P 1.3: Object Combination Puzzle: Obtaining Skeleton Arm and Cutlass
There are no real hints for this besides a comment about needing to use the Ramrod with something else. Once the Ramrod and Plastic Hook is combined there are still no hints of what is the next task, besides the newly formed Gaff needs to be used on something else.
Using the Gaff the player must use it on the Debris in order to gain the Skeleton Arm and Cutlass. Examining the new items we don’t get much feedback, except for a line when uses the cutlass, “I don’t wanna use this cutlass for no reason.”

Inventory Hints: Location: Hull

P 1.4: Environment Interaction: Use the cannon
From exploring the environmental and listening to hints the player is led to the cutlass on the Cannon Restraint Rope. Looking at the Cannon Restraint Rope after the interaction will lead to another hint, “The Rope has been cut. There is nothing restraining the cannon now.” Implying to the player that they can now perform an action that they couldn’t before with the cannon. As the player explores their options, (Look, Pick Up/Use and Talk to) with the cannon they will most likely use the correct interaction (Use) that will lead them to the next section.
After a cutscene the player appear in a new location and is informed of losing an inventory item, Cutlass. Though this may not seem to be a direct hint to the player it implies what is required in the next solution is something that is sharp and can cut things, as that was the main descriptor of cutlass in the previous scene.

Location: LeChuck’s Treasure Hull

P 1.5: Environment Interaction: Diamond Ring on Porthole
After exploring the environment the player should of obtains two new inventory items, bag of wooden nickels and a diamond ring. WIth no great hints the player should se the new items around the scene, with several interactions implying that the diamond ring can be use to cut or scratch things.

• Diamond Ring with Champagne Bottle: “I don’t want to cut this wine bottle open with this ring”
• Diamond Ring with Home Appliances: “I’d hate to scratch the pristine white finish”
• Diamond Ring with Record Collection: “There’s no way I’d scratch up classic dance track like these!”
• Diamond Ring with Flotation Device: “If I scraped the ring on that I’ll pop it.”

All these hints indicate that the ring needs to cut something, in this case the porthole. Doing so will cause the game to continue.

The idea of making a document analysing the hints system within a specific game came to me during MIGW 2016, when I found myself talking about my past research in dialogue and puzzle design within Adventure Games. It had been a while since I spoke about the topic in great detail and the more I spoke on the subject, the more I recalled wanting to write a document like this, a document that listed all the clues within a game that are presented to the player for them to interpret.

This document is an analysis of the hints and clues featured in a game that is written alongside playing the game, in this case, LucasArts "The Curse of Monkey Island". It will list out all the possible clues or hints that may lead the player towards finding the solution to a puzzle. Some clues may be a blatant as a character telling the player to talk to a certain character to progress, some may be a visual clue that allows the player to subconsciously go where they need to, and in some circumstances the clues may be anti-clues, telling the player that they can't do an action yet. Along with listing the dialogue that is spoken upon each interaction, I also wrote a brief line explaining the significance of the hint. 

So why choose LucasArts "The Curse of Monkey Island" as my first game to study? There were a number of reasons but it mostly came down to the number of verbs are only three and the game has a number of self-contained scenes. The fact that there were only three verbs in this game meant that the number of possible dialogue outcomes that would be dramatically reduced however there is still enough interaction to prevent the verbs from becoming less like clue facilitators and more like immediate actions to be taken. The game is also split into a lot of self-contained scenes meaning that there are more hints that led directly to a solution rather than a puzzle that may occur much later in the game. It's helpful in this study as it will mean that the number of locations and interactions are reduced so shifting through unneeded information is also reduced. I was also interested in how much the visuals were used in the hint system. They often tried in the past to have visual clues but due to the limitation of graphics they weren't clearly shown. This game was made at a time where visual clues were becoming one of the main staples of Adventure game design. One final reason of why I chose this game is, "The Curse of Monkey Island" is one of my favourite Adventure games which I haven't played in awhile, however, I still remember all the solutions so I believed it would fit the parameters I required. 

A brief history, huh... Well, this will be a tad tricky but let's see what I can do.

