Not too long ago I started playing the indie developed adventure game Snakes of Avalon but initially didn’t get very far. The game was over for me when, after a few minutes in, the main character had a dialogue with a poster on the wall of a bar. Later, feeling guilty about my aborted session with Snakes of Avalon, I gave the game another shot and powered through the first bit of it, resigned to the fact that things were going to get weird and that perhaps I’d find meaning from it all later.

I’ve just finished developing an adventure game. The whole project got me thinking, however, about common elements I’ve seen in adventure games. I’ve always kept an informal list of what I’ve liked and what I didn’t so that one day if I ever got around to designing my own game I’d know what to avoid and what to in include in its design. …