

Web-based Serial Adventure Games are not listed.

1976

 * Colossal Cave

1980

 * The Zork series
 * Zork (1980)
 * Return to Zork (1993)
 * Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands (1996)
 * Zork Grand Inquisitor (1997)

1983

 * Dragons Lair
 * Planetfall
 * Suspended

1984

 * The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy
 * The King's Quest series
 * King's Quest I Quest for The Crown (1984; 1990 remake)
 * King's Quest II Romancing the Throne (1985)
 * King's Quest III to Heir Is Human (1986)
 * King's Quest IV the Perils of Rosella (1988)
 * King's Quest V Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder (1990)
 * King's Quest VI Heir Today Gone Tomorrow (1992)
 * King's Quest VII the Princeless Bride (1994)
 * King's Quest Mask of Eternity (1998)
 * Neuromancer, an Interplay Game loosely based on William Gibson's novel.
 * Princess Tomato in The Salad Kingdom
 * Thayers Quest

1985

 * Deja Vu
 * A Mind Forever Voyaging

1986

 * Space Quest
 * Taiyou no Shinden Asteka II

1987

 * Hollywood Hijinks
 * Leisure Suit Larry
 * Leisure Suit Larry: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987; 1991 remake)
 * Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love In Several Wrong Places (1988)
 * Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals (1989)
 * Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work (1991)
 * Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! (1993)
 * Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! (1996)
 * Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude (2004)
 * Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust (2009)
 * The Lurking Horror
 * Maniac Mansion
 * Police Quest
 * Shadowgate
 * Uninvited

1988

 * Gold Rush
 * Snatcher
 * Zak McKracken and The Alien Mindbenders

1989

 * Codename Iceman
 * Conquests of Camelot
 * Future Wars
 * Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
 * Laura Bow
 * Mad Maze
 * Personal Nightmare
 * The Quest for Glory series:
 * Quest for Glory I (1989 as Hero's Quest; 1990 re-release with new name)
 * Quest for Glory II (1990)
 * Quest for Glory III (1992)
 * Quest for Glory IV (1993)
 * Quest for Glory V (1998)
 * Rance
 * Video Game/Rance
 * Rance II
 * Rance 4.1
 * Rance 4.2
 * Tex Murphy

1990

 * Altered Destiny
 * Hugos House of Horrors
 * Loom
 * Monkey Island
 * The Secret of Monkey Island (1990; 2009 remake)
 * Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991; 2010 remake)
 * The Curse of Monkey Island (1997)
 * Escape From Monkey Island (2000)
 * Tales of Monkey Island (2009)
 * Rise of the Dragon
 * The Spellcasting Series:
 * Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls (1990)
 * Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance (1991)
 * Spellcasting 301: Spring Break (1992)

1991

 * The Adventures of Willy Beamish
 * Another World
 * Eco Quest
 * The Goblins series
 * Gobliiins (1991)
 * Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon (1992)
 * Goblins 3 (aka Goblins Quest 3) (1993)
 * Gobliiins 4 (2009)

1992

 * Conquests of the Longbow
 * Curse of Enchantia
 * Dark Seed
 * Gateway
 * Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis
 * KGB
 * The Legend of Kyrandia
 * Putt Putt
 * Star Trek 25th Anniversary

1993

 * Dare to Dream
 * Day of the Tentacle
 * Fatty Bear 
 * Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist
 * Gabriel Knight
 * Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure
 * The Journeyman Project
 * The Labyrinth of Time
 * Myst
 * Myst 3 - Exile
 * Sam and Max Hit the Road
 * Simon the Sorcerer
 * The Star Trek series
 * Star Trek: Judgment Rites (1993)
 * Star Trek: A Final Unity (1995)
 * Transarctica

1994

 * Beneath a Steel Sky
 * Burn Cycle
 * Freddi Fish
 * Inherit the Earth
 * Policenauts
 * Superhero League of Hoboken
 * Wrath of the Gods

