Hello,
Yes, I understand how, with so many games out there doing different things, it can sometimes be hard to differentiate genres. I'd like to first make it clear that I will not be going through joyfully looking for games to axe. I sincerely hope that I don't have to remove any at all. I'll judge each game with as much charity as I can muster. However, last year, I was saddened to see in the rankings that some pretty good adventure games were lower in the rankings than some games that were not even adventure games at all (they were also good games but not adventure games). This is not an acceptable situation to me to have people who followed the spirit of the jam beaten by those who did not. Since I cannot simply remove a game from the rankings (a feature I have repeatedly asked for), I will have no choice but to remove it from the entire jam :-(
An adventure game can be defined as a game that has the following characteristics:
- It's narrative focused. Not just some narrative tacked on. The narrative is the entire reason someone would be interested in the game.
- Puzzles are tightly woven into the story. The puzzles are the significant plot points in the story, not things you do outside of the story to arbitrarily block your progress, and not abstracted out to a different kind of activity.
- Puzzles are how you progress through the game, and every puzzle solved moves the story along in a tangible way.
- Lastly, it is not clearly any other kind of game besides an adventure game. If it looks and acts like a... match 3 game, for example, that's the kind of game it is no matter how much it might can be squeezed into the adventure game box with enough mental gymnastics.
So to the games you mentioned:
1. No, these are clearly Puzzle Games with a very minimal plot tacked on.
2. No, card games and turn-based strategy games are not adventure games even with a plot tacked on.
3. I'm not exactly clear what you mean. Minecraft is clearly not an adventure game, but it seems like you mean something else that is sort of like Minecraft but has "events?" I guess it depends on how much these "events" cause the game to resemble an adventure game. I can't say for sure whether this is or is not an adventure game as I'm not entirely sure what the gameplay would entail. Certainly being able to build or have influence over the world does not stop something from being an adventure game in and of itself though.
4. I watched a bit of a gameplay video for the Aurora Wager. It looks like a sort of rogue-lite building and flying game. It is certainly not an adventure game. I skipped around in the video quite a lot and saw no indication of a narrative, just flying around and gathering things so you can continue to fly around.
5. You are right. RPG's are not adventure games.
I definitely am a fan of pushing the boundaries, but for this jam, you do have to stay within them even if you push them a bit. I would say all of your examples are very far outside the boundaries.
I also like a wide variety of different types of games. It's just this particular jam is only for adventure games.