What single puzzle type makes you happiest?
 

There's a puzzle in lost horizon where you have to assemble a broken vinyl record. You know the type, where you can rotate the pieces 360 degrees to get the correct orientation and match them to fragmented edges of other pieces. Essentially a jigsaw puzzle. Whenever I come across these I'm in my element, I love them. :) In other games there's been assembling pieces of important documents like letters. I think some of the sherlock games had them. Definitely my favourite, with slider puzzles a close second.

Well, if you discount inventory puzzles, sliding locks. For some reason, I have a ball with those. Sliders though? You must be a genius.

I mainly prefer inventory and story-based puzzles in adventure games, but this is not a general rule. I also enjoy a well-put-up-together logic puzzle, especially if its well-integrated into particular title and its style. For instance, the puzzle you've mentioned: torn-up letter or document is a great nerve-twister in games that feature an interesting and tense story. I could mention at least a dozen adventure games which I like specifically because of their puzzles, but if I really had to choose, I would probably put "Sherlock Holmes" games among my favorites in that respect.

Personally, I prefer puzzles that are well constructed rather than being complex/hard.

I found Dreamfall's underground maze to be an example of a poor puzzle, with Keepsake having some potentially good puzzles that were let down by being implemented poorly or in a very lethargic manner (Pull a lever, cutscene, pull a lever, cutscene, push a button, cutscene - Yawn).

I quite liked the one in Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut which had you decrypting messages. I thought that was a well constructed puzzle that, whilst not easy nor hard, was long enough and involved you without being an overbearing or poorly designed problem to solve.

I'm happiest with sliders, the bigger the better. On of the best ones was in the Puzz 3D game Orient Express. A review: http://tap-repeatedly.com/Reviews/Pu...rient/OE.shtml
My next favorite would be logic puzzles (eg. Black Dahlia crystal).

Logic puzzles like making potions , traping a mouse, distract someone's attention, those kind especially.

Other puzzles I like:
Longest Journey- the turning stones with symbols from the 5 scenes;
(Other symbols puzzle -in Chronicles of mystery, Keepsake, etc)

Broken Sword 3 - Pushing the crates in Congo in the caves to balance the piece of stone.
(It's odd, because most people find those crate pushing anoying :)

I like well-designed puzzles that feel natural in the story, too much of anything else and I'll start to lose interest in the game. The last chapter in Gray Matter is a good recent example of something that nearly lost me because it goes so far off the rails of reality the rest of the game set up.

Since I love maps, puzzles that involve plotting locations on a map and making deductions/analyzing patterns. Le Serpent Rouge from GK3 comes to mind immediately. Other map/plotting puzzles that I enjoyed were in Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper and Discworld Noir.

I also loved the Animal Stone and Fire Marble puzzles in Riven, in which the solutions were derived from having to piece together information scattered (and well-integrated) across the islands and using intuition to connect the dots.

Logic puzzles, sliders, mazes can make me very happy! :D

Heh, not at all. Only the more usual sliders. But I must admit, I got so completely stuck on this one from keepsake because you can't swap with any adjacent tile, only with certain ones. http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/2...shot294.th.jpg

I refused to look at the walkthrough and I put the game on hold for a long time. Eventually consulted the walkthrough and moved on, but still haven't finished the game which I installed around 2004 :P

I can't stand thsoe things. Or sliders! They usually make me groan when i'm presented with them. Different strokes for different folks.

That's a great example of a poorly constructed puzzle. It's not just the mechanics of the puzzle, it's how slow and drawn out it is. :crazy:

I really like close door puzzles, where everything you need is in the room or area with you.

Le Serpent Rouge, hands down. Or insult swordfighting, hands down-2.

But talking about classical puzzles, I really don't see a point in including them into adventure game, unless the puzzle is very original or it is very well integrated into the game. Like voodoo code from GK1 or tape recorder puzzle from GK2.

"Assembling pieces" or "hanoi towers" types are so old and unoriginal, that I start to breathe fire when I see them. Even though I can figure them out in one minute (after all those years, sigh).

I hated Le Serpent Rouge. All the action stops while you go figure out stuff on that computer, then go collect more info to feed into it. Bleh. Then does Gabriel pay any attention to Grace's work at all? After Grace practically saved his bacon in GK2, he completely blows her off. Really the worst writing of the GK games, IMO, totally aside from that awful 3D.

I enjoy all puzzles, but the ones that require some thinking on the spot usually offer a nice bit of satisfaction when you solve them. For example, the safe puzzle in Chapter 2 of Still Life requires you to infer that the numbers are indicated by

Spoiler:

the number of corners on each tile.

I like assembling notes, pots etc and I like logic puzzles. I was so excited by the nonograms in Shadow at Water's Edge because they are my favourite puzzles IRL. I have books of them! I like codes and ciphers, and Hanoi Towers - just because I've done so many i can do them quickly! I dislike slider puzzles and mazes, I struggle with them even though I have strategies I use.

This is a very interesting question. I'm not a big fan of puzzles-I don't like having to stop the story to try and solve a puzzle, just to get stuck and lose interest in the story. However, I love slider-types of puzzles, for some reason. Like the kind in "Black Mirror"-with the chess puzzle, or the slide to get the picture in the correct order. It does get frustrating some time, especially if it's really difficult, but I tend to enjoy those. I hate math-based puzzles...:r

Yes! Maps! Patterns! Love it! Though the only time I've properly gotten to do it was, of course, Le Serpent Rouge. Maybe I should check some of those games out... (Well, if I can just get my hands on Discworld, I should check it out regardless)

I'm surprised to see so much love for slider puzzles, I thought those were the most common hate objects of this community. I usually get angry when a game presents one to me, but really, the ordinary 3x3 slider is fairly quick to get past after so many games. :P

I had some difficulty pinning down the type of puzzle I enjoy the most. I suppose you could call them "communication puzzles", or something. It's when you need to communicate with the game or with a character, but with less restrictions than in dialogue trees. I'll give some examples to clarify:
- Gabriel Knight 1, where you construct a voodoo code message
- Journeyman Project 2, at the end where you need to guess someone's password
- Programming the droid at the beginning of The Dig

I like decoding/deciphering, but when you also need to encode something with the code you've learned, there's an added sense of accomplishment. Especially if you need to use it against an enemy, like in GK1 or JP2. I wish I could explain it better. :frown:

Another example could be the search engine puzzle in Still Life, if it hadn't been so poorly hinted at. Also, I once played a free game on-line about a space traveller getting stranded in an alien world. In order to get off the planet, you had to listen in on the inhabitants and try to decipher their language, and finally be able to communicate with them. That was pretty cool, almost completely made up of my favourite kind of puzzle. :)