Hello all, have been working on ideas for a game and did what I usually do, looked at all of the games I have played in the past and disected them to find the parts that "hooked" me. One of the game types I would like to emulate is the old Kings Quest series but with an old west (American) theme. I know it is the story that drives these types of games and I am still roughing it out but what I was curious about is do you fine people think that type of a game can compete in these days of 3D graphics. Was also thinking of making the target audience from 8-15 with very low violence if any at all. GRELLIN
Good luck!

The graphical adventure game genre (often dominated by Sierra titles in the 80s and LucasArts titles in the 90s) has very few current commercial titles, but it does have a large amateur following. In fact, there are several current systems for making adventure games for PC, which require more scripting skill than programming skill.

Try this board for links.

I personally love the genre. I see it as the arthouse cinema alternative to a Hollywood-like swathe of first-person-shooter clones. It allows designers to be particularly arty in their concepts, story, dialogue and graphics. (Sometimes they go a little overboard with the stylised backdrops though.)

The new handheld market may be the place for adventure games. Revolution software are releasing a port of their acclaimed Broken Sword on GBA. I''m currently working on an adventure game engine for the Pocket PC.

By the way, a wild-western themed adventure game was released a while back. I think it''s called Freddy Pharkas - Frontier Pharmacist. It''s a relatively unexplored area, though.

My opinion is that younger players (like your target audience) are more likely to play 3D games than 2D. They are much more attention grabbing and sustaining.

However, the latest batch of quest games have used 3D characters in 2D environments (Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 4 from LucasArts and Quest for Glory 5 and the last Gabriel Knight from Sierra). Maybe a combination of the two would work for you also.

quote: One of the game types I would like to emulate is the old Kings Quest series but with an old west (American) theme

Heh, you just described Gold Rush by Sierra

I haven't played any of the games you all mentioned (The only graphical adventure I played was Maniac Mansion on C64) but as far as designing an OLD WEST adventure/rpg type game I have given this alot of thought and what I concluded is that since the predominant weapons of the era were pistols and rifles to effectively model combat you would have to allow the player to view a relatively large portion of the game world so he could use his winchester to "dry gulch" some bad guys (go ahead, ask me how you dry gulch the bad guys!). Personally I find that if your playing a game and you have a super longrange weapon but can't use it to your advantage because the scale is all wrong really PULLS me out of the game (MechCommander).

I suppose there are alot of workarounds for the problem I mentioned above as far as in a graphical adventure; just don't include rifles! Or script in some kind of scene where your character is ambushed, he hears the "ka-zing" of ricochets and dives for cover behind a rock or something then the baddies walk up followed by a dialogue sequence etc....

[edited by - nonnus29 on March 21, 2002 11:19:32 AM]