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It so happened that this issue of the magazine "SPECTROFON" has a distinctly adventurous focus. We hope that fans of bloody brawls in the style of "I, in nature, D'Artagnan" and arcade punches like "Goodbye, joystick!" will be able to connect with the extraordinary computer games of the ADVENTURE genre...
So, we once again have the electronic magazine "PC-REVIEW" as our guest.
(C) Sergey Simonovich, 1994.
ADVENTURE GAMES: GLORY AND MISERY
OF THE FIFTH GENERATION or NOSTALGIA FOR THE PAST
1. Introduction.
In researching games of the "Adventure" genre, we identified four main stages in their evolution. This issue was addressed in the article "Adventure Games: The Evolution of the Interface," previously published in PC-REVIEW. At this point, we can also speak of a fifth stage - interactive video. In any case, programs like "7-th Guest" and "11-th Hour" no longer fit the traditional understanding of computer games.
For those unfamiliar with our previous research, let us briefly recall the main points.
1st generation.
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Games consisting entirely of text. Graphics were not used for purely technical reasons. The main tasks for the user were:
- establishing a dialogue with the machine;
- exploring the program's vocabulary;
- using the established vocabulary to solve logical problems built into the game.
In scientific and technical terms, working with early adventure games resembled researching a black box, studying the programming language that it (the box) understood and programming in that language to achieve the desired result.
2nd generation.
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Early graphics in adventure games were illustrative in nature. Although they were primitive (vector graphics with filling) and did not take up much space, they already had opponents predicting the "decline of the genre."
The first discussions about the feasibility of using graphics in adventures date back to 1983-1984, and, as expected, the supporters of graphics won. Their main argument was: "There is nothing terrible about this since, on one hand, games become more attractive, and the memory spent on graphics is compensated by the savings on text descriptions of locations."
Opponents of graphics also understood that graphics in games was undoubtedly a necessary and promising step, but warned that uncontrolled use would lead to the degeneration of the genre (which we have today).
The leading company in the field of adventures from 1983-86 was Level 9 (which released games like Price of Magic, Red Moon, Eric the Viking, Snowball, Worm in Paradise, and many others), which even adhered to a "dual standard" in its programs by releasing the same game in two versions - with illustrative graphics and without it. It is worth noting that the vocabulary richness in the games of this company exceeded 1000 recognizable and correctly interpreted words, the games had more than 200 locations, and all of this, along with graphics and control systems, fit comfortably within 40K of memory. It is also worth mentioning that the time taken to complete one game ranged from several months to several years of active exploration.
3rd generation.
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The further development of graphical tools provided a foundation for further progress. First of all, with the advent of high resolution and support for devices like the "mouse," interactive interfaces emerged. Now, heroes no longer had to be given commands like "GO NORTH." It was enough to click the mouse in the upper part of the screen and press the left button for the hero to set off on the designated route. There was no longer a need to describe locations. By moving the "mouse" across the screen and clicking on all the objects drawn on the screen, one could receive messages about what they were: "This is a wardrobe..., this is a chair..., this is a door..., etc."
Fortunately for our domestic fans of the ZX-Spectrum personal computer, the development of adventures stopped at this point. Otherwise, you, dear readers, would have to deal with the problems we will mention below. And if this machine is still not fully equipped with a "mouse," then programs of the third generation use joystick control instead (for example, "Kobyashi Naru," "ZZZZ," "Zombi," etc.).
4th generation.
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With the beginning of the 1990s, the adventures we were accustomed to many years ago practically ceased to exist. Programmers' concern for simplifying the interface led to all game control being performed "with the mouse" with two buttons. From the vast array of verbs previously used in games, only: GO TO, TAKE, GIVE, TALK TO, USE remained. They even managed to do without the DROP command. All the variety of life situations was "squeezed" into one command USE. Take an aspirin - USE ASPIRIN. Open the door - USE KEY ON DOOR. Shoot an alien - USE LASER ON ALIEN. Even to refuel a car with gasoline, it is enough first to USE the hose on the car, and then USE the gasoline on the hose.
Of course, it became easier to play, but in the process, the ultimate goal of the first classic adventures was lost - "ESTABLISHING CONTACT WITH THE PROGRAM AND EXPLORING ITS VOCABULARY."
Ah, if only the genius programmers from LEVEL 9 knew that in ten years their descendants would be limited to five commands!!! Does this not remind you of Ellochka Shchukin (see I. Ilf, E. Petrov "The Twelve Chairs"), whose vocabulary was poorer than that of a wild cannibal and who managed in all life situations with thirty words?
Following the vocabulary, logic somehow began to "drift away" from the programs. Indeed, when you are dealing with only a few commands and are limited to the set of items visible on the screen or in hand, it is difficult to organize normal logic in operation, as the main problems can be solved by simple trial and error (which users usually do in difficult circumstances). More and more often and broadly, logical solutions are replaced by other means, such as arcade ones. Let us give an example from the program Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Lucasarts - the best producer of adventures today).
