[-=三D三=-]

STILL LIFE SPOILER-ISH ALERT , SOME PUZZLE TYPES ARE MENTIONED BUT NOT IN DETAIL.


I was wondering if other adventure players like myself are interested in understanding what makes for a good balance in an adventure game.

So I decided to try and figure out roughly what percentages of actions, puzzles etc.. occur and in what frequency in various games. For my first analysis I chose Still life , because I played it recently and also despite its flaws I thought it was a good example of high production value game.
I divided up the game actions into separate categories with the help of this walkthrough, and my sketchy memory.
http://www.gameboomers.com/wtcheats/pcSs/stilllife.htm

I proceeded to mark off each game task into the various categories, which I then used to calculate a percentage. As a proviso I would say that some of the puzzles could fit into several categories, and I have no doubt that I have made mistakes in noting exact amounts. But it really was just to get a general picture of the percentages in the game.

I have defined the following categories. I’m sure other games would also need additional categories, but these seemed the main ones appropriate for Still life.
Each time an action is required to progress it is counted as one point.

The categories are:

Dialogue- compulsory , quite an obvious one. E.g. You must talk to X To find out about Y…..

Abstract puzzle- this is a bit more tricky. I define an abstract puzzle as one of those stange devices and contrivances that only appear in adventure games, you know, Riddles, poems etc, basically a non-real-world mental challenge. For example the, cookie mix recipie, or the safe combination puzzle, and the accursed slider puzzle.

Inventory based- combining one or more objects for a purpose

Character based- when a character requests you to do something, Or you must do something to a character. E.g. Could you go and dust these prints? Or the old adventure favourite distract the guard, that one never gets old!

Location based/Physical action/Practical this very broad category covers actions that are not so much perplexing puzzles but required actions, e.g. move the boxes to make a path for yourself.
Take pipe and knock down the door. Jump from the fire escape onto the dumpster etc…

Document- Documents that you read to progress, or receive clues in

Action sequence – When you have to perform a feat of dexterity or timing. E.g. The blasted spider robot!

Okay I’m sure you could probably add a few categories of your own.
Location/Physical action category I tried to summarize them into groups of actions, where some steps were required to do a task, because otherwise it would have been a massive category skewing the percentages. For example I counted making and using a grappling hook as one action. Also I didn’t include any “go to X locations to triggerY” as actions.

Okay here we go

241 Actions in total

Dialogue 89 /241 36.9%
Location/Practical/Physical 88/241 36.5%
Document 32/241 13%
Abstract 23/241 9.5%
Character 6/241 2.5%
Inventory 2/241 0.8%
Action sequence 1/241 0.4%

I was quite interested to observe how the frequency of dialogue really trailed off in the later sections of the game more actions were present, I think this helped with the pacing giving the feeling of making more progress quickly. Conversely at the beginning of the game where the Character dialogues and documents introduced the exposition and developed character, and gave a more slow pace movement through locations punctuated by compulsory dialogue trees.

Now I have most probably made mistakes, in my counting, categorization and or mathematics. So if anyone wants to check and repeat the exercise or If anyone interested in using the same framework to analyze some other games, that would be wonderful. I would like to have a look a Syberia next. I suspect that it has a very similar balance (being the same developer). Then perhaps some other companies work and a few classics. I would expect the secret of Monkey Island would be slanted more toward the dialogues, and games like darkfall or Rhem would be heavy on the abstract puzzle and document categories.

I hope this is some help to anyone seeking to understand our favourite genre better. If not I suppose you are whistling and trying not to make eye contact with the adventure obsessed loon before you.
-Cheers everyone.

David McDermott

[tsa]

I'm not sure people's enjoyment of games can be reduced to statistics like that. You can maybe use this method to sort of devide games into certain categories, but still, I doubt your method will lead you to the perfect balance of ingredients for an enjoyable adventuregame. The things that make people enjoy or loathe a game are much more subtle. How would you quantify the quality of the story, the graphics or the voices?

[Lucien21]

I like statistics. Statistics can be useful.

I applaude your intention and passion for games. And possibly you could come up with perfect balance statistically for your ideal adventure.

However artistic endevours rarely conform to the scientific process. Just look at most movie tie ins which are most definitly programmed by numbers.

You could make a game that had the perfect balance of puzzles and story according to your preference, but without a spark of that something it could still suck.

Plus the balance would be different for everyone.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by tsa

How would you quantify the quality of the story, the graphics or the voices?

I was thinking similar, but with words like character development, theme, setting, atmosphere, relevance of gameplay/interactivity to the above, etc.

