13th January 2003, 9:06 PM
Mystery House created "graphic adventure" genre indeed, but you have to realize that it's only called that because it has graphics. Before that, they were all text adventures. Don't overthink what I'm saying, they were LITERALY just text. You would type in something and it would just post some text on the screen describing what happened. It would be like this.
]look
"Be more specific"
]look around
"Does not understand "around""
]look forest
"you are in a forest with many thickly packed trees facing north. There is a small stream to the west."
]go west
"cannot go a west"
]go left
"cannot go a left"
]west
"You are in a forest with many thickly packed trees facing west. There is a small stream here."
And that's pretty much how it would play. Not a single graphic would ever appear. These were called "text adventures". They were actually quite fun at the time, but then Mystery House changed everything, with actual graphics. It's been officially made public domain now, so if you have an apple 2 emulator, Sierra gives you free rights to play it whenever you want and pass it to whoever, so long as it's unmodified.
So, basically they are both still adventure games in the original meaning of the genre, and they were all very adventury to play. Zelda was a totally different kind of adventure game. Technically, it should get it's own genre name (action/RPG does work, but so many are out now that it deserves more than a combo name by far, oh and Metroid is a lot more action than adventure, what with it's corridor shooting, so it's like an action/adventure). Adventure was the only title that worked, so it was picked, even though adventure genre already exists on PC (and I explained why calling them all graphic adventures doesn't really work, since "graphic adventure" was just a buzz word advertising that the adventures now have sprites and such, which means Zelda games qualify). Console Adventure and PC adventure work, except that they are bleeding into each other. King's Quest 8 (which really wasn't that good at all and was likely the death of the series, that or the Seirra massacres) tried to imitate Zelda a lot but couldn't do that nearly as well, so it was very much a console style adventure on PC, while Escape from Monkey Island went to PS2, a PC style adventure on a console.
In the end, I think that maybe we should come up with a new genre name. Since King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and what some think is the best of Seirra's 'Quest games, Quest for Glory, all had the word Quest in it, and because it really sounds right, I think that perhaps all "graphic adventures" should be called quests. This solves the problem neatly I think. Technically, quest genre could also go to Zelda style games, leaving the original kind of adventure game to keep it. However, I think that since it was the PC adventure that was named "quest" so often, maybe it should go to that. It is time to reflect net-wide change. We shall cast a vote to which type of game should henceforth be called a "quest game", and then whatever wins, we shall spread it throughout the land. This should end this lovely yet stupid debate once and for all.
Edit: Oh don't worry ABF, I added PC to the list, plus a few other games. Just amalgomate both kinda of adventure games into one genre for now. I figure if it's not going to be Nintendo only, it shouldn't be leaving out anything else. Hmm, well maybe Mac can be left out, but that's like leaving out cel phone games. No one cares :D.
]look
"Be more specific"
]look around
"Does not understand "around""
]look forest
"you are in a forest with many thickly packed trees facing north. There is a small stream to the west."
]go west
"cannot go a west"
]go left
"cannot go a left"
]west
"You are in a forest with many thickly packed trees facing west. There is a small stream here."
And that's pretty much how it would play. Not a single graphic would ever appear. These were called "text adventures". They were actually quite fun at the time, but then Mystery House changed everything, with actual graphics. It's been officially made public domain now, so if you have an apple 2 emulator, Sierra gives you free rights to play it whenever you want and pass it to whoever, so long as it's unmodified.
So, basically they are both still adventure games in the original meaning of the genre, and they were all very adventury to play. Zelda was a totally different kind of adventure game. Technically, it should get it's own genre name (action/RPG does work, but so many are out now that it deserves more than a combo name by far, oh and Metroid is a lot more action than adventure, what with it's corridor shooting, so it's like an action/adventure). Adventure was the only title that worked, so it was picked, even though adventure genre already exists on PC (and I explained why calling them all graphic adventures doesn't really work, since "graphic adventure" was just a buzz word advertising that the adventures now have sprites and such, which means Zelda games qualify). Console Adventure and PC adventure work, except that they are bleeding into each other. King's Quest 8 (which really wasn't that good at all and was likely the death of the series, that or the Seirra massacres) tried to imitate Zelda a lot but couldn't do that nearly as well, so it was very much a console style adventure on PC, while Escape from Monkey Island went to PS2, a PC style adventure on a console.
In the end, I think that maybe we should come up with a new genre name. Since King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and what some think is the best of Seirra's 'Quest games, Quest for Glory, all had the word Quest in it, and because it really sounds right, I think that perhaps all "graphic adventures" should be called quests. This solves the problem neatly I think. Technically, quest genre could also go to Zelda style games, leaving the original kind of adventure game to keep it. However, I think that since it was the PC adventure that was named "quest" so often, maybe it should go to that. It is time to reflect net-wide change. We shall cast a vote to which type of game should henceforth be called a "quest game", and then whatever wins, we shall spread it throughout the land. This should end this lovely yet stupid debate once and for all.
Edit: Oh don't worry ABF, I added PC to the list, plus a few other games. Just amalgomate both kinda of adventure games into one genre for now. I figure if it's not going to be Nintendo only, it shouldn't be leaving out anything else. Hmm, well maybe Mac can be left out, but that's like leaving out cel phone games. No one cares :D.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)