Designing Classic Adventure Games - King's Quest, Myst, Monkey Island and More

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There's maybe no genre with a more interesting history than the adventure game. Today we'll talk about the design of classic adventure games. From their start as text adventures. Through Sierra, Ken and Roberta Williams and King's Quest. Modernized with LucasArts, Ron Gilbert, Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and Grim Fandango. Then brought to the masses with Cyan and Myst, and a whole lot of copycats. Let's see what made adventure games so popular in the 80s and 90s and what made the genre fade away to almost nothing.
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[@DesignDoc]

List of games featured (in order of first appearance) 0:08 Phoenix Wright: Justice for All 0:12 Street Fighter 2 0:15 King of Fighters 96 0:16 Tekken 3 0:17 Fatal Fury Wild Ambition 0:18 Street Fighter EX 3 0:21 Streets of Rage 2 0:23 Pilotwings 0:25 Starcraft 0:28 DOTA 2 0:32 A Hat in Time 0:37 Full Throttle 0:41 Zork 0:44 Kings Quest 0:48 Monkey Island 2 0:50 Escape from Monkey Island 0:51 Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1 0:53 Space Quest 0:56 Grim Fandango 0:59 Day of the Tentacle 1:02 King's Quest 3 1:55 Pong 1:57 Breakout 2:01 Space Race 2:04 Computer Space 2:07 Colossal Cave Adventure 2:47 Space Invaders 2:48 Pitfall 2:59 Planetfall 3:01 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 3:10 The Hobbit 3:34 Mystery House 5:53 Police quest 5:55 Mixed-Up Mother Goose 6:01 Black Cauldron 6:04 Space Quest 3 6:45 Legends of Star Arthur: Planet Mephius 7:01 Nightshade 7:13 Labyrinth 7:28 Maniac Mansion 8:12 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 8:17 Putt-Putt Joins the Parade 8:20 Pajama Sam: No Need To Hide When It's Dark Outside 9:05 King's Quest 5 9:18 Monkey Island 1 9:34 King's Quest 6 10:24 Sam & Max Hit the Road 10:32 King's Quest 4 10:46 Monkey Island 3 10:49 King's Quest 1 (1990 Remake) 11:12 Sonic CD 11:20 Myst 12:42 Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon 12:49 Tex Murphy: Overseer 12:55 Toonstruck 13:10 Gabriel Knight 13:16 Phantasmagoria 13:27 Pyst 14:05 Zelda: Ocarina of Time 14:11 Diablo 14:14 Metal Gear Solid 14:27 Space Quest 4 16:21 Broken Age 16:27 Machinarium

[@CAPAE]

Great works cited list. I needed this to figure out a few games (will purchase).

[@DesignDoc]

There are also like a million games I had to leave on the cutting room floor. If you're thinking of something I didn't put in, there's a good chance I _almost_ put it in.

[@CAPAE]

@@DesignDoc Thank you. And I appreciate your reply. I know you cannot do it all the time, but I appreciate it.

[@migaDbr]

@@DesignDoc I'm sure one of those was Broken Sword. But just in case someone who hasn't played Broken Sword does see this comment... please play Broken Sword.

[@Ozziw162]

I've been gaming all my life. I've played most of all the classics throughout the last 3 decades. I consume everything from shooters, RPGs, walking simulators, Metroidvanias, platformers, strategy, roguelikes, collect-a-thons, extreme sports, horror, all with no particular preference in console. But adventure games have always had a special place in my heart. Blade Runner was the first ever PC game I bought with my own money. Myst and it's sequel Riven took me the better half of a decade to finally finish. The Dig has transported me countless times to another world I can get utterly immersed in. And Grim Fandango still remains my favourite game (and story) of all time. I learned to read english by playing these games. They helped me through rough times, they've helped me relax. They challenge me in ways almost no other games have managed to. And what I absolutely love, is that the genre keeps on evolving, while at the same time staying true to its roots. I adore adventure games. They will never die.

[@boobah5643]

Ah, yes, _The Dig._ One of the few times a Lucas Arts game made me wish for the sweet, snarky embrace of Roberta Williams' death notices. Re: the sea serpent. More specifically, reassembling the turtle. Sure, the game showed you an assembled skeleton earlier... but there was no way to get back to it without having an old save, and if you're like me, you probably assumed you'd have to do something *to* the skeleton, not *memorize* the thing.

[@RoninXDarknight]

Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, The Dig, Full Throttle, Indiana Jones, Monkey Island...those games were amazing. Younger me didn't care one bit that they were all pretty much the same formula; the different enough stories, characters and coats of paint were more than enough to hook me.