Your task is to steal the stone disk lying on the table from under its owner's nose. Getting to the logical solution is very simple (it automatically follows from the objects at your disposal):
- turn off the light;
- put a sheet over your head;
- turn on the flashlight and pretend to be a ghost;
- while the owner, frozen in terror, is quietly petrifying, you can quietly swipe the disk off the table and then say that you had nothing to do with it.
But implementing this solution in practice on the first try is unlikely to succeed. And if your "mouse" is, God forbid, not working well, then it is unlikely that anything will come of it. Allow us to ask, is this an adventure for free and calm exploration or an action game where every careless movement of the mouse or joystick could lead to death? Yes, this is a modern adventure, and one of the very best. Such examples can be cited by the hundreds.
5th generation.
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Meanwhile, life goes on, and the further development of hardware means that today's adventure games are already being developed in the "multimedia" concept. What does this mean?
First of all, the widespread introduction of modern sound and video technologies. A modern adventure like "7-th Guest" is a half-hour interactive video film. Of course, such games are distributed on laser discs. To record this game on regular DS/DD disks would require 3000 disks (over 1 Gigabyte). This amount is hardly transportable in a "Zhiguli."
Professional actors are involved in the sound of the games. For the same game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis in the CD-ROM version, 50 performers were invited.
Sound and music have become integral attributes of the games. And if now your hero walks on concrete slabs, his heels click quite differently than on the creaky boards of an abandoned castle.
2. Nostalgia for the past.
Technological progress is unstoppable, and it would be extremely foolish to urge programmers to reject all available achievements and return to the past.
But on the other hand, why not separate the wheat from the chaff and understand that progress is progress, and adventures are adventures.
Let progress develop as it should, but why push games to the level of Ellochka Shchukin?
After all, if someone finds it difficult to work with a program that has high intelligence, there are video game consoles like "DENDY," "SEGA," "NINTENDO," and a dozen other names. Oh, it is no coincidence that this wave of logical simplification of adventures is sweeping through! By leaving them without a vocabulary, producers have closely brought them to CONSOLIDATION (conversion for video game consoles). There is no doubt that big money is involved in this joystick-console video business.
However, let us return to the early adventures. The very concept of ADVENTURE translates as ADVENTURE (JOURNEY). In these games, you, that is, the hero, find yourself in a new world and must explore the laws that govern this world, and secondly, you must learn to control these laws yourself. The main driving force that leads you from location to location is the thirst for knowledge, the desire to find out what is behind that door, what is around that corner, what will happen if you go north instead of south.
It was these same motives that drove Magellan, Columbus, and Dr. Livingstone. Take, for example, Przhevalsky.
He too walked through unknown territory and studied, studied... studied. He studied the environment, people, languages. From one stop to another (from location to location), he moved step by step, each time finding new guides and establishing contact with them through gestures or other means.
Do you feel that the nature of ADVENTURE was laid down in early games as EXPLORATION OF SPACE and ESTABLISHING CONTACT?
What do we have now? Wonderful interactive colorful and voiced games, but what does ADVENTURE have to do with it? They are as close to ADVENTURE as a club of travel filmmakers is to real piranhas and crocodiles of the Amazon.
Of course, it is pleasant to manage an interactive film and direct the hero either to the right or to the left, but to be honest, the most interactive game could be considered a multi-channel television with a remote control. Want to watch a cartoon, want to watch football. You can switch to the news or a parliamentary session, and if you don't like a deputy - turn him off! EXCELLENT INTERACTIVE GAME. But where is the EXPLORATION of uncharted space in it?
3. What follows from all this?
Criticizing, as is known, is easy, but proposing a positive solution is also probably necessary.
And it is not far off. After all, what are we dealing with now: essentially, the problem boils down to the fact that A SIGNIFICANT NICHE HAS OPENED UP IN THE CURRENT SOFTWARE MARKET, which an energetic company with talented screenwriters and writers under its wing can occupy without much difficulty and without multi-million (in dollars) expenses. True, currently such people are still hard to find. But they exist; it's just that no one has thought about it yet. We live in Russia, where the proportion of intellectuals is higher than anywhere else in the world. We are surrounded by millions of teachers, engineers, students, and employees of research institutions.
And if even a hundredth of a percent of them, in their free time from their main work, made efforts to create interesting scripts, then the industry in this direction could be raised to a world level in a couple of years.
We did not invent "nostalgia" for classic adventures. It really exists, not with us, but in the West. Foreign magazines are just starting to write about it. (Incredible but true - they are just starting!). One could even say that this nostalgia exists more in Europe than in America.
Americans somehow quickly jumped from 8-bit "Apples" to 16-bit semi-professional IBM-PCs and "Macintoshes" and missed that huge layer that Europe was processing from 82 to 88 on "Spectrums," "Commodores," "Ataris," and "Amstrads."
