We need a better name for "Adventure" games

That first question was more Socratic than anything else. But the second has value. I don't think I've ever played a Call of Duty game, and the last Medal of Honor game I really played was Allied Assault (I used to play LAN multiplayer with friends many moons ago). I'm not interested in first person shooters. But I bought and enjoyed Bioshock Infinite, and I've been trying to play through Spec Ops: The Line, both for the story. There's a distinction there that isn't properly captured in current naming conventions.

For what it's worth I just checked on Steam, and both Infinite and Spec Ops have the tag "Story Rich." So that's something. But it's more than that, I think--both of these stories are kind of "deconstructions." It's not just that they have story. It's not just that a book has words. It's what the story's trying to say. Narrative design I suppose.

 

Well, there were those choose your own adventure books from Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. They were sort of rouge-like and they had separate section for a while. Then computers happened.
(Oh man, I'm old )

 

Bioshock Infinite is first person shooter. If you were talking about 1st bioshock, then there would've been some room for alternative description ("horror" , "System shock inspired", etc).

Genre definition isn't meant to be narrow. It is a broad category of t hings.

That's not a rogue-like. Rogue-like refers specifically to games resembling Rogue, which was... an ASCII dungeon crawler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(video_game)
It's closest equivalent is ADOM, DoomRL, Nethack, and the like.

Now currently the name has slightly different meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_roguelikes
But often refers to a game where you have only one life, and if you lose it, you start over.

Closest equivalent of "Choose your own adventure" game, is a visual novel, followed by interactive fiction.

Interestingly, interactive fiction over time involved into adventure games (the ones I called "Quest") for example those developed by Lucas Arts.

 

Bioshock Infinite is a first person shooter, but the experience is unquestionably different than most FPS games. To the extent where someone like myself (and I imagine others as well) is interested in playing it, but isn't interested in most FPS games. There's a distinction there. Do you disagree?

Warning: this is moving towards a semantic argument

 

It was always a semantic argument

 

Yes, yes, I think you're right, they are lacking of the random element. Although I read heavily randomized versions, but those weren't really rouge-like.

 

And yet most science fiction is so far removed from science as to be fantasy. Kinda the inverse of Arthur C, Clarke's 'sufficiently advanced technology.'

(And if anyone is a Richard Morgan fan, isnt the 'A Land Fit For Heroes' trilogy just the perfect epitomy of Clarke's maxim..? All the fantasy tropes, ultimately confected out of what hints at post-singularity/ascension -level tech)

 

Yes, I disagree.

The experience in Bioshock Infinite was streamlined to the point where I can't remember even a single plasmid from the game.

The unique elements are not gameplay, but setting and story.

The genre usually defines what you're doing. First Person Shooter means you'll be shooting stuff.
The story usually defines where you're doing that or why. In case of bioshock the answer is "in a faux late 19th century flying city".

For example, you could take a look at trailers of Scorn (Warning: Biopunk, Meat and Giger's level visuals). But that's still a first person shooter.
Another examples are Clive Barker's Undying and Clive Barker's Jericho. Settings are unusual, both are still FPS games.

 

Do you really disagree? Because this:

...doesn't sound like a disagreement. It sounds like you disagree with my conclusion that genre should (could, really; I didn't make any declarative statements) incorporate narrative and gameplay, which is not stated here. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Do you agree or disagree that there's a distinction between games like Infinite and Spec Ops vs Call of Duty and Battlefield? It doesn't matter if that distinction is due to narrative or gameplay; a distinction is a distinction. It's only anecdotal, but I believe there's a distinction because I'm interested in playing the former but not the latter (and I imagine others feel the same way).

IF you agree: do you think that distinction can be generalized in a way that is still reasonably inclusive, so we're not putting 5 or 10 games into a bin and making a billion categories? Answering this would involve exploring where the distinction lies (narrative vs gameplay) and comparing that across games. And just as a side comment, reducing a description of "story" for Infinite to "faux late 19th century flying city" is criminal; as I said before, for Infinite and Spec Ops (and Far Cry 3 too): these stories are all deconstructionist in nature.