[@REXanadu]

Mysterious Island Mysterious Myst *Dead* Edit: Also, seems like Adventure Games' death can be explained in the same way most saturated things in consumer products can: they made too much of the same thing too quickly in order to capitalize on a thing they could made but couldn't manage properly.

[@DesignDoc]

Flawless.

[@PuppetMasterIX]

Just like the 1983 crash: So many start-up companies were ripping each other off that they and every other company stopped making a profit.

[@Shrek_es_mi_pastor]

Looking at the map of the game it looks a lot like the cover of The Invention of Morel.

[@steam6275]

Monkey Island soundtrack is godlike. Such a pleasure to watch any video where it plays as a background.

[@KittyKatty999]

"Those who forget history, are *doomed to repeat it".* Telltale games should have remembered history...

[@megamike15]

if anything tt moving away from traditional point and click was what killed them. walking dead season 1 was supposed to just be a one off thing. then they were forced to make every game like it and it lead to stagnation.

[@dranixc]

@@megamike15 I think that's his point. Like the cause of death for the classic adventures, Telltale died off because they abused the same formula over and over and never did something innovative after the beginning.

[@RedSaint83]

Telltale has risen from the grave and is making a The Expanse game about Camina Drummer 👍 Let's hope they've gotten better leadership.

[@AkuTenshiiZero]

No mention of the _Quest for Glory_ series? I really, really do wish that series would get more attention, they combined the classic point-and-click gameplay with RPG mechanics and a class system so your approach to puzzles varied based on your character build. A thief could pick a lock, but a magic user would cast an Open spell, or a fighter would just smash the lock with brute strength. Every puzzle could be approached in different ways so that each of the three archetypes could solve them differently. There's a spiritual successor on Steam called _Heroine's Quest,_ I highly recommend it. There's also a phenomenal free fan remake of _Quest for Glory 2,_ and all the official games are on GoG. Seriously, these games were amazing and deserve more of a following.

[@RainaThrownAway]

It was definitely my favorite of the Sierra Adventure Games.

[@Sybil413]

Agreed! Maybe it's the nostalgia goggles but Quest for Glory 3 was one of my most loved childhood games and I still consider it a great game!

[@azuarc]

Considering how much attention was given to Sierra, I'm surprised this series completely escaped notice. Leisure Suit Larry also barely got mentioned. Apparently only the Williams' games matter.

[@boobah5643]

_Hero's Quest_ and its renamed sequels were buried in the pile of releases from Sierra's second engine. It'd be more worth noting if other games had followed up on its RPG elements and multiple solutions, but the sad fact is despite the series being popular enough to get five games (plus a remake of the first game) nobody else followed up on it. Favorite grind: You could use your lockpicks on your face to pick your nose; on success, the game would reward you with a skillup in lock picking and the notice that 'Your nose is now open." A failure would end with your adventurer dead, having lodged a lockpick in your brain. Because Sierra.

[@GwydionAE]

The QfG creators also made their own spiritual successor several years ago called *Hero U* which has some call backs to the old QfG series. It's pretty fun, also mixing Adventure and RPG elements (with lots of puns too). It's based around the Thief class, but depending on choices you can do some amount of magic or be a better fighter as well. It can admittedly take a bit for the story to really kick in, but once it does and more areas are open to explore, I personally found it quite enjoyable!

[@EvilCoffeeInc]

I absolutely love the Myst series, and I think even to this day it features something a lot of other adventure games lack. I loved how the puzzle-solving in Myst was always hinged on the player trying to make sense of some alien control mechanism or some understanding some piece of obscure machinery through experimentation. The designs, especially in Exile, relied on combining well-understood design affordances like levers and cranks and scales with unexpected dynamic effects, and I thought that was awesome.

[@Lugmillord]

Man, these Hi-Res games have phenomenal, real-life graphics.

[@auraguardianred4771]

HOLY SHIT 16 COLORS

[@pcachu]

That's what happens when the Videlectrix guy writes *"GOOD* GRAPHICS!!" on the whiteboard and then forcefully points at it. You get GOOD graphics.

[@GalaxyPedlar]

@@auraguardianred4771 If that was an old Apple ][ running in HiRes mode, you only got 4 colors. Sad to say I'm old enough to remember programming on those.

[@auraguardianred4771]

@@GalaxyPedlar That's actually really cool tbh

[@Kalle72]

No

[@DokuDoki]

I always heard the "adventure games" being referred to specifically as "point and click adventure" instead. This is actually the first time I see it being referred to as adventure games.

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

In Japan it more often means visual novel though.

