When you're playing adventure games, do you feel you're pretty slick at certain things but not so hot on others? For instance, I just finished sherlock holmes the awakened ( excellent game btw) and I was rubbish at some of the number puzzles that were written on documents. I remember being stumped in voyage over the codes on the floor and walls. Mostly my problem is not being able to 'see' what it is I have to do. Once I know, I can then go ahead and just do the calculations or whatever needs to be done. I generally ask for help or check a WT in those cases. That's probably my biggest weakness, not seeing what I'm meant to be doing with a puzzle. Lacking in a logical mind slightly? Then again, I surprise myself in other instance where I feel my logic is good.

I don't really know what my strength is because it varies from game to game. I'm not bad at pixel hunting, I'm fairly good at finding hidden locations that some others search for days to find, I'm reasonable at mechanical puzzles.
Perhaps my strength is in inventory puzzles, knwoing which items to combine to ultimately solve something, such as in the kheops games.

What are yours?

[Crapstorm]

I hold the title for world's worst pixel-hunter. I miss on average 30% of the hotspots in adventure games.

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

I hold the title for world's worst pixel-hunter. I miss on average 30% of the hotspots in adventure games.

Do you get a little disappointed at yourself when you miss something?
I was searching for hours in the awakened for something to help with a puzzle, and when I asked for help on another forum, it was an item that had been staring me in the face in another room and I completely hadn't seen it. I was annoyed at myself.

[Harald B]

I usually breeze through anything remotely resembling a logic puzzle, which I suppose is as it should be given that I'm doing an MSc in Logic. I tend to miss out on important hotspots, and I freeze up for a moment as soon as any kind of time-pressure gets into the picture (even with simple "perform action X while character Y is distracted for a few seconds" puzzles, which gets very annoying).

[colpet]

I'm pretty good with mechanical puzzles, spacial challenges (mazes) and visual puzzles (jigsaws, sliders, tower of hanoi). I'm not bad with math and geometrically based problems, but sometimes struggle with alternates to base 10 math.
I'm ok with most inventory puzzles and finding hot spots as long as they are fairly logical.
I'm not good with word puzzles - crosswords, anagrams, etc. - and really suck at rubik's cube type puzzles. Any music puzzle is hopeless for me as I'm tone deaf. I also have exteme difficulty with anything that relies on quick reflex actions, which is why I avoid games with those elements.
A general strength I have is my note taking and attention to detail. A general weakness is my tendency to lose patience when I get frustrated.

[Nautilus]

I'm not good with repetitive puzzles, I lose interest and eventually can't solve them.

[MikaelS]

Mechanical puzzles are my weaknesses, can't think of anything else. For example a simple slider puzzle on Still Life is beating the crap out of me.

I guess the main problem with them I have is: A - I'm not smart enough for them B - They don't interest me, and I have hard time to focus on things that doesn't interest me.

Someone mentioned pixel hunting... I've made a habit to hunt properly every area I hit for starters so I wouldn't miss anything, so I guess I'm pretty good at it.

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Strengths:

-Inventory puzzles
-Dialogue puzzles, verbal/written comprehension puzzles, etc.
-Board-game type puzzles
-Humor-based puzzles
-Finding hotspots/interactive locations

Weaknesses:

-Mathematical puzzles
-Science puzzles (anything from mixing/measuring chemicals, to understanding physics)
-Engineering puzzles (things involving gears, levers, etc.)
-Timed puzzles (hate 'em!!)

[Crapstorm]

Originally Posted by Roman5

Do you get a little disappointed at yourself when you miss something?
I was searching for hours in the awakened for something to help with a puzzle, and when I asked for help on another forum, it was an item that had been staring me in the face in another room and I completely hadn't seen it. I was annoyed at myself.

I don't get disappointed in myself, I get disappointed at the developers for hiding the important hotspots. I don't like Where's Waldo books, and I don't like painting the screen with the mouse pointer. I will never understand how adventure gamers are willing to spend so much time doing this menial activity.

Originally Posted by Crapstorm

I don't get disappointed in myself, I get disappointed at the developers for hiding the important hotspots. I don't like Where's Waldo books, and I don't like painting the screen with the mouse pointer. I will never understand how adventure gamers are willing to spend so much time doing this menial activity.

On the one hand, I completely know what you mean. But on the other hand, I quite enjoy pixel hunting. It's a bit similar to finding a secret, hidden entrance. You search for it for a while and when you eventually find it or stumble upon it, you're like oh, cool, I found it !" I feel a bit like that when I've searched everywhere and then find an/the item, there's a sense of reward. Reminds me of party games when someone would hide something and you have to look behind every bit of furniture, rip the carpets up, or check inside the flower vases.

[MoriartyL]

Provided I get suitable rewards for successes, I'm willing to be extremely patient and practice over and over and over again to get to the skill level I want to be. I think that's an important strength, though not too many games these days are constructed that way. I must have spent literally hundreds of hours training myself for F-Zero GX. But the reward has to be there. If I put in the effort demanded and don't get rewarded for it, I stop playing.

