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Geek Culture / Adventure games - 2d or 3d?

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Lampton Worm
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 19:49
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...played a bit of Beneath a Steel Sky recently, and got to thinking that I've only ever really played 2d adventures, apart from the latest monkey island (but I prefered the first one). I never did Grim Fandango, but maybe I should. What do you prefer? I suppose the story should be the main driver, but after that.. sprites or models for that genre?
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Emperor Baal
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 20:03
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Where did you found BaSS? I played the demo a few years ago (I could only repair a robot or something), I love old 2D adventure games! Do you know The Dig? You should try it if you haven't.

I still prefer 2D though, I don't know why, but I think it just owns 3D point&click games.

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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 20:08
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Grim Fandango was pretty cool. The humour in adventure games really is what makes them imo.

I don't know a single one where there haven't been a few moments where I've burst out laughing at something said.

Really I think the best examples of how the Genre has evolved are the Monkey Island Series and Broken Sword Series.
Both are irrifutably landmark mark games of the genre, like Doom / Half-Life are for FPS.

While I do really enjoy the old point'n'click interfaces, Monkey Island 4 and Broken Sword 3 have shown me that you can effectively make these games with them being just as much fun in 3D.
The evolution does open up new possibilities, well once these companies fix the annoying Camera Switch problem.. it's frustrating exiting an area just to run right back into it heh

2D Gives artists far more freedom in terms of what they can create visually. 3D however is capable of adding an extra dimension, especially from a Controller input device.

Broken Sword 3 for example, albiet a lil too short; provides the gamer with some new style of gameplay.
Objects are still used in bizzare manners, and the character interaction is still very much there providing you with different question avenues; but the ability to traverse a 3D environment; sort of like a Grid'Puzzle version of Tomb Raider is pretty cool. Especially when you still have some classic puzzles like pushing stones to block spikes from making you a human sish-kabarb, or using multiple items in an order to get a door to open.

New action elements in the game also provide more of a 'actually there' feel. Like at the start you have to press the action button at just the right time to stop from getting shot.

Both varieties have thier upsides and downsides. Personally though I would say I lean towards the 3D Adventure Game there might not be many of them, but those that are, really do stand out quite well.
Something particularly impressive with Broken Sword 3 really is the graphics; dynamic shadows & light, radiosity lightmapping, if it weren't for the poor shading effects on the characters themselves and poor animations the game would definately be one of the most polished i've seen.


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Van B
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 20:23
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There is quite a lengthy post about this in game design.

Personally I'd use both, like a 3D world furnished with 2D sprites - giving you the artistic freedom of 2D without the usual zdepth and collision headaches. I made a little demo a while back of a mini Gaybrush running around, and it was damn tricky to get everything working with just a couple of furniture sprites - I could have done it all much quicker in 3D.


Van-B


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Lampton Worm
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 21:26
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@Van-B, I'll take a look at that post, sounds interesting.

@Emperor Baal, I got it free a few months back with Retro Gamer..

@Raven, some good points there. From a practical point of view, not being a 2d artist, I'd lead towards 3d if I was going it, but the ones I've found best to play so far have been 2d. That might just be the fact that I've not explored the 3d ones too much yet. I know you mean about the camera flip, that is mad annoying and to my mind so easy to remedy.

While I love the humour that is in most point & click games, I think there is a gap in the market to make a more serious game in that genre.. maybe..? I guess it all comes down to a good story Any remember Darkseed? I had a demo of that on the Amiga, it was good as I recall but hard. Giger did the art maybe?
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Van B
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 21:36
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Yeah, I remember Dark Seed, it is a very classy game - very engrossing, and gothic. Geiger did the art, and it's pretty evident all over the place - you should grab a copy of WinUAE and the amiga rom for it. A PC game like that would be cool, especially with a good screen resolution.


Van-B


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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 22:02
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Yeah maybe a serious game would be cool. I wouldn't mind something like a Noir detective story, that would fit nicely. Something similar to 'Search for the Marble Falcon'

I think the Gabriel Knight stories were suppose to be like that, but then never really peaked my interest much so never played any of them.


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Van B
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 22:12
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If you went for a serial killer setting, that would rock - it's never been done before and a point and clicker would be an ideal system for it. You'd just have to think of a good and creepy motive and purpose. Maybe he kills people who beat him at online games - something homely and sinister usually works.

Imagine exploring a victims house looking for clues, you could go for Se7en/Saw/Cell style visuals. You would have to think of a clever ending though, point and click is no good for traditional shoot outs . I truly scary game without resorting to 'jump out at you' tactics, now that's something I'd certainly check out.


Van-B


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spooky
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 22:25
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I have played and finished all the monkey island games and am still playing the 3D one - Escape from Monkey Island. The graphics are lovely but I still prefer 2D adventures. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was another game I loved.

I still have beneath a steel sky on my Amiga and I think I still have Dark Seed somewhere.

I also enjoyed Simon the Sorceror, Curse of Enchantia, Lure of the Temptress, e.t.c.

I am also into the Myst series of games which are 2D but in a rendered 3D environment. Finished the first three without cheating - took me a bloomin long time though - the puzzles are seriously mindblowing.

Did not realise Myst IV came out recently so ordered that today.

So overall I prefer adventures with lovely rendered graphics with a flipscreen approach with a nice clean gui where everything makes sense.