IF you agree with that: do you think we should or should not incorporate that into labels or game genres? You've jumped here, and your argument seems to be "no, because genres are about gameplay." Which (the reason given) isn't really an answer, because the immediate response is: and why can't genres be about narrative too? (that aside from pointing out the genres like horror where it already isn't 100% about gameplay)

I think it's a worthwhile idea for a couple reasons. The obvious one is descriptive - it helps us better identify these things. The other, however, is useful: it helps people like me know if we're going to be interested in a game. A game's gameplay confers a general effect on whether or not people are interested in it, and thus it's useful to have that in the genre label. I assert that a game's narrative (and/or narrative design) can confer an effect on whether or not people are interested in it, and thus I think that's a reasonable argument for including it in the genre label.

 

It is a disagreement as you seem to imply that different narrative would change game's genre.

Basiclaly, if you're a human, then wearing different outfit won't make you a non-human. Likewise, having a different setting does not make the game not a First Person Shooter.

It's not. The description is correct. However, the description is broadly defined. It is more narrowly defined than "First Person Shooter". And you seem to be desiring a precise description. However, precise description is "Bioshock Infinite". Which includes every thing that the game has to offer.

I believe the idea is unsound.
As not all people care about narrative being present or its topic. Additionally, trying to shoehorn everything about the game into its' "genre" will produce fifteen billion quadrillion genres, and it will be impossible to navigate.

So. Use composition instead of inheritance.

What would be more useful is a content filter defined by multiple labels, with each of them being optional.
This is actually how stores are organized in many cases, but the system is not developed. One place where it has been done reasonable well is vndb (visual novel database), and they use key elements as tags.

In this definition Bioshock Infinte could be "First Person Shooter", "Alternate History", "Magic Powers", "Male Protagonist", "Firearms", "Art Deco", "Early 20th history", "Female Sidekick", "Story Rich", "Choices". And so on.

That would be a sane approach without trying to shoehorn entirety of the game into a "genre".

 

The only problem in that debate is that people assume a piece of work can only be one genre exclusively. Also I have been waiting for the Hofstadter argument, where is my Hofstadter argument...

 

Sorry. I wasn't saying First Person Shooter no longer applies. I'm saying it's not descriptive enough. I'm saying we can get more descriptive than that, in a way that's still useful (i.e. not just "Bioshock Infinite").

To give an example: calling CoD an FPS thriller. Calling Spec-Ops a post-colonial FPS. Calling Myst a puzzle adventure game.

I think we can categorize game narratives like we do books.

This is unfair. I explicitly said "...generalized in a way that is still reasonably inclusive, so we're not putting 5 or 10 games into a bin and making a billion categories".

I agree that these don't have to be exclusive categories. I agree that the tagging system is useful, though more narrative information than "Story Rich" or "Choices matter" would be nice.

Another example: people love to call Mass Effect a "space opera," which has nothing whatsoever to do with the gameplay (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect).

 

The problem is with "Reasonably". "Reasonably" is undefined, as it is subjective.

 

What genre is puzzle quest anyway or slime rancher anyway

 

Use the same labels we do for books (defining a game's narrative focus or design) so there are a similar number of categories. Is that reasonable?

Games that truly have no narrative could omit the added label. Just "first person shooter."

 

"Cookbook", "Math", "Encyclopedia". (those are apparently genres, too)

I think... book labels might not be a good fit due to differences in medium.

 

I think I mentioned earlier that it's probably worth separately considering the literary and the mechanics genres separately for a game. It's entirely possible to have, for instance, a game where the story is romance and the mechanics are racing.

Using literary genres as they already exist to describe just the story aspect of a game I think is probably a reasonable enough approach. They've had a lot longer to mature than game genres have, and they're useful to non-enthusiast gamers because it describes the story of a game in terms of other things they're more likely to be familiar with already. Of course plenty of games will have a story genre of "none", because not all games need a story.

