The term "adventure" has several meanings in the video game world. This thread is about the first genre to use the term, the PC-style text and graphic adventures. Text-based games such as Hunt the Wumpus existed on mainframe computers before adventure games. The first actual text adventure game Adventure AKA Colossal Caves was made by Will Crowther on a PDP-1 mainframe computer in 1972. Don Woods expanded upon it afterwards.
Hopefully others can shed some more light on this genre. There's no way I'm attempting a timeline or trying to include everything this time but here are some important companies that contributed to adventure games.
Infocom
Infocom was the dominant producer of text adventures in the 1980's. They popularized the genre in the emerging home computer market with Zork, a game based on Crowther's Adventure. Zork had several sequels and some of the later ones had graphics.
They made handful of science-fiction/humour games such as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, Stationfall and the Leather Goddesses of Phobos series. Some more serious science-fiction ones were Suspended and Starcross.
Some other Infocom games were detective mysteries like Deadline, The Witness, Suspect, and Moonmist.
There are still several text adventures I haven't played but my favorite one so far is Steve Meretzky's 1985 release A Mind Forever Voyaging. AMFV isn't a typical adventure game and it isn't very puzzle-heavy. You are the world's first A.I. sentient being and are given the task of testing a government economic plan in VR form. It doesn't sound exciting from the description but I found it to be a very unique experience and a fascinating tale of the role of A.I. in society.
Infocom also delved into making interactive comics with Lane Mastodon and Gamma Force.
Some other Infocom adventure games are: [b]Trinity[b], Wishbringer, Ballyhoo, Cutthroats, Shogun, Enchanter, Bureaucracy, Hollywood Hijinx, Infidel, The Lurking Horror, and Seastalker.
Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur was released in 1990. The author of this game, Bob Bates, went on found Legend Entertainment and continued to make adventure games.
Sierra
Sierra(originally known as On-Line Systems) released Mystery House in 1980. This game is significant for being the first adventure game with graphics.
http://www.vintage-sierra.com/hires/...s/mhscreen.gif
Mystery House wasn't hugely popular but another game of theirs called King's Quest was a hit and spawned many sequels.
http://www.kidsdomain.com/review/scr...ingsquest7.gif
Sierra didn't make too many pure text adventures but one worth noting is Softporn Adventure, one of the earliest adult games. Sierra later made adult games with graphics such as Al Lowe's Leisure Suit Larry series.
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Other Sierra adventure series include Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, and Conquest of Camelot.
http://www.egri.co.uk/images/policequest2b.gif
Some individual games are Time Zone, Wizard and the Princess, Codename: Iceman, Freddy Pharkas, Cranston Manor, and Adventures in Serenia.
Sierra also released games by a developer they bought up called Dynamix. Dynamix created games such as Willy Beamish and Rise of the Dragon. These PC games were ported to the Sega CD.
Telarium/Windham Classics
This developer created a handful of adventure games in the '80's such as Rendezvous with Rama, Fahrenheit 451, and Wizard of Oz. Below the Root is probably their best known game.
Beam Software
Like Telarium, Beam made adventure games based on literature. They were the first developer to license Tolkien's works The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
http://www.c64gg.com/images/H/Hobbit.ss.gif
Enix
Japanese contributions often go uncredited in this genre. I don't know the exact point when adventure games came to Japan but Enix was making them as early as 1983 with games like Joshiryo Panic, Portpia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken(by Dragon Warrior creator Yuji Horii) and Seiko's Adventure for the PC8801. Their 1985 PC8801 game Karui is possibly an early hentai adventure game. (The first screen is Portpia, the second is Karui)
http://www.uvlist.com/pics/portpia_pc88.gif
http://www.uvlist.com/pics/karui_pc88.gif
Konami
Konami is worth mentioning because they are one of the few Japanese adventure game developers to make a significant impact in the console market. Their computer adventure game Snatcher was remade/ported for various console formats although the Sega CD version was the only one released in English. Like most Japanese-made adventure games, Snatcher has very little challenge or puzzles. Still, the game is brilliantly crafted and entertaining. Despite the lack of gameplay, Snatcher is definitely my favorite Hideo Kojima game.
