Adventure gamers love point-and-click, but I do not.
I know it’s a minority opinion, but when command-typing was phased out of the adventure game genre, I fell off with them. With the type-parser, I felt like I had infinite possibilities always at my fingertips, whereas point-and-click felt more streamlined and controlled, like I was on rails. If point-and-click was a fun amusement park ride, the type-parser felt like I was let loose in the whole park itself.
Handed-down versus Discovered
I admit the truth, however, type-parsers are not infinite, not even close. Oftentimes, they don’t even allow as many options as point-and-click! Point-and-click allows you to touch, talk to, look at, and use any item on any hotspot! And yet, it still feels like it was something handed to you, not something you discovered.
Nothing illustrates this lack of discovery as well as character-to-character dialogue. In point-and-click games, dialogue is almost always clicking down the branches of a dialogue tree. Everything is predetermined, packaged up nicely and neatly for you. Here’s all your hints, story, and exposition gift-wrapped for you, you’re very welcome!
The type parser, on the other hand, puts the player in an active role. They must determine which rabbit holes in the dialog to chase down. They get to play a bit of a detective game just discovering which topics to ask about. Speaking for myself, this small game-within-a-game keeps my attention so much more than clicking down the topics. This also allows the developer to drop extra little nuggets for intrepid players to discover that would otherwise bog down a dialogue tree with needless extras. The parser allows it, because the only ones who will find it, are those who are looking for it.
The Problem with Text-Parsers
That’s all well and good, you might say, but what about the big problem with type parsers that you’re clearly tiptoeing around?
Yes, I know, it is frustrating to type four or five different renditions of the same command only to get, “You can’t do that.” With point-and-click, you just grab the item and click it on the hotspot and, boom, puzzle solved! With the parser you type, “use item,” only to get, “how would you like to use that,” and a litany of reasonable commands that for no good reason don’t work at all.
We’ve all been there, myself no exception, and yes, it is frustrating to have to track down that exact right verb and noun combination. I grant that that is a proper problem with the type parser system. But I do not grant that it is inherent to the type parser and that playtesting and correct design can do a lot to fix that issue.
Oops, I Solved It!
I would also argue that point-and-click’s take item and press it on hotspot can also really streamline a puzzle in a way that removes the player’s delight in discovering a solution. How many times have you clicked an item on a hotspot only for the ensuing animation to solve the puzzle in a way you hadn’t even imagined yet. There is no “how would you like to use that” prompt possible. Clearly, there is no perfect system.
Superiority of Point-and-Click
At this point you’re likely to find yourself disagreeing with me and mounting multiple potential arguments in favor of the point-and-click formula. Don’t worry, you are almost certainly in the right, or at least in the majority. I am only describing why I personally lost a lot of interest in adventure games in the leap from the type-parser to the point-and-click era, and era that persists to this very day! There clearly must be a good reason for it, I sadly can only say, that it just doesn’t resonate with me.
In my final analysis it comes down to the feeling of discovery, which I feel the type parser achieves better than point-and-click.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this issue. Let me know what you think below!
Slattstudio 
I prefer point and click, and the two most important things I dislike about text parsers are…
By the way, anyone knows a (retro/vintage) game in Turkish? 😉 I’m learning the language and fondly recalling what progress I made in English at the age of 12-14 years, exactly through playing adventure games… (But in my case, as I hinted, the text parser scared me off. It were mostly point and click games, such as “Ecoquest”, “Pepper’s Adventures in Time”, “Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes”…)
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Those are pretty good reasons for liking p’n’c over the type parser, and maybe that’s why p’n’c is still the most popular UI for adventure games.
I feel the opposite about time-taking, though. I really dislike right-click toggling between walk/look/touch/item. The parser always feels immediate and quick, and I don’t have to position the mouse, or click on items. I guess it’s just a personal issue, and one that I’m in the minority on!
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I like text parsers, but more importantly, it’s up to you to make the art. It wouldn’t be special if everyone mindlessly did what was expected of them. So, make something that you are proud of!
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Working on it! I’m definitely not doing what is expected (or perhaps even smart). Type parsers are terrible for porting purposes, so the only reason to make one is out of a real fondness for that style of game.
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I’m 43 years old and I grew up with the Lucas Arts tradition. I always felt there’s something deeply wrong with it. I played Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken (their earliest games) and noticed how much more “alive” they were, how you could get arrested, robbed, lose items, get reactions from and disrupt the plans of NPCs who moved around the world and did their own stuff, have alternative solutions to situations, etc. and wondered why LucasFilm Games abandoned this rich and reactive gameplay that was so full of wonder to streamline it more into what I’d call the “Call Of Duty” of adventure games.