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

@Irritable Down syndrome it's more of just a weird legacy way to classify things iirc. Just like JRPG and CRPG are basically two different things

[@jetfrog4574]

@野龍 You have it reversed, in Japan Visual Novels are a subgenre of adventures. In recent years some Westerners have taken to calling any Point and Click Adventure game from Japan "Visual Novels" even when they are more traditional adventure games.

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

@@jetfrog4574 What I mean is, there are more VNs than PnCs in Japan, and it's more often than not more focusing on the story rather than the puzzle (and sometimes the story is everything). Otherwise, it's the same for RPG, as JRPG in its usual form is in fact originated from TRPG as well, just that everything is simplified to make it more accessible, unlike in CRPG that are made as detailed as possible.

[@krudmonger]

But as this video points out, they weren't all (or weren't always) point and click.

[@Camkitsune]

I feel like Adventure Game Puzzle Logic could (and should) be an episode all on its own; the Adventure Genre had a lot of brilliant examples of badly designed puzzles, and not just because they borked your save without warning. Some common offenses: -having to die to work out what to do next (King's Quest V) -doing things no sane/decent person ever would (Mystery of the Druids), -using gamey logic: your character doesn't have a clearly defined objective so you just wander around solving puzzles (happened a lot in King's Quest VI) -using moon logic (The infamous cat-hair moustache disguise from Gabriel Knight 4), -being incredibly tedious (The sliding block puzzles that just about everyone thought were a good idea).

[@mads_in_zero]

Another famous Moon Logic Puzzle (a catch-all for puzzles that simply don't make logical sense) is the "Monkey Wrench" one from Monkey Island, shown in the video. If you speak American English, Guybrush's cheeky look at the camera as he uses a monkey as a wrench will make you go "Oh! That's slang for a wrench". But if you speak other forms of English, where wrenches are called *spanners,* then you won't even understand the puzzle in hindsight.

[@happycamperds9917]

Sam and Max had a slight problem where it is hard to tell which set pieces were a gag or a solution to a puzzle.

[@TheMainAntagonist]

Pajama Sam and Spy fox did these well I think. Even though I could never beat them as a kid lol

[@kgoblin5084]

Few notes from someone who lived thru both the classic adventure game heyday and the eventual decline: Text vs. Point-&-Click: so, while obviously point-&-click is much, much more accessible, and recognizing that the old text based implementations were hella limited; the thing is point-&-click directly led to the pixel hunting trope, and the negative stereotype of randomly combining everything in your inventory as a means of brute-forcing your way thru insensible & illogical puzzles. You couldn't really pixel hunt with the old text interfaces... you had to actually observe the game environment, and make guesses about what could be interacted with/acquired and how. Perhaps if developers hadn't been quite so quick to move en-mass to the point-&-click style the classic genre might have had a bit more legs. It's also notable that data storage was one hell of a massive technical problem back in the day... it negatively impacted a lot of western JRPG releases, where lots of dialog/narrative had to be cut from localized releases b/c they simply couldn't store all the raw translated text in a non-iconographic script... and it is safe to say it probably had an effect on narrative design for the story-heavy adventure genre too. A hypothetical modern-day remake of the AGI-engine style games would be more than capable of avoiding the limits of the original genre entries.. with the primary limit really being paying the folks writing the material. Competing genres: One aspect to emphasize in particular is that the RPG genre... both CRPGs & JRPGs, was largely contemporary with the classic adventure game heyday... and to put it simply by the time the 90s rolled around RPG games were delivering an equivalent quality experience in terms of narrative but paired with more interesting and complex gameplay as well as graphics. In the video you showed titles like Metal Gear Solid and Ocarina of Time.. which were all late 90s/early 00s... but the thing is that the killer combination of tactical gameplay + deep narrative had already been achieved way back in 1991/92 with titles ala Final Fantasy 4 & Paladin's Quest... FF4 especially as that game already had optional side quests, which have never really been a thing with the very linear narrative of classic adventure games. It didn't decline everywhere: The classic iterations of the genre survived significantly longer in Europe, something which in turn actually led into the indie revival. A lot of the adventure-game focused indie studios are German & French... and there is a reason for that.

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

About pixel-hunting. IIRC the whole point of featuring only panel puzzle in The Witness is to avoid pixel hunting.

[@sterling709]

text is better then point click, in experience gaming wise, me ad player to be more indulge into the game rather then simply click here and there and not reading the text story

[@hrgrhrhhr]

"For the time, Colossal Cave Adventure was amazing" Still is honestly

[@nielymoon]

I feel like it's always a misstep to talk about the point and click adventure genre without talking about the Nancy Drew games. Those game have been coming out pretty consistently for the past 20 years, bar the delays the most recent game has faced. Like yeah, adventure games fell out of the mainstream, but the genre didn't really "die"; it just became more niche, and the games that were being made weren't aimed towards capital g Gamers

[@WeissnichtsVomLeben]

Very enjoyable video, thanks. I wonder if you'll talk about daedalic in the next video. They somehow managed to become a decently sized publisher by making classic adventure games in the 2010s.

