A play of adventure , is a Type of video game and more precisely a work of interactive Fiction in the form of video game. Thus, a play of adventure constitutes a fiction, like a Film, a Romance or a Cartoon, one of her main objectives is the narration of a history.

The play of adventure is detached on the other hand from the other supports because of its interactivity, the player who can act on the history. Certain sets of adventures offer several junctions thus scenaristic. As a work of fiction, the plays of adventure touch a great number of literary kinds: Fantasy , Science fiction, police officer, horror or comedy.

From the point of view of the programmer, a play of adventure is a basic kind of data. Information which is arranged in the software forms the description of the world in which the player will be driven. Moreover, this database is interactive. Indeed, the player modifies information according to his actions in the world. Insofar as a world or part of a world must be described, the quantity of information which it is necessary to take into account is important.

The plays of adventure are sometimes called, wrongly, Roleplays or English RPG. The border between the two kinds holds in the importance attached to the enigmas (play of adventure) or to the combat and statistics (roleplay). Certain plays, the plays of action - ventures, are also in extreme cases between the plays of adventure and another kind.

Textual plays of adventure

In 1972, William Crowther, a programmer, amateur of roleplays and speleology, working at Bolt, Beranek and Newman , a company of Boston which deals with the routers of ARPANet develops on PDP-10 of BBN, a software which it calls Adventure or The Colossal Undermines . The play, which simulates the displacement of a player in a cave where it makes many meetings, handles many textual messages. He is written in FORTRAN, the language available on the machine, which however, with its weaknesses in the treatment of the character strings, is not ideal. The program, to be able to be carried out, requires close to 300  KB of main memory, which is, for the time, colossal. However, the first play of adventure was born and he is played much on all the machines connected to ARPANet.

Four years later, Gift Woods, another programmer, discovers the play on the machine of its company and brings to him, with the agreement of Crowther, a certain number of improvements. Large amateur of the universe of Tolkien, it also introduced there elements which come from it like Elfe S, Troll S and a Volcan.

The same year, Jim Gillogly of the RAND Corporation spends several weeks to carry the code -   with the agreement of Woods and Crowther  - FORTRAN towards the C under Unix.

The ventures in an armchair thus had just entered the world of the play, but it remained still limited to the people who had access to a minicomputer. With the explosion of the microprocessing , as of 1977, it was going to be able to leave to the attack a market much vaster. This migration was made by Scott Adams.

The pioneer, Scott Adams

One of the programmers who on the occasion to be inserted in the colossal Cave names Scott Adams. After ten days of visit of the undergrounds, it solved the whole play and became large Master. Consequently occasion, a passion was born. Owner of a TRS 80 and conscious that everyone does not have access to a PDP 10, it decides to create an adventure on his microphone. Remain the problem to insert a great quantity of information in the small memory of the machines of this time. At this point in time, remembering that he wrote many interpreters, he discovers that this type of software is exactly that which he needs. Moreover, once the interpreter developped at the point, it can be useful, again, for other adventures.

The series of the adventures of Scott Adams -   produced 1978 with 1985   - was born and the company Adventure International will follow quickly. The first adventures are written in BASIC. Then, for reasons speed response, Adams retranscribes them in assembler. They are also entirely textual. With the advent of the graphic adventures, the series is put on this new standard and account up to twelve adventures. After this successful migration, the kind is launched and is spread quickly.

The twelve adventures of Scott Adams are Adventureland , Pirate Adventure (also called Pirate' S Cove ), Secret Mission (called in an original manner Mission impossible ), Voodoo Castle , The Count , Strange Odyssey , Mystery Fun House , Pyramid off Doom , Ghost Town , Savage Island , Part I & II and The Golden Travels .