Right, back to playing The Hobbit...

Boo!
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Lampton Worm
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Posted: 11th Nov 2004 23:46
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Something that just passed my mind, if it was a 2d game, could go down the route of having all places/people 'digital' as apposed to hand drawn, so either do a 2d sprite capture of a 3d model or use a digital camera. Using digital camera could be good for some gory stuff! So, monkey island, with scanned in characters/locations, and a serial killer plot? Mental

One thing from a practical point of view, hunders of rooms = hundreds of images. If its 3d, could have a catalogue of objects then re-use them to 'construct' the rooms as apposed to them all pre-existing. Mind you, 2d images arn't that large (jpg/png). Just thinking out loud.
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Van B
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 00:14 Edited at: 12th Nov 2004 00:18
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Yeah, I don't think a 3D character is the way to go - a simple plain, textured with the character sprites would do the same job but look after most of the niggly 2D stuff for you (like Z sorting and scaling).

When I mention 3D, I mean use that as the basis for your engine, but use traditional 2D techniques too, like take a photo of a bush, texture it to a plain, and with a fixed camera it'd look as good as traditional 2D. The 3D is just really a method of sidestepping the tricky 2D stuff that 3D can do far easier and with much more benefits. You could actually use 1 big texture, like UV map from the camera position so the image is sorta projected forward onto the mesh - a whole scene with 1 texture - and the cool thing is it won't matter as long as the camera is fixed.


Van-B


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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 01:00
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I dunno, they had real characters rendered in a few Adventure games.
Like 'under a killing moon' and 'toon town'... while i really liked UAKM, the realistic movie aspect was a HUGE turn off wanting to play it again.

good storyline though

there is nothing against using 3D, but within a 2D point'and'click environment you know. in-fact you could put in one hell of alot more detail and create specific screen effects because you know it'll only be viewed from a given angle. also would allow you to create one hell of alot more content without huge file sizes.


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Lampton Worm
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 01:01
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Good ideas there Van once thing with a single image is lighting, at least if its a model (the location) could use DBP lights to get some dynamic effects, and the lighting would affect the player 'sprite' a bit too. Although I'm sure I saw something done like this in the early days, an image with some kinda dynamic lighting on it? Hmm. Might have that in the archives.

Either way, if an adventure had 999 rooms, and each room was a 120k 1024x768 jpeg, its quite large overall. The idea of constructing a room on the fly is interesting to me, but might not look as good as it would be fairly basic. But collision in 3d is easy enough. Dunno, might try some stuff out. Guess its finding a balance, but some serious food for thought.
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Lampton Worm
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 01:08
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..another thought, could use CShop (2) to draw a room, then save the collision data and use that info to create the basic room out of DBP boxes, then place items based on an entity file. The size of a data file containing a room geom description would be small and I could either create the DBP boxes on the fly, or have a master then clone on the fly, same for the 'items' or detail such as a chair etc.

Either way, its better (space wise) than individual models/images for each room? Hmmmmm, more stuff for me to play with. The caveat of course is that between rooms there would be a delay while the objects are made/cloned/positioned/textured, but depending on the detail it might be acceptable? i.e. if its 1 second on an average machine, I'd view that as ok.

Loads-a-things to think on.
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Jeku
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 02:21
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I quite prefer the "2D-3D" adventures to 3D. Those old 2D games always gave the illusion of 3D, i.e. you could walk behind layers, and the gags were great in those ones. Some of the exceptional examples of 2D adventure games: Sam 'n' Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, and the entire Space Quest series (except for 6).

Now that Beneath a Steel Sky is available for free to play in SCUMM, I am trying to solve it. It's a little tricky, though

I own Grim Fandango, but I think the interface is aweful. Who made the decision to scrap the mouse in its entirety!?! Argh.


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Lampton Worm
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 04:36
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Well, playing about I can create a 123 box `map`, basic texturing, in 123 milliseconds (according to the diff in what is returned from the timer command called before and after loading/creating).. pretty good result.

Actually I used to demo map from CShop2, exported to .col etc. I'm probably consider knocking up an editor if I did something this route, seeing as no texture info is in the .col and I don't want a massive bmp for each location, defeats the point. Could just extend the .col exported I guess. Anyway, it was a test, and it worked good I reckon.

The .col file is currently 4.5k, as a .X its 163k, as dbo its 173k, so I think I'm on to something.

Of course, its all just boxes so far, but its a start.

Combined with my array experiments of late, I've got some ideas and inspiration from this post, so I think I'm going pull this all together and Christen this sort-of project "Silverback". Why? Becuase its big. And its scary.

p.s. shout up any hates about point and click games.. the accidentally flipping into another room is one, and removing the mouse element is another.

Back to the lab..
Cheers.
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Oraculaca
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 07:19
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Grim Fandango and also most of the Sierra point and clicks were my favs I also really liked Loom for incorporating music into the puzzle solving although on a 7mhz CGA pc with internal speaker and 650meg hard drive It wasnt much to look at.
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 08:09
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Being able to find clues in a scene is something that always irked me a lil.
you'd scan your mouse across the scene to try and find something to play with as the icon changed; but you never actually really knew what it was until you did a 'look at' on it.

also there was never anything useless to play with or checkout. everything always seemed to have a use in a room; i like the whole 'false hope' items in BS3


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