I'm a huge fan of the analysis, in-depth study, and criticism of games, but I wish we didn't only have to take their surface elements into account.

[-=三D三=-]

Thanks everyone for the comments, its great to get feed back from everyone.

Tsa mentions "the perfect balance" well i dont think that there is actually a perfect balance, the idea of this statistical analysis was to help me understand the structure and methods of the game designers, and get some insight into what are the rules of thumb in adventure game design.

As lucien says, artistic endeavours rarely conform to the artistic process, very true i completely agree. However in all art disciplines you must first understand the traditional techniques before you can surpass them. I think film is a useful analogy here.
In cinematography if you just conform to the standard shots, Est shot pan left to right, medium, closeup etc you are not guarnteed a good film, but if you break the rules unwittingly you may confuse or frustrate your audience. for example in film cutting the camera across the imaginary 180 line that devides a scene. this is jarring and confusing to the viewer. Of course if you understand this you can use it to aritstic effect. So that is what i am trying to do here. Get a better understanding of what structure various designers/writers have used in games.
So this alalysis doesnt attempt to quantify the acting art etc... I dont think those artistic elements would benifit from that analysis.

already discussing this and doing the analysis has been a big help. I think that the reason action sequences are so offensive to many players is not just that they dont suit adventure games, but in the still life example it is one single isolated challenge, it has no preceding easier action scenes to lead the players expectations and to develop the difficulty curve. I personally dont like action sequences. I think most often where people get really annoyed with a game and then resort to a walkthrough is where the designer has lead their expectations with a certain puzzle pattern and then goes to a completely different type of puzzle. Of course it will be harder to guess, but harder isnt better, and may just frustrate the player.

Actually I come from the artistic side of games, so that is why I am trying broaden my knowledge and to understand the logical structure better. The more I see the more I have respect for the game developers that are working in the field.

-David

[Ascovel]

Originally Posted by -=三D三=-

I think most often where people get really annoyed with a game and then resort to a walkthrough is where the designer has lead their expectations with a certain puzzle pattern and then goes to a completely different type of puzzle. Of course it will be harder to guess, but harder isnt better, and may just frustrate the player.

Good observation. I think the best design is to avoid creating impressions in the players' minds of any kind of patterns within the gameplay. The games that try to be easy have usually the biggest problems with that.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by -=三D三=-

I personally dont like action sequences. I think most often where people get really annoyed with a game and then resort to a walkthrough is where the designer has lead their expectations with a certain puzzle pattern and then goes to a completely different type of puzzle. Of course it will be harder to guess, but harder isnt better, and may just frustrate the player.

Originally Posted by Ascovel

Good observation. I think the best design is to avoid creating impressions in the players' minds of any kind of patterns within the gameplay. The games that try to be easy have usually the biggest problems with that.

It's not so much that a different kind of puzzle is annoying, but an illogical or needlessly complicated solution to a certain problem. For instance, in one of the MDNA games Carol Reed has to remove some dirt from a sign to be able to read it. She needs a cloth for that. The logical thing to do would be to use the first thing that she finds. When I played the game she didn't have a cloth with her, so I sent her home to the kitchen to find one. There was none to be found. It turned out she had to use a piece of dirty cloth that was lying in a cellar on the other side of the city! Puzzles like this make my skin crawl. And there are many, many of them.

[-=三D三=-]

Originally Posted by tsa

For instance, in one of the MDNA games Carol Reed has to remove some dirt from a sign to be able to read it. It turned out she had to use a piece of dirty cloth that was lying in a cellar on the other side of the city!.

Yes that sounds infuriating alright. I suppose it seems obvious to the designer when they designed it, but fail to see the illogical nature of the task once it has been implemented in the game. But if it is the case that the designer intentionally did it to make it harder, it is unforgiveable.
I find once a designer has broken my trust by adding an illogical puzzle to a game, from then on I can't enjoy the game. Instead of being absorbed in the game world, I'm double guessing the designer. The spell is broken.

What would you say are the cardinal sins of bad adventure design?
Or can you give any examples of a game that drove you into an absolute rage!!
I think we can learn as much from others mistakes as we can from their triumphs.

To the list of cardinal sins I would add,
contrived/Illogical puzzles (as you mentioned)
Slider puzzles　and the towers of hanoi
Forcing the player to cover long distances in the game world just to pad the game.
sudden death, forcing the player to replay sections, that drives me crazy!


what would you add?

