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The future of the adventure
game is understandably a concern for adventure game fans, especially
those of us who remember its brief
glory days in the Nineties as the 800-pound gaming gorilla, dominating
all genres, becoming the darling of the large commercial game producers.
Ever since its fall from that grace, gaming pundits have been proclaiming
the adventure game’s overall demise. But the adventure game didn’t
die, it merely got toppled from the top spot. It was just another
step in the genre’s overall evolution, an evolution that has, like
most things in the computer world, taken place with blistering rapidity.

In the span of less than
thirty years, the adventure game has gone from a novelty played
on mainframes at universities, to Infocom and
the commercial text adventure, to Roberta and Ken Williams’ King
Graham follies at Sierra Online, to SCUMM (not an evil empire bent
on world destruction like SPECTRE, but rather an ingenious gaming
system), to the Miller Brothers and Myst to…
okay, you get the idea. The point is that the adventure game concept
has been implemented
in a wide array of gaming platforms. I hear tell you can now play
Myst on your mobile phone. Only thirteen
years ago, people had to buy a faster computer equipped with something
called a CD-drive just
to be able to handle its massive specs.

It’s amazing, really,
how versatile the adventure game is. I suppose someone could write
a text-based first-person-shooter, if they were
insane enough. I don’t know how much fun it would be to play. “Kill
multi-tentacled giant green thing with portable howitzer.” “I
don’t understand multi-tentacled giant green thing.” “Kill
enormous monster with howitzer.” “I don’t understand enormous
monster.” “Kill all with howitzer.” “The incredible
humongous Flibberdigibit has eaten you. You are dead. Do you want
to restore, restart or quit?” I suppose the FPS might fare a
little better on LucasArts’ SCUMM platform. The action verbs could
be: Look, Pick Up, Annihilate, Blast, Incinerate, Straff, Decimate,
and Devour. Overall game play might be a little slow, however, for
the genre’s hard-core fans.

Adventure game fans, on
the other hand, have adapted to pretty much every gaming system
that has come along. Why is the adventure game
so adaptable? In part, because it has to be to survive, but also
because it’s based on a very simple, yet powerful idea. It’s a treasure
hunt. It’s an irresistible (well, to fans at least) combination of
story and puzzle-solving. Of course, the FPS is based on an even
simpler concept kill everything in sight. But the FPS depends on
great visuals. It’s difficult to shoot something you can’t see.

What then is the future
of the adventure game? Obviously, it’s going to keep morphing to
adapt to whatever system pops up next. It probably
is doubtful that the commercial houses will ever take it up again,
but the adventure game will continue to thrive because there are
too many talented programmers out there who love adventure games.
And because it has become remarkably simple or comparatively simple
for one person to build a satisfying adventure.

As I look around the world-wide
web in 2006, I have come to the conclusion that the likeliest immediate
future for the adventure
game is on the Flash platform. Most of us by now are familiar with
delightful online adventures like the Samorost games,
1 and 2. I must admit, my first impression of these Flash adventures
was as
charming curiosities. I didn’t imagine that the Flash format was
versatile enough to accommodate a full-fledged, satisfying adventure.
And, frankly, I still have my doubts about this. It’s just that I
think the Flash format is now so dominant, so universal, that it
will trump all competitors. If, as I believe, the future of the adventure
game depends on the creations of talented enthusiasts, then the Flash
platform seems inevitable.

There’s certainly no lack
of other candidates out there. Even I have taken a look at the
AGS (Adventure Game System) program for
Windows and imagined I might create a credible adventure out of it.
Assuming, that is, that I pick up some creative talent and initiative
somewhere along the line. The other platform that I would have bet
on only a year or so ago was Java. If, as everyone and his sister
is predicting, that more and more of our content is going to be accessed
via broadband on the web, and less and less is going to be bought
in jewel cases at brick-and-mortar or even online stores, then Java
would seem to be the likeliest candidate. But, while I’ve run across
some very clever and enjoyable games written in Java, they have been
dwarfed in number by Flash games. As a non-programmer, I can only
conclude that writing games in Java is not for the faint of heart.
In short, it’s probably a heck of a lot like writing in C+ or at
least Visual Basic.