Today there is a company - Legend Entertainment, which successfully continues to work in this direction. Of course, it takes all the best from modern technology - both graphics and sound, but it perfectly reproduces the spirit of classic adventure.
Programs from this company are highly valued, considered difficult, and are preferred by refined intellectuals.
Ellochka Shchukin would be contraindicated for such a game. But, be that as it may, one company alone cannot do it in a year. Despite all its desires, it is difficult for it to release more than a couple of programs a year.
Fortunately, the market for classic adventure consumers is not exhausted only by those who suffer from nostalgia for the past. Millions of modern users simply do not fall into the category of potential consumers because they do not know what it is. For them, such a product will be no worse than any new item. Ask a modern IBM-PC user, who has never experienced life with a "Spectrum," what an adventure is?
Few of them know the true content of classic adventure since they have never seen one (they are almost nonexistent). All sorts of "quests" do not count - this is not what we mean.
4. Economic aspects.
Russia, as we know, is the birthplace of Tetris and Sputnik. (The whole world knows that one of them brought the other into orbit). And this is not a coincidence. Where else would logical and actively-logical games emerge if not in Russia?! It's all quite simple. It all comes down to economics.
Modern graphical adventures and RPGs require thousands of hours of labor from artists. Imitators require no less thousands of hours from highly qualified programmers and expert consultants. And only logical and board games, as well as educational programs, the value of which does not depend on how many artists drew them and how many actors voiced them, but first of all on the originality of the idea and the intellectual value of the content, remain accessible for small teams (from one to five people) that do not have multi-million subsidies. And it is precisely such teams that are currently thriving in Russia. How many hundreds of programmers work alone or in pairs?
To develop a good imitator or graphical adventure now in the West, they involve up to 30-50 people, and the development of such a game costs up to several million dollars. But classic adventures seem to be specially created for Russia. They do not require huge million-dollar expenses or inflated staff. All they need is just the talent of screenwriters. The programming problems do not exceed the complexity of ordinary databases. Speed is not required. The hardware platform can be the most democratic. The demand is guaranteed.
Believe me, it is not every day that a whole niche in the software market opens up, for which there is (and has always been) a considerable need! It is high time to roll up your sleeves and move forward decisively.
There are no problems in adventure games that you could not "test" with your "Spectrum." This issue of the magazine "SPECTROFON" includes the GAC (Graphic Adventure Creator) toolkit, allowing you to test your ideas, refine concepts, and create a decent commercial product.
Whatever computer you work with in the future, the experience gained from interacting with this system will not be wasted and, who knows, perhaps it is in Russia that the lost culture of communication with dialog-based adventure games will be revived.
We wish you success.
"Inforcom-Press"
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Contents of the publication: Spectrofon #05
- Экспертиза - Дмитрий Усманов
Description of 'THEATRE EUROPE' game mechanics simulating hypothetical NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict in the 1980s, with emphasis on strategic decisions and potential nuclear scenarios. Players manage military units with options for offensive and defensive strategies. Explores the severe consequences of nuclear warfare.
- Дебют - Дмитрий Усманов
Description of the text adventure game 'Robin of Sherwood: Touchstones of Rhianon' by Adventure International. The article provides a walkthrough for the game's initial challenging locations. Emphasizes the game's real-time mechanics and encourages frequent saving.
- Экзамен
Quiz section 'EXAM' in Spectrofon #05 remains popular, receiving many answers from readers about 'ROBIN OF THE SHERWOOD'. New questions are posed and readers compete for journal issues. First correct answers win issues of the journal.
- Обзор - Анатолий Хоробрых
The article provides an expert review of 'ELITE-3', covering its features and challenges. It discusses civilized software distribution in Russia. Key gameplay elements and missions are explored in detail.
- Архив
Description of the strategy game '1812' involving troop command and battlefield choices. Highlights include game mechanics, strategic options, and in-game scoring based on player performance. Updated version optimized for speed with save state features.
- Фантазия - Анатолий Хоробрых
A computer novella based on the game 'NIGHT RUN' by DIVIDE BY ZERO, following agent John Ladd's mission against double agents and a treacherous general. The story highlights Ladd's dangerous encounters and his relentless pursuit of justice. It’s an arcade adventure for fans of 'VENDETTA'.
- Система
Introduction of 'GRAPHIC ADVENTURE CREATOR' by INCENTIVE SOFTWARE for creating adventure games, featuring an unprotected version with an example. A detailed review is available in 'ZX-REVU' 1994. Includes instructions for using the software to create a standalone game.
- Горячий привет - Сергей Симонович
Analysis of adventure games evolution from text-based to multimedia. Discussion of simplification and challenges in modern adventure games. Nostalgia for classic gameplay and potential for Russian game development.
- Реклама
Advertisement for the Spectrofon magazine with distribution details and call for authors, artists, and musicians.