The Infocom plays

In 1977, two friends, Dave Lebling and Marc Blank, then students with the Laboratory for Computer Science of the Massachusetts Institute off Technology, discover Colossal Cellars Adventure , the play of Crowther and Woods. After having supplemented the adventure, they are joined by Tim Anderson and Bruce Daniels and starts to think of the design of a similar play. Their first production, Zork , see the day it-also on a minicomputer PDP 10 and are spread very quickly by the ARPANet network. Success is immediate and this version, which will reach the size of a Mégaoctet, enormous for the time, will know updates until in 1981.

The studies coming to a end, the students of the Laboratory for Computer Science decide to remain together and to form a company. Finally, Infocom is created the June 22nd 1979 by Tim Anderson, Joel Berez, Marc Blank, Mike Broos, Scott Cutler, Stu Galley, Dave Lebling, J.C.R. Licklider, Chris Reeve et al. Vezza. Very quickly the idea to diffuse Zork comes to them to mind, but its size prohibits the bearing in the state towards the microcomputers of the time, the APPLE II and the TRS 80, the potential targets, not exceeding 16 KB of RAM. They then conceive a special computer programming language, which via an emulator, can function on any computer and which they call Z Machine . Then they make some cuts and end up inserting the play in the microphones.

In November 1980, Zork I the new version is available for PDP 11, one month later, it leaves on TRS-80 and more than 1500 copies are sold between this date and September 1981. This same year, Bruce Daniels finalizes the version for APPLE II and more 6  000 copies are added to the sales. All confused platforms, Zork I will end up being sold to more than one million specimens.

The company continues its developments of textual adventures while opening a section to develop professional software, section which will be never profitable. Judged plays of great quality, the worked scenarios, with an unequalled parser, neat documentation and forming integral part of the play, follow one another, concerning all the kinds, but unfortunately for Infocom, the power of the microphones increase and the appearance of graphics, which she refuses to integrate in her works, will make him great wrong. The sales do nothing but decrease. In 1989, Infocom counts nothing any more but 10 employees, whereas with his apogee, the company occupied to 100 people with the development of its plays.

The products developed after 1989 under the name of Infocom, do not have any bond with the original team.

Adventures of Infocom: Zork I: The Great Underground Worsens (1980), Zork II: The Wizard off Frobozz (1981), Zork III: The Dungeon Master (1982), Beyond Zork (1987), Zork Zero: The Revenge off Megaboz (1988), To enchant (1983), Sorcerer (1984), Spellbreaker (1985), Deadline (1982), Starcross (1982), Suspended (1983), The Witness (1983), Planetfall (1983), Infidel (1983), Seastalker (1984), Cutthroats (1984), The Hitch-Hiker' S Guides to the Galaxy (1984), Suspect (1984), Wishbringer: The Magick Stone off Dreams (1985), has Mind Forever Voyaging (1985), Ballyhoo (1985), Trinity (1986), Leather Goddesses off Phobos (1986), Moonmist (1986), Hollywood Hijinx (1986), Bureaucracy (1987), Stationfall (1987), The Lurking Horror (1987), Northern and Bert Couldn' T Make Head gold Tail off It (1987), Plundered Hearts (1987), Border Zone (1987), Sherlock: The Riddle off the Crown Jewels (1987), James Clavell' S Shogun (1989), Journey (1989), Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur (1989) (only the three last are graphic adventures).

The graphic track

The great innovation which follows was the introduction of the image. The use of the allowing machine language of the shorter programs and the memory of the machines increasing, it becomes possible to use the graphic possibilities of a computer like the APPLE II. Very quickly it remains hardly than the Infocom company to write purely textual adventures.

However, the first moment of surprised spent, a summary graphics, awkward white lines on a bottom uniformly black, does not remain a long time impossible to circumvent. The graphic style, to reach maturity, requires a true esthetic quality, graphic means to implement it and creators, craftsmen of these requirements.

In the tread, plays exploiting the graphic resources available as well as possible are put on the market like Sherwood Forest (1982), Masquerade (1983) of Dale Johnson or Transylvania (1982, arisen in 1984) by Antonia Antiochia.