Specifically for mechanics genres I think we generally do better, but still have a bunch of maturing to do. For instance, there are games where you can play in first or third person, so is their genre "FPS" or "Third Person Shooter"? Though I don't think there's a lot of value (read: fun) in discussing that because moving the camera really doesn't change the nature of the game. I think "Shooter" is the important bit of the genre in both cases - they're games about hitting your enemies with projectiles, and avoiding being hit with theirs.

Someone mentioned tags as being a useful approach to this. I definitely agree in theory, but in practice tags are only useful if there's at least broad agreement on what a particular tag means. Which brings me back to "adventure"...

I think a part of the issue with "adventure" is that it's used as both a mechanical and a story genre by different people, and it's correct in both cases. When Steam and Origin put stuff in their "Adventure" pages they're describing those games as having a story with adventure elements. It's not incorrect. When I tell my friends I played "an adventure game" last night I mean I was playing a game with primary mechanics similar to those in games such as Monkey Island. It's also not incorrect. But unless you're aware of the context in advance neither are particularly useful.

Need for Speed: The Last One I Played is indeed a racing game with an adventure story. Similarly, Whispers of a Machine is a game with mechanics typically described as "adventure".

 

I think that literary genres do not map onto computer games well, as the experience is closer to a movie for most of them, but even that isn't perfect. A proper solution would be to have specific set of terms for video games only. Because I have hard time remembering a "hard science fiction" game, and can't think of many that fit "Drama" or "Thriller".

That's because reader's role is passive in a book.

It does. Third person perspective allows player to look around corners and gives much greater spatial awareness to the player. That's why games like Devil May Cry are 3rd person, by the way. In case of shooters that opens up possibilities for things like squad commands, utilization of covers and so on.

 

But aren't the literary genres for books and films pretty much the same? A "crime thirller" is the same whether it's a book or a movie. Or a game, for that matter.

Even if that were the case, why would that stop us adopting existing labels for things where they do fit?

In the case of Call of Duty compared to Devil May Cry I agree, the third person camera in the latter is significantly mechanically different.

But in the case of Call of Duty compared to, say, Max Payne, which is also a "third person shooter", the only difference in that regard is the position of the camera. It's over Max's shoulder instead of attached to his head.*

There are differences in situational awareness which arise from many changes. Just how narrow do we want genres to be? There are other ways to impact spatial awareness, and there are other ways to open up possibilities for things like commands and cover systems and so on, so should they all be part of their own genres?

* In the last game they did add a cover system, but it was just some extra controls added. That's not the case in all cover-based third person shooters, but I don't think that re-assigning some inputs should change a game's mechanical genre, either. Though of course we get back to "genre is a super broad term, and you could categorise things by anything..."

 

Come on, you're being disingenuous. Book genres as it relates to narrative.

Your role has almost nothing to do with the way literary genres are constructed. A mystery novel is not a mystery novel because you have a passive role. The narratives of the Sherlock Holmes games are equivalent in design (not quality of course) to those of the books.

That's...probably a great case study actually. What narrative differences are there between the Sherlock Holmes games and books, and is there any reason the same genre can't be given for both?

 

Haha, that style of mystery story is a great example, in part because audience members aren't necessarily passive. While plenty of people are happy to be passive, for some people a part of the fun in a good mystery is trying to piece together the conflicting clues yourself.

I've only played one, and I haven't finished it, but I've read all of Doyle's Holmes stories and the story structure is identical so far with one exception: Watson has barely been involved so far, and the story is not told from his perspective. That doesn't change the genre, though, as the perspective isn't a defining trait of the genre.

So I would definitely describe that game and Doyle's stories as being of the same genre as far as the story is concerned.

 

The difference is that a game gives you an exam, before it lets you see the rest of the story. While the book doesn't.