1995

 * The Dig
 * Full Throttle
 * I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
 * Little Big Adventure
 * Lost Eden
 * Mission: Critical
 * The Phantasmagoria series
 * Phantasmagoria (1995)
 * Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (1996)
 * Torins Passage
 * Total Distortion

1996

 * Bad Mojo
 * The Broken Sword series
 * Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996)
 * Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror (1997)
 * Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (2003)
 * Broken Sword: The Angel of Death (2006)
 * Clock Tower
 * Foul Play: Mystery at Awkward Manor
 * Harvester
 * The Neverhood
 * Pajama Sam
 * Ripper
 * Spycraft the Great Game
 * Stay Tooned
 * Titanic Adventure Out of Time
 * Toonstruck

1997

 * Blackout
 * Callahans Crosstime Saloon 
 * Down in The Dumps
 * The Feeble Files
 * The Last Express
 * SPY Fox

1998

 * Black Dahlia
 * Fantasy Quest
 * Gadget Past As Future
 * Grim Fandango
 * Pilgrim
 * Sanitarium
 * Starship Titanic

1999

 * Aisle
 * Discworld Noir
 * Echo Night
 * The Longest Journey
 * Omikron the Nomad Soul
 * The Silver Case
 * Flower Sun and Rain
 * The Silver Case: Ward 25

2000

 * The Perils of Akumos

2001

 * The Game of the Ages
 * Gilbert Goodmate
 * Julias Time Adventures
 * Hamtaro Ham Hams Unite
 * Luigis Mansion
 * Mystery of the Druids
 * Pick Up the Phone Booth And Aisle
 * Pleurghburg Dark Ages
 * Reality On the Norm series
 * Shadow of Destiny
 * The Trail of Anguish

2002

 * Hamtaro Ham Ham Heartbreak
 * Out of Order
 * The PK Girl
 * Post Mortem
 * The Runaway series
 * Runaway - A Road Adventure (2002)
 * Runaway 2 - The Dream of the Turtle (2006)
 * Runaway 3 - A Twist of Fate (2009)
 * The Sherlock Holmes series


 * Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy (2002)
 * Sherlock Holmes and The Secret of The Silver Earring (2004)
 * Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (2006)
 * Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin (2007)
 * Simon the Sorcerer 3D
 * Syberia

2003

 * Die Anstalt
 * Black Mirror
 * Chzo Mythos
 * 5 Days a Stranger (2003)
 * 7 Days a Skeptic (2004)
 * Trilby's Notes (2006)
 * 6 Days a Sacrifice (2007)
 * CSI adaptations:


 * CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
 * CSI: Dark Motives
 * CSI Miami
 * Myst: Uru - Ages beyond Myst
 * Slouching Towards Bedlam
 * The Tony Tough series
 * Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths (2003)
 * Tony Tough 2 - A Rake’s Progress (2006)

2004

 * Ben Jordan Paranormal Investigator
 * Ben Jordan Case 1: In Search of the Skunk-Ape (2004)
 * Deluxe Edition (2006)
 * Ben Jordan Case 2: The Lost Galleon of the Salton Sea (2004)
 * Deluxe Edition (2010)
 * Ben Jordan Case 3: The Sorceress of Smailholm (2004)
 * Ben Jordan Case 4: Horror at Number 50 (2005)
 * Ben Jordan Case 5: Land of the Rising Dead (2006)
 * Ben Jordan Case 6: Scourge of the Sea People (2007)
 * Ben Jordan Case 7: The Cardinal Sins (2008)
 * Ben Jordan Case 8: Relics of the Past (2011 (Planned))
 * Black Mirror
 * Dark Fall the Journal
 * Exmortis
 * The Moment of Silence
 * Mortadelo y Filemón: Una Aventura de Cine
 * Syberia 2
 * The Westerner

