Adventure Forums - Today I understood that puzzles matter

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Wormsie