[@tuschman168]

I'm definitely a fan.

[@michalgrochu]

I really hope to see Syberia in the following episode!

[@andrew_ray]

Glad Loom (1990) at least got a mention. Brian Moriarty (who was my academic advisor at college) really did a great job with it. It's a game in which most of the traditional point-and-click puzzles are replaced with a musical distaff that you played various tunes on to produce different magical effects. I remember him saying (I think only half in jest) that Ocarina of Time had stolen this mechanic from him.

[@qwerty1271780]

Adventure games are a dead genre? OBJECTION!

[@megamike15]

they are more niche now adays. people still make them but the main stream popularity died when telltale did last year.

[@a.dennis4835]

Overruled!

[@DracoTheBlack]

look ~You see a sword.~ take sword ~I don't understand "take"~ get sword ~I don't understand "get"~ pick up sword ~I don't understand "pick up"~

[@poppers7317]

eat sword ~Congratulations, you died.~ ~Do you want to start a new game? press [y] for yes, [n] for no or [d] for delete~

[@InnocentDoodles]

I was really impressed by the animation of Roger ducking out of the door of all things. It's amazing what they were able to do with such limit visuals, and even though they look "Bad" now, they're still stunning for what they are.

[@0v_x0]

Riven sold extremely well with a lot of hype in 1997, with incredible pre-rendered graphics for the time, including textures using high-resolution photogrammetry. Games like Journeyman Project 3 were breaking ground with things like 360° views, even if the vantage point remained static (Myst III and IV also share this mechanic) which I think deserves credit as continued innovation during the 'decline' era.

[@Inlelendri]

Think I've been waiting and hoping for such an episode for ages - and now I get a two-parter! Brilliant! Thank you!

[@Bardic_Knowledge]

MYST was one of my favourite games growing up, but my favourite in its series is Riven. I am not ashamed when I say that I've long memorized the D'ni numeral system.

[@ThatsJustLikeYourOpinionMan]

This was an awesome video! I can't wait for the sequel! Nice job man!

[@Little1Cave]

One game company I think managed to survive the “death of adventure games” was HerInteractive and their Nancy Drew series. Somehow, this small team managed to release about two games per year and maintain are, overall, good. I’m just excited about their newest one coming up this year after FIVE YEARS in development hell. Lol

[@megamike15]

adventure games did not really die. they just went on vacation in Europe until like 2006. it's like what happend when the consoles crashed in the early 80's.

[@Little1Cave]

megamike15 I agree. Hence why I put “death of adventure games” in quotes. Lol 👍

[@Manzisme]

It's interesting seeing the history of these games and how the genre eventually fell apart due to stagnation. I know there Are some current adventure games like Hiveswap (which plays up its own appreciation of the 90's in general with its aesthetic) but it was completely bogged down by a botched Kickstarter/development funding, a lack of developer communication, and the 2015 King's Quest game that was made using Hiveswap's stolen money which I believe had good reviews, but I never personally checked it out due to the shadiness of said funding. But yeah, it's interesting seeing the effects of gaming's earliest genres unfold into it's current mainstays and how storytelling evolved since then with visual novels and whatnot. Point and click may no longer be relevant but it certainly was important.

[@notsyzagts7967]

You've created your own rock & hard place. You can either choose to associate the product directly with the creators' actions or you can treat the product as a separate entity and judge it on its own merits. No one is limiting your access to a potentially enjoyable gaming experience except yourself.

[@SheyCrompton]

Brilliant video. Very concise and informative. Looking forward to the next episode.

[@MarkusWernig]

did you really forget to mention Westwoods The Legend of Kyrandia, The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate and The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge Sacrilege!

[@DesignDoc]

Dang, yes. BUT! I did use Kyrandia footage for the Inventory UX Design video, so that's worth something.