Another difficulty arises then: the introduction of the images into the plays of adventure implies more important storage capacities. The first graphic adventures require a great number of Disquette S for their installation, and this until the Cédérom does its appearance.

This problem of storage will make hesitate industry a few years between graphics of the vectorial type or type bitmap. This last type, allowing more smoothness in the representation but requiring more important storage capacities will end up carrying it.

The initiator Sierra

At the end of the Years 1970, Ken Williams seeks to assemble a firm softwares intended for the companies and functioning on the APPLE II, the computer which dominates the market at the time. One day, it brings back at his place, to work with the development of a program of accountancy, a terminal of teleprinter. Excavating in the catalog, it finds a program named Aventure . It calls then his wife Roberta and both carry out it. Their meeting with the play of Crowther and Woods again will inflect the history of the video game considerably. They are thus put to play thanks to the terminal, with 2  000  km of distance, with a version of Colossal Cellars Adventure , which is now on all the minicomputers of the country. Williams are hung, they go until the end of the play.

Having finished, they are put in the search of something of similar, but at the time, the market is developed very little. Roberta Williams is then put to think of its own play. Of textual adventure much it likes the concept, however she thinks that with images, the player has more satisfactory experience of play. She creates thus Mystery House , the first graphic play of adventure, a police intrigue inspired of the Ten small negros of Agatha Christie.

Ken spends a few nights to develop the play on its APPLE II and finally they make packages with zippés plastic bags containing the diskette 5 inches 1/4 of the play and a photocopied paper describing it, packages which they leave in deposit in the local shop of software. With their great surprise, Mystery House is an enormous success, and even if Ken thinks that the market of the play is much less carrying than that the professional software, he perseveres. Thus Williams found, in 1980, On-Line Systems , which will become On-line Sierra in 1982, a company which will be a major actor of the video game in the Années 1980 and 1990.

But Sierra does not remain about it there. Hitherto, the adventures are plays with the first nobody , the images present the decoration as seen through the eyes of the player. The company of Williams will introduce an innovation into its series of the King' S Quest , the play with the third nobody . Indeed, benefitting from the techniques developed in the plays of action which progressed much in parallel, Ken will introduce into the image an animated character that the player handles and who represents it in the universe of the play. With the “3D Animated Adventures” , a new standard was born and almost all industry will seize some. The orders however always entered to the keyboard by the player and analyzed by a parser, as for the textual adventures.

Sierra will never cease developing new handsets and innovating by pushing back the technical limits until its repurchase by Cendant in 1998.

adventures developed by Sierra : Mission Asteroid (1980, arisen by SierraVenture, 1982)), Mystery House (1980, produced in 1979, arisen by SierraVenture in 1982), The Wizard and the Princess/Adventure in Serenia (1980, arisen by SierraVenture in 1982), Cranston Manor (1981), Ulysses and the Golden delicious Fleece (1981, arisen by SierraVenture in 1982), Softporn Adventure (1981), Time Zone (1982 (produced in 1981, arisen by SierraVenture in 1982), Dark Hook (1982), Gelfling Adventure (1984), Mickey' S Space Adventure (1984), The Black Cauldron (1984, arisen in 1986), Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood (1986), Dragon' S Keep , Troll Bruise , Gold Rush! (1988), The Colonel' S Bequest (1989), Codename: Iceman (1989), Conquests off Street pedlar: King Arthur, The Search for the Grail (1989), Laura Bow II: Dagger off Amon Ra (1991), Eco Quest 1: The Search for Cetus , Eco Quest 2: Secret Lost off the Rainforest (1991), Conquests off Long Bow: The Adventures off Robin Hood (1992), Freddy Pharkas , Frontier Pharmacist (1993), Urban Runner (1995), Rowed (1996), Lighthouse (1996), Shivers (1996), Shivers II: Harvest off Drunk (1997), Betrayal in Antara (1997).