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/segacd/01/2.html
Snatcher also had a sequel called Policenauts. Let's hope it gets re-released in the West some day.
Konami is also responsible for increasing the popularity of "date-sims" , a sub-genre of adventure games, with their Tokimeki Memorial series. I don't know the full origins of the Japanese date-sim genre but oldest console one I can think of is Nintendo's Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki Highschool for the Famicom Disk System. While the games mentioned above aren't risque, there is a long history of hentai adventure games in Japan, especially on computer formats. The Japanese show no signs of giving up on adult adventure games.
Coktel Vision
The Japanese certainly don't have a monopoly on adult adventure games. French developer Coktel Vision released some as well such as Geisha, Emmanuelle and Fascination. They also released all-ages games like Bargon Attack and Lost in Time.Coktel Vision was bought out by Sierra.
Westwood
Westwood created the sci-fi adventure games The Circuit's Edge and Blade Runner.
[thumbnail]http://www.links.net/dox/warez/games/circuitsedge/pix/bougainvillea.gif[/thumbnail]
Lucasarts
Lucasarts(then known as Lucasfilm Games) released their first graphic adventure in 1987, Maniac Mansion.
http://www.game-research.com/grafik/...ts/Maniac1.jpg
Since then Lucasarts has been one of, if not the, best contributors to the genre. Secret of Monkey Island has had several sequels, even up to the current generation.
My favorite Lucasarts adventure is their 1993 release Sam and Max Hit the Road. The humour, characters, voice-acting, etc. is exceptionally well-done.
http://www.lucasarts.com/20th/images...ry/sam_max.gif
Other Lucasarts adventures include The Dig, Full Throttle, Loom, Day of the Tentacle, Zak McCracken, and Grim Fandango.
http://www.poodlecircus.com/icon/ima...mfandango1.jpg
I-Motion
While I-Motion is best known for their action/adventure series Alone in the Dark, some of their earlier games were graphic adventures. Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice were inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Access Software
Frogacuda made a thread covering games like Mean Streets, Martian Memorandum and Under a Killing Moon. That thread describes them better than I can.
Cyan
They started out innocently enough making games like The Manhole. Then they unleashed Myst, which became a huge phenomenon despite being a boring game. It had nice atmosphere though.
Sega
Sega's now defunct Segasoft label published a few adventure games on PC : the Myst-clone Obsidian and The Space Bar.
For actual Sega-developed games there's Lunacy for the Saturn, a CG FMV adventure similar to Warp's D. I'm sure there are plenty of CG adventure games from the 32-bit era I can't remember. I had hoped that first-generation PS1 game Kowloon's Gate would come out here after seeing Gamefan's preview. I don't remember who developed it.
http://www.ncsx.com/kowgate5.jpg
Sega's biggest contribution to adventure games came courtesy of the king of the arcades, Yu Suzuki. The Shenmue series generates mixed reactions from gamers but I love the games. The Shenmue games don't offer much of a challenge since the they're quite linear and lacking in puzzles but they make up for it with some of the best atmosphere, music, and mini-games(classic arcade games) around.
I'm not if I should mention the Sakura Taisen series. Are these games adventure-like enough or are they too mixed genre to place here? I haven't played any of them.
Microids
Microids is one of the few developers keeping the genre alive today with games like Post Mortem and Syberia. Some other games of theirs are Secret Mission, Amerzone and Road to India. (The first screen is from Post Mortem and the second is from Syberia)
[thumbnail]http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20021112/pm03.jpg[/thumbnail]
http://alianza.meristation.com/adven...Syberia-13.gif
Some other adventure games worth mentioning are Cyberdreams' I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream(because the name is cool), Soft Edge's Cosmology of Kyoto(because it's so damn weird), and Funcom's The Longest Journey.
http://www.adventure-archiv.com/i/nomouth14.jpg
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What are your thoughts on the genre?
