How is using your intelligence to strategically plan and execute your mission any different from logic puzzles to get from one place to another? Both demand you use your brain. Left - Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Right - realMyst.

But the worst of the lot resort to petty snobbery. Self-righteous, self-proclaimed veterans believe in the intellectualistic supremacy of puzzles that require a PhD in practically everything to solve, and are quick to point it out. But where is it etched permanently that you must possess the combined IQs of Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Sherlock Holmes just to figure out a challenge in Myst? Why should that be a main qualifier? It's been argued that patience is actually more valuable in this case than sheer brute noggin. But I'll tell you one thing, I'd like to see those same snobs not try using intelligence to win an insanely complicated real time battle in Command & Conquer: Generals, or figure out which team members to choose on the next mission in Knights of The Old Republic based on individual skills, or plan their cunning moves second-by-second to successfully eliminate the targets in Hitman 2 with surgical precision and elegance. In other words, get over yourselves already! You keep holding your heads that high, you'll get a nosebleed. Sheer intelligence is not a requisite exclusive to adventure games and can certainly apply to other genres. Sometimes, being a humble Philistine and some patience are all you need.

Instead, as an antidote to all this moldy dogma, I propose the idea of abstraction. That's right, the good old technique of blurring the lines, making it fuzzy while retaining the essence. How so? Back to the charming Jack Allin:

"By 'description', I just mean 'a definition based on what we've seen SO FAR'. But not 'a definition for the way it MUST be forever and ever, amen.' It's just semantics, but I'm just trying to allow for the possibility that the genre will continue to expand in ways that push the boundaries of how we understand the term today."

See how painless that was?

And here is my own 'description': "An adventure game is a game in which first and foremost contains: a very strong and coherent story or narrative structure, sharply developed characterization (of people, places, and/or things), a clearly defined set of goals, challenges that require and emphasize thought and logic reasoning, and elements of exploration and discovery." Of course, that could mean practically any game. But, the trick is to throw in a bit of Jack's insight, basing all this on "...what we've seen so far.." , and on Evan's (*ahem*, Justice Potter Stewart's) wisdom of "...know[ing] it when I see it...". And voila! What we end up with is, um…….a mutt, but a very nice cuddly one - structured yet porous, defined yet still like a filter, anticipating modifications and expansiveness but ultimately staying true to itself. And if you were paying attention, nowhere in this amalgamated 'definition' can be found ridiculous sentiments like '2D backgrounds only', or 'point-&-click only', or 'egregiously stuck-up over-intellectualized' puzzles.