and series:

  • the series King' S Quest : eight plays marketed between 1984 and 1998

  • the series Space Quest : six plays marketed between 1996 and 1995
  • the series Leisure Follows Larry : eight plays and three republications marketed between 1987 and 2004
  • the series Police force Quest : six plays marketed between 1987 and 1998
  • the series Hero' S Quest ( Quest for Glory ): five plays marketed between 1989 and 1998

  • the series Manhunter : Manhunter: New York (1988), Manhunter 2: San Francisco (1989)

  • the series Phantasmagoria : Phantasmagoria (1995), Phantasmagoria II: With Puzzle off Flesh (1996), Phantasmagoria Stagefright (1997)

A new interface: the mouse

The LucasArts plays

In 1987, nobody seems to be able to fight against the power of Sierra, when a programmer named Ron Gilbert with the collaboration of Aric Wilmunder working for the company Lucasfilm Games -   become since LucasArts   - develops a fundamental projection: the written form by scripts Scumm and interfaces it Point and click (point-and-to click). Instead of having to type the order intended for the parser, this one is seized by means of textual icons. To interact with his environment, the player clicks on an order, an icon representing an object of his inventory or on a zone of the image. The rupture with the time of the textual adventures is definitively consumed. This system is implemented for the first time in the play Maniac Mansion .

LucasArts also will differ from its main competitor, the Sierra giant, by reconsidering certain concepts of the plays of adventure. It is not thus possible any more to die during the play, as that was current hitherto, obliging the player to develop a strategy of safeguards. In the same way, all is made so that the player is never completely wedged in the play. Lastly, the plays of LucasArts will give up the system of points which indicate the progression of the player in the adventure.

One enters finally the golden age of the play of adventure. These innovations are immediately taken into account by competition, Sierra in particular.

The first attempts of Gilbert, Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken however remain 16 colors and point-and-to click it is not completely integrated. It is with The Secret off Monkey Island that one arrives at a completed realization, offering 256 colors, one point-and-to click complete, a system of dialogs with optional answers, enigmas to be solved by means of the inventory, of original graphics, the very characteristic humor and background music. But especially, the scenario was conceived like that of a film, which the house can make, and the dialogs and the inventory are with the service of this scenario. The exit, in 1993, of the Day off the Tentacle , a remarkable success, lance a line of realization in the style Cartoon .

One will note the collaboration of Steven Spielberg and LucasArts for the realization of The Dig , an adventure of Science-fiction that the realizer had considered, one moment, to turn.

Benefitting again from advanced plays of action and integrating an engine similar to the plays of the type Play of subjective shooting ( first person shooter ), the company takes a new turning in 1998 with the play Grim Fandango where it gives up the style cartoon and its environment of scriptage SCUMM for new named GrimE which manages the system of play in 3D.

Adventures of LucasArts/LucasGames: Labyrinth (1986), Maniac Mansion (1987) + improved edition, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988) + improved edition, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Loom (1990) + edition CD, Secret The off Monkey Island (1990), Monkey Island 2: LeChuck' S Revenge (1991), Indiana Jones and the Fate off Atlantis (1992), Maniac Mansion 2: Day off the Tentacle (1993), Sam & max: Hit the Road (1993), Full Throttle (1994), The Dig (1995), The Curse off Monkey Island (1997), Grim Fandango (1998), Monkey Island 4: Escape From Monkey Island (2000), Indiana Jones and the Explosive device (1999), Indiana Jones: the tomb of the emperor (2003) .

The Myst series

In 1991, whereas the world of the play of adventure seem forever dominated by LucasArts, in a garage of Spokane, the state of Washington, the small team of 9 men of the company Cyan Worlds directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller starts to push the software HyperCard of Apple in its last cuttings off and by means of a battery of Macintosh Quadra, invents a new type of adventure, making of the nine with old man. Indeed, their play, Myst , are a play with the first nobody, it comprises few animations, but the images completely leave the style “cartoon” which prevails at the time and seek the hyper realism. The play is intriguing, fascinating, and it allows an immersion in its universe never yet reached.

