Because of differences in computer hardware, language, and culture, adventure game development in Japan has taken a different path than in Western markets. The most popular subgenres of adventure games in Japan are visual novels and dating simulations.

Early computer graphic adventure games (1981-1988)
The early 1980s saw the emergence of computer adventure games. gaining popularity in Japan. The country’s computer market was dominated by the 8-bit PC-8801 (1981) and 16-bit PC-9801 (1982) NEC platform, which could display 8 simultaneous colors and had a resolution of 640 × 400, higher than Western computers of the time, to accommodate Japanese text. This, in turn, influenced game design, as NEC computers became known for adventure games with detailed color graphics, which eventually evolved into visual novels. The NEC soon had several competitors, such as the FM-7 (1982), an AV version (1985) that could display more than 4,000 colors in addition to FM synthesis sound. Its 16-bit successor, FM Towns (1989), could display 24-bit color (16.8 million colors) and had a CD-ROM drive.

The most famous early Japanese computer adventure game was The Portopia Serial Murder Case, developed by Yuji Hori (of Dragon Quest fame) and published by Enix. Its development began in 1981 and was released in 1983. The game was presented in a first-person format, accompanied by first-person narration and featured color graphics. Originally released for the PC-6001, the player interacts with the game using a verb-noun parser, which requires entering exact commands from the keyboard; finding exact words to type is considered part of the puzzle to be solved. The game was non-linear, which includes exploring an open world, an extensive dialogue system in which the story develops through typing commands and getting answers from other characters. and choices that determine the dialogues and order of events, as well as alternate endings. It also features a phone that can be used to dial any number to contact several non-player characters. The game was well received in Japan for its well-told storyline and surprising twist ending, and for allowing multiple ways to accomplish goals. Hideo Kojima praised the game for its mystery, drama, humor, three-dimensional dungeons, for providing proper background and explanation of the killer’s motives, and for empowering video games. The game is also compared to a later version of Shadowgate, in which the player must explore and collect objects and later find their true purpose. According to Square Enix, Portopia was “the first true detective adventure game.

The first domestic computer adventure games released in Japan were ASCII (表 参 道 ア ド ベ ン チャ ー) and Minami Aoyama Adventure (南 青山 アド ベ ン チ ャ ー), released for PC-9801 in 1982. Another early Japanese adventure in the same year was Mystery House MicroCabin, which had no relation but was inspired by) On-Line Systems game of the same name. That same year MicroCabin released a sequel to Mystery House II for MSX. The following year, Starcraft of Japan released an improved remake of Mystery House On-Line Systems with more realistic visuals and depictions of blood.

. Because of the lack of content restrictions, some of Japan’s earliest adventure games were also bishoujo games with eroge content. In 1982 Koei released Night Life, the first commercial erotic computer game. It was a graphic adventure with images of a sexual nature. That same year they released another eroge game, Danchi Tsuma no Yuwaku (Seducing the Condominium Wife), which was an early adventure game with color graphics, thanks to the NEC PC-8001 <545.>computer’s eight-color palette and elements of an RPG video game. It was a hit and helped Koei become a major software company. Other now-famous companies such as Enix, Square and Nihon Falcom also produced similar eroge in the early 1980s before they became famous for their mainstream RPGs. In some of their early Erog, adult content is meaningfully integrated into a thoughtful and mature storyline, though others often used it as an unconvincing excuse for pornography.