[@sashadali8464]

Amazing video! I love adventure games, so this was just what I needed :P I was actually really surprised that Grim Fandango had such bad sales, it's probably my favourite (relatively) old adventure game. The story is incredible, and the way it's split into 4 years really immerses the player. Not to mention some INCREDIBLE characters and voice actors, I lost hours in this game. The remaster is also really well done, and gives us a chance to revisit some great stories and characters in modern-day graphics. It also had an incredible designed environment, my favourite being Rubacava. Sure, some of the puzzles were... illogical... but most were pretty good and could be done easily if you thought about it. Overall I think it's an amazing game, and I wish it got more of a recognition. Now, on a separate note, I have a question: will you be covering games like the Runaway series (the best point-and-click adventure games of ALL TIME btw) and "The Next Big Thing"? If not I think you really should, they have great puzzles and good humour, and definitely deserve at least an honourable mention. Anyways, thank you for reading this! I love your videos, they are all really well-made, I can't wait for the next one! :D

[@BOABModels]

13:03 - why shouldn't Christopher Lloyd be in 'Toon Struck'? He was in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' so he's used to working with actors who aren't there. Also Douglas Adams actually wrote the HGTTG text adventure game.

[@stephanweinberger]

Worth mentioning: text-only adventure games still live on (and even evolved) in the form of Multi User Dungeons (MUDs).

[@pretsal4955]

Man, I can't wait for the next part so I can comment about how I wish Broken Age was a better video game.

[@poppers7317]

Is it broken or didn't it age well?

[@M4ruta]

Great intro into a wonderful genre of gaming. I hope the second part will give some attention to recent point-and-click games developed by Pendulo Studios. Especially 'Yesterday Origins', 'The Next BIG Thing', and 'Runaway: a Twist of Fate' are nostalgically good.

[@xRocketzFighterx]

I find it funny that Christopher Lloyd plays the main character in Toonstruck and the elder/narrator King Graham in King's Quest 2015. I've always been a Beat em up fan all my gaming life but I've always been a big fan of Classic Adventure Games and Point n Click games like the sierra, lucasarts, clock tower, alone in the dark/classic resident evil styles (and yes I consider RE as a console classic adventure game tho it's a different genre but it does borrow alot of features from old adventure games.)

[@jasonblalock4429]

For me, the shame of it is that there really wasn't anything stopping traditional adventure games from evolving themselves. They just... didn't. At least, not outside of incredibly rare exceptions like Quest For Glory. The QFG series took Sierra's standard adventure engine, but bolted on a ton of CRPG and combat elements to become a genuinely unique (and excellent) Action-RPG-Adventure hybrid. The toolsets could support more than just the standard adventure game tropes, but the developers didn't innovate. (Seriously, play Quest For Glory if you have any interest in old CRPGs *or* adventure games. They're gems that deserve more recognition.)

[@mythic_snake]

One thing I don't miss was having to draw pages and pages worth of maps based on text descriptions alone LOL! (I got a CD-ROM compilation of almost all the old text adventures in the 90s.) Myst wasn't much better because if you didn't figure out the audio cues in the mine cart, you had to basically map out the entire track to figure out the maze. I loved all the old adventure games (except for Phantasmagoria).

[@guisampaio2008]

WADJET EYE KEEPS THE SOUL OF ADVENTURE GAMES ALIVE!

[@marykateharmon]

We had the King's Quest Collection on CD and my brother and I played through all the games except for KQVIII. I would say to King Quest's credit, the games kept to the same family but didn't keep to the same protagonist every time and the atmosphere and story of each was definitely different. King's Quest VI of course was my favorite of them all since Alexander was especially fun to play as and was basically the wizard of the family given how much he dipped into spells.

[@misad6308]

Holy cow, that's Machinarium! I didn't know Amanita was a thing outside Czech Republic as well. Good for the devs! I also need to do research better, appearently.

[@ASGerner]

Who's intro to adventure games was the ol' flash number 'Mata Nui Online Game'? A quick ripof- *ahem* inspiration from M.Y.S.T. and Lego vastly deepened the lore of their Bionicle Gen 1 line. Good thing too since that line really gave them the financial kick in the pants to keep going in the early 2000's

[@etiennevanharen3893]

I really missed curse of enchantia and the Simon the sorcerer series in this documentary. But that being said great work on explaining the genre.

[@alexline4131]

Great video, looking forwards to the next one.

[@AaaSWE]

I have bought some of these games several times through the years. Original floppy, CD-rom versions, special editions, remasters etc. :D

[@Saxappealed]

Cool, keep up the good work :) . Hopefully the next part is released soon

[@DesignDoc]

Check back in 3 weeks or so.

[@Bane_Amesta]

This was really nice to see, is a bit sad that many of these games are very difficult to play now, even with emulation :( And please, you need to mention The Cat Lady (from harvester games) on the next video

[@notsyzagts7967]

ScummVM plays most of the oldies faithly. CD games complicate things but overall its quite reliable.