The other likely candidate
was Flash’s big brother Director. Even I can tell that Director
is much more powerful that Flash. And we
know excellent full-fledged commercial adventure games can be written
in it, since we already have the exemplary Rhem and Rhem
2 by Kurt
Mueller. Those two games, however, took Mr. Mueller years to produce.
And they have to be shipped on discs because the files are so large.
Flash, on the other hand, uses bandwidth-friendly vector graphics
and can be downloaded in, well, a flash.

Flash is also a heck of
a lot cheaper than Director. I think that what happened is that
over the last few years, those people interested
in building games took a look at what application they could best
afford. The last time I checked, Director was selling for something
like $1500. Then there are those other professional apps like Maya,
that run something like $2000 to $3000. And then you have to learn
how to use them! Flash is apparently easy to learn, relatively inexpensive
to purchase, results in small file size and is universally applicable.
What’s not to like? That’s why I think it’s inevitable that more
and more adventures are going to be found online and in Flash format.

Which still leaves the
burning question of whether full-length adventure games can be
written in Flash and deployed on the web. Compared to
other game genres, the number of “genuine” adventures in
Flash is still tiny. If you go to one of the big Flash game sites
like Miniclip, it’s hard even to locate the adventure titles, and
most of those are really some sort of action-adventure hybrid. I
don’t think we can count on the commercial sites to provide real
adventures in Flash or anything else. Anyone seriously trying to
make money will not buck the current trend of providing first person
shooters and more first person shooters. Again, we must rely on the
talented adventure-game enthusiast.

Along with the Samorost folks,
one of the most impressive of these is Pinhead Games. A
Case of the Crabs is still one of the most satisfying
and lengthy adventures I’ve played in the Flash format. Another game
I’ve been very impressed by is Chasm, an
adventure I ran across while surfing the web. I’m not sure about
its current availability, but
it’s worth playing if you can find it. The game is copyright 2002
by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the listed URL is
www.transience.com.au but
the last time I tried to load that page I got an “unknown.” The
address www.abc.net.au/gameon/chasm/chasm.swf,
on the other hand, still will load the game into your browser.
What the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Tourism Board had
to do with backing a Flash adventure on the web is an intriguing
issue in itself.

Chasm,
though, is a very enjoyable and fairly long adventure. It’s one
of the few games
I’ve run across that encourages me to believe
that maybe there is a rosy future for the “traditional” adventure
with a .swf file extension. Like all Flash games, the bright, glossy
vector graphics are a little hard on the eyes at first, but one soon
gets over that.

Another encouraging Flash
adventure is Arcane, produced by or for
Warner Bros. to promote something or other. That doesn’t matter.
What matters is that Arcane, which comes
in eight episodes, is another well-written, longish adventure. I
don’t know if the Warner Bros.
website is still hosting it, but you can find the Arcane episodes
elsewhere on the web now. The sheer fact that a large entertainment
entity like Warner Bros. would even associate itself with an adventure
title is heartwarming.

My fullest praise, however,
must go to Jonathan May whose www.woolythinking.com site
offers (at last count) four truly excellent games. Two are adventures
and two are pure puzzle games, but I would enthusiastically recommend
all four to any adventure-game lover. The puzzle games are The
Dark Room and its sequel The Dark Complex.
The adventures are Archipelago and
its sequel Return
to the Archipelago. The best adventure games
give your brain a good workout, and these games certainly do that.
Perhaps the adventure-game traditionalist would not find him or herself
at home among the islets of the Archipelago.
There is some Flash-like frustration to be found in being frequently
disoriented compass-wise
and the lack of any character interaction. Like Chasm and A
Case of the Crabs, however, the Archipelagos make
me believe that Flash can deliver a full adventure game expericnce.
Are any of these Flash
adventures as impressive and monumental as Mr. Mueller’s Rhem titles?
No. But the Flash adventure saga has essentially just begun and
I am eager to see where these amazingly creative gamemakers take
it. Myst and Riven,
after all, were glorified Hypercard stacks, and they kicked off a
gaming revolution. Flash adventures, it seems to
me, have that potential, and even more, because there are so many
talented “amateurs” out there. And, hey, so far all of
these games are provided online free of charge. Like the best adventure
games, that’s hard to beat.