[dantebk]

I'm in Chapter 2 of the Longest Journey. Don't read the spoilers if you don't want puzzle solutions from Chapter 1 and 2.

Spoiler:

I'm stuck for a while, staring at a fusebox I'm assuming I need to open to get the hillbilly movie theater worker distracted. There's a lock and I don't have a key. Eventually I give up and go on gamefaqs.com for the answer.

It was so simple! All I had to do was use my gold ring to connect the wires outside my apartment, then do a weird switch puzzle, then turn down the water pressure to free the clamp, then throw bread on the rubber ducky outside my window, then pull up the clothesline, then retrieve the rubber ducky by the cafe, then combine the clothesline and the clamp, then go to the subway and look at the spark, then take the band-aid off the rubber ducky and blow into it, then put it on the clamp, then when the ducky deflates the clamp will grab the object form the subway rails. Presto! Key to a fuse box!

GEE!!! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT BEFORE!?!

And people give the cat hair/fake mustache problem from Gabriel Knight 3 a hard time. For the love of all that is holy what a convoluted mess this was!

I have loved adventure games for over 10 years, and have played around 60 all the way through (and some, like the Monkey Island series and the Quest For Glory series, several times all the way through). But now I find myself frustrated with what I'd heard was one of the greatest adventure games ever made.

So either the above TLJ puzzle is genuinely idiotic, or I'm just sick of adventure gaming and didn't realize it before. Please opine.

[Legolas813]

That's pretty much the worst puzzle in the game. Once you get past it, the game gets MUCH better. Don't judge the whole thing just on that small part.

[QFG]

Strangely, I didn't have any trouble with that puzzle...

Everybody has different mental blocks... I wouldn't worry about burning out or anything like that.

[jannar85]

If you have a block, then pause a little. Maybe just play part of an game. Even Sam & Max 2 is a good way to do minor parts.

[buddi]

ahhh.. the infamous rubber duckie. I also needed a few hints to get through that one, I managed to fix the plumbing and figure out the rest of it, but I also needed a hint to clue me in that I had to go pick up the rubber duckie by the cafe. It then took a fair bit of trial and error to figure out what to do with it. Despite that darn duckie, TLJ is still one of my top three games.

[Spiwak]

Yes everyone rememberes that part. Spent a while on it but I don't think I ever looked it up. Trust me when I say most of the game is not that hard. That was one of the few adventure games I didn't have to play with a gamefaq as a tabbed window constantly.

[RLacey]

I'm like QFG here, I'm afraid. I actually had no trouble with the duck puzzle, and actually thought it was quite clever. I can certainly understand people disliking it, though. And, as others have said, it's not particularly indicative of the rest of the game.

[mjade19]

The rubber ducky thing actually made perfect sense to me, when I did it. But I think that was because I'd just recently replayed Sam and Max. Any puzzle, after that game, seems sensible. I always figured that part of TLJ was basically an ode to Lucasart style puzzles.

In contrast, I was just playing through Fate of Atlantis and got stuck at crossing the ravine (this is like 20 minutes into the game mind you). I tried all my objects on the tree, thinking I needed to build a bridge or a sling shot of sorts...but I just needed to click the use button on the tree. D'oh.

[buddi]

Sometimes it's not the puzzle, but the interface. Murder on the Orient Express had a couple of inventory puzzles that would have been comparatively easy with the usual click and drag interface, but instead they has a seperate screen for combining, which made it very cumbersome try different combinations. Drove me nuts!

[SnorkleCat]

I completely sympathize with dantebk on this one.
For me, it boils down to developers putting the wrong types of puzzles in the wrong types of games. I don't mind ridiculous puzzles as long as the game is a humorous, silly game. But I can't stand silly things in a story that is supposed to take itself seriously.

...working through Secret Files Tunguska right now and I've been rolling my eyes through the whole thing. Judging from the description and the opening credits, I thought it was supposed to be a tense tale of mystery and intrigue...but the puzzles thus far just make me want to slap the main characters around for being complete planks.

