(10-21-2025, 10:57 AM)BobVP Wrote: PS: Does anyone here own a copy of the book Rogue Heroes, The Story of LucasArts? i found an interesting quote on the Escape From Monkey Island wiki, but it's paraphrased - the original quote isn't available. It seems like the book isn't commercially available anymore.
Yes, I have a copy of that (Rogue Leaders).
I've never heard the term "modern adventure" before, so well done, dude.
/s
Back in the day, the typical PC gamer needed to be able to operate a computer with an unintuitive text interface and command lines. So your core audience was a bunch of nerds. And nerds tend to be smart. It's no wonder that games that challenged you intellectually were popular.
When the Windows OS came out, using a PC wasn't some kind of technomancy known only to a select few. Almost everyone can play games on a PC. So your core demographic shifted from socially awkward geeks to bro dudes and console gamers.
This created a need for faster, better-looking, action-packed games that were less demanding.
I would say that his method of appealing to a mass audience is fundamentally wrong. It's not about changing the graphics from 2D to 3D or the controls from point-and-click to clunky tank controls.
If you want to target casual gamers, you need to make the game casual.
Similarly, turn-based strategy and RPG games almost became extinct in the 2000s because the target audience was too small, not because the old formula was wrong.
That's why the answer to making adventure games more appealing was to create an entirely new genre: visual novels and narrative games.
Now, turn-based games, old-school RPGs and point-and-click games are becoming increasingly popular. I may be wrong, but I think it's because the gaming industry is so huge that, even if only a tiny fraction of gamers are interested in a specific genre, it's still profitable to make games for them.
/s
Back in the day, the typical PC gamer needed to be able to operate a computer with an unintuitive text interface and command lines. So your core audience was a bunch of nerds. And nerds tend to be smart. It's no wonder that games that challenged you intellectually were popular.
When the Windows OS came out, using a PC wasn't some kind of technomancy known only to a select few. Almost everyone can play games on a PC. So your core demographic shifted from socially awkward geeks to bro dudes and console gamers.
This created a need for faster, better-looking, action-packed games that were less demanding.
I would say that his method of appealing to a mass audience is fundamentally wrong. It's not about changing the graphics from 2D to 3D or the controls from point-and-click to clunky tank controls.
If you want to target casual gamers, you need to make the game casual.
Similarly, turn-based strategy and RPG games almost became extinct in the 2000s because the target audience was too small, not because the old formula was wrong.
That's why the answer to making adventure games more appealing was to create an entirely new genre: visual novels and narrative games.
Now, turn-based games, old-school RPGs and point-and-click games are becoming increasingly popular. I may be wrong, but I think it's because the gaming industry is so huge that, even if only a tiny fraction of gamers are interested in a specific genre, it's still profitable to make games for them.
Lol I'm with you Joe. Not sure if it's funny or just unfortunate we don't get to read what a "modern adventure" would be, other than having mainstream appeal. Seems a little too strident a tone to strike in an interview with adventureclassicgaming. The thing your website is about? It's dead, I've said it before and I'll say it again! But there are layers to what he's saying and you can read into it in different ways. He's giving us arguments for conflicting views.
Awesome. Have you read it and what did you think? I think this book might have some good insights and reflections on this topic, from a great vantage point.
I'll be on the lookout for a copy from now on. Seems like it's going to be a long shot, though.
(10-21-2025, 11:58 AM)LeftHandedGuitarist Wrote: Yes, I have a copy of that (Rogue Leaders).
Awesome. Have you read it and what did you think? I think this book might have some good insights and reflections on this topic, from a great vantage point.
I'll be on the lookout for a copy from now on. Seems like it's going to be a long shot, though.
(10-21-2025, 02:18 PM)BobVP Wrote: Lol I'm with you Joe. Not sure if it's funny or just unfortunate we don't get to read what a "modern adventure" would be, other than having mainstream appeal. Seems a little too strident a tone to strike in an interview with adventureclassicgaming. The thing your website is about? It's dead, I've said it before and I'll say it again! But there are layers to what he's saying and you can read into it in different ways. He's giving us arguments for conflicting views.
(10-21-2025, 11:58 AM)LeftHandedGuitarist Wrote: Yes, I have a copy of that (Rogue Leaders).
Awesome. Have you read it and what did you think? I think this book might have some good insights and reflections on this topic, from a great vantage point.
I'll be on the lookout for a copy from now on. Seems like it's going to be a long shot, though.
There's a copy for sale via Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rogue-Leaders-L...1848561059
Abe Books also have a copy for sale: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780811861847...861848/plp but at just under £200 inclusive a bit steep
As a huge admirer of Ragnar Tørnquist, reading this quote caught be a bit off guard. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that this is a product of when this interview was done – my guess would be that this had to be around 2006–2010, during the immediate years after the release of Dreamfall, and during a period when saying «adventure games are dead» were perhaps closer to the common consensus, and he was probably also frustrated and confused about where the genre was going, trying to carve out his own path.
