Forums

I like very much that the SMS have in its library King's Quest (!!!) and Cosmic Spacehead. What did you think was that reason that the developers didn't port or create adventures games for consoles? Was there not enough audience for this genre or was it very hard for the developers to create them for the consoles?

Simply put, Master System had no Mouse.

Most adventure games of the 90s were designed (or worked a lot better) with mice. Which is why they were much more common/popular on personal computers such as DOS, Amiga, Macintosh, than on consoles including the SMS

I think there were two more pieces of hardware needed - a keyboard (adventure games started there) and a way to save games (although cartridge save RAM did exist). I think consoles were just aiming at arcade style gameplay and not so often the long sessions with saves that you would need for an adventure game.

The later mouse driven adventure games often had VGA artwork which would have suffered on the move to the Master System.

Thinking of some of the other systems - there was a NES Maniac Mansion, obviously lots of lofi adventure games on home computers of the early 80s which could have been ported... So I guess it was also just not thought to be a good idea that would sell well.

I did experiment with making a Z-machine interpreter for SMS some years ago but I didn't get far...

Great point with keyboard for the old games and storage problems :)

Explains why the SC-3000 had a fair bit more of the older, keyboard-based adventure games released in Australia and New Zealand (on Cassette tape, not Cartridge), even though it has the same CPU as the Master System and was an older machine.

Great explanations!! Yes, I think saving your status was one problem. Passwords partly gave solution to this.

I wish for a "point and click adventure interpreter" for the SMS! Just, do it!!!

Author	Message
Estelios Joined: 12 Apr 2018 Posts: 29 Location: Chania, Crete	Question about adventure games on the SMS Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 9:39 am
	I like very much that the SMS have in its library King's Quest (!!!) and Cosmic Spacehead. What did you think was that reason that the developers didn't port or create adventures games for consoles? Was there not enough audience for this genre or was it very hard for the developers to create them for the consoles?

Tycho Joined: 16 Dec 2009 Posts: 243	Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 10:05 am
Tycho Joined: 16 Dec 2009 Posts: 243	Simply put, Master System had no Mouse. Most adventure games of the 90s were designed (or worked a lot better) with mice. Which is why they were much more common/popular on personal computers such as DOS, Amiga, Macintosh, than on consoles including the SMS

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14728 Location: London	Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 10:39 am
	I think there were two more pieces of hardware needed - a keyboard (adventure games started there) and a way to save games (although cartridge save RAM did exist). I think consoles were just aiming at arcade style gameplay and not so often the long sessions with saves that you would need for an adventure game. The later mouse driven adventure games often had VGA artwork which would have suffered on the move to the Master System. Thinking of some of the other systems - there was a NES Maniac Mansion, obviously lots of lofi adventure games on home computers of the early 80s which could have been ported... So I guess it was also just not thought to be a good idea that would sell well. I did experiment with making a Z-machine interpreter for SMS some years ago but I didn't get far...

Tycho Joined: 16 Dec 2009 Posts: 243	Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:30 am
Tycho Joined: 16 Dec 2009 Posts: 243	Great point with keyboard for the old games and storage problems :) Explains why the SC-3000 had a fair bit more of the older, keyboard-based adventure games released in Australia and New Zealand (on Cassette tape, not Cartridge), even though it has the same CPU as the Master System and was an older machine.

Estelios Joined: 12 Apr 2018 Posts: 29 Location: Chania, Crete	Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:42 am
	Great explanations!! Yes, I think saving your status was one problem. Passwords partly gave solution to this. I wish for a "point and click adventure interpreter" for the SMS! Just, do it!!!

Forums

View topic - Question about adventure games on the SMS