Adventure game templates
Adventure templates are different answers to a closed path: a tool, a key, a guard's gaze, a landmark, or a sentence you have not read yet.
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Something is in the way
An action adventure hands you one tool and one lock that tool opens. Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017) makes the tool a physics toy. Tunic (Andrew Shouldice and Finji, 2022) hides the instructions. If the tool does not change where you can stand, it is a costume.
A metroidvania stretches that promise over a map you cross twice. Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017) sells you the map. Metroid Dread (MercurySteam and Nintendo, 2021) puts the lock in the terrain. Three rooms, one locked path, and the ability that opens it is the whole first version. A precision jump with no lock is a platformer that wandered into this category.
A dungeon crawler measures progress in rooms and loot. Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios, 2016) is the cost of the next room. Go deeper only after the third room's chest is worth the enemy. An immersive sim is one guarded room with two ways in. Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000) taught that, and Dishonored (Arkane Studios, 2012) lets the plan fail without ending the scene. One correct door is just a lock.
Looking, or walking past
Stealth action is one guard, a view cone, an exit. Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment, 2012) makes the cone readable. Change the cone before you add a gadget. A point and click closes the path with two items that do nothing until they meet. The Secret of Monkey Island (Lucasfilm Games, 1990) is still the standard for a joke that is also a combination. A walking simulator closes nothing. Firewatch (Campo Santo, 2016) and What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow, 2017) ask you to notice three things in one place. Add a puzzle to force a stay, and you have changed templates.
A collectathon puts ten things at heights you cannot all reach yet. Banjo-Kazooie (Rare, 1998) is the argument. An open-world adventure replaces the collectable with a landmark you can see from the start, as The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt Red, 2015) does. One field tells you if the walk is worth it.
The AI adventure game maker is the wide page. A lock-and-ability map is the AI metroidvania maker. A room you enter with a plan is the AI dungeon crawler maker.
Every template in this genre
Every build and style in this genre
- Action adventure template: build it step by step
- Dungeon crawler template: build it step by step
- Immersive sim template: build it step by step
- Celeste style template
- Hollow Knight style template
- Metroidvania template: build it step by step
- Open-world adventure template: build it step by step
- Point and click template: build it step by step
- Stealth action template: build it step by step
- Walking simulator template: build it step by step
Start from this template in the Flockbay app
Describe your version in one sentence. The AI writes a brief from the template, and nothing is built until you approve it. Free for Windows and Mac.