I always felt adventure games were “so close and yet so far” when it comes to what I want. In the 90s I played action-adventures such as Little Big Adventure, Ecstatica, Bioforge, Dark Earth which were more to my taste: you controlled the character with the keyboard and there were consequences for what you do. (Sierra’s Black Cauldron is very similar to them: you do everything with the keyboard, you swim, you climb, you don’t type – you have buttons for “interact” and “use item that’s in your hand”).
So, to get to the point. I have no “nostalgia”. I discovered Sierra style games 2 years ago, at the age of 41, thanks to EGA projects such as that of Julia Minamata’s Crimson Diamond and Powerhoof’s Telwynium that reminded me of stuff I never tried. Back in the 90s my friends were always telling me how the Sierra tradition is “worse” because of “unfair deaths” and “worse interface” so I have never tried them.
Imagine my shock now. The perfect games I always wanted to play and noone makes were actually invented by Sierra, and dozens of them were made and sold in the 80s. This is like finding Atlantis! I felt wonder and magic just like when I was a child.
I loved everything about them. In these games it mattered where I stand, what I do, when I do it. My favourite death was distracting a robot in Space Quest 1, by getting him to check something in the back of the weapon storage. If you get what you need and then quickly go towards the exit before he returns, he considers this to be “suspicious behaviour” (and it is!) and shoots you. This was magical. Such a simple hidden script that made him real.
Similarly, in SQ3, on a distant planet (on which you can die of the heat without the proper suit) you see armed people in the distance. Real life considerations kick in. Do you approach them? Better hide and just observe them, who knows what their intentions are! And watch your step on this treacherous terrain!
The same situation in a LucasArts game would be solved for you: the character would navigate the treacherous terrain himself, and he would refuse to go towards the scary people (or he would go there without any consequence – they wouldn’t do anything bad to him).
The wonder and the exploration come at a price. There’s always some initial fear. Gold Rush starts with a time limit, Space Quest puts you into a space station under attack. You immediately feel as a “stranger in a strange land”. Your are lost, you don’t feel safe and in addition to the puzzles you have to take care of your safety. You have to type. That’s too many things to take care of for a lot of people so as a studio you can’t capture the biggest audience possible. I believe that as the audience of anything grows it is “put on rails” to attract more and more people – to the point when it loses its magic. It has happened in many other genres.
P.S. I believe you should give us the opportunity to buy the game, not just get it for free. Itch provides this option.
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Really great reply! Probably more in depth than my initial post…lol. It’s awesome to hear that you found a style of game that really works for you. I agree about how the magic can be lost when trying to appeal to a wider audience. I’m not sure how my game measures up to the classics, as I’m just a hobbyist trying to make something that appeals to my own sensibilities.
As far as selling the game, that’s not really something I’ll be doing, but if you want you can buy the manual and just pretend that you bought the game that just happened to come with a manual, too!
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Ordering physical items is not very practical in my part of the world but I see you have a Patreon so I’ll drop by there. Good luck!
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In my opinion, point-n-click adventures and parser adventures are two different genres. It’s like comparing Serious Sam series (arena-based bullet hell) with something like Far Cry series (or some other non-linear “realistic” shooter) based on fact that they both use first person 3D view and player shoots their way through the game.
And since these are different genres, comparison is invalid. You can like PNC and dislike parser based or vice versa. Or you can like both, like me! Sometimes I’m in mood for PNC, sometimes for parsers.
And same as, say, Serious Sam being easier to make and much more streamlined to play than open world Far Cry-like game, and playing Serious Sam is arcade-like rollercoaster experience while Far Cry feels like living in that world – same applies to PNC and parser-based.
Comparison does not make sense here.
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I agree with you that they are basically two different genres, but I still think comparison is valid, because the both illustrate pros and cons vis-a-vis each other. The only sad thing for me is that p’n’c became so prevalent that it made the parser interface obsolete!
It’s unfortunate for me because I have a truly hard time enjoying p’n’c games, but I really enjoy parser ones, and I used to think it may have just been nostalgia speaking, but I don’t think that now because I really enjoy the handful of modern parser games as well!
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It depends on specific game of course, but I would say parser adventures in the whole “adventure” sector of games are similar to auteur or avant-garde movies in whole cinema world. There is nothing unfortunate or sad or bad about auteur cinema being a narrow niche and mainstream simpler and more accessible cinema (p’n’c adventures) taking most of the market.
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Good points! I haven’t played text-parsers for many, many years and this one looks really good – like a lost Sierra game from 1990. Looking forward to playing it! I don’t mind p’n’c, that’s basically the only style that’s been in the genre for over 30 years, after all, so if you dig adventure games you’ve had no choice (apart from now, he he). A retro game I played recently was The will of Arthur Flabbington – worth checking out for those who tolerate p’n’c.
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Thanks for reading! I hope you have a great time playing the game and that it takes you back a few decades!
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