Menu command selection Introduction A system where the player selects commands from a menu list either by using keyboard shortcuts , or by scrolling down the menu, was introduced in 1983 and largely replaced the verb-noun parser input method. The earliest known game to use the command selection menu system was the Japanese adventure game Spy 007 (ス パ イ 00.7), published in April 1983, and was soon followed by several other Japanese adventure games in 1983. These included the title eroge Joshiryo Panic, authored by Tadashi Makimura and published by Enix for FM-7 in June and somewhat earlier for FM-8 ; Atami Onsen Adventure (熱 温泉 ア ド ベ ン チャ ー), released by Basic System (ベ ー シ ック シ ス テ ム) in July for FM-7 and slightly earlier for PC-8001; Planet Mephius, released in July; and Tri-Dantal (ト リ ダ ン タ ル), authored by Y. Takeshita and published by Pax Softnica for FM-7 in August. The game that popularized the team selection system was the 1984 adventure game Okhotsk ni Kiyu: Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin Jiken (Okhotsk ni Kiyu: Chain Kills in Hokkaido), developed by Yuji Hori (his second mystery adventure game after Portopia) and published ASCII for PC-8801 and PC-9801. His replacement of the traditional verb-noun text parser interface with a command selection menu system led to the latter becoming a staple of adventure games as well as role-playing games (thanks to Horie’s 1986 hit Dragon Quest in the latter

Will: The Death Trap II Square was one of the first animated computer games in 1985.

famous adventure game of 1987. was Arsys Software Reviver: The Real-Time Adventure, which introduced a real-time constant world in which time continues to elapse, day-night cycles adjust screen brightness to indicate the time of day, and certain stores and non-playable characters will only be available at certain times of day. The game also gives players direct control over the player character.

. In 1987, Jiro Ishii (later known for 428: Shibuya Scramble and Time Travelers ) released Imitation City, an adventure game with a cyberpunk theme similar to Kojima’s later hit Snatcher.

Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear fame), was inspired by Portopia to enter the video game industry and create his own adventure games. After completing the stealth game Metal Gear, his first graphic adventure was released by Konami the following year: Snatcher (1988), an ambitious cyberpunk detective novel, a graphic adventure that was highly regarded at the time for pushing the boundaries of video game narrative, cinematic cutscenes and adult content. It also featured a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, an amnesiac protagonist and a few snippets of a light gun shooter. It was praised for its graphics, soundtrack, high quality writing comparable to a novel, voice acting comparable to a movie or radio play, and an in-game computer database with additional documents that reveal the game world.

Interactivity. arcade games with movies (1983-1985)
Interactive movies are considered a sub-genre of adventure games. This sub-genre has its origins in Japanese interactive movie arcade games.

The first interactive movie laserdisc video game was Sega Astron Belt, introduced in 1982 and released in 1983, although it was more of a shooter game presented as an action game using full-length video. A more story-driven interactive game was Battle Run, released in 1983, which combined shooting stages with interactive anime cutscenes where player input influenced a branching storyline. Time Gal (1985), in addition to the quick time events, added a time-stop feature when Reiki Stop Time enters at certain points in the game; at these points, players are given a list of three choices and have seven seconds to choose one.

Early Adventure Games (1983-1995)
The famous adventure game released in 1983 was Planet Mephius, authored by Eiji Yokoyama, and published by TE Soft for FM-7 in July 1983. In addition to being one of the first games to use a command menu system, its key innovation was the introduction of a “point and click” interface to the genre, using the cursor to interact with objects displayed on the screen. A similar “point and click” cursor interface was later used in the adventure game Wingman, released for the PC-8801 in 1984.

Portopia’s NES version of Serial Murder Case was released in 1985 and was a big hit in Japan, where over 700,000 copies were sold. The keyboard-less NES version, developed by Chunsoft, replaced the original verb-noun parser with a command selection menu list that included fourteen typing commands selectable with the gamepad. It also had a cursor that could be moved around the screen with the D-pad to find hints and hotspots, like a point-and-click interface. Horia’s second adventure game, Hokkaido Chain Murders, was later ported to the NES in 1987. Yūji Horii’s third mystery adventure game, Karuizawa Yūkai Annai (The Karuizawa Kidnapping Guide), was released for PC-8801 in early 1985 and for FM-7 in June of that year. It used a command menu system and a point-and-click cursor interface, like Portopia Serial Murder Case and Hokkaido Chain Murders, and introduced its own innovation: a service card. This gave the player direct control over the player character, who could be moved in a top-down view to explore the area.

In 1986 Square released the sci-fi adventure game Suishō no Dragon for the NES console. The game had several innovations, including the use of animation in many scenes rather than still images, and an interface reminiscent of a point-and-click interface for consoles like Portopia, but using visual icons rather than text to indicate various actions. Like the NES version of Portopia, it had a cursor that could be moved around the screen using the D-pad to explore the landscape, although the cursor in Suishō no Dragon was also used to click on action icons. In the same year, J.B. Harold Murder Club, a point-and-click graphic adventure for PC-98. It featured character interaction as a core gameplay element and has a similar type of multiple-phrase response to more recent titles such as the adventure Shenmue and Shadow of Memories as well as the role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The TurboGrafx-CD port of J.B. Harold Murder Club was one of the first Japanese adventure games released in the United States. As of 2011, the JB Harold series had sold 20 million copies on various platforms.

Haruhiko Shono’s adventure games Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991), L-Zone (1992)) and Gadget: Invention, Travel, Adventure (1993) used pre-rendered 3D computer graphics that preceded Myst. The plot of The Nut also foreshadowed the films Dark City (1998) and The Matrix (1999) and influenced director Guillermo del Toro. Kyoto Cosmology (1993) is a nonlinear adventure game that focuses on an open world exploration of a large city.

After Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Kojima created his next graphic adventure, Policenauts (1994), a point-and-click adventure known as an early example of extensive voice acting in video games. It also featured a science fiction setting, a theme revolving around space exploration, a plot inspired by an ancient Japanese tale from Urashima Taro, and the occasional full-length video cutscene. The gameplay was much like Snatcher, but with the addition of a point-and-click interface and some first-person shooters. Polisenauts also introduced summation screens, which update the player’s memory of the story after reloading the save, an element Kojima later used in Metal Gear Solid.

The 1995 Human Entertainment game Clock Tower: The First Fear for the SNES console from was a hybrid between a point-and-click graphic adventure and a survival horror game revolving around survival against a deadly stalker known as Scissorman, who pursued players throughout the game.

Global Expansion (2000-present).
In recent years, Japanese visual novels have been released more frequently in the West, especially on the Nintendo DS controller after the success of mystery games such as the Capcom Ace Attorney series (which began on Game Boy Advance in 2001), the Cing Hotel Dusk series (beginning in 2006) and the Level-5 Professor Layton series (beginning in 2007). English fan translations of visual novelizations such as Square Radical Dreamers (a 1996 side story to the Chrono series of role-playing video games ) and Key Clannad (2004) have also become available in recent years.

The Nintendo DS, in particular, helped revive the popularity of the genre through the introduction of previously unknown Japanese adventure games, usually visual novelizations localized for Western audiences. In 2005, Capcom re-released the courtroom visual novel Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, originally a 2001 Game Boy Advance game released only in Japan, for the Nintendo DS in both Asian and Western markets. The game and its sequels proved popular with Western audiences and earned acclaim for reviving the adventure game genre. Following the success of Ace Attorney, Level-5 and Nintendo published the Professor Layton series worldwide beginning in 2007. Since then, both series have become some of the best-selling adventure game franchises with Ace Attorney selling over 4 million units worldwide and Professor Layton selling nearly 12 million units worldwide. Other successful Japanese adventure games for the DS in Western markets include Cing Another Code: Two Memories (2005) and Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (2006)… and Chunsoft’s Zero Escape series, which includes Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward.

Online distribution has also helped reduce the cost of attracting consumers to niche Japanese games, allowing for localization and release for Western markets of another market for visual novel and dating simulators. Localization and distribution can be done by small teams, removing financial obstacles to the distribution of these games, often released as dōjin soft or amateur titles, to Western countries. A prime example of this is Hatoful Boyfriend, a comedic dating simulation in which the player attempts to date pigeons in a school setting. The game was originally released in Japan in 2011, but received considerable attention in its remake and localization in 2014, in part because of its yu