Information Complexity and the Downfall of the Adventure Game

Commentary

The bedroom of Arthur Dent, one of the 35 rooms in Infocom’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from 1984, is an elegantly simple construction. A few years ago, as I played this game along with a slew of other Infocom titles for the first time since my childhood, I quickly realized how much more fun they were than any adventure game I’d played since. They didn’t necessarily have a better story, perhaps, but they involved virtually none of the tedium and frustration I’d often experienced with the newer entries into the genre.

I started wondering why that was, and it occurred to me that the problem was one of usability.

Read more of my article in Issue 116 of The Escapist to learn more about the clash between user interface design and game design.