[Melanie68]

Broken Sword 3

[indyjones2131]

Really? Does BS3 have good puzzles?

[kuddles]

Whether the puzzles are good or not is debatable. It certainly has an awful lot of dying.

[BerserkerTails]

The first Gabriel Knight game certainly handled both Dying and Timed puzzled well. I don't think there's any deadly situations until about 3/4ths of the way through the game, so it really becomes tense then (Since you've already developed attatchments to the characters).

Having been raised on Sierra games, I don't mind dying in adventures. In fact, quite a number of Sierra games made it fun to die, since they put a lot of time into creating specific death animations that were fun to watch.

There are, however, some death puzzles that are just idiotic. "Walking" puzzles, such as the path down from Mananan's house in King's Quest 3 and the plant/alien thing in Space Quest 2 are really annoying. Sure, they're realistic, but they're also not fun.

Like someone said earlier, if it's realistic that you can die, then I support it completely. For example, the Quest for Glory games would be horrible if you couldn't die. Same with the Police Quest games (Of course, there are a few deaths in the PQ games that are aggrivating, like "crossing the street" in PQ2).

[indyjones2131]

Yeah, Sierra did it okay for the most part, but I swear King Graham was the clumsiest mfer in Daventry. But MAN! KQ6 was one finely made game. I wish I could find the talkie of that game. Too bad Gametap doesn't have it or the VGA versions of QFG1 and SQ.

So is FOA the only Lucasarts adventure that you can really die in?

[stepurhan]

Originally Posted by Lacrima

I think it's all about execution.

Originally Posted by Lacrima

Timed puzzles as in "bring this keg of grog to this place, before it melts" are a stupid way to prevent players from using something with everything.

Knowing the puzzle you’re referring to there (quite famous after all) I didn’t have a problem with it. The puzzle fit the scenario perfectly and made sense given what you did with the grog once you did get it to the required destination. It has been a while but, as I recall, once you’d got the setup sorted out it didn’t actually require you to be that fast to achieve the goal. It is just one way of avoiding the “everything with everything” approach to problem-solving. What sort of thing do you prefer?

Originally Posted by Huz

Both of these games were 'real-time' in a general sense, in that time would pass independent of how many 'moves' you had taken. Zkul featured 'hunger' and 'thirst', which was seriously annoying. West featured "ill-tempered bank robbers" roaming the countryside, and if you couldn't type "shoot robber" fast enough you were dead. Not really a puzzle, that one.

Both of those do sound very artificial ways to make the game harder. I found the same with Police Quest as well. I died a couple of times because I had an attack of not being able to type (and I’m a touch typist so its not normally a problem for me)

Originally Posted by BerserkerTails

The first Gabriel Knight game certainly handled both Dying and Timed puzzled well. I don't think there's any deadly situations until about 3/4ths of the way through the game, so it really becomes tense then (Since you've already developed attatchments to the characters).

Agreed up to a point. Death was appropriate in the game as Gabriel was dealing with dangerous situations. I agree that letting people get to know the characters also makes the death scenes more effective. However, I think GK1 did spring a couple of potential death sequences on you without warning.

Spoiler:

the snake in the museum. No warning it’s loose until its on you. The mummies in the mound. I’m putting sticks in the wall to unlock a door. What indication was there those things would come alive when I completed the sequence?

[Zanthia]

Thats why I like Lucasarts.
No dying, almost no timed puzzles

[Lacrima]

stepurhan: Yeah, I know, great pun. *whistles* As to the puzzle: I didn't find it that awful , since it didn't take too much time, and I think they focused on the joke there, but - would it really have made a difference if there was no time limit? I remember failing the first few tries - maybe just because I tend to get quite clumsy when it comes to timed puzzles with a lot of clicking. Then again, Monkey Island is all about this style. Obscure, funny puzzles. I found them quite entertaining in the end, but while figuring it out, I was bothered. For me, it's one thing to do some task I know in an amount of time or figuring out something to do in a certain amount of time. (of course, the former option is sometimes the result of latter, but that doesn't necessarily has to be the case)

[Panthera]

Played through return to mysterious island some days ago, and it really irritated me that the game didn't tell me I could die until a stupid robot shot me. towards that point I've only escaped dangerous situations as the big fish monster. Didn't like those puzzles at all, because I'm not that good at aiming and firing at things, one of the reasons for why I don't play fps.. Died at least one time with every robot, besides the one at the mill..

[BerserkerTails]

Originally Posted by stepurhan

Agreed up to a point. Death was appropriate in the game as Gabriel was dealing with dangerous situations. I agree that letting people get to know the characters also makes the death scenes more effective. However, I think GK1 did spring a couple of potential death sequences on you without warning.

Spoiler:

the snake in the museum. No warning it’s loose until its on you. The mummies in the mound. I’m putting sticks in the wall to unlock a door. What indication was there those things would come alive when I completed the sequence?

Well, concerning the situations you just mentioned:

Spoiler:

Both those sequences make sense and didn't frustrate me at all, in my opinion. In real life, Gabriel wouldn't have had any warning about either the snake or the mummies. Plus, thoe sections wouldn't have been as fun if right before hand there was a warning saying: "The snake is going to attack you when you enter this room" or whatever.

Both of them were well motivated as well, they weren't just random dangerous situations. The museum owner, being part of the voodoo cult dealie, wanted Gabriel dead. And the mummies were there to protect the medallion from being reclaimed by the Ritter family.

It's one thing to have prior warning that a dangerous situation is coming, but when the character you're playing doesn't have any prior warning, why should you?

[EvilMulder]

Originally Posted by De-spoilered from BerserkerTails' post

It's one thing to have prior warning that a dangerous situation is coming, but when the character you're playing doesn't have any prior warning, why should you?

IMHO you should turn that around though. Because logicly most characters would find it iritating to die themselves, there should be a decent gameplay system in place so the player isn't iritated too. Because playing a game isn't about being iritated, no mather how realistic it is. So that means either advance warning (so the player can save), or a regular auto-save feature, or a retry button.

[seebaruk]

Blackstone Chronicles had really good timed puzzles that ended in death if you were too slow, damn they were tense (like being locked in the sauna coffin, with the heat slowly rising...). Good thing was, if you were killed it gave the option of trying again, and also the option to see a hint or even the solution. So it wasn't frustrating. The only timed sequences I hate are really long ones. Can't think of an adventure example, but the falling starship level in Jedi Knight was frigging annoying.

[stepurhan]

As EvilMulder has pretty much said already, this is a game we're talking about here.

I play games to have fun and dying suddenly without some way to not have to replay a big chunk of the game harms that fun. An autosave or replay button would be fine (Prisoner of Ice gave you the chance to replay sections ending in your death) With either of these you wouldn't get advance warning (because the function would operate without you knowing at the time) but you wouldn't have the frusttration of going over however much game had elapsed since your last save.