The adventure starts on an island, the player is in complete ignorance. No the inventory either, one can carry only one object at the same time. The enigmas are rather traditional in their design. However, thanks to his excavated graphics where all could be important, the player is caught by the play.

A share of its success seems also related to the fact that, for the first time, a video game did not appear to be intended for a public of male teenagers, but for adult many people. Left in 1993, Myst was thus the most advantageous play of all times and will be sold with more than 9 million specimens, all confused platforms.

Myst gave place to several continuations: Riven and Myst III: Exile like Myst IV: Revelation , a continuation left in September 2004 and finally the last Myst V: End off old. There is also a Online game massively multijouor, Uru: Old Beyond Myst , which really does not return in the series '' Myst ''. Three derived novels find their origin in his world Myst, the book of Atrus , Myst. 2, the book of Ti' ana and Myst. 3, the book of nor . The play was also parodied by Pyst of Parroty Interactive.

French production

Infomedia

  • Explored " Time Run" (Chronoquest)

  • Explored 2 (Chronoquest 2)
  • Explora 3 - Under the sign of the snake

Delphine International Software

Coktel Vision

Lankhor

Towards a new handset of adventure

The 3D carried a fatal blow to the kind as from 1996. The new styles of gameplay, of more immediate access (set of platforms, play of shooting) supplanted soon near a public, from now on of mass, the plays of adventure, traditionally demanding intellectually. But it is not the only reason. The " kind; point-and-cliquer" had enormously evil to technically adapt to the standards of the 3D, as the two last achievements of LucasArts in this field prove it, Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island . Lastly, the base of the Gameplay the resolution of enigmas advancing the history is included and integrated in other kinds, like the roleplay. The sales did not cease dropping. About 2002, the kind is regarded as death, in spite of of course the few always isolated attempts (like Drunk The NOMAD or Outcast ).

In 2003, the French editor Focus tries a gamble and raid the setting: Runaway and The Westerner is great successes. The kind seems to breathe somewhat, with Tony Tough , Broken Sword 3: The manuscript of Voynich or Fahrenheit .

There are several reasons with the renewed interest of the “point & click”. On the one hand, the plays in 2D are much easier to realize than the plays in 3D and especially much less expensive, in a context of inflation which gallops of the production costs which ruins the dynamism and the creativity of the video game. In addition, their technical standards are much less low; they adapt to a very large machine stock, including those of a not very inclined public to renew its material with the current rhythm of the race to technology. Lastly, their linear and narrative style constitutes excellent artistic reference marks with a population diverted by the current gameplay and whose images of reference are those of the Cinéma.

Some memorable adventures

; And more recently

Sources

  • Gerald Anfossi, programming of the plays of adventure , Editions of the PSI, Paris, 1985
  • David Mitchell, Year Adventure in Programming Techniques , Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., London, 1986

External bonds

  • the page of Colossal Undermines Adventure
  • a version java of Colossal Undermines Adventure
  • the site of Scott Adams the textual adventures are downloadable there.
  • the site of Sierra
  • a site on Infocom
  • documentations of Infocom in .pdf
  • the site of LucasArts
  • the site of Cyan
  • site of plays of adventure - AAetcie
  • Planet Ventures, the site of reference in French
  • the Sanctuary of the Adventure; French-speaking site on the plays of adventure
  • the European French site
  • the Legend of Baphomet: site devoted to the series of the Knights of Baphomet
  • a site of reference on the plays of adventure
  • Some adventures in Abandonware
  • Adventure Gamers a site of current events on the sets of adventures with criticisms, forums, etc
  • Ventured It Es Ventured It recencement (Spanish)
  • of the engines of plays of adventure (tools for creation) with their characteristics (in English)

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