The Return of Adventure Games

31st July 2009 • 0 Comments

Following the recent announcement of the Beneath a Steel Sky remake coming to iPhone, I suddenly came to the realisation that 2009 has been a very good year for adventure games. If we go back a few years, it seemed that classic adventure games had been forgotten by the industry and been replaced with FPS's and MMO's and very console like games.  

Whilst adventure games still aren't as popular as they once were this year has seen a resurgence in the number that have been released and I think this comes down to three reasons. 

1. Cheaper and Download Only Titles

Whilst being a critic of game distribution going completely download only, there are some positives of being able to offer products digitally. It allows for smaller games to be released for small price points such as £7, instead of the £40 the game would have to sell for, if it was at retail. 

The second part to this, is that you don't have to make the boxes and ship the games to retailer, whilst maintaining a larger cut of the profits. This makes projects such as adventure games less of a risk to developers/publishers as they're more likely to make their money back. I'm sure in the past a lot of developers would have liked to make a point and click adventure game but got turned down for funding as it might not make its money back.

The lower price point is a lower risk for consumers as well and people whom are unsure about adventure games would be more willing to try it for £6 than having to buy a £30. It also allows for companies like Telltale games to release their adventure games episodically, as adventure games are a good fit for this way of distribution (for more information on episodic games check out my dissertation ;-)).

Examples of this can be seen with the recent release of Secret of Monkey Island, Tales of Monkey Island and the release of classic Lucasarts & Sierra adventure games on Steam. 

2. Platforms With New Control Methods

In the last decade the focus in gaming has switched from PC gaming to the majority playing games on their games consoles. Due to it point and click control scheme, adventure games never really worked on consoles and it came apparent that 3D and direct control of the character didn't really work. This is probably one of the reasons for the decline in adventure games. 

In recent years however the Wii, DS and iPhone have all been released with control schemes which are ideal for point and click adventure games. This is shown with the port of Broken Sword to the DS and Wii and how well it handles on both of those platforms. Especially with the touch screen devices, the controls are really easy to pick up so anyone can start playing these games within a matter of minutes. As adventure games don't require constant attention they are also ideal for dropping in and out, which is probably why they seem so popular on handheld devices, a sort of example is Professor Layton on DS.

With the ease in which the control schemes can be ported to these consoles, it prevents a wider range of platforms these games can be available for and thus reduces the risk of not making your money back. It also means the controls aren't compromised on these systems meaning that they are still great to play on these platforms.

I am aware that Secret of Monkey Island was released on 360 and whilst it has a good control scheme, I would not be surprised if the iPhone or the PC version outsold it. 

3. Wider and More "Casual" Audience

With the release of the Wii & DS, the audience for games has certainly changed over the past few years. More of the older generation and female gamers are now playing games when a few years ago they would only play the games that came with Windows.

These new players also have different tastes to the 18 - 30 male, who enjoys playing First Person Shooters with his friends. They are looking for straightforward games, which perhaps tell a good story and can be played in short bursts. This is where adventure games are a good fit, as this new audience are looking for the sorts of mysteries you would find in the latest James Patterson novel or Agatha Christie books and adventure games can emulate this pretty well. This can be seen with the popularity of the the Mystery games on DS and the amount of similar games that have been released on that platform.

The effect of the new casual audience can be seen with the release of old adventure games now with an added hint feature. Back when these games were first released puzzles were seen as a challenge, but now game design has changed and also the audiences expectations have changed and thus the game tries to help the player finish the game rather than challenge them. 

These three factors I believe have led to the resurgence of adventure games and it is nice to see the classic games returning. It will be interesting to see if this trend develops and whether more games will be rereleased for the iPhone (Broken Sword & Space Quest please). If you feel that you want to try some of these adventure games be sure to check out ScummVM an application which allows you to play old adventure games providing you own them, some old Revolution games have been made freely available though so be sure to check them out.