[MoriartyL]

This will be a bit personal, but hear me out. I joined these forums not because I'm a fan of adventure games, but because I like the concept. I like good stories, and I like game experiences, and I am always looking for a good implementation of the former within the latter. I am a fan of the promise of adventure games. But the truth is that I have yet to play an adventure game and really enjoy it.

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh- Secret of Monkey Island's humor was enough to get me to overlook the gameplay, and I did enjoy the experience. Grim Fandango had a good enough world that I forgave the endless puzzles. And I enjoyed Loom for its inventory system. But I've never enjoyed an adventure as an adventure. The few adventures I've enjoyed I would have enjoyed much more as movies. And yet I'm still attracted to this type of game, searching out new adventures all the time.

When I played The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the first time, I hated it. But I refused to believe that the problem was with me, and kept looking for more text adventures. I must have played around fifty text adventures now, and each time I tell myself, "This is just a bad game. Maybe I should look for another one." And I keep looking. But now I can't ignore the problem anymore- this has gone on for too long. I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe you can help me.

I've just started playing Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. This is a classic, I told myself. Everyone loves it. AG gave it five stars! So I got it. I'm on the second day now, and hating every moment.

Maybe the problem is that I'm just incapable of handling these puzzles. The day wasn't ending, no matter what I did. Eventually I spent hours just trying to hand every single item in my inventory to every single person in the game, with no luck. (This is not fun in the slightest.) So I turned to walkthroughs. (I always am eventually forced to turn to walkthroughs.) I learned that I had not read every single book at the beginning, and had not tried to pick up every item in the grandmother's attic, and had not made the connection between an obscure piece of dialogue, and had not treated a certain NPC as if he were a computer program to be manipulated and that was why I wasn't getting anywhere.

But it's just me, isn't it? I'm doing something wrong, or else these puzzles would be so simple. I mean, the AG review says the puzzles are "almost universally logical", so I just have no ability to make logical deductions, right? Is there some way to develop this skill? These problems pop up every time I try to play an adventure game. (I don't consider Myst an adventure.) I want so much to enjoy these games- but how?