My Achilles' Heel is details. The original problem was that any time I saw a little detail my brain got stuck on it. I'd need to look at it again three or four times just to internalize what I was seeing. This is terrible for books with lots of exposition, so I stopped reading novels altogether. It's also terrible for trying to learn anything at all from an actual teacher, because every time there's a little bump in the road I go flying backwards but the car keeps moving. So I stopped that too.

Anyway, that was the original problem, because with time I trained myself to ignore the little details to keep going. Otherwise I'd never get anywhere. So now, if there's something important in a room but it looks like a detail of the background, I could potentially look straight at it 200 times and never notice it. So for me, pixel hunts aren't just a chore, they're an impossibility.

The same handicap prevents me from solving many inventory puzzles. If I pick up something and only get to use it three hours later, I'm not going to know it's there. (Again, this makes such puzzles not just questionable design choices but a complete impossibility for me.) If right after getting an item, there were a puzzle showing you what it's meant to be used for, I'd internalize it as an important part of the game and I might even have fun using it later. But when it's just taking up space in the inventory and I don't know why I'm carrying it around, I perceive it as a trivial detail and block it out completely.


Edit: Oh, another strength is I have a very good memory for music, but this has only ever been useful in LOOM, Zelda and piano.

[I Love Cookiemonster]

I don't think i have any strenghts, i pretty much suck at anything and need a walktrough sooner or later.

[träum_was_schönes]

I'm terrible at inventory puzzles which means that I suck at games like Monkey Island. The combinations just don't make sense to me. My lack of ingenuity at inventory puzzles also means that I rate adventure games a bit differently than most people

I'm quite alright at any sort of word/movement puzzle (slider,box, maze, these fox and chicken type puzzle that show up in ND all the time, etc). I also enjoyed about 75% of the puzzles in Keepsake but most games aren't really made in that style.

The one thing I really hate though is if I am forced to read too much to figure out what I should be doing. Which is funny because I actually love to read but I just don't like having to read things that I am not interested in.

[SnorkleCat]

I'm good at puzzles that involve logic, spotting patterns, and cracking codes such as those in Myst and Keepsake and the "ancient archaeology" puzzles in Broken Sword 2 and Fate of Atlantis etc. I'm not so good at inventory puzzles because they often don't make sense to me or seem too outrageous and silly to even try.

[nCn]

Oh I loved myst puzzles and solved many of them, but i must admit that sometimes they REALLY stump me. Im fairly good with math puzzles - My FAVOURITE puzzle ever was the number - colour adding in RAMA. I was just besides myself when I realised I was adding COLOURS

And I'm a partial DALTONIST LOLLLLLL!!!

Im not very fond of timed puzzles, and i absolutely HATE adventures that let you progress without an imporant item or action and then get you stranded and in a dead end. That just PISSES me off.

Illogical inventory puzzles? Show me one adventure that fetures an inventory that doesnt have them.

I mean, chicken and a PULLEY?! WTF

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Originally Posted by nCn

HATE adventures that let you progress without an imporant item or action and then get you stranded and in a dead end. That just PISSES me off.

Agreed!! Adding those to my list of puzzle weaknesses, hate 'em immensely.

[Jelena]

Logic and mechanical puzzles usually works well for me. Inventory puzzles aren't impossible either as long as it's fairly logical what to do with the inventory. Timed puzzles always leaves me frustrated as well as most puzzles involving sounds. It seems to me I have a short memory when it comes to sounds. They just vanish from my memory. I have to write down explanations of the sounds and if there are many similar sounds things can get pretty difficult. I remember the maze in Myst with all those ploinks and boinks

[JemyM]

I am min-maxed.
Strength: 11 (training on gym but nothing special)
Constitution: 16 (Unusually high stamina/endurance and I never get sick)
Dexterity: 8 (Like a rhino)
Intelligence: 18 (133 in IQ)
Wisdom: 12 (Insufficient experience/education)
Charisma: 6 (Forget it, im socially handicapped)

[DustyShinigami]

I'm not much cop at those 'brain teaser' puzzles, like that slider one from The Black Mirror. My mind just switches off and i lose interest pretty quickly, same goes for any mathematical puzzles. I definately need walkthroughs for those sorts.
I much prefer inventory puzzles, especially logical ones, but even then i can get stumped on some of them. There are times where i'll work out what you're supposed to do straight away. If i have too many items or the puzzles are ilogical i'll end up spending ages combining items instead of thinking about it.
'Pixel hunting' can sometimes be a problem and sometimes takes me awhile to find items i may of missed. And i'm not very keen on stealth and timed puzzles either they tend to aggravate me quite a lot.

[LeisureSuitedLooney]

Is there a problem with the forums? I keep recieving these "updates" saying new messages have been posted...and they seem to be working backwards! ie, I got the one for Alucard's message BEFORE the one for JemyM's, which came BEFORE that one. Weird, huh?