[HN Gopher] Toonstruck (Or, a Case Study in the Death of Adventu...
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Toonstruck (Or, a Case Study in the Death of Adventure Games)
Author : doppp
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-06-17 16:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
| atombender wrote:
| Toonstruck definitely felt like old hat at the time when it came
| out. Adventure games were a dying genre; meanwhile, the same year
| we got games like Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Resident Evil, Tomb
| Raider, and Command & Conquer.
|
| One of my favorite games from that year was also an adventure
| game: The Neverhood. It was weird, highly original, and
| innovative. It was, I felt at the time, a game that could herald
| a new direction for adventure games. It was puzzle-based but also
| felt strangely immersive.
|
| Another game that felt groundbreaking was Tomb Raider, even
| though its puzzles weren't very interesting.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| I think adventure games are poised for a renaissance with VR and
| oculus quest. in a way its like whats old is suddenly becoming
| new again.
| czbond wrote:
| Your comment intrigued me as I am new to Oculus; Have any
| adventure game suggestions for Oculus?
| Filligree wrote:
| Ghost Giant.
|
| Not many games have made me cry, but that one managed it.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| This would require a new generation of gamers. young gamers are
| playing fortnite&co
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Only because they're not being marketed anything else.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Kids are actually fairly big into indie horror, judging by
| my son and his friends, and these are somewhat like old
| school adventure games. My son has even brought up SCP,
| despite only being ten years old.
|
| Stuff like Hello Neighbor, Poppy Playtime, Bendy and the
| Ink Machine, and of course the juggernaut that is Five
| Nights at Freddy's have gotten quite popular. Not as
| popular as Fortnite, obviously, but it's more than a tiny
| niche.
| crooked-v wrote:
| And the latest FNaF game, Security Breach, is pretty much
| a full fledged adventure/puzzle game that happens to have
| some jumpscares and a scary premise.
| atombender wrote:
| We are already there, I think. Look at the success of games
| like the Blackwell games (and other excellent games from Wadjet
| Eye, such as Gemini Rue and Technobabylon), the Deponia series,
| Machinarium, Thimbleweed Park, Life is Strange, Disco Elysium,
| or the newly released NORCO, which a lot of reviews are calling
| a masterpiece.
|
| We are at a stage where adventure games are relatively cheap to
| make, and platforms like Steam and the App Store makes it
| easier to self-publish. It might not be hugely profitable, but
| that doesn't matter.
| giantrobot wrote:
| I was expecting to see pixel hunting[0] in the article but did
| not. Pixel hunting in adventure games turned me off the whole
| genre. As the trope describes I find pixel hunting to be _fake_
| difficulty.
|
| [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PixelHunt
| cokeandpepsi wrote:
| most modern ones got rid of that
| mike_hock wrote:
| Best in-game music. They just bought stock music from APM but
| whatever, I didn't know that back then. Play On With The Race on
| the organ, Drew!
| ssl232 wrote:
| My family got its first Windows computer in 1997 second hand, and
| it came with Toonstruck, Titanic: Adventure out of Time, and
| Discworld 2. All were and still are amazing, so I'm glad to agree
| with the author's assertion that 1996 was the best year for
| adventure games.
|
| In hindsight, the person we bought it from had great taste.
| depingus wrote:
| Reports on the death of the adventure game genre have been
| greatly exaggerated. We're getting a new Monkey Island game this
| year. Telltale Games puts out consistently good titles. There's
| Kentucky Route Zero, Telling Lies, the Life is Strange series and
| spin offs, the Dark Pictures Anthology, and more.
|
| And those are just "pure" adventure games. There are a lot of
| narrative driven games that I would call "adventure games with
| extra mechanics". I'm talking about Control, Quantum Break,
| Medium, A Plague Tale, etc.
|
| Adventure games are still out there. And many of them are great.
| micheljansen wrote:
| This takes me back! In my final year of primary school I spent
| countless hours at a friend's house playing this together (on his
| state of the art 100MHz 486 with a CD-ROM drive). We barely
| understood English and most of the puns and jokes went way over
| our head. I'll never forget the vibe of that game and I have
| never played anything that comes close since. I wish I could play
| it again for the first time.
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