[@Jaykay1029384756]

Wow, I didn't expect to see Toonstruck here! Such a tragically overlooked game :(

[@danielsurvivor1372]

Adventure genre is one of those vague genres, like RPGs, and, like RPGs, there's almost no adventure games 😢😞 But I'm glad I found your video to find as many adventure games as possible! 🥹

[@ty_sylicus]

This is the kind of informative content I signed up for!

[@coyraig8332]

I always thought "Adventure Games" referred to games like the Legend of Zelda, with "Point and Click" being just another genra

[@megamike15]

zelda is action adventure.

[@kyousouka]

In the 80s, the term referred to games that were like Adventure (another name for Colossal Cave Adventure). Later the "action-adventure" genre developed, and the name of that is often shortened to just "adventure". The shortening is ambiguous in a historical context, but since there are very few non-P&C adventure games being made now, it's fairly safe to use in a modern gaming context.

[@kyousouka]

Or rather, I should say "Adventure-like adventure games" rather than "non-P&C adventure games", as many modern games in the broader genre are not P&C, but not Adventure-like either.

[@HamzaAnsari1425]

The correct and full title is "Point and click graphic adventure games"

[@hobbified]

@@HamzaAnsari1425 except for the fact that that excludes half of the genre.

[@tuschman168]

Daedalic Entertainment caused my personal little revival of the adventure genre. I've played Harvey's New Eyes, The Whispered World and the first three Deponia games. Good stuff!

[@matthewbloise2155]

Awesome video, thanks for this!

[@hhectorlector]

excellent video! Thank you! subscribed.

[@RFC-3514]

Part of the reason why adventure games seem rarer is that a lot of pseudo-RPGs these days are actually just adventure games with stat grinding. Instead of developing your own character and your story in the game world, you're actually following a predetermined (and mostly linear) story, maybe with a couple of "side quests" to give you an illusion of freedom. The ones in this video are specifically "point & click adventures", where the UI is itself a defining feature of the genre.

[@JDelwynn]

Sierra games was the reason I originally learned english just so I could play them. Leisure Suit Larry was the best english teacher I ever had.

[@gplusgplus2286]

I'm now 48. Having been a teen at the time, I've played most of these adventure games. What killed them for me was the point and click instead of typing (and english isn't my main language), it made the games feel childish and stupid without them being any more easy to solve. Last best Sierra game was hero quest II, loved that. It was downfall for them afterwards.

[@jasonblalock4429]

5:20 Not to nitpick, but it was Infocom who developed the first easily-portable universal game engine for their text adventures, and became huge thanks to it. They were the real innovators there, before Sierra followed in their footsteps and eventually overtook them. For that matter, everything you said about Sierra and LucasArts cranking out huge numbers of very samey games in the 90s also totally applies to Infocom in the 80s. History really repeated itself with those companies.

[@ikefromsmashbros9237]

If you're planning on doing more of these genre history videos (please do) I'd say that the computer RPG would be a pretty good topic to follow this one with.

[@SianaGearz]

I don't know, people say as if classic point and click adventure games died with Lucasarts adventure titles, but they stayed fairly active in Europe. The Longest Journey, Broken Sword, Syberia, Runaway, Deponia, and dozens of other series and one-off titles that are less famous. In USA there was a steady stream of Nancy Drew games. One thing to keep in mind is that videogame popularity grew massively, and it outgrew its home computer and PC audience and went on to be defined by consoles which exploded in popularity with new audiences. There is a major cultural difference between Europe and US, in that in Europe it was more common to give a child a computer, since game consoles were seen to have no educational value. This is also why Amiga, C64 and Atari ST, while none of them are of European origin, found their home in Europe and largely failed in USA. Point and click adventures are tied to 16-bit home computers and PC since they're focused on mouse input.

[@rmsgrey]

Meanwhile, over on the non-commercial side, in 1993, Inform was released, a freeware development system for developing z-code text adventures (Infocom, the company that produced Zork, among other games, invented and used z-code for their games), along with Curses, one of the key games in the history of the non-commercial side of the interactive fiction genre. It's been a while since I last dipped my toe into the scene, but a decade ago there was still a thriving niche.

[@Pingwn]

Really good video!

[@pompompuddings]

tbh this is my favorite genre. and by the way, do you classify the nancy drew games from her interactive in this genre too?

[@zeroyuki92]

I hope the next episode touched a bit on YU-NO. It is arguably the most influential and ambitious adventure games in Japan, and while it did not influence a longlasting survival of (pure) adventure games in general (with some very big exceptions which you have teased), it influenced the adult adventure games game (later transforming into visual novel) genre to totally shift from basically a medium for cheap & short porn novella to a genre which also demands long, strong, and ambitious narrative alongside the lighter ones. The influence also expands beyond the game industry into anime, manga, and novel landscape we have today.

