Quick, what’s the most popular genre out there in gaming? If you said first-person shooting, you’d be…dead wrong! However, FPS games are one of the most marketable genres out there, alongside MMO and puzzle games. And now, thanks to The Walking Dead, adventure games are also riding a wave of popularity. Take it away Ron “Monkey Island” Gilbert!
“I think, with The Walking Dead, it’s kind of proof of the mass marketing of adventure games,” the revered adventure game designer said to PC Gamer.
Things like Sam & Max are wonderfully fabulous games, but they’re a little nichey in a way. But I think The Walking Dead really proved that there’s a large number of people out there who, if you build a game that’s accessible to them – build an adventure game that’s accessible to them – they will just flock to it.
Gilbert then explained that there would always be an audience that would be more interested in old school adventure games, because “there’s a whole lot that is really cool and neat and interesting about those” as opposed to those people looking for a more “visceral moment-to-moment gameplay”.
And it’s not to say that it’s action. There’s nothing about playing The Cave that you’re going to fail doing jumps, or you’re never having to time double jumps or anything like that.
It’s just that act of being able to run around and jump on stuff – it keeps one part of our brain really engaged the whole time, and it frees up the other part of our brain to puzzle solve a little bit more.
I’ll be honest here, I haven’t touched the Walking Dead games. Partly because I don’t have the time, and also because I’m waiting for a full season release before I go ahead and play it. But if it plays closer to the comic book source material than it does that beyond boring abortion of a TV show, I might not be able to hold out for too much longer on getting a few episodes of this game.
Hmmm, gaaaaaaaaaaaaaamesss…
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