State Of The Point-and-Click Art

[ad7venture]

The adventure genre has some life in it yet, and here experienced contemporary developer Andrew Goulding turns his experiences on PlayFirst's Avenue Flo and Emerald City Confidential, as well as his own Jolly Rover, into salient design rules.

Gamasutra

[Kickaha]

Thanks for posting that Ad7venture, an interesting read!  I'll have to give the guy's game ("Jolly Rover") a try perhaps.

[ad7venture]

It was interesting.  I'm kind of mixed on the solutions.  I think a hint list or something like they did is important, but I thought it went a little far in some others.  It's true we need reward, but if it's done right, advancing a story is a fulfilling reward.  Generally a player not knowing what to do involves giving them too big a chunk of the game world at one time or hiding hot spots by making them too small or hard to see among other background objects.  Introducing collectibles might work for some games, but would feel out of place in others, I think.