[@katarinakivimaa]

Thank you for the video!

[@TheAurgelmir]

I always found the "Type to act" system was really cool. Even as a none native speaking kid I quite liked the charm of it. It did require extensive use of walkthoughs though. (Which I'm amazed existed long befor we had sites like gamefaqs...)

[@losalfajoresok]

This video deserves more views!!

[@TheClassyGamesman]

Dude! Some of my first ever gaming experiences were with Kings Quest IV and Police Quest on my grandpa’s PC. I was terrible at them but kept playing because the feeling of typing those magic words just doesn’t compare to a multiple choice system. Point-and-click sort of ruined it for me, like I’m not big on pixel-hunting compared to thinking abstractly about possibilities. I liked The Walking Dead for its story, but the gaming experience still doesn’t compare to those old Roberta Williams joints. Thanks for doing this, looking forward to the next one!

[@Babbleplay]

Maybe don't ask Roberta Williams; she is the queen of Moon Logic in gaming. The term was literally coined in reference to her works.

[@allwaizeright9705]

The 7th Guest was a small BREAKTHRU . I think ADVENTURE on the 2600 deserved a special mention...

[@Goombachi]

While Adventure is certainly defining to the genre, calling it the first known example of interaction fiction is giving it a bit too much credit. Hunt the Wumpus in 1973 was earlier, and featured an (albeit simpler) plot of hunting the Wumpus while the Wumpus was trying to hunt them. What is considered the "absolute first" is a bit of a tricky question, since programs like ELIZA and SHRDLU use the conventions of text adventures to varying degrees, and even feature a character of sorts, though they weren't explicitly created for entertainment. ELIZA (1964) is potentially the first to include a parser, while SHRDLU (1968) was possibly the first to feature a simulated environment that the player could interact with and change.

[@mrjoe5292]

Yeah I thought that was a bit of a claim too. Hell, you could even make an argument that a DnD campaign is a type of interactive fiction. Regardless, great video. PushingUpRoses has done a whole bunch of videos on specific adventure games, I'd recommend them if anyone is interested in knowing more about adventure games.

[@hfreeman330]

When the narrator calls it "NES" like Loch Ness and makes you feel infinitely old.

[@018FLP]

10:48 > WAIT A MINUTE! That's ma boi, Manny Calavera! So that's how he died? Wow....

[@theonlysinisharm]

Please tell me you're going to mention flash games like Detective Grimoire and Slacker in the next episode. I loved those games.

[@mythic_snake]

Oh man, I loved Grimm Fandango. I didn't know it didn't do well, that makes me sad for them. It was a great game.

[@andreamonopoli5542]

I love you mr. Design Doc!

[@Qodovah]

i always thought of visual novels as part of this genre

[@DesignDoc]

They are. We’ll talk about some of them next time.

[@Pingwn]

They are a subgenre of the adventure game because they have the same core idea of gameplay focus on advancing the narrative and make nuance actions in situations throughout the story. The classical adventure game just focus on puzzle-solving for that, and yes it is also a subgenre. There are different subgenres of action games, puzzle games, simulation games and even roleplaying games that are very different from each other but share the same core idea or kind of gameplay. The adventure game is no different in that regard.

[@nodisponible8]

Aww, Sam and Max was one my favorite games as a teen, such a good genre really

[@amedicalmystery]

Would be interesting to note what Myst contributed to puzzle design in the genre, namely an approach that presented the mathematical concept of finite state machines by intuitively connecting them to the functionality of physical machinery.

[@kron520]

Ken and Roberta Williams were too wholesome for the industry.

[@JanRademan]

Toonstruck, a live action/cartoon hybrid game starring Christopher Lloyd. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a live action/cartoon hybrid movie starring Christopher Lloyd.

[@user-ht1jg4qz3h]

10:12 'loom' is such a niche within a nice, never gets the praise or attention it deserves...😢😢

[@formdusktilldeath]

Toonstruck was amazing. Shame we never got that sequel and were left hanging with a cliffhanger.

[@robertadavies4236]

I've learnt so much from your videos! Thank you so much for making them. But please learn the difference between "obtuse" and "obscure".

[@danielevans7439]

I don’t have much experience with Adventure games, with the only ones I’ve beaten being Myst, Blazing Dragons, the Phoenix Wright Trilogy, and maybe a handful of others. But I can say the genre has had a huge impact on me. It took years for the novelty, realism, and expanse of Myst to wear off. I’ve played Ur-Quan Masters countless times because of it’s open-ended world. For a console gamer like me, adventure games made me realize that a game can do anything a movie can do, and potentially better.