[Periglo]

Actually, that puzzle and some other assorted annoyances made Dreamfall a much better game for me. I am also increasingly tired of this kind of AG, and Dreamfall was a welcome step way from it (for me at least, that is.) The plot is still beautiful, so I strongly recommend playing TLJ, even if some hints are required. Btw, there's another puzzle which I found even worse.

[MadTricks]

Yes, i must accept, this puzzle was kinda "retarded".
But I did get through with it fast, luckily.
Still game turned up great and I can't say anything bad about it.

[aries323]

And this is exactly what Ragnar (the writer/producer of TLJ and Dreamfall) is talking about when he is saying that the adventure game needs to change.

The abovementioned puzzle is a symbol of one these annoying irritating puzzles in adventure games which, btw, only seems to have been put there, to make the game longer (imo). It is also a symbol of a very il-logical puzzle, meaning that you can't figure or reason out for yourself how you're going to solve this puzzle. (mentioned in the spoiler thinge in the first post).

To me, these kind of puzzles simply just had to go away from adventure games, and adventure games really should focus more on telling a (very) good story. And then rely on (some of) the puzzles to move the story along
until it is finished...

[Crapstorm]

Couldn't agree more, Aries.

If stories are the meat of adventure games, then puzzles are the skeleton. One weak puzzle is like a weak bone. It will break the experience. Puzzles are the key element of gameplay in adventures, and if they don't make sense, then the game is nonsense. It doesn't matter how good the story is, PUZZLES MUST MAKE SENSE. I don't know how this concept eludes so many developers.

After that idiotic rubber duck puzzle, I lost all faith in Tornqvist's game design abilities. I rushed through the rest of The Longest Journey with a walkthrough close at hand. It was just a chore.

[shadow9d9]

Originally Posted by dantebk

I'm in Chapter 2 of the Longest Journey. Don't read the spoilers if you don't want puzzle solutions from Chapter 1 and 2.

Spoiler:

I'm stuck for a while, staring at a fusebox I'm assuming I need to open to get the hillbilly movie theater worker distracted. There's a lock and I don't have a key. Eventually I give up and go on gamefaqs.com for the answer.

It was so simple! All I had to do was use my gold ring to connect the wires outside my apartment, then do a weird switch puzzle, then turn down the water pressure to free the clamp, then throw bread on the rubber ducky outside my window, then pull up the clothesline, then retrieve the rubber ducky by the cafe, then combine the clothesline and the clamp, then go to the subway and look at the spark, then take the band-aid off the rubber ducky and blow into it, then put it on the clamp, then when the ducky deflates the clamp will grab the object form the subway rails. Presto! Key to a fuse box!

GEE!!! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT BEFORE!?!

And people give the cat hair/fake mustache problem from Gabriel Knight 3 a hard time. For the love of all that is holy what a convoluted mess this was!

I have loved adventure games for over 10 years, and have played around 60 all the way through (and some, like the Monkey Island series and the Quest For Glory series, several times all the way through). But now I find myself frustrated with what I'd heard was one of the greatest adventure games ever made.

So either the above TLJ puzzle is genuinely idiotic, or I'm just sick of adventure gaming and didn't realize it before. Please opine.

It all made sense to me. The box was simple.. you need something as a conductor. Neither me nor my wife had problems with that puzzle. TLJ is a fairly easy and fair game... one puzzle was tough near the end.. but the game's story and puzzles are so fantastic that it didn't bother me.

You need to think outside of the box sometimes... don't think for your end result needs.. just think of what immediately makes sense.

[dantebk]

Wow! So many responses!

I was really interested to see how varied everyone's opinions are on this matter. Since so many have said the rest of the game isn't like this puzzle, I suppose I'll press on with it.

I agree with a lot of what aries323 and Crapstorm had to say about the puzzle serving the story. I think the puzzles in an adventure game have every right to be a bit weird, as long as there is some reason to even bother with them. For example, if you know you need to get the fireplace started, and the person who can do it is unwilling to because it's not cold in there, then giving the chattering false teeth to a nearby person makes sense, because then he looks like he's real cold, and the other fellow will start the fireplace. So as ridiculous a puzzle as that may seem, it has some causality.

