Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of literary genres. Many adventure games (text and graphic) are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multi-player design difficult. "Colossal Cave Adventure" is identified as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include "Zork", "King's Quest", "The Secret of Monkey Island", and "Myst".
Silent protagonist
The earliest player characters in video games, including the likes of Mario and Link, were silent protagonists. The same was true for early role playing games; these games originated from pen and paper games such as "Dungeons & Dragons" and when put on the screen, did not require or have any spoken dialogue, since the games plot and mechanics were all picture and motion based. Players are expected to put themselves into the role of the silent hero, and since the player does not talk in the game, neither does the on-screen avatar.