 

CYOA

 

The clip's funny, but:

What does that mean for narrative and narrative design? I think the "exam" and the potential fail state of games have the potential to expand the narrative, because we can see what happens when Sherlock gets it wrong; however,

In what way does it change the narrative "purpose" or design? Even if you fail, even if you're stuck walking around that damn mansion for hours trying to find the last clue (*shakes fist at Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Earring*), the narrative is still Sherlock solving a mystery. That doesn't change based on the medium. Even some of the genre's nuances, like whether or not to hide information from the viewer, don't change--that's still possible ( "The ABC Murders" does this if I recall correctly).

The narratives for those games absolutely fall within the same category as the novels, and there's a meaningful distinction between those and stuff like Tex Murphy (detective noir), The Secret Files (thriller), or Myst (fantasy/sci fi).

 

It means that narrative has to be designed differently for videogames, and trying to apply standard rules from movies and books will result in a failure.

Because in the sherlock holmes games you are supposed to be sherlock holmes, and vast majority of people will fail to complete any of the sherlock holmes cases as they do not have his level of abilities.

The purpose of a book or a movie is to show a situation unfold. The narrative may drop some clues along the way, and in the end you may admire how wonderfully everything fits together. But you'll still see the whole story from start to end, even if you don't get a thing.

A game puts your avatar inside the situation, and does not proceed until you figure what to do. Meaning you have to be the detective at least to a degree. So, the "genre" in videogames is more to define what sort of role you're expected to do. Shoot things, think and investigate, drive fast moving objects and so on.

 

Problem is that a lot of these exams are trivial depending on the game, especially in walking simulator, in which interaction is equivalent to turning the page but immersively (ie augmented by interactivity).

Also many movie have way to "interact" with the audience by laying down a "puzzle", which is way there is so many theory of popular series floating around. They aren't always resolve passively with the series handing you the solution, you have to put the piece back together yourself. The gameplay aesthetics of story and movie is to collect clue to form a bigger understanding, that's a puzzle.

The reason why adventure game were codified by puzzle is because early one use them to instill mystery through interaction, abstraction of the structure over the function is what made the "puzzle" show stopper in game, ie they BECAME separate things, and the genre died because that was pointless busy works (until walking sim rediscover the idea in another way, most walking sim are just straight puzzle like Tacoma). But game like MYST still rely on the puzzle being part of the worldbuilding instead of gameplay blocker.

 

The only actual example of a difference that you've mentioned is the "exams" gating progression. But this A) doesn't have to change the narrative (it's still the exact same narrative, you just have to do something to move forward), and B) doesn't change the design even when it changes the narrative (when you incorporate fail states).

What you describe for the Sherlock Holmes games--the player acting as the detective--does not in any way change the fact that the story is still about Sherlock Holmes investigating some alleged crime. That is the narrative, not how you experience the events. Me failing to solve a puzzle at a certain moment in no way changes the fact that in the narrative, Sherlock Holmes figures out the puzzle and in some way uses the information it reveals. The narrative has not changed. The narrative for the books and the games follows the same design.

Wikipedia labels the first SH book as "detective fiction." The page for the genre has a list of bullet points typically associated with the genre. Literally none of those has anything to do with the medium of the story. The nature of a game, things like fail states or progression gating, do not in any way invalidate or prevent the expression of any of the points. Narratively, a game can be a "murder mystery" (or any other genre) distinctly separate from its gameplay.

I'm honestly struggling to understand how anyone can say these genre labels can't apply.

 

It actually does change things.

Properly done game provides you a digital playground. Or a world to mess with.
It would be fitting if the game responded to your failure to solve the puzzle, as it would mean you're experiencing the world with an incompetent Sherlock Holmes. That could mean a failure to progress, gameover screen, or a different storyline altogether. That is not something that happens in majority of books or movies.

Basically, what you're describing ("it doesn't change the fact"), is often called railroading and is not necessarily viewed positively, as it ignores player agency. The point of the game is to have fun, which is done by providing challenge, but also by acknowledging player's agency and decision. For example... let's say you're controlling a battlemage. You go and fire a massive destructive spell in the middle of a forest. What can happen here...

