But literally also means figuratively, if used not literally literally but figuratively literally.
That’s what I wrote 
“literally means literally literally and figuratively figuratively” = “the word literally means in a literal sense literally and in a figurative sense figuratively”
Oh sorry, I thought that by figuratively figuratively you meant that figuratively meant figuratively and not that literally meant figuratively.
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“Literally” at least in the english language is way overused these days and wrongly so. Nobody´s “literally exploding from anticipation”.
That’s not exactly wrong. It’s a rhetorical device called antiphrasis, and it’s also widely used in Italian.
Anyway:
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I have read an articled published by The Guardian on April 27, 2017, in which the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, shares some opinions about the current status of the gaming industry and the (new) way games are made and played.
One of the topics is single-player narrative adventures and Thimbleweed Park is cited in this context. Telltale Games is also cited.
You can read the full article here.
Here is a small extract (the interviewer labels TWP an RPG game, unfortunately):
“The audience for those big story-driven games… I won’t say it isn’t as large, but they’re not as consistent,” says Spencer. “You’ll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that’ll come out, and they’ll do really well, but they don’t have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony’s first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they’re good at them, but outside of that, it’s difficult – they’re become more rare; it’s a difficult business decision for those teams, you’re fighting into more headwind.
“We’ve got to understand that if we enjoy those games, the business opportunity has to be there for them. I love story-based games. I just finished [LucasArts-inspired RPG] Thimbleweed Park – I thought it was a fantastic game. Inside was probably my game of last year. As an industry, I want to make sure both narrative-driven single-player games and service-based games have the opportunity to succeed. I think that’s critical for us.”
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Aren’t RPGs a lot about character development?
Like Delores levelling up to a game developer and acquiring the XOR-skill?
Or being a mean-ass clown and then becoming … a mean-ass clown.
Graphics BASIC, +5 int
Chainsaw, +3 str
Bottle, +1 dex
I’ve heard ‘our sort of game’ referred to as Grand Adventure - this is a term I rather like!
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It would be a nice term. I have never heard of it. Can you point out one or more web pages in which these games have been called “Grand Adventure”?
There have been quite a few first person adventure games, I’m not sure why do you guys forgot about nearly all of them (I only saw Lost in Time mentioned, which isn’t very good and I haven’t played The Last Express so I’m not sure about this one). I don’t mean stuff like Myst which to me isn’t a real adventure game, I mean games that are more like Monkey Island in style, considering puzzles, dialogue, all the good stuff.
My favorite is Gateway (Frederik Pohl’s Gateway), very good sci-fi. There’s also Eric the Unready from the same company, which had Monkey Island references before it was cool. They also made other games in this style, like Companions of Xanth which I haven’t played.
Another game I loved is Plan 9 From Outer Space (by Gremlin) which is related to the infamous Ed Wood movie (but not based on).
There’s KGB (or Conspiracy) by Cryo. Flawed but very good, dark game for mature audience.
They may look like modern hidden objects games but they are real, traditional adventure p’n’c games.
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I can’t actually find any evidence of people calling it that, however I’m reasonably confident there used to be a Grand Adventure category in the early days of GoG.
I’ve been watching a Let’s Play video with the Polish cyberpunk game Observer. It’s pretty much an adventure game. I presume that this kind of game might be the future of AAA adventure games.
By the way, there are several reminiscences to the 80s. It even contains a mini-game, which is a bit like Pac-Man. The graphics seem to be inspired by Blade Runner.
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What do you mean by “this kind of game”? First-person 3D games based on exploration and puzzles?
Exactly. We also talked about some other examples, such as Kona. Therefore, I have to admit that it’s not exactly a new topic here. But, Observer looks more detailed and realistic.
I think that such games are extremely different from classic point & click adventure games, and I’m afraid that people who are not familiar with point & click games would rather be attracted by such a detailed 3D game. Nonetheless I think that classic adventure games are still more complex in terms of the puzzles.
Why are you afraid of this phenomenon? Graphic adventure games evolved from text adventure games and now PnC adventure games are evolving into more detailed games that are still based on exploration and puzzles. I would say that the core dynamics are still there.
I think it’s true, because most of these 3D exploration games have been developed to appeal to a larger audience. The kind of interface doesn’t prevent these games to have complex puzzles, though. For example I’m told that puzzles in “The Witness” can be quite challenging.
I think that we can observe that the game industry is more and more divided into two groups of companies: The small ones and the big ones.
While TWP is an indie game, there are countless other games which smaller companies would never be able to create, just for financial reasons. The development of 3D games is extremely expensive if you want to make the game look appealing. For this reason, even the bigger companies are very careful in terms of new concepts and ideas. This causes a lack of innovation. The more expensive the more conservative.
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I think what you meant is when going for a realistic look. Because you can have 3D graphics using abstract forms or mimicking a pixelated look with voxels (like Minecraft does) which is cheaper to produce and still find enough people finding such look appealing (at least that’s what I hope).
Yes, it would be nive if it didn’t need to look too realistic, but I myself tend to prefer a realistic look - or at least detailed graphics, because you get more immersed in it. Though, this is expensive. Also I personally dislike the Minecraft graphics. I even think that Kona could have been more detailed. For these reasons I’m pretty sure that you would need a high budget in order to make it look appealing.
Yeah, adding all those details and advances in technology (like facial expressions etc.) makes everything super expensive.
And I’m not sure if it really makes up for it.
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