How to write... an Adventure game

Speak-Speak

One of the other important aspects of an adventure game is the dialogue between the player and the characters. Dialogue isn’t something which is typically seen in an interactive form in FPS or puzzle games and is often limited to players simply being told to ‘go to X and blow up Y’. In adventure games though the dialogue will often play a prominent part and must be suitably snappy and gripping.

One of the best ways to keep players sat through long streams of dialogue is to use humour to keep things interesting – something which Dave Grossman has proven experience of. Having worked on some of the best traditional adventure games ever, as well as some of the funniest, Dave obviously has a rather large funny-bone.

Could it be though that the adventure game genre has come to rely on humour to draw in players and keep them entertained? What did Dave think about other games, such as those made at Quantic Dream, which try to treat adventure games with a more serious tack?

“I do think humour has an attraction of its own beyond anything inherent in the gameplay, and I also find that the audience for a comedy game is more willing to forgive you when things don't ring true, just as long as it's funny... adventure games (other games, too) are certainly capable of capturing a broad range of themes and tones, though they have not done so to any great degree as yet -- as a dramatic medium I'd say they're still in their infancy, and there is much to be learned.”


Using games as a dramatic medium though was something which David Cage set out explicitly to do with Fahrenheit, making a massive leap forward compared to the point-and-click games of the early 90’s. David Cage too agreed that the medium of adventure games and games as a whole has not yet been truly mastered, but he retains high hopes for the future of the genre;

“When the genre is really mastered, it will be as intense, enriching, inspiring and fascinating as the best movies we saw or the best books we read. And it will do it in its own way, with its own language, with a bigger power than any other media. It is just a matter of time.”

I don’t know about you, but personally I find that kind of enthusiasm and hope to be both invigorating and contagious. At the same time though it doesn’t really address the practical issues of how dialogue is created in an adventure game.

With so many possible paths through even a single conversation in a game like Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, it must be incredibly taxing to ensure that the player gets all the critical information and don’t miss an instruction without knowing. Right, Dave(s)?

“It does take a fair amount of time to write one of these things, even with multiple writers on the project. I find it useful to lay out a functional skeleton for the script before I start actually putting dialogue into it, which helps me to wrap my brain around the big picture more securely, as well as keeping me aware of the size of the remaining material so I can stay on schedule,” said Dave Grossman.


“Keeping the player interested tends to fall out of keeping MYSELF interested -- I'm always thinking about the characters, what non-obvious takes they might have on the situation at hand, and what things they might reveal about themselves from moment to moment. Also, I try to be funny as much as possible... In Sam and Max the sense of humour oozes palpably from the brain of Steve Purcell. It's really fun to write like Steve and I generally accomplish it by sitting at my desk and pretending to be him. I even imagine myself wearing his trademark hat.”

Once again though, David Cage had a remarkably different approach to the process of writing and managing his characters. David outlined how, instead of using a script skeleton and then inserting dialogue, he used a single game design document which contained all the information.

“Writing a game like Fahrenheit was a lot of work and the final game design document was about 2000 pages. I generally try to have a solid narrative arc for each individual scene (hook, climax, epilogue) which makes each scene a short movie.”

With all that work going into just the dialogue and design of a single game, it really saddens me when people say that ‘adventure games are boring’ or ‘nobody plays adventure games anymore except in Germany.’ One can only imagine how our two designers must feel...