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The Greatest Adventure? |
I was in the shower this morning (calm down, girls!) and I was thinking about an adventure I participate in every day for hours at a time: surfing the Net. I got to thinking: what is it that keeps me returning? What drives me to surf the Net day after day? A colleague of mine is the complete opposite of me-she absolutely hates the Net. She sees it as a waste of time and a necessarily evil and can't understand why people spend so much time using it. I'm sure it doesn't surprise you to find out she doesn't play computer games either.
Yes, I realize "hot Pamela Anderson pictures" and "teens hungry for action" provide titillation and are driving forces for many users and are the primary source of revenue on the Internet. However, my motivation for using the Net is the possibility of new finds. I embark on a search and find something new and interesting almost everyday. So what is the key motivating factor that compels a keen adventure gamer to spend time on the Net that I could use playing games?
The short answer is ADVENTURE. There are many parallels between adventure gaming and Net surfing. It makes me think of a massive online adventure game. The world is a dynamic and exciting one where you never know what you'll find on your next excursion. The Net is closer to a Myst adventure than a Tex Murphy or Gabriel Knight one: there are opportunities for interaction but most of the time I point and click from one area to another.
Naturally, as a keen walkthrough writer, I spend a lot of time trying to find walkthroughs for games I have to determine which have never had walkthroughs written. Every once in awhile, I find a new place to explore-a new website where an individual has written his or her own walkthroughs. This is similar to finding a new area for exploration in a game-it opens up new possibilities and opportunities. The quest begins anew with each new site found.
And there are puzzles. I am certain those of you who have tried using Google or some other search engine to find something can relate to my experiences. Each search engine has its own idiosyncrasies of use and you find you are better sticking with one you feel most competent with to structure a good search. Search engines give you the opportunity to choose an exact phrase including or excluding certain words. Finding a particular walkthrough is not always as easy as it first seems. If you type in "Myst walkthrough" you will get many walkthroughs but you'll miss out on "solutions", "game guides", and "strategy guides". If you search for "Myst" (exact word) and "solution game guide strategy guide" (any of the terms) you get a completely different listing of sites, some appropriate and some only because they contain both a mention of Myst and strategy. These reflect the numerous attempts to solve any particular puzzle, where only one method leads to the successful outcome.
Searches can be as frustrating as any adventure game puzzle, so, we tend to rely on stored "favorites" pages. We return to these pages on a regular basis to find out what is new in our interest. For gamers, we have game previews, reviews, walkthroughs, articles, wallpaper, screen savers, demos, and many other bits and pieces. Favorites are the equivalent of saving your progress. In many instances, you'd never find these pages again if you didn't bookmark them. Sometimes the page won't save for whatever reason-I view this like a poor save function (think all those console type games that only let you save at the end of a level!), forcing you to go back to a previous page (or save) using the "history" feature.
And what of pop-ups? Well, these are the Internet cousins of the arcade sequences found in many "adventure" games. They serve more as a frustration than anything else, and are usually dealt with a few well-timed clicks. As any Net veteran knows, some of these pop-ups are hardier than cockroaches and take forever to get rid of as they just keep coming back.
And the times where my connection is cut short or my computer freezes while carrying out a search on the Net? Well, these are the unexpected death sequences we find in some adventure games. As in many poorly designed games, death occurs without warning, immediately, and, unless you've saved recently (i.e. saved to "favorites"), you have to start from scratch.
Who says adventure games are dead? Why millions of people play them each day when they use the Internet and don't even know it. Those people who are keenest to claim that adventure games are dead are far from right. In fact, more people than ever before are going through the motions of playing adventure games every moment of every day, unaware that there are more fantastic worlds available to them away from the Internet in the form of adventure games.