Graphic Adventures: Point, Click, and Have Fun with the Classics

Le chiamavano Graphic Adventures, crazy worlds made of colorful pixels and absurd puzzles that made us spend hours and hours in a gaming ecstasy that is hard to replicate as the years go by, but let’s proceed in order: what is a graphic adventure? Take a mouse, a keyboard and turn them into the tools that will allow you to interact with the game in question: Point and Click, a term that denotes this genre of video games which even today fascinates thousands of fans, albeit in different forms, means precisely this: point at the object we need and click on it to interact with the various and eccentric supporting characters in the plots invented by LucasArts and Sierra, giants that, between the Eighties and Nineties, were on everyone’s lips among industry insiders and dominated the graphic adventure market like no one else.

Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island and Grim Fandango are just some of the essential titles to play to get to the heart of graphic adventures, sparkling gems of gameplay and irreverent dialogue lines that have now entered the slang of enthusiasts: the pirate-style insult battles in Monkey Island or snippets of dark comedy à la Grim Fandango, a title that got a remastered version a little less than ten years ago also on Playstation 4, among other things, and by many considered one of the best adventure games of all time.

For those who are only now approaching this seminal genre, it is essential to outline the main features of a graphic adventure, because although the settings and atmospheres may be very different depending on the developers’ approach, there are recurring elements that I would dare to say are indispensable, at least as far as the classic ones are concerned: subtle or slapstick humor, recognizable in any case thanks to jokes and gags designed to become running jokes (who doesn’t smile when thinking back to the goat puzzle in Broken Sword is lying and knows it), multiple-choice dialogues and an inventory menu ready to hold the most disparate objects, some deliberately useless for the purposes of solving puzzles, and finally a plethora of secondary characters meticulously characterized, true sidekicks capable of stealing the show with their chatter and gestures: if you have played Hollywood Monsters by Pendulo Studios, you know what I am referring to. If you haven’t done so yet, get it as soon as possible.

Il ventunesimo century has seen a grand return of the genre, after years of stagnant pauses due to the rise of modern shooters with photorealistic graphics and the advent of the infamous online MOBAs. Many development companies rolled up their sleeves and, mindful of the lessons of their masters Ron Gilbert and Roberta Williams (fun fact: she is the game designer who with Phantasmagoria from 1995 sparked in me a passion for horror video games), produced an army of new talents that filled the ranks of the genre: the majestic Syberia, the unsettling Heavy Rain and the absurd saga of Deponia are only some of the graphic adventures of the new generations that brought point-and-clicks back to life, of course in a modern key and paving the way for new ways of understanding the genre itself.

Life is Strange, a 2013 masterpiece by Dontnod, in fact, represents the perfect hybrid between narrative, interactive gameplay mechanics with multiple choices and innovative environmental interaction, thanks not only to the usual collectible items but also to the powers and abilities of the game’s protagonists: Sierra and Lucas’s legacy has been taken up with all due honors and respect, and now it is time to look to the future of adventures and click with enthusiasm.

There will still be more fun to be had.