The User Experience of Adventure Games

I am a huge fan of old computer games.

Well, maybe I’m just a fan of the computer games I used to play as a kid. What started as occasional nostalgic sessions revisiting the old games of my youth, turned into a true passion for learning more about Retro Games.

Actually, I hardly play any games myself anymore, as I don’t really find time for it. But I like reading about and listening to people who made telling stories about these games their job.

I can highly recommend the “Stay Forever” podcast on Retro Games (german only). They host a ton of episodes on old and even older games and how they came to live, and other interesting episodes on retro computer tech and more.

Parser Types and the User Experience of Adventure Games

Since I work in the field of User Experience Design, I found interest in podcast episodes on early computer tech and the development of game mechanics over the time.

As I’ve also been a big fan of the now dead game genre of graphic adventure games, I recalled that I always preferred the old adventures using a text parser (where you had to type in every command you wanted the game character to perform) instead of the more recent graphical point-and-click parser.

I found this “preference” interesting, because coming from a professional User Experience perspective, the latter one is by far the more user friendly type of game.

I guess there’s a huge field for potential blog posts on how the User Experience of old Computer Games (and recent ones) differs from today’s understanding of User Experience principles and Usability Heuristics. But for now, I just want to examine the difference between text parser and point and click parser based adventure games from a UX perspective.

Text parser and point-and-click adventure games represent two radically different approaches to how players engage with their game worlds. After all, it’s a fundamental aspect of a game’s User Experience: How users navigate and experience the game‘s world. Let’s take a closer look at the contrasting user experiences these two types of games offer.

Text parser adventure games: The blank prompt

Text parser based graphical adventure games, such as early Sierra games Space Quest or Kings Quest, ask players to input commands using natural language. In the beginning, there was the blank prompt.

It works like this: type a phrase, and the game responds to your input, either by following your commands or by returning negative feedback. However, the experience can be anything but simple. The player must not only be literate but also be able to craft the correct syntax. Typing “open door” might work, but “unlock door” could fail, sending the player down a frustrating path of trial and error.

From a UX perspective, this introduces a significant cognitive load. Players must not just come up with a solution to the puzzle, but also know how to phrase it. The feedback loop is often slow and indirect. Sometimes the game doesn’t even understand the command, leaving players questioning if they’ve missed something obvious. Let alone spelling mistakes that happen unnoticed…

But there’s a certain beauty in this. The beauty of mystery, that I always embraced when playing these games.

The ambiguity and challenge can spark creativity, asking players to think in abstract ways. The game becomes a puzzle in itself, and the player’s ability to decode the system is just as crucial as solving the narrative’s mysteries. For those willing to embrace it, the experience can be deeply rewarding.

Also, I think that these types of games are closer to a real adventure experience, since they don’t make it easy for you, at all. Which is one of their biggest UX disadvantages, compared to point-and-click adventure games.

Point-and-Click Adventure Games: Discovering Cues

The key difference between these two approaches is their mode of control. Text parser games require players to rely on their literacy and lingual creativity. The interaction is abstract and indirect.

Point-and-click games, by contrast, center around direct manipulation of the environment through visual and spatial cues. The system is intuitive: the user knows that if they can see an object and use the graphical user interface’s icon commands on it, they can interact with it. This allows for more immediate and accessible engagement, enabling a wider range of players to play without worrying about specific syntax or phrasing.

On the other hand, this makes the game much more predictable and “cheatable” than a text parser based game. If you have no clue on how to continue, sometimes it helps to just hover around the screen to detect “hotspots” to interact with.

In direct comparison from a User Experience perspective, point-and-click games offer a vastly improved usability. But what is it, that we want from a game? An easy, fail-safe gaming experience or a puzzle challenge that demands our full devotion and immersion?

Apart from personal taste, I think this development of the User Experience of Adventure Games is interesting on a broader note.

Do not forget: I‘m writing about very old games here. All game screenshots in this article are from games older than 24 years. There has been a clear shift in the User Experience Design of games in general since then, clearly leaning towards the trend set by point-and-click games.

User Experience of Adventure Games mirrors UX Evolution

The evolution of adventure games from text parsers to point-and-click based interaction mirrors broader trends in UX design: From abstraction to user-friendlyness and simplicity, from cognitive load to intuitive interaction. Yet, both styles offer different kinds of engagement for different kinds of players.

Whether you prefer the complexity of solving adventures without (almost) any hints given by the user interface or enjoy focusing on the actual game storytelling while profiting from point-and-click usability, adventure games are all about finding your own way through the game’s world.

The true beauty lies in how they challenge our understanding of interaction, one click—or one word—at a time.