However, this puzzle in TLJ did not. There was simply no reason to believe that any of the actions I ended up taking were in any way related to my desired end result until I got there. The only person who could get through that TLJ puzzle without a FAQ is someone who has played enough adventure games to know you should just do and take every stupid thing you possibly can cause you may need a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle at some later date. I guess I should've known better myself but maybe I expected more from such a hyped game.

Still, I will press on.

[aries323]

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

Couldn't agree more, Aries.

If stories are the meat of adventure games, then puzzles are the skeleton. One weak puzzle is like a weak bone. It will break the experience. Puzzles are the key element of gameplay in adventures, and if they don't make sense, then the game is nonsense. It doesn't matter how good the story is, PUZZLES MUST MAKE SENSE. I don't know how this concept eludes so many developers.

After that idiotic rubber duck puzzle, I lost all faith in Tornqvist's game design abilities. I rushed through the rest of The Longest Journey with a walkthrough close at hand. It was just a chore.

I think Ragnar has learnt something from this. And in fact, Dreamfall:TLJ does indeed focus heavily on the story while there is (supposedly) only a few puzzles in the game (or so I hear).

My main reason for saying what I did in post # 13 is that I actually just finished the demo of Runaway 2. And I am sorry to say that to me some of these puzzles, in the demo, simply didn't make sense in any way....

[After a brisk nap]

It's been a while since I played TLJ, but are you sure that the game didn't provide reasons for performing some of the intermediate steps? Like adjusting the contraption outside of the hostel?

It's very easy to get stuck in all kinds of puzzle games when you lock yourself into the mindset that this is the task I need to complete. Once you have the clamp and the duckie it's not really a difficult (or illogical) puzzle. You just have to realize that you need to get them, not just look for ways to open the fusebox.

[Naveed]

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

Couldn't agree more, Aries.

If stories are the meat of adventure games, then puzzles are the skeleton. One weak puzzle is like a weak bone. It will break the experience. Puzzles are the key element of gameplay in adventures, and if they don't make sense, then the game is nonsense. It doesn't matter how good the story is, PUZZLES MUST MAKE SENSE. I don't know how this concept eludes so many developers.

After that idiotic rubber duck puzzle, I lost all faith in Tornqvist's game design abilities. I rushed through the rest of The Longest Journey with a walkthrough close at hand. It was just a chore.

Please name one great adventure game that does not have a similar weak puzzle? I think from this point on, TLJ provides one of the better designed puzzles and a brilliant story.

Ragnar streamlined the puzzles in Dreamfall and the result? Most of the so-called 'adventure gamers' were up in arms over the simple game which did not have mind boggling puzzles. Where do we go from here? I think no where

[shadow9d9]

Originally Posted by dantebk

Wow! So many responses!

I was really interested to see how varied everyone's opinions are on this matter. Since so many have said the rest of the game isn't like this puzzle, I suppose I'll press on with it.

I agree with a lot of what aries323 and Crapstorm had to say about the puzzle serving the story. I think the puzzles in an adventure game have every right to be a bit weird, as long as there is some reason to even bother with them. For example, if you know you need to get the fireplace started, and the person who can do it is unwilling to because it's not cold in there, then giving the chattering false teeth to a nearby person makes sense, because then he looks like he's real cold, and the other fellow will start the fireplace. So as ridiculous a puzzle as that may seem, it has some causality.

However, this puzzle in TLJ did not. There was simply no reason to believe that any of the actions I ended up taking were in any way related to my desired end result until I got there. The only person who could get through that TLJ puzzle without a FAQ is someone who has played enough adventure games to know you should just do and take every stupid thing you possibly can cause you may need a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle at some later date. I guess I should've known better myself but maybe I expected more from such a hyped game.

Still, I will press on.

Sorry, but using a metal ring as a conductor of electricity makes complete sense.

TLJ was the first adventure games I had played in almost 10 years and had little problem til the end. It was my wife's second adventure game ever and she didn't have problems here either.