2005

 * The Ace Attorney series: (North American release dates)
 * Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (2005)
 * Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All (2007)
 * Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials And Tribulations (2007)
 * Apollo Justice Ace Attorney (2008)
 * Ace Attorney Investigations Miles Edgeworth (2010)
 * Gyakuten Kenji 2 (2011, Japan only)
 * The Ankh series
 * Ankh (2005)
 * Ankh: Heart of Osiris (2006)
 * Ankh 3 (2007)
 * Bone
 * Chibi-Robo
 * Escape From St Marys
 * Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy)
 * Haunting Ground
 * Meta
 * Nibiru
 * Still Life
 * Sub Machine
 * Trace Memory
 * The White Chamber

2006

 * The Blackwell Series
 * The Blackwell Legacy (2006)
 * Blackwell Unbound (2007)
 * The Blackwell Convergence (2009)
 * Blackwell Deception (2011)
 * Dreamfall - The longest Journey
 * Sam and Max Save The World (Telltale Games episodes season one)
 * Reactor 09
 * The Secret Files series
 * Secret Files: Tunguska (2006)
 * Secret Files 2 - Purtias Cordis (2009)
 * Scratches
 * Secrets of Da Vinci the Forbidden Manuscript
 * The Shivah
 * Touch Detective

2007

 * Covert Front
 * Culpa Innata
 * A Fine Day for Reaping
 * Ghost in The Sheet
 * Hotel Dusk Room 215
 * Jack Keane
 * Lost Winds
 * Nelly Cootalot
 * Penumbra
 * The Professor Layton series (A hybrid of this and Puzzle Game)
 * Professor Layton and The Curious Village
 * Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box
 * Professor Layton and The Unwound Future
 * Professor Layton and The Last Specter
 * Professor Layton and The Mask of Miracle 
 * A Tale of Two Kingdoms
 * Vigil Blood Bitterness
 * Warthogs
 * Zack and Wiki Quest For Barbaros Treasure (with many Puzzle Game elements)

2008

 * The Abbey
 * Ben There Dan That
 * The Edna & Harvey series.
 * Edna and Harvey The Breakout (2008)
 * Edna and Harvey Harveys New Eyes (2011)
 * Endless Ocean
 * Quest for Yrolg
 * Lifesigns Surgical Unit
 * Limbo of the Lost
 * The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure
 * Samorost
 * A Second Face
 * So Blonde
 * Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People
 * Time Hollow
 * A Vampyre Story

2009

 * The Book of Unwritten Tales
 * Ceville
 * Drawn
 * Flower
 * Jake Hunter
 * Lux Pain 
 * Machinarium
 * The Marionette
 * Miami Law
 * Time Gentlemen Please
 * Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures

2010

 * Again
 * Amnesia the Dark Descent
 * Assault On Vampire Island
 * Back to The Future
 * Deadly Premonition
 * Doctor Who: The Adventure Games
 * Epic Mickey
 * Eternally Us
 * Ghost Piratesof Vooju Island
 * Ghost Trick
 * Gray Matter
 * Heavy Rain
 * Hector Badge of Carnage
 * Jolly Rover
 * Nelson Tethers Puzzle Agent
 * The Silver Lining (A King's Quest Fan Sequel)
 * Steins Gate
 * Technobabylon
 * The Whispered World
 * Wicked Awesome Adventure

2011

 * Gemini Rue
 * Jurassic Park the Game
 * A New Beginning
 * Stray Souls Dollhouse Story
 * The Wager
 * Wasted Youth
 * Quasar
 * Que Pasa Perro
 * Ghost Trick

2012

 * Journey
 * Lone Survivor
 * Botanicula
 * Yesterday
 * Cherry Tree High Comedy Club
 * The Walking Dead
 * My Little Investigations

2013

 * Beyond Two Souls

Unsorted

 * Cult
 * Gretel and Hansel
 * Jimmy Jam
 * Nightmare Doors
 * PD
 * Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney
 * The Several Journeys of Reemus
 * The Nancy Drew series