Interfaces are important.  I love interfaces.  Forming an intuitive and fluid language that is used by the player to communicate with the game, and a way for the game to communicate back is fun.  But adventure games, even the commercial titles, rarely get muchinterface love.  Games in the genre tend to stick to one of the commonly used control schemes. 

In the indie and amateur space, you see a lot of classic Sierra or Lucas Arts verb interfaces.  That’s because these come built-in to the most commonly used freeware engine and also because a lot of the hobbyist developers are at least partially aiming to satisfy their nostalgia by recreating the games of yore.

Commercial titles (though, I admit I haven’t been playing many as of late) tend to stick closer to the two button interact/examine or interact/walk system plus an inventory.  These interfaces are tried and tested.  Why mess with them?

Well, you don’t necessarily have to.  Experimentation with your game’s interface isn’t required.  Doing so runs the risk of turning out terrible (as well as the risk of turning out brilliant) and definitely isn’t necessary, especially for the hobbyist who is making a game out of nostalgia.  Hooray for the good old days!  But if you are looking to have a little fun and experiment a bit, creating a tailor-made interface can be fun for you and can result in a much better game.  I’m not even advocating creating a revolutionary new interface for the genre, here.  I’m just suggesting that you should let the gameplay you would like to have in your game decide the interface rather than the interface decide the gameplay.

That’s a difficult distinction to make, I think, especially when the adventure genre has been so set in its ways, with many players adverse to change.  Developers seem to design their games via a preconceived notion of how adventure gameplay works.  Thinking outside that box can be difficult… [Check out the full article here]