It all started in 1976 when "Colossal Cave Adventure" was created. This game was developed by Will Crowther, a programmer at Bolt, Beranek & Newman, and a year later, was expanded upon by Don Woods, a student at Stanford University. Crowther based the creation of the game on his experiences exploring the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky where was required to navigate his way around by using the same techniques found in the game. Crowther was also heavily inspired by the tabletop role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons", which led him to create something similar in a digital format as well as something that didn't require other players in order to run. It was the first text-based adventure and later inspired Roberta Williams in the development of the Sierra Adventure games.

In 1980, Roberta Williams alongside her husband Ken Williams founded On-Line Systems (later known as Sierra On-Line) where they produced the first graphical adventure entitled "Mystery House". After the success of their first game, the company continued to produce a number of adventure game series that are still fondly remembered to this day; King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. These games were the momentum that led to the adventure genre being so popular in the late 80's till the mid 90's. These games series also led to the creation of other famous adventure game companies and eventual rival company, Lucasfilm Games.

Lucasfilm Games, which eventually became LucasArts, was founded in 1982 but didn't make their first adventure game till 1986 with the game "Labyrinth: The Computer Game". This game had a unique system of how to enter in the player's inputs. Instead of typing in verbs and nouns, the player selects from two lists. Yes, this does simplify the process but it also prevents the issue of players not knowing what phrase they need to input in order to have the game perform an action. Though this game wasn't a huge success, it did lead to the development of "Maniac Mansion" in 1987. This game was the first point and click game, and also introduced a new style of adventure games. This meant that for the first time players were able to directly interact with the graphical display with the use of the mouse, allowing the player to become much more immersed in the game. This system was able to exist due to the creation of the SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) engine by Ron Gilbert. This engine was continued to be used in later projects up until 1998 where they switched to an engine that could support a 3D gameplay. Some of these well-known games that used the engine include; the Monkey Island series, the Indiana Jones series, the Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and many more. 

Let's start again... Just write what ever comes to mind...

Okay so for today I am going to write two articles/blog posts. (It would help a lot my keyboard would work properly...) One on the basic definition of an Adventure Game and the second on the brief history on the genre. This is because yesterday after writing the first post, my computer decided to crash and since I was writing directly on to the website I lost my work. But hey, lesson learnt. Both of these posts are going to be very basic, only touching on the key points of interest. If I go into too much detail I will lose my main focus and start typing out an essay that is completely unrelated. I was initially planning on making this posts quite professional but I starting to think if I do that it will take way too long to actually write what I want to say. 

Shall we get started then. What is an Adventure game?

An adventure game is a game that is made up out of three components; exploration, storytelling and puzzle solving. Exploration means that the player is able to explore the game environment at their own leisure, often identifying the narrative through this exploration. Storytelling refers to how the game should have a narrative element to the game as it main focus rather than game play mechanics. Puzzle solving is pretty self explanatory, the game must contain problems that the player should be able to solve. These components will elaborated on in a separate post.

From this definition you can see why it is not easy to identify a game that belongs in the genre. As, according to the definition, it could be argued that the Uncharted series, the Dragon Age series, and the Portal series, all belong to the genre. However, the Uncharted games are considered as part of the action/adventure genre, the Dragon Age games are considered RPGs (Role Playing Games) and the Portal games are seen as puzzle games. And why is this the case because the roots lead to the creation of these genres all came from the Adventure genre. This topic will be eventually explored in it own post but for now back to the topic at hand.

​The Adventure genre due to its large spread, people started dividing the genre into sub-categories based on the games interface rather than the main themes. Some of these include; text based adventures, graphical adventures, point and click adventures, escape the room adventures, puzzle adventures, exploration adventures, visual novels and probably others that I have forgotten to mention. (Yes, I will also be writing on each of these sub-genres as well.) These all have direct ties to the original concept of the Adventure genre.

The Adventure genre introduced a number of game mechanics that are still used today in other genres. Some of these are the inventory system, dialogue trees, direct input with a mouse, a number of sound systems and more. So overall, the adventure  genre has had a huge impact in the develop of the medium of games and it is my hope that through this blog entries I can help the genre get the recognition it deserves.