I would think that if you asked Mr. Tørnquist today, he would have adjusted his view. He’s such a visionary game designer, and surely more into «art for art’s sake» than catering to somebody else’s wishes, so I think he was trying to be a bit realistic here, during what was a more desperate «dark age» of adventure games. and some parts of his point has been proven wrong anyway, by the last decade’s indie adventure game scene, where you don’t need to adjust your game to please a publisher and what they want – surely he would acknowledge this. I get the point of making new «modern adventure» titles that manage to tick the interest of people that don’t have a 30 year history of playing point-and-click adventure games, and yes, maybe we still need a bit of this too. But the so-called «modern adventure» titles can surerly co-exist with the more retro titles, and maybe that’s actually a good thing for all adventure games – even commercially?
(On a related note, Dreamfall is in my humble opinion massively underrated – the story is so thrilling and dense and at the same time incredibly moving, actually one of very few games that made me cry.)
I would think that if you asked Mr. Tørnquist today, he would have adjusted his view. He’s such a visionary game designer, and surely more into «art for art’s sake» than catering to somebody else’s wishes, so I think he was trying to be a bit realistic here, during what was a more desperate «dark age» of adventure games. and some parts of his point has been proven wrong anyway, by the last decade’s indie adventure game scene, where you don’t need to adjust your game to please a publisher and what they want – surely he would acknowledge this. I get the point of making new «modern adventure» titles that manage to tick the interest of people that don’t have a 30 year history of playing point-and-click adventure games, and yes, maybe we still need a bit of this too. But the so-called «modern adventure» titles can surerly co-exist with the more retro titles, and maybe that’s actually a good thing for all adventure games – even commercially?
(On a related note, Dreamfall is in my humble opinion massively underrated – the story is so thrilling and dense and at the same time incredibly moving, actually one of very few games that made me cry.)
It's the most obvious answer but I'd say that it was the Monkey Island series, and to a lesser extent the rest of the LucasArts adventure games, in the early to mid 90s that marks the mainstream height of western adventure games back when the games industry was much, much smaller. Back then, and even to this day, the Monkey Island games are the most well known even to people that never played adventure games. The series is well known enough to even get a crossover with a modern day live service game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzyttU9joXc
As for the cause of the decline I'd put the increasing need for developers and publishers to launch on home consoles from the mid 90s onwards and the inability to properly translate the 'point and click' genre to work on games controllers and 3D environments which was required to be successful on those platforms. Virtual pointers mapped to a stick technically worked, but not very well. LucasArts might have got there eventually if they had kept going with adventure games after Grim Fandango, which was trying to evolve the controls even though it didn't go that well, but I guess dropping them entirely and just making Star Wars games in more popular genres probably seemed like the best way forward from a purely business point of view. Also while it might seem strange now, other genres struggled with the mainstream jump to home consoles and controllers such as First Person Shooters, which until the adoption of the now ubiquitous duel stick control scheme in the very late 90s and early 2000s were seen as a primarily PC genre requiring a mouse to play properly, but a similar design evolution never happened for point and clicks. Japanese adventure games seemed to fair slightly better with the move to consoles due to them usually being menu driven and therefore easier to convert to controllers (such as Snatcher that was ported to Playstation and Sega consoles).
From my own experience I first played adventure games on PC in the mid 90s, before then switching to consoles a few years after and so in turn I mostly stopped playing them from then until the 2010s due to them not existing or not being ported apart from the occasional title (I remember playing the PS1 port of Broken Sword 2 and the PS2 port of Myst 3). Also I distinctly remember randomly finding Another Code: Two Memories on a shelf while browsing the latest Nintendo DS games and immediately buying it when realising it was a point and click game. During this time I remember wondering where all the point and click games went, and when there was news of a Full Throttle sequel or whatever in a magazine, thinking maybe it was finally time for them to make a come back, but it never happened at that time (2000s).
I started playing adventure games regularly again after I dropped consoles after the 360/PS3 era. By then old games were easier to get running again via ScummVM, DOSBox, etc; Steam and digital distribution popularised episodic Telltale games as well as indies, and there was the various Kickstarters that aimed to 'bring back' the genre like the ones for Broken Age, Tesla Effect, etc. You could argue that we are now in a new golden age given how many are released these days...