[Ascovel]

The only things that ever drove me into an absolute rage in a game concerned its story, specificly disappointments with an initially promising one. When it comes to puzzles, I really mind, when they're overly cliched and the gameplay becomes a boring formality. Also, what always gives a strong vibe of amatourish, unfriendly design, is a complete lack of hints (spoken, written, drawn or animated) for some rather obscure puzzle.

There were some absolutely maddening gameplay ideas in an adventure game called The Prince and The Coward (aka Galador). The worst one demanded clicking the mouse buttons consecutively for about ten minutes to pull some object out. If you lost the proper rhytm, you had to start over. A true nightmare .

[tsa]

Originally Posted by -=三D三=-

What would you say are the cardinal sins of bad adventure design?
Or can you give any examples of a game that drove you into an absolute rage!!
I think we can learn as much from others mistakes as we can from their triumphs.

The best adventure game I have played by far as far as puzzles are concerned is Voyage. Every puzzle in that game was logical, and what's more, for every problem there were multiple solutions! That was a really good thought-out game. However, there was hardly any story to speak of. Still, I enjoyed it a lot and will certainly play it again.

The worst adventure game I've played by far was Paradise. Right in the beginning I did some things in an order not expected by the game and could not proceed further. The programming was bad. And the protagonist was a bored, selfish and very annoying woman. That game indeed drove me mad. I didn't finish it.

Of course, nobody here likes action scenes. Real masochists play action scenes using a trackball. Instant fury guaranteed!

I can think of many more examples of good and bad puzzles but unfortunately I have to go now.

[Kazmajik]

I get frustrated when the character I'm controlling is dumber than a box of rocks and won't react to the environment in a sensible way. I like it when games reveal things to me as a player the way they are revealed to the character, so I feel involved in the story of the game. I can't stand it when my character is limited by some aforeknowledge that isn't shared with me as a player, such as when I want to investigate a door and all I get from the character is a "no need to go there." Well, why not? How does the character know that and I don't? That's when the game becomes more about trying to guess what the designers had in mind, trying to read their minds and not be allowed to discover everything for myself. Granted, some limitations are needed to keep from getting off on the wrong track, but it's a real balancing act.

[Kazmajik]

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but a couple of real idiotic puzzles are:

Runaway:

Spoiler:

Making peanut butter. Out of peanuts and butter in a jar in the hot sun. Yeah, okay...

Culpa Innata:

Spoiler:

Making wax. Out of lemon juice, sugar, and hot water. I don't know what chemical reaction is supposed to transform this hot lemonade concoction into wax. And the premise for making the wax in the first place was to hold together one of those put-the-broken-pieces-back-together puzzles we've seen dozens of times already that was included as filler for the game. Ridiculous.

[tsa]

How about, also in Runaway:

Spoiler:

the sprinkler puzzle. If you want to wake someone up, you can throw water over her. It takes Brian aaaages to come up with that and find a way to actually do it.

There were many occasions in the game where Brian showed that he would not have been missed at whatever university he was invited to. The professor who invited him must have mixed him up with someone else because

Brian

.

[Kazmajik]

Also in Runaway:

Spoiler:

To make regular glasses into sunglasses, just dip them into a handy puddle of oil that's out in the desert. Then slip them on an unsuspecting person so you can sneak by unnoticed. Great.

[rtrooney]

Good analysis of one event in one game, but there have been equally popular games, e.g., Shivers and Lighthouse, where there was no dialog whatsoever. And the Myst games have marginal dialog.

[Davies]

I've always meant to analyse various games, but it takes such a long time.

Some book I read on game design analyses games using a flow chart. Each node on the chart represents the action you have to take to proceed, e.g.:

Take key -- Open door with key

If you have to do two or more things to proceed, you end up with two or more branches of action flowing into a "bottleneck" point. Or if you have the choice of several different actions from a point, the chart shows several branches away from the bottleneck.

This sort of diagram is good at showing up bottleneck areas, which often mark the transition from one chapter or level to another. It also shows how linear or open the gameplay is.

I think this sort of flow chart would work well combined with your puzzle/task categories.

Writers and artists are always urged to study works they don't like, as well as works they do. Often you learn more by seeing why someone's work went wrong. So anyone interested in game design ought to spend time looking at bad games and why they're bad, as well as studying games they enjoy.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Davies

Writers and artists are always urged to study works they don't like, as well as works they do. Often you learn more by seeing why someone's work went wrong. So anyone interested in game design ought to spend time looking at bad games and why they're bad, as well as studying games they enjoy.

That's a really good point.