1. Bad - Particle effect with kaboom, that lasts few second, and ... doesn't really affect anything, as even grass stays in place (hello, Gothic Arcania).
2. Better - Destruction of the foliage and nearby trees.
3. Even better- destruction is permanent and is reflected when you revisit the area later.
4. Perfect - Upon visiting nearby village you overhear villagers talking about strange light and explosion in the forest, and upon returning to the area you're questioned by a group of guards who are investigating it.

In this scenario, you do not have a narrative where Sherlock Holmes solves the puzzle. Instead you have pieces of narrative that are assembled by player decisions. Which is quite different from books and movies.

-------

Now, what were we discussing again?

 

Okay.

First: In the book version of the above, the writer simply writes out the battlemage traveling to the village, overhearing villagers, returning to the forest, and being questioned by the guards. You can have literally the exact same thing happen narratively, giving the book and the game the same narrative.

Second, what you're describing is not genre, narratively. Narrative genre is the way the game portrays those events. Genre is the setting. Genre is the overarching goal of the plot. Genre is not "this happened, then that happened." Genre is "this kind of thing happened, then that kind of thing happened." It's meta to what you're describing. What is your battlemage's goal? What kind of world does he live in? What kinds of things happen when he travels? That's genre.

Link

Tell me, what about a video game prevents it from having a similar topic, theme, style, trope, setting, character type, or pattern of character interactions as a novel?

 

I disagree with all proposed definitions.

That's a wikipedia link specifically marked as "needs additional citations" and "needs attention from an expert on the subject. The specific problem is: overbroad understanding of the term "genre".".

If we're reducing discussion to a dictionary argument, would be better to use an actual dictionary.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genre
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genre
"a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content"

And practical example is: a book cannot have a form of a first person shooter.

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I'm rapidly losing interest in the discussion, as I'm not seeing any immediate utility or usefulness.

 

Alright. I'll summarize my position.
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Books, Movies, Games, Painting, Sculpture, Music are mediums.
Works in different mediums can share tropes, themes, and setting.
However, they cannot share form. Because the form is constrained by the medium and can only exist with in.

Basically... you cannot turn a Fugue into a first person shooter.

Spoiler

Similarly, you cannot turn cookbook into a movie, pac-man game into a theater play, or convert a statue into a horror story. Because the form cannot be expressed in the new medium.

To change mediums, you'd need to go through adaptation, reinterpretation, which takes the original, and produces something that is distinct from the original, meaning result of the conversion is not equaivalent, but a different work entirely. This is "based on", "inspired by", but not "is a" relationship. That's why Superhero Movie is not the original superhero comics.

The reason why I dislike applying literary genres to video games, because genres, to a large degree, imply or include specific form in their definition. And that rapidly brings up into territory of absurdity, where "Fugue the First Person Shooter" is a thing.

And that's why I see this classification as unsound.

Categories, Tags, etc. That would work. Borrowing genres from other mediums would not. Because of differences in form.
-------

Have fun.

 

I think you are confused, because some medium cumulate many of these forms at once, you can totally have a movie as a cookbook, it will be boring (quality isn't the standard here) but since they have both visual layout, you can almost do a 1 to 1 conversion. Cook book does have a 3 act structures (recipe as exposition, step as development, final product as conclusion), so you cam map that too.
YOU can, make a fps into a fugue, because video game have sound, YOU will debate that the sound would be just a part of it obviously, but that's the idea being music games like audiosurf and guitar heroes, that you PLAY the musics, and you can extend it too because sound can be dynamic, it's possible to make interactive soundtrack, and it's also possible to do it without image, making the relation with music 1 to 1, wii music tried something like that, where image were optional.

 

nope, you forgot the adaptation part of his post...
you need to adapt the cookbook, since the book is an interactive medium, the movie is not
showing a book which is turning its pages in every N seconds is not the same as having a book and turning when you want it

same with the other ones, you are missing the point of adaptation

 

You forget the pause button, not all movie are in theater.