[@That_Ifrit_Guy]

Man, I do love a good point and click

[@TheAurgelmir]

What you also need to remember is that during that time you generally didn't buy new games. Lot's and I mean lots, of the games you played were older games you copied from a friend. So the classics and popular games were still being played, even when newer games came out. I think the thing that killed the adventure genre for me was mostly in the presentation and the story telling. The art style was too cartoony, the comedy became more silly. You had seen it before. I remember "we" started to grow tired of the genre long before the 3D games really became popular. Secrets of Money Island was sort of the last one people cared about. (And the only one I can remember actually buying at launch, I think it's the first game I did so with) All the while games like Baldur's Gate, and other story driven games which also had exciting gameplay came along. Funnily enough Sierra was early onto the scene with RPGs too with the Quest for Glory games, probably their best game series they made. Consider a game that started on the AGI, and ended in 3D graphics, spanning five games where you could carry your character over between each one! Mass Effect? ppffft, Sierra did it decades earlier. I still hold Quest for Glory up as one of the best videogame series ever made.

[@gargoyle2423]

I still love the Myst collection!

[@itsmatt517]

Wasn't Revolution Software's Beneath a Steel Sky and Broken Sword worth a mention?

[@Dukefazon]

Don't forget The Legend of Kyrandia!

[@Metushalakh]

A concise depiction, yet there were some outliers in the early 2000's, like the late Mysts or Syberia.

[@Stratelier]

Sierra games are my childhood. Even today I still prefer the minimalist UI of the AGI/SCI engines over LucasArt's SCUMM engine. Having a huge list of verbs and items persistently onscreen when only a select combination of them are useful in a given situation is not much improvement over having to type commands in by hand.

[@shotarcherz1690]

I love point and click graphic adventures like putt putt and sam and max

[@sebastianwagner7334]

Just a quick site note: Here in Germany, classic adventure games srayed kinda strong up to about today. Still kind of a niche, but a relatively well off one.

[@runarvollan]

* Gabriel Knight 1-3 * The Last Express * Leisure Suit Larry 7

[@aureldocks]

Fun fact, theses kinds of game were so defined by their gameplay mecanics, that it has become the name of the genra in France : "Point and Click". Il've learned in this video that this wasn't the actual english of the genra. ^^

[@Habijob]

Germany goes hand in hand with that. The genre is called "Point'n'Click Adventures" here

[@KNic0lson]

Ah - need a link to the next episode, want to see if they mention the tex murphy fan-funded sequel ♡ it was great!

[@KNic0lson]

Found it :P kzbin.info/www/bejne/mITFmp6ZfN6EeZI

[@Stephen-Fox]

I think leaving out that Douglas Adams wrote the text for the Hitchhiker's adaptation is kind of a big thing to omit (...Along with... Most... versions of H2G2 actually - The original radio play, the novel that it's most known as being, the tv show, the text adventure... I think it's only the film that he didn't write. Also not the only adventure game he wrote, Starship Atlantis was his as well.) I'm a bit sad you didn't touch on the bizarre adventure/platformer hybrids that were the Dizzy franchise, but... That's mainly a British thing, with very little impact outside of itself, so it's not entirely surprising you didn't. There are some advantages to text parsers over the generally better GUI approaches that basically treat verbs as a second inventory system - the solution to Photopia's maze is a great example (when you remove your space suit because it's power dies, the game reveals you have wings, the logical deduction being that you can fly - a puzzle that only works with a text parser, any other UI and it's a story beat without a puzzle). Outside of that, verb lists that you interact with in the same way you interact with your inventory is generally a better approach, though it's harder to have objects you can interact with in multiple ways if you only have e.g. one 'use' command compared to four or five specific verbs for how you want to use things, and beyond a half dozen verbs (Also - hunt the pixel is far more aggravating than guess the verb/noun, at least to me, but there are easier UX fixes for that than a help list)

[@NedJeffery]

I'm surprised there was no mention of The 7th Guest.

[@Adowrath]

Oh god, I remember Myst... I played it on my DS once, a friend had lent it to me. And god was it a frustrating experience. I didn't advance at all.

[@danielevans7439]

The DS port of Myst is probably the worst port of any game I’ve ever played. I played Myst on PC originally and loved it, but the DS version was simply unplayable.

[@baddragonite]

"Get in the 1993 mindset" I was literally a fetus bro

[@DesignDoc]

Bro same

[@iwanttocomplain]

There was a valiant effort to reinvigorate and modernise the genre by Gremlin Graphics and their title Normality Inc.