[thejobloshow]

I consider inventory puzzles to be logic puzzles because they depend on understanding the logic of the game's world and using some lateral thinking. It is these types of puzzles i prefer in an adventure game as it feels more organic to the story.

I feel if a puzzle advances the story and depends on understanding the world of the game rather than an isolated mental challenge, it increases the enjoyment and replay value of the game.

There's a documentary on text adventures called GET LAMP that interviews a lot of people who developed the Infocom text adventures and during the documentary one of the developers says "How many times do you want to solve the same crossword?"

That's the question that runs through my mind when I play some of these adventure games and run into a well known puzzle that's been used to death like a maze or a slider puzzle that serves no real purpose to the story but is merely an obstacle to pad game length. To me, games like Professor Layton are like this and I feel they're basically filler you play in between real adventures. However, Layton can be forgiven somewhat because they have a ton of style.

So, if you ask me what the most creative type of puzzle is I will respond by saying: the type of puzzle that fits organically in the game world and complements the story rather than feeling like a needless obstacle.