Adventure games provide some of the purest narrative experiences in the wider gaming sphere, and the way they achieve immersion often relies on allowing the player to get to grips with core mechanics and rules organically, rather than over-tutorializing every last element. That’s the simplest explanation for why the learn-by-doing approach is preferred over the more prescriptive use of training levels and overt HUD prompts found in other genres. Hold tight as we give some examples of top-tier games that get this right and how they do it.

Satisfying Our Urge to Solve

The adventure game genre is geared towards people who take satisfaction from problem-solving, so that’s an audience that really doesn’t want any over-the-top hand-holding. What they’re looking for are the eureka moments that come from conquering a brain teaser.

The Secret of Monkey Island set the standard for this, with puzzles whose solutions require a little lateral thinking. The rule here is that players shouldn’t assume that there’ll be an obvious answer to an obstacle. It’s put across early in the game when Guybrush Threepwood has to use a rubber chicken on a zip wire to get across to Hook Isle and recruit Meathook for his voyage.

It’s a little like the way some of the Impressario Casino games are designed, hiding the depth of the experience beneath an approachable exterior. Users can always read up on the rules and learn about the special features if they wish, but it’s equally possible to learn the basics in the normal course of play. The eureka moments are what we’re all here for, after all.

Introducing New Mechanics

The classic adventure-game approach of solving puzzles via ‘use X on Y’ or working through conversation trees to eventually achieve the desired result isn’t mechanically complex. But when games want to go beyond it, using mechanics players might not expect from the genre, it’s better if they don’t telegraph this too much, but instead introduce them in the form of a puzzle.

A good example here is the infamous goat puzzle from the first Broken Sword game. Until our hero George Stobbart reaches the rural Irish village of Lochmarne, he hasn’t needed to act quickly to overcome a challenge. Later in the game, this becomes a matter of life or death, but rather than make this time-limited mechanic so final when first encountered, the developers instead introduced it in a risk-free way.

Sure, there’s frustration that comes from repeatedly getting butted by a goat protecting a Templar burial site until you finally work out that you’re supposed to quickly rush from one part of the screen to the other to tether it to an old plow. But learning this mechanic without being told explicitly what’s expected of you means that, in a few puzzle’s time, when you’re about to be shot by an armed thug in a Parisian museum, you don’t hesitate.

So, when a game doesn’t explicitly state its rules, your growing understanding of the world becomes your inventory. It’s an example of how show, don’t tell matters more in gaming than in any other medium.