We need a better name for "Adventure" games

So is Counterstrike, of course.

Which shoots the idea that "Point and Click" is an established, non-literal label used to describe a specific type of game in the foot.

 

Counter strike is literally a real time strategy game

 

In essence, you're criticizing natural language for being fuzzy, imprecise and nonsensical.
However, that's how language is, as we aren't all talking lojban, aren't robots, and usually can derive sufficient amount of missing information from context instead of interpreting it literally.

For example "cat" refers to... a certain domesticated carinvorous mammal, a person, a unix-like command, a certain brand of heavy machinery, can be used as a verb in all those meaning, and apparently.... also can mean a certain type of whip, a certain type of boat, a certain time of fish. Depending on context.

Spoiler

A cat.

Aren't natural language fun.

I mean in essence the natural language is to a probabilisitic compression algorithm created for purposes of communication, where sender and receiver each possess a dictionary with a keyword for a specific object, concept or event and the like. So upon act of transmission of information, sender picks a keyword for each concepts based on his dictionary, and receiver uses it to look up it in their own dictionary to understand it.

However. Neither sender nor receiver ever really agreed upon contents their dictionaries, and rely on probability of the other person translating the information correctly. What's more, one codeword refers to multiple concepts at the same time.
Most of the time it works. But occasionally the probabilistic nature of communication protocol results in miscommunication error.
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In your example, you criticise that that Point and Click can refer to any game, however, in doing so, you attempt to interpret it literally, while ignoring that it is used in its own informational domain where this specific combination becomes a term of its own referring to a specific thing.

 

I'm not "ignoring" it. I'm saying that using language so broadly erodes its meaningfulness and usefulness. Since the purpose of language is to communicate I think we should make effort to maintain its usefulness, rather than just letting it decay.

A certain amount of erosion is inevitable, since there's no central authority who manages how language works. Dictionaries to a little of that, but even they try to document how language is used rather than dictate it.

First, the game involves planning, but it's hardly the main activity. The main activity is where you move and shoot.

Secondly, it's only "strategic" in the broadest, shallowest sense of the term. If you'd said "tactical" I'd have a much easier time agreeing.

Third, do "point and click" and "real time strategy" need to be mutually exclusive? Plenty of things can validly fit into more than one category, so even if we agree to disagree about whether or not it's an RTS that doesn't stop it also being "point and click".

And if we're broadening "RTS" to include Counterstrike then that's another term made useless, by being stretched so thing it encompasses pretty much everything. At that point we may as well just shrug and say "they're all just games". But even that's not right. They're "interactive media".

 

There's no language committee,and individuals do not decide what a single term means. It either catches on or becomes a term widely accepted, or you'll be in a small club where only you and five other folks know the perfect definition. Which will reduce the usefullness of the new term.

So, embrace the chaos, the uncertainty, the ambiguity and fuzziness.

 

I think neg has already established that his definition of "genre" is (mostly) limited to form.

Remember Me isn't in this group, but that's nitpicking.

What's the difference between "puzzle game" and "point and click adventure"?

Edit (referring to all posts, not just the one I replied to):
I think the problem is simply that some of us are prescriptivists, while others are not (descriptivists). I don't know if there'll ever be an agreement. My stance is probably greatly influenced by my background as a scientist.

 

THe one trick is that language LABEL instead of defining which mean it's open to arbitrary, definition is how we convey what's in the label, but since label preceded definition there is a disconnect.

 

There are LAAARGE cinematic segments in there focused on memory rewriting.

Character-world-player interaction.

Typically, in a point and click adventure the character is typically not the player, there can be more than one, and they actively express opinions on the world and your attempted actions. In doing so, they drop clues. Or just jokes.

Spoiler

The Puzzle is just... that, puzzle. There's no need for personality, commentary, etc. Just you and the problem.
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The issue is that boundaries between genres blur.

 

I wouldn't call it large. There are 4, and as interesting as they are, they're insignificant in comparison to the amount of combat.

Interesting take. Which do you consider Myst?

 

The problem is, I never quite played it. Based on what I know/seen on youtube.

I'd consider it to be a separate genre from Lucas arts adventure games like Full Throttle.

However, there's no fitting common classification I can pick.

It is in the same family of games as Shadowgate. Shares similarities to First Person RPG Dungeon crawlers, but is different from them. Talos principle would be similar. Shares similarities with walking simulator games too.

 

Hence:

 

...huh.

The Myst games involve a first-person perspective; for all intents and purposes the player is the character. But they're kind of a part of the world--Atrus talks to them in first person (kind of like the old RPGs where the MC is mysteriously mute and the world tries to talk around them). There's pseudo-open world movement around the environment.

The difference in puzzles is how I was thinking about this initially: typical PnC games have puzzles that can be abstracted away from their environments and solved away from the game, while Talos's are of course literally a part of the environment--you kind of need to be in front of the game to even solve them. Myst kind of has both.

I wouldn't consider either of those similar to walking sims, because walking sims aren't really about puzzles.

 

Speaking of puzzles.

Have you ever heard this one?

Spoiler

Three bright coins in five holes be

At one end sits
the Seducer of she

The wind from behind
the woman doth play

The Formless One,
Null, lies furthest from they

The Old One beside
the Serpent sits not.

'Tis to the Prisoner's left
that he doth rot

This is from silent hill 2.

This thing can be pretty much solved away from the environment and... is not really there for any story reason. It is just there. Blocking your progress. And silently laughing.

How would that fit into part/not part of environment classification?

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Regarding PnC (point and click), while this is not my favorite genre, the general idea I had is that puzzles as in way to progress further is typically tied to the environment and the story. You need to understand the logic there. There's some sort of connection, you need to realize what that is, rememebring what sort of items or powers your character holds. While in a puzzle game, the puzzle itself can be abstract and self-contained.

 

Reading the wikipedia page they call it a "physics" puzzle. I guess it would be that kind of idea, where you're using some kind of "real" or scripted physics system. To solve something. PnCs aren't doing that all; all of their puzzles are kind of logic puzzles, even if they involve the environment in some way (the silent hill 2 one sounds like that).

In Talos, if I have to trigger two light gates (I can't remember the right names) on opposite sides of a map, but the beams of light cancel each other out when they interact, I kind of have to see the puzzle to figure out what to do. It's inherently visual or spatial.

In Day of the Tentacle if I have to cause it to rain on a guy's horse and buggy and the character is carrying a soapy rag, a bug, a cheese wheel, and some other random thing, I don't have to see the puzzle to figure it out, in theory (in reality, what I have to do is try every combination I can think of before giving up and going to a walkthrough).

Good point though--PnC puzzles are far more grounded in reality.

 

Rather than "reality" they're grounded in the logic of the world. The logic can be bizarre and disconnected from reality.

 

Exactly. Ive already gone on about genre as 'adjective' rather than 'noun', and the corollary of that is the fact that as things progress and become more nuanced, we need a composite string of adjectives.

The point is, if you think of genre in terms of being a noun, it often becomes prescriptive rather than descriptive, and beyond a certain point that becomes counterproductive. Actually, its merely descriptive. The ever-diminishing returns of sub-sub-genres in certain strands of music, for example, are often a result of investment in trying to uniquely compartmentalise things that are fairly superficially different, nothing more than variations and hybridisations.