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Decline Can we please stop calling RPGs without gameplay Adventures?

V_K

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The defining trait of an Adventure game are puzzles. 90% of the time it's "use the correct item in the correct situation" kind of puzzles, sometimes it's more abstract ones - but there must be puzzles. They are the main gameplay mechanic for Adventures. Everything else - story, dialog, whatever - is secondary to puzzles. I know that the TellTale decline of recent years have tarnished the genre definition, but can we be better than using it as a standard?

RPGs without combat (or with very weak/easy/unimportant combat) thus are not Adventure games with stats - unless they prominently feature puzzles. Puzzle-heavy RPGs like Wizardry 7, Arx Fatalis or BT4 have much more claim to the title of "Adventure games with stats" than the likes of PST or Disco. Not to mention actual, monocled Adventure games with stats like Quest for Glory series or The Council.

So could we please stop calling games with no puzzles Adventures? It's insulting to the genre, and even more insulting to real RPG/Adventure hybrids that are actually good.
 

Duraframe300

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So what are we calling modern adventure games that barely feature any puzzles? (And if so, *logical*/super easy ones)

(And I'm not even talking Telltale style here)
 

Ranarama

Learned
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I've been playing this awesome adventure game:

5V07HXI.jpg
 

mondblut

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Damn, adventurefags don't want to take it in.

Hey, flightsim dudes, there is this one game that likes to dress up as an RPG and demands access to RPG locker rooms and toilets... wanna have it?
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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The defining trait of an Adventure game are puzzles. 90% of the time it's "use the correct item in the correct situation" kind of puzzles, sometimes it's more abstract ones - but there must be puzzles. They are the main gameplay mechanic for Adventures. Everything else - story, dialog, whatever - is secondary to puzzles. I know that the TellTale decline of recent years have tarnished the genre definition, but can we be better than using it as a standard?

RPGs without combat (or with very weak/easy/unimportant combat) thus are not Adventure games with stats - unless they prominently feature puzzles. Puzzle-heavy RPGs like Wizardry 7, Arx Fatalis or BT4 have much more claim to the title of "Adventure games with stats"

You'll get Wizardry 7 only when you pry it from my cold, dead hands
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
The defining trait of an Adventure game are puzzles. 90% of the time it's "use the correct item in the correct situation" kind of puzzles, sometimes it's more abstract ones - but there must be puzzles. They are the main gameplay mechanic for Adventures. Everything else - story, dialog, whatever - is secondary to puzzles. I know that the TellTale decline of recent years have tarnished the genre definition, but can we be better than using it as a standard?

RPGs without combat (or with very weak/easy/unimportant combat) thus are not Adventure games with stats - unless they prominently feature puzzles. Puzzle-heavy RPGs like Wizardry 7, Arx Fatalis or BT4 have much more claim to the title of "Adventure games with stats"

You'll get Wizardry 7 only when you pry it from my cold, dead hands
Challenge accepted.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
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So what are we calling modern adventure games that barely feature any puzzles? (And if so, *logical*/super easy ones)

(And I'm not even talking Telltale style here)
I call them walk and talkers. If there's no other people, it's a walking sim.
 
Joined
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Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath
Agree with topic starter. Perhaps, the more apropriate term is IF (interactive fiction). Or, even more specifically, SIF (slightly interactive fiction).
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
I don't think they qualify as interactive fiction games either. I think Visual Novel is the closest description, honestly, but it doesn't fit the regular image of a VN. I guess if we call it a 3D isometric VN we will pretty much get the image across, even if the isometric descriptor will annoy people for being technically incorrect.
 
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