(I already have these discussion deep and large in art schools, there will be no consensus, I'm having fun poking hole, because it's not possible to not have hole, it's a domain where lines are arbitrary, if you draw yours, I can draw mine )

 

But my sandcastle is bigger... !

 

Okay I got nothing here

 

A book doesn't need to have the form of a first person shooter, because from the beginning we were talking about "narrative genre," not gameplay. That seems to be what you won't accept. We were never talking about form, we were in fact explicitly excluding it from our examination.

(I see unintended ambiguity: by "second question" I was referring to "a combination of the two")

To (poorly) quote pauli...this isn't even wrong. "Fogue" is not a narrative genre we were discussing from the premise. Pac-man doesn't have an explicit narrative from which we could identify a genre. "Statue" isn't a narrative genre. "Movie" is not a narrative genre.

Set gameplay aside. We're not talking about gameplay, and we never were. Look at the story that's being told narratively. If you can't accept that, then yeah, we won't get anywhere.

 

Eternally trap in a labyrinth pursue by ghost, that's horror my friend, it's the same gameplay than PT!

 

This is false. In the beginning thread talked about gameplay specifically.

Spoiler

"But we definitely need a better term for this genre. What are your thoughts? What should we call this genre?"

Genre of Pacman is "Arcade Maze".

Spoiler

Music and Scultpure convey a message. It is not uncommon for a musical piece to have a narrative that is not explicitly told to you. There's a legend that each symphony of Beethoven had a script, which Beethoven burned once the symphone was completed.

Then we have pieces like Shostakovich's Symphony No 7, which is VERY narrative based.

The beginning of the thread spoke about more precise definition of adventure game. (I actually proposed "Quest"). I feel like goalposts were moved couple of times since.

Anyway.

This is getting tiresome and is not even interesting anymore.

 

Sorry, no. The post you replied to explicitly asked if we could define genre with separate gameplay and narrative components (with the gameplay component already defined, the next step was to define narrative genre).

If you didn't want to talk about narrative genre, you shouldn't have replied to my post. Did all of this start with a non sequitur? Oh well.

 

Well Quest is totally fine, it imply both narrative and mechanics in a single breath

 

No one going to address the term "Point and Click" already exist ?

 

Point and click are adventure games, but adventure games aren't necessarily point and click (see zork)

If we want to jest we can point that modern FPS are basically point and click too

 

Games like The Talos Principle or The Witness probably don't qualify as point and click. But they are puzzle games.

 

There are plenty of games which use the same mechanics with different controls, though.

 

Yeah but Point and Click is an established term, it's not to be interpreted literally. Same with strategy games. even though plenty of games involve strategy yet are not about building base/army from a top down view and attacking enemy.

Point and Click is really the term you're looking for. And if not then you can roll back to adventure game.

Semantics can become subjective, and game genres is actually a spectrum ... so it's like trying to make a venn diagram out of fuzzy clouds.

 

Is The Talos Principle a point and click? It doesn't even have the same kind of puzzles as most actual PnCs.

What about Life is Strange?

 

That's a Puzzle game and not a Point and Click Adventure.

3d visual novel hybrid.

"Point and Click Adventure" are King's Quest, Space Quest, Sam and Max hit the Road, Full Throttle, Leisure Suit Larry, Legends of Kyrandia and so on.

Talos Principle and Life is Strange aren't that.
Walking Dead, Remember Me, State of Mind aren't in this genre.

Life is strange belongs to a relatively new hybrid genre which sits somewhere between visual novel and a movie. Other examples of it are Detroit: Become Human, State of Mind, Walking Dead season 1, Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy.

 

This is about as useful as a genre label as "movie" or "book" or, to pick something a bit more specific, "graphic novel". It describes the medium rather than what is being done with it.

At least "first person shooter" describes something about the experience the medium is being used to provide.

 

All Point and Click.. every single one of them!!