Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg

Is iPhone a good platform for adventure games?

I was sitting in wait for an appointment today and like most of the times when I'm away somewhere and bored, I checked if there was anything new to buy/download on the AppStore for the iPhone. At the featured list I saw Beneath a Steel Sky for a fair price. For those of you who don't know about it; it's an old point & click adventure game and is by some referred to as a cult game.

Right away I thought about buying it but in the end, the meeting began and the choice was made for me.

I've decided not to buy it, because I can't see myself dedicating that much time on a game for the iPhone. I just can imagine spending hours and hours on a visual adventure, holding the phone while playing it.

Is iPhone a great or lousy platform for point & click adventure games? (Yes, my world is black and white. There is no gray.)

The Good

I can really see some potential here. The first and most obvious one is the way of interaction. What do you do in those games? You click on stuff? What's the iPhone's main way of interaction? You point and touch on the screen. Fantastic! So you can just touch on the stuff you want to interact with.

In addition to just clicking, I think it would be possible to use some really nifty multi-touch and accelerometer-features in an adventure game developed exclusively for the iPhone! They could be incorporated into the core gameplay or just add them to some form of mini-games. Mini-games in adventure games actually have been proven to be a lot of fun with games such as Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis for example. It would add some variety.

It seems that adventure games is a perfect genre for shorter adventures. Just look at Sam & Max and the Tales of Monkey Island from Telltale. They're released in episodes that are only a few hours each. Of course this is a marketing strategy, but I (as a gamer) think this is great, because adventure games (again, me, as a gamer) can get much less fun if you spend way too much time with them. And if there's something that the AppStore does well, it's the distribution of smaller apps and episodic updates/releases.

Since adventure games most often aren't real time dependant, you can stop playing them at any time and you can play them for any short duration of time. This is perfect for a game on the go. So if I had a great (and adapted) adventure game on the iPhone, I could play it on the bus!

The Bad

I wouldn't necessarily call these things "bad", but maybe "challenges" as they can be worked on.

Adventure games are seldom "pick up and play". Sure, the mechanics are simply, but the games usually require you to invest some time into it to get hooked. Anyone can pick up Tetris and have a go at it. With so many games on the AppStore, I think you must really hook the player at once. It's no way near impossible, but something you have to consider. Then again, in the end, as long as people buy the game it doesn't matter if they play it or not. Right? (Wrong!)

If you're to have voice acting in the game, the file size will increase quite drastically (not to mention development cost). It doesn't have to be a problem, but if the game is 100mb, I can't download it while I'm away, waiting for that meeting.

The Ugly

To be honest, I don't know much about any adventure game out there for the iPhone except for some ports from PC. I love Monkey Island (oh god, how I love those games...) but I have no interest in playing The Secret of Monkey Island Deluxe Edition on my phone. The PC-games are made for screens of 15" and up, not 3.5".

The same goes for Beneath a Steel Sky.

For an adventure game to be really, really great on the iPhone, you have to consider the specs from day one and have big things to interact with or something. Once again, not difficult, but it "has to" be done.

Not all games and interfaces are fit for the iPhone

The more I think and write about it, the more I want to have a go at it! Hey people, let's do a kick ass adventure game for the iPhone! Ideas are already popping up in my head!