Discussion Point - Disco Elysium

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

One of the most beloved RPGs of the last decade is Disco Elysium. A game in which you play a cop who wakes up in a dingy hotel room with no memory of anything, and he has a murder to solve. What follows is a very strange game set in an alternative Earth with its own strange history, countries and technologies, before you even get to the actual game itself. You have twenty stats, who each talk to you based on how much you use it and how much you put points into these stats. All in all, a very unique and memorable game.

As with everything people praise, there is pushback. The most interesting of these arguments, is that Disco Elysium can't be one of the best RPGs because it's actually an adventure game. (Or the more extreme cousin, a CYOA) Some say this, stating that despite the game having stat checks, not having combat disqualifies the game from being a RPG. Others because the gameplay, despite having stat checks, is mostly following an adventure game template. Use an item on something, in this case selecting equipment to give yourself an edge in certain stats, and most of the game is a dialog puzzle. Things which usually aren't thought of as RPG gameplay, more as adventure gameplay.

Most of the time, this argument comes from RPG players, and usually people who seem to view calling a game an adventure game an insult. But despite this, the idea is intriguing, and doesn't seem like it's been discussed much by people who actually like adventure games. So, is Disco Elysium an adventure game? Should we cover it a thousand years in the future when we get to 2019? Feel free to bring up its spiritual predecessor, Planescape Torment, as well, since that often gets hit with some of the same arguments.

Discussion Point: Costumes

Written by The TAG Team

Halloween is nearly upon us, for those of us who celebrate it.  In many places, including the United States, it’s a holiday that celebrates people dressing up in disguises, and begging strangers for candy.

Because really, what could be better than free candy?

But the costume part isn’t just for children in autumn.  It’s also a puzzle source for adventure games!

So, in honor of the holiday, let’s talk about your favorite costumes donned by our game protagonists in order to solve a puzzle, trick a foe, and win the game.

For example, an early Sierra example might be Police Quest 1, where Detective Sonny Bonds goes undercover as a pimp named Whitey to infiltrate a drug ring.

Another early example, Zak McKracken, needed glasses to look like the aliens making us all dumber.  This is, of course, before the internet.  We now do it to ourselves.

In a recent game played for the blog, bookseller Gabriel Knight dressed as a priest to extract information from a voodoo practitioner, and then as a wild animal to crash a ritual.

And there are many others.  So, which ones are your favorites?

Discussion Point: Game Plots

Written by The TAG Team

How to keep track of it all?

There's been some games with some pretty convoluted plots, some with simple ones.  Which are the ones that stick out in your mind?

What's your favorite plot?  Is it something simple, like a man in outdated clothing styles trying to hook up with many ladies?  Or perhaps something more complex, like a college student discovering the role of magic in the world and having to bounce between the ordinary and the mystical in order to restore balance to the universe?

What was the best premise for a game?  Or the biggest let-down?

Discussion Point: The Best Presents

 Written by The TAG Team

Now that the holidays are over, let's talk about the loot you've gotten over the years.  Remember when you were a kid, opening up presents on Christmas, Hanukkah, your birthday, or another occasion?  How about the joy of being given a big box, the mystery (and perhaps anxiety) over what might or might not be in it?

Did it ever turn out to be a game?  Or some new, upgraded hardware to play those games with?  What was the best gift like that you've ever gotten?  Or, if you're a better person than we are, the best game or hardware you've given someone else as a gift.

Regale us with "los regalos" from holidays past in the comments below!

Discussion Point: Interesting Inventory Items

Written by The TAG Team

You are carrying: Nothing.

An adventure game wouldn’t be an adventure without a character walking around and picking up anything he sees that isn’t nailed down.

So, what’s the most unique item you’ve picked up in a game?  Or the funniest?  Or the most disgusting?

Maybe something grosser than the mucus of Largo LeGrand from a pole in the bar?

Sometimes, items are homages.  Larry Laffer starts his first game with lint in his pocket because of Infocom games.  There’s a monkey named Guybrush you can interact with in The Longest Journey.

What items stand out in your memory?

Discussion Point: Modern Adventures

 Written by the TAG Team

One of the most well-known adventures of the new century, but there's been others.

In our blog posts, we've focused on the past.  30, 40 years ago, during the so-called Golden Age of adventures.  But while the genre slowed down after that, it didn't stop completely.

What are your favorite adventures from the past 20 years?  Perhaps even ones that the other commenters have never heard of.  While everyone has likely heard of games like Thimbleweed Park, SpaceVenture, and Hero U, there have been others.  Something not written by one of the household names of the 90s?  A great Kickstarter you were happy to be a part of (unlike, say. the experience with SpaceVenture?)

Have no worries of spoiling our appetites for these games -- the blog won't be getting to them anytime soon.  But it might give us something to play in-between posts.

Discussion Point - Best Sequels

 Written by The TAG Team

No, this movie is NOT better than the original.  But the image was a good match for this blog post.

We all have our favorite games, out favorite designers, and favorite series.  But, sometimes they don't start out strong.  Which adventure game sequel came out that was remarkably better than the original?

Tough, right?  Usually they mess things up in sequels.  In movies, for example: Back to the Future 2.  But sometimes they get it right, taking something good and rolling with it.  For example, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit took the idea of role-reversal and make the game so much better by letting you be the cop instead.

Thoughts?

Discussion Point: How Would You Change The Game?

By The TAG Team

Here’s a tough game of “what-if”:

We’ve all played games at times and said, “if only they had done this instead of that.”  Or maybe just thinking of a new twist on something to breathe more life into it.