[-=三D三=-]

Kazmajik, Thanks, good examples of design mistakes alright.
I would categorise them under Illogical puzzles, they sound pretty frustrating, I suppose they can only be explained by bad design. Unless there is some pun or cultural reference in The original language that doesnt translate to the English version,who knows.

LOL!The Dumber than rocks Character is also a great example too I remember screaming at the screen of my old spectrum 48k,
That was of course before I understood how games were made.
I would probably describe it as an "arbitrary" design problem. When you want perform a logical action to complete a task but you can't because it is not how the stupid designer decided you should complete the challenge, its like the designer is saying in his petulant whiny voice No you can't do that because I say so! Bound to drive anyone mental.

To Davies comment- how true, these hilariously bad examples are very informative.

to recap the Cardinal design sins so far are...

Illogical puzzles
Lazy/unoriginal design (slider puzzles etc)
Game padding, Forcing repetitive tasks or having to trek across the world to do something.
Arbitrary Design or "you must solve the puzzle like this because I say｡｡so!"

Great stuff, so If I can avoid all those, and write a stunning entertaining script and great art and top notch voice acting and music, I ll be onto a winner! no problems

keep your most hated puzzles etc coming....

[tsa]

Did we mention the cat-sticky tape-moustache puzzle in GK3 already?

While I'm at it, I can mention some other things:

- Pixel hunting. Bad.
- Dialogues. I like them a lot, but many people find unnecessary and/or unnecessarily long dialogues boring and annoying.
- What I loved in the Tex Murphy games (and to a lesser extend in GK 3) is that Tex (and Gabriel) had an opinion on just about everything you clicked on.
- The conversation thingy in the Tex Murphy games was special. Instead of offering a few sentences to choose from and have Tex utter the sentence you chose, you had to choose between things like: 'Play hard to get', 'Be romantic', and 'Turn her down.' Sometimes Tex would interpret your choice a bit different than you would expect.

[HandsFree]

Puzzles are the main reason I play adventuregames. I like working on puzzles just for the satisfaction of solving them. But in an adventuregame they also move the story forward or, even when done badly, somehow fit in the logic of a gamescene.
If I'm in the mood for a good story I can read a book (even do that sometimes) or watch a DVD, but AG's are the only medium that let me get involved in puzzle-solving as a part of something bigger.

That's why I'm really...., eh, unappreciative when a game takes over the puzzle-solving for me. Can't remember the specifics, but this happened repeatedly in Syberia.

For the most frustrating puzzle I already pointed to the bag of runes in Black Dahlia (in the AG worldrecords thread). I like to know if there is anyone who solved it without external help.

Spoiler:

In the beginning of the game you find a bag of runes. Then during the first half of the game there are lots of difficult and/or unclued problems to solve.
So everytime I was stuck I thought I should try to put the runes in some relevant order. And the first 20 times of being stuck that wasn't the case.

When it finally was time to use the runestones, there was nothing to point in that direction. And the actual sequence you are supposed to use is so farfetched that the walkthroughs don't even explain it, but just mention a cheatcode. There 's only one attempt, saying: Patterns of contiguous jewel facets must correspond to each sequence of runes in your notes. These patterns could be in a row, a column, or a combination of both such as an L-shaped arrangement.

Now there is no way I could make that up myself, without any kind of hint or clue. Even knowing this, it's still undoable, because (as part of the puzzle) you need to know/remember in what location the 'notes' were taken. And even knowing that it's still a difficult puzzle.
And then, what you have to do with the runestones-in-sequence is again completely unclued (place them on a sarcofagus somewhere).

The challenge to designing any kind of logic puzzle, I suppose, is giving the smallest amount of information needed to solve it. The bag of runes, and others, clearly didn't give the minimum info required.

And while I'm at it, I like to comment on two (in)famous puzzles from Still Life, since you worked on that one.
The lockpicking started as a clearly defined problem with a clearly defined inner logic. In short, all tumblers should open up. You achieve that by pushing them away, but doing that causes other tumblers to fall back.
I was able to clear the way partially and then got stuck.

Spoiler:

It turned out (walkthrough) that halfway you should bump in on a tumbler sideways, and it goes up!

Unless I missed something, that has nothing to do with the inner workings of the lock as explained in the game. And I would have never tried doing that.

Although I don't like action stuff at all, The spiderbot thing didn't bother me because of the timing involved.
It may have been a nice puzzle about finding the right pathway through safe/dangerous zones. Again I may have missed something, but I had no clue where I was to go with the spider.

Spoiler:

It turned out the spider should go to a place that's not even visible from the startingpoint.

How are you to know that, apart from just trying around and getting killed (or what is it that happens to robot) all the time.