An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story that is driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenges such as combat. The term originates from the 1970s game Adventure and relates to the style of gameplay pioneered in that game, rather than the kind of story being told. The adventure genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, such as literature and film.

Adventure games encompass a wide variety of literary genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, and comedy. Nearly all adventure games are designed for a single player, since the heavy emphasis on story and character makes multi-player design difficult.[citation needed] Because these games require strong characters and plots, character development tends to follow literary conventions of personal and emotional growth, rather than growth that affects gameplay. The genre's popularity peaked during the late 1980s and mid 1990s (sometime between 1987 and 1996.

Post 1996, adventure game sales began to decline) when many considered it to be among the most technically advanced genres, and it is now sometimes considered to be a niche genre. According to the Entertainment Software Association, in 2007 Adventure Games comprised 4.3% of Video Game Super Genres by units sold in the US (up from 3.4% in 2006) and 5% of best-selling Computer Game Super Genres (down from 5.7% in 2006), although it is not clear how the Super Genre was defined.

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