Some of my fondest memories of gaming came from playing LucasArts adventures with a small group of friends. Beginning with Maniac Mansion, and on through Zak Mccraken, Secret of Monkey Islands, Indiana Jones, Grim Fandango, etc…
One of the best parts was sharing the excitement with friends when you finally got “unstuck”. In the age of the Internet and social networking, how can adventure games maintain that small group excitement?
One thing I really liked in Maniac Mansion was the multiple character idea. In MM, one player, played three characters. I like the idea of a single player mode like that, but also a multi-player mode where several characters could be involved in the adventure at once. I’m not talking massive, just 3 or 4 people. Certain puzzles would require collaboration. Players could chat online with a headset. Plus it wouldn’t have the downside that I remember from days of old of deciding who gets to control the keyboard 
I think the Internet really hurt adventure games, because part of their joy was the thrill of figuring out a puzzle that you’d worked hard to figure out. Many lack the self-discipline to avoid looking up a puzzle solution on the Internet. I don’t know the solution to this—but I’d love to hear suggestions. Maybe in a multi-player version players would form a “pact” that they wouldn’t look things up online?