For example:  What if they remade Police Quest 1, but from the point of view of Jesse Bains?  Like, perhaps, an adventure game version of Grand Theft Auto.  There’s probably not too many adventure games that make you sell drugs to win, right?

Or, how about the other direction?  After all, they already made a card game version of The Oregon Trail, how about a tabletop role-playing game of The Secret of Monkey Island?  A roll of the dice determines how many bananas you’ll need to make a monkey wrench...

Yeah, this is a tough one -- but we’re sure you have some ideas.

Discussion Point: Standout Soundtracks

Written by The TAG Team

In the comments recently, we were admiring some outstanding music in a game.  That made us wonder: what’s the best song or soundtrack in an adventure game?

There are some well-known songs, like the video above from Quest for Glory, and some overall good soundtracks.  But what’s your favorite, from a game new or old? Any obscure tracks from a forgotten game?

Let’s keep it to original compositions.  The soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City isn’t a contender in this discussion, no matter how awesome those 80s hits are. 

Discussion Point: Linear Games

 Written by The TAG Team

While not really adventure games, the Grand Theft Auto series are sandbox games, which by definition is not linear.

Continuing with our series of discussion questions, let's have a chat about game worlds.

In some adventure games, you have to complete area A before you can have access to area B.  In other games, you have free rein to go nearly everywhere you want, exploring along the way. 

Sometimes, it was done for logistical reasons.  Leisure Suit Larry 2, for example, was specifically designed to avoid disk swaps, with each area fitting on a different floppy.  When you advanced, you would change the floppy, and not have to flip disks back and forth.

In Maniac Mansion, you could explore nearly everywhere in the mansion from the beginning, although sometimes you might get caught by the Edisons and get to visit a special room in the basement.

Some games are a hybrid.  In The Legend of Kyrandia, for example, you can explore a large area, and then when you solve a puzzle, you can explore the previous area as well as a new large area combined -- and you need to go back and forth to solve some puzzles.

Does a linear path make the game easier?  Harder?

Is there a thrill in opening up new areas, or more joy in seeing things you can’t access yet?

Which games handled their choice well?  And are there any games that handled it poorly?

There’s pros and cons to each approach, but what are your thoughts?

In Leisure Suit Larry 2, you can't access one area until you finish the previous one.

Discussion Point: Arcade Sequences

 Written by The TAG Team

What happens if I put playing cards into the spokes?

Back when the blog became a collaborative team effort, we started posing questions to you, the readers.  If you don’t remember about this, that’s understandable.  It’s been a little bit longer than we anticipated since our last post.

But we’re back, and plan to make this a regular feature of the blog once again.  And we’d like to start the conversation with one of the most polarizing additions to adventure games: the arcade sequence.

They started creeping into our genre back when computers weren’t quite so powerful, so maybe they weren’t as challenging.  Or were they?  No mice, instead just clunky keyboards that went click-click-click.  

So many questions:

• Did they add any value to the adventure games?  

• Would the games be as fun or as well revered without them?

• Are they better or worse than gambling sequences?

• What were some good arcade sequences?

• Are there any games that could benefit from having them added?

Or, what other thoughts do you have?

Some arcade sequences seem to, ahem, DRIVE gamers crazy.

Discussion Point: Inventories

We are NOT talking about warehousing

If you’ve been reading comments for Freddy Pharkas, you might have noticed discussion about inventories. And inventories are worthy of serious discussion, since they seem so essential part of adventure gaming experience. Could a game without even inventory even be a true adventure game?

TAG Banner Contest

By the TAG Team

Our Hero-U Month has come to its conclusion with the launch of Hero-U and the interview with Corey Cole, and so it is time to decide what to do with our official TAG banner. We could just return to our old Monkey Island banner, but since that would be a dull move, we've decided to hold a TAG Banner Contest!

We tried to hire Mark Ruffalo as the mascot of our Banner Contest, but when he heard he'd get only CAPs as his reward, he became angry and green and almost stomped on us

Discussion point: What kind of game deserves a high score in Environment and Atmosphere?

By The TAG Team

Environment and Atmosphere

Discussion point: What kind of game deserves a high score in Dialogue and Acting?

By The TAG Team

Dialogue and Acting

(No, we haven’t forgotten E, we are just leaving it as the last category.)

Discussion point: What kind of game deserves a high score in Sounds and Graphics?

By The TAG Team

Sounds and Graphics

Discussion point: What kind of game deserves a high score in Story and Setting?

By The TAG Team

Story and Setting

Discussion point: What kind of game deserves a high score in Interface and Inventory?

By The TAG Team

Interface and Inventory

Discussion Point: What kind of game deserves a high score in Puzzles and Solvability?

By The TAG Team

It’s certainly easier to make a bad than a good adventure game, and therefore it is no wonder that we’ve seen a lot more examples of the former than the latter. Indeed, our reviewers feel that they have no problem deciding when a game deserves a low score in some category. On the other hand, since we have less examples of good games, it is more difficult to say when a game deserves 9 or even 10 in some category. Thus, we’ve decided to do a series of six discussion points, each dealing with a simple question: what would a game have to be like to deserve a high score in this particular category?

Puzzles and Solvability

Discussion point: If Adventure Games were invented now, what would they be called?

By the TAG Team

Pirates! is surely a game full of adventure, right?

And Avatar is always on an adventure, right?

Heck, surely looking for diamonds in a cave full of deadly fireflies is an adventure!