[diego]

Originally Posted by Iznogood

If we take your example with hacking into a computer, then neither of the options you give is really anything i would thing of as creative, as long as the password is in a book I have found, then i don't really care how I have to enter it.

The point is - you DON'T KNOW whether the password is correct or not even when you DID find the right clue. Because there're other clues, other books for example. Let's imagine a scene like this:



With good game design, there should be several clues pointing to the right direction when searching for a computer pass. Like, the owner of the computer is interested in philosophy, then there's a book on Greek philosophers at a bookcase with underlined article on Aristotle. There's also an Aristotle bust on the desk. Chances are, "Aristotle" could be the right password.

Now, in "low creativity", you will just CLICK on a computer and your character will AUTOMATICALLY type the password. "High creativity" will force YOU, the player to think about what could the password be based on clues you've found, and enter it by yourself, or choose one in menu of "Socrates, Plato and Aristotle".

Originally Posted by Iznogood

The most creative puzzles i have seen in a long time was in Sam&Max s3, where you had to use max's psychic abilities, like seeing into the future, reading someones mind or changing into some object etc.

Yes, some "underlying" puzzle concept can greatly boost the puzzle design. It's like morphing ability in Journeyman Project 3, or building the flying machine in Toonstruck.

Originally Posted by Mad Manny

as for the SH one I can't really comment as no matter how many walkthroughs I looked through I couldn't find the explanation for how you were supposed to realize what the next location was (other than reading it from walkthrough).

Why did you read the walkthrough before playing the game? I can guarantee there are 2 perfect clues that point in the right direction, so you can logically deduce what location to type. I'd wish you can still play it, but if you want to spoil it, those are:

Spoiler:

fish scale and rope found at the crime scene. Back at 221B, you'll analyze those and Holmes will deduce things like that rope comes from a boat and fresh water and that fish scale is from a saltwater (river Thames is both salty and fresh). From those, you can deduce things that they come from a "port", "dock", "wharf", "Thames" whatever.

Originally Posted by colpet

Logic puzzles can be extremely creative.

Yes, most certainly. But it is true they demand a lot of thought put in since they're sort of "game within the game", unless it's a copy-paste material with recognizable logic puzzles. So the point is - there is more and less "creativity" with them also. Like the quite easy jigsaw



and a more complicated one