Cing Out

Game types come and go, last year the survival horror genre experienced a bit of renaissance since their high during the 32-bit era. I wonder when will adventure games get their turn?

Adventure games are about as niche as they come these days. Every major studios that specialized in adventure games are now either dead and buried or making other type of games. Nintendo's second party studio CING had a memorable run of games on the DS and Wii (Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk) but they too went bust before the start of this generation. 

As I struggle to solve the mystery of Hotel Dusk, it occurs to me that adventure games will have a hard time making a comeback without undergoing some major overhaul. The chief problem with adventure games are the puzzle or the structure of the storytelling. You missed a vital clue or failed to solve a riddle and the whole structure breaks down and comes to a halt. It's really easy to get stuck in an adventure game and no one likes referring to guides when playing a game.

I started to wonder why can't adventure games be more open-world? You get stuck in one part then maybe you can go and do other stuff while the story branches off to a different outcome. Sadly I have never really seen that in any modern adventure game. The storytelling are usually far too rigid and focused to allow such radical changes. 

I love adventure games and playing Hotel Dusk reminds of those old Lucasarts and Sierra heydays. But I remember I tend to use guides even back in those days to finish those games.