FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
Adventure Games Today
In the past few years, the market for adventure games has grown less steadily than the market for other genres. Adventure games depend less on display technology
than fast-paced action games do; as a result, they get less attention from the gaming press, contributing to a misconception that the adventure game genre is dead. In fact, adventure games are alive and well; they're just not as highly publicized as their high-adrenaline cousins.
The first graphical adventure games came with gorgeously painted but static backdrops for every scene that looked much like theatrical stage sets. Players could see a lot of things but could touch only a few of them. But when graphics technology began to render every object in three dimensions and it became possible to move freely among them, the world became much more immediate and alive. Many adventure games now display a 3D world.
The static-backdrop adventure game is still around, but nowadays it may use scenes created with 3D-rendering software and ray tracing rather than pixel painting. Myst, the first commercial game to use 3D-rendered backgrounds, owes some of its success to its sophisticated graphics.
Other genres are now adopting the puzzle and storytelling features that were once unique to the adventure genre.