As for the cause of the decline I'd put the increasing need for developers and publishers to launch on home consoles from the mid 90s onwards and the inability to properly translate the 'point and click' genre to work on games controllers and 3D environments which was required to be successful on those platforms. Virtual pointers mapped to a stick technically worked, but not very well. LucasArts might have got there eventually if they had kept going with adventure games after Grim Fandango, which was trying to evolve the controls even though it didn't go that well, but I guess dropping them entirely and just making Star Wars games in more popular genres probably seemed like the best way forward from a purely business point of view. Also while it might seem strange now, other genres struggled with the mainstream jump to home consoles and controllers such as First Person Shooters, which until the adoption of the now ubiquitous duel stick control scheme in the very late 90s and early 2000s were seen as a primarily PC genre requiring a mouse to play properly, but a similar design evolution never happened for point and clicks. Japanese adventure games seemed to fair slightly better with the move to consoles due to them usually being menu driven and therefore easier to convert to controllers (such as Snatcher that was ported to Playstation and Sega consoles).
From my own experience I first played adventure games on PC in the mid 90s, before then switching to consoles a few years after and so in turn I mostly stopped playing them from then until the 2010s due to them not existing or not being ported apart from the occasional title (I remember playing the PS1 port of Broken Sword 2 and the PS2 port of Myst 3). Also I distinctly remember randomly finding Another Code: Two Memories on a shelf while browsing the latest Nintendo DS games and immediately buying it when realising it was a point and click game. During this time I remember wondering where all the point and click games went, and when there was news of a Full Throttle sequel or whatever in a magazine, thinking maybe it was finally time for them to make a come back, but it never happened at that time (2000s).
I started playing adventure games regularly again after I dropped consoles after the 360/PS3 era. By then old games were easier to get running again via ScummVM, DOSBox, etc; Steam and digital distribution popularised episodic Telltale games as well as indies, and there was the various Kickstarters that aimed to 'bring back' the genre like the ones for Broken Age, Tesla Effect, etc. You could argue that we are now in a new golden age given how many are released these days...
This post was last modified: 10-21-2025, 03:23 PM by ClusterLizard.
Thanks Jabod! I might need to save up, apparently. 
I agree EirikMyhr, I think he's trying to give some momentum to the idea adventure games could adapt. It's just framed rather negatively. I also agree we're in a time where markets operate in ways that were hard to imagine at the time. There's more room for niche interests, retro sensibilties and innovation can exist and thrive at the same time.
The more I look around the current scene and games that have come out the past couple of years, the more I think this now is the greatest time for adventure games.
I agree EirikMyhr, I think he's trying to give some momentum to the idea adventure games could adapt. It's just framed rather negatively. I also agree we're in a time where markets operate in ways that were hard to imagine at the time. There's more room for niche interests, retro sensibilties and innovation can exist and thrive at the same time.
The more I look around the current scene and games that have come out the past couple of years, the more I think this now is the greatest time for adventure games.
> Grim Fandango
> best adventure game of all time
<sits on hands, grits teeth>
Anyway, the "1990-1995" time frame tracks with me.
> best adventure game of all time
<sits on hands, grits teeth>
Anyway, the "1990-1995" time frame tracks with me.
This post was last modified: 10-26-2025, 10:16 AM by Space Quest Historian.
1997 had Riven, The Last Express, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, The Feeble Files, The Space Bar, Broken Sword II. I think it'd be weird to say these games were somehow from a time when adventure games were on a downturn. Apart from quality, these games are made for adventure gamers; that required dedication from developers, publishers and fans.
However you feel about Grim Fandango and regardless of your dental situation - it's an AG classic. And it doubles down on storytelling and pure AG puzzles. What's appealing about this game is not easily marketable, it's aimed at a niche audience and even there it's not going for basic, broad appeal. That's a bold move, you really have to believe in your project and in the fan base to make that investment.
The Golden Age thing seems like a negative reversal, more than an appraisal of an era. The games after it are considered bad, in more ways than one. Like.. there's a moral element to it. These games were indicative of developers losing the plot, not caring about the fans, trying to please people outside of the genre. It may even be the games are guilty of letting the genre fall to the wayside, while others flourished.
However you feel about Grim Fandango and regardless of your dental situation - it's an AG classic. And it doubles down on storytelling and pure AG puzzles. What's appealing about this game is not easily marketable, it's aimed at a niche audience and even there it's not going for basic, broad appeal. That's a bold move, you really have to believe in your project and in the fan base to make that investment.
The Golden Age thing seems like a negative reversal, more than an appraisal of an era. The games after it are considered bad, in more ways than one. Like.. there's a moral element to it. These games were indicative of developers losing the plot, not caring about the fans, trying to please people outside of the genre. It may even be the games are guilty of letting the genre fall to the wayside, while others flourished.
This post was last modified: 10-26-2025, 04:43 PM by BobVP.
(10-26-2025, 10:16 AM)Space Quest Historian Wrote: Anyway, the "1990-1995" time frame tracks with me.
Feel free to write a rationale for that time period if it suits you. I'm curious because it means you're even cutting off the 1996 release of The Pandora Directive, which you have referred to as being a top-ranking candidate for the best game of all time.