 |
|
|
| |
Monkey Island's Grossman: Adventure Game Puzzles Can Be 'Hard [But] Not Cruel'
by Chris Remo, Staff [PC, Console/PC, Exclusive]
|
|
| |
|
July 6, 2009
|
| |
Talking to Gamasutra about the new Tales Of Monkey Island franchise update, Telltale design director Dave Grossman has commented that "lack of cruelty is an important feature if adventure games are going to be palatable to large audience."
The update of the classic LucasArts franchise is initially debuting for PC and WiiWare, with the PC version due out tomorrow,.
Grossman, who worked on the original Secret Of Monkey Island at LucasArts in 1990, has notable views on how the adventure genre can go forward:
"I think what it really comes down to is whether [a particular] aspect of the game is something that's going to affect how the characters in this story feel, and what the moment-by-moment experience is like. Is it something that's going to affect your kind of broader experience with the form?
Where we've been trying to go with adventures games -- maybe someday we won't even call them that anymore, but this style of game storytelling that we do -- is towards something that is a more casual experience.
The "sofa experience" is the way I like to think of it. You're going to be sitting on your couch or with your browser, browsing through stuff. You go, "Oh, look. The new Monkey Island is out. I'm going to play that right now."
You download it, play it right away. You might even finish it right in one sitting. And then you move on to something else. You probably have your family there with you. It's a little bit different from the old experience."
The Telltale design director also has specific views on what should not be repeated from the early days of adventure games, commenting:
"I remember my own childhood playing these kinds of games -- you know, I'm alone, stuck up in my bedroom, and I'm just thinking a lot and banging my head against the wall. "Curse those designers! What do they mean by this puzzle?"
Whereas with this, there are some puzzles in the episodes that I think are hard, but they're not cruel. I think that lack of cruelty is an important feature if adventure games are going to be palatable to large audience.
You just can't be that mean. I'm trying to give people a little fun and let them do some things to make them feel clever, but let them get through the game so that they will be ready for the next one when it comes down."
You can now read the full Gamasutra interview with Grossman, including lots more on how the game got made, plans for its roll-out, and design underpinnings for the franchise continuation.
|
| |
|
|
![Monkey Island 's Grossman: Adventure Game Puzzles Can Be 'Hard [But] Not Cruel'](http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news2001/24327/mislan.jpg)
hard but not cruel... silly.
You have a room full of stuff to advance you have to somehow figure out that insect on the floor needs the dice from the table and the torch above needs a gold coin.
There is a difference behind hard puzzles and nonsensical puzzles.
Exactly. I believe it was Ernest Adams in his Bad Game Designer no Twinkie series that used the phrase "Bulldozer and Lampshade" type puzzles.
Puzzles that make sense can be difficult too. I remember playing Sam and Max Hit the Road. Even thought the whole game was whimsical all the puzzles still made sense. That did not make the game easier as there was still plenty of searching for the right items.
I believe hard but not cruel is pretty much chimeric if not a LIE, it's just easy vs challenging, in the end.
Grim Fandango is very hard, but surely not cruel. I don't think he intends to make his game as hard as GF, He'd say it's cruel.
You're assuming quite a bit about a relatively innocuous statement. You yourself are describing Grim Fandango as "hard but surely not cruel," and you obviously consider that a quality game, so it's odd that you'd condemn somebody else for shooting for that same goal. You're basically just arguing over the difference between the degree implied by the word "cruel," which I don't think is grounds for being as venomous as you are in your attacks.
Very well. Answer this then, please:
1. Dave Grossman says he aims to appeal the masses
2. I've beaten Sam&man years ago, it's been REALLY hard i had to use a couple of times the solution. I can safely say it would NEVER EVER appeal the masses, they'd find it excruciating, it's undoubtably a NICHE game only us old-school can appreciate... aside from the pop humour.
3. Grossman's game has to be way easier than S&M HTR or he won't accomplish his objective.
Result: we're screwed.
...But at least they are fun and hey....it's better than nothing! They are actually pretty great. And Full throttle was pretty easy, but still a lot of fun. I think if they integrate a good, adaptive hint system, they could have harder puzzles and please everyone.
As the guys above prooved with the example, there IS such a thing as a cruel puzzle that's almost bad puzzle design, but they are very extreme cases. Those guys imply that Grossman only intends to eliminate those exaggeratedly hard parts. I think that's being naïf. I don't think doing that WILL BE ENUFF to draw the big slices of players, Grossman has to slide that difficulty notch more to the left, way over the above described "cruelty" design flaw.
I've been playing adventure games my entire life (I got my start as a game journalist writing for an adventure-exclusive site), and I think there is a very definite difference between hard and cruel, or at least hard and absurd. Where that line is drawn probably differs from person to person, but I think it's definitely there. I've played a lot of adventure game puzzles that take me quite a bit of time, but then once I solve them, I feel pleased that I've completed it. I've played others that, once I solve them, merely leave me frustrated in their arbitrariness.
As a long-time adventure fan I guess I just don't place the same value you do on extreme difficulty. To me that has always been more the purview of the Myst branch of adventure game design than the LucasArts branch, which while sometimes had difficult puzzles, was much more defined by its dedication to characterization, setting, atmosphere, and writing.
As Joseph said, Full Throttle is not a particularly difficult game at all--but it's my single favorite adventure game of all time, because it excels to such an incredible degree in other areas that I feel are more important to successful story-driven graphic adventures.
Telltale may draw the line further in one direction along the spectrum than you like, but I think their goal is a perfectly worthwhile one. Grossman was one of the three key designers on the original two Monkey Island games, and one of the two designers of Day of the Tentacle, so I think it's fair to say he can claim some level of experience as to what works in adventure game design.
matter of fact, it's probably the whole concept of puzzles that aren't appealing to the masses, no matter what difficulty. The masses want combos and special attacks. Maybe only Heavy Rain will be appealing to those players, and i don't think that one's a very challenging game.
I see where you're going. You're saying that Full Throttle, albeit still challenging, could be enjoyed by the masses. And you're also saying that it was so only because it had good if not great toony looks, a wondrous pop story and nice arcade scenes, am i right, there? So it's not about puzzles anymore, it's about other players magnets.
But Grossman talks about the actual puzzles becoming accessible, He doesn't mention adding other gameplay parts. He implies that puzzles is what he intends to make appealing, and in that case, it'll make us unhappy... a sofa experience still can't possibly include full throttle challenging puzzles. If he was going to just add funny bits to the hard puzzles he was gonna say so. I doubt(but still hope) TOMI will be as challenging as FT.
For the record, i'm one of the last Sierra SCIVGA lovers, so im pretty much everyone's nemesis.
then they could gather stats.
I played through the first season of sam and max, and all the but the last episode of season 2. and it felt like it was missing something. it felt like i was watching a g-rated cartoon that kept pausing itself until i clicked somewhere. bleh.
Maybe that's where the money is, with casual middle of the road blandness. but i'd be more likely to recommend the game it had something outrageous or different. cruel puzzles are also kinda of a funny thing to talk to people about....
when i think of the cruel puzzles in games i adored 20 years ago, i think of talking to friends about them and trading off sessions with my dad. maybe it would be wiser to better incorporate the social element than to dumb down the puzzles.
I haven't played the new Monkey Island game yet, but I intend to. Until then, it wouldn't be fair of me to comment on what Dave's saying. I *think* I understand what he's going for and I think it tracks with what I said above. I'm looking forward to finding out.
Sierra adventures were special games... puzzles weren't hard per se, it was VERY hard and maybe even cruel that you had to "imagine" the best way to solve a puzzle among 2 or 3 solutions... it was cruel because most of the times the player didn't know there COULD be a different way to solve a situation... still, they were beautiful... today such a game would be avantgarde.
I promise you, the minute i get rich off my writing herculean skills, i will finance a new adventure, all with multiple endings and puzzles.
Do you think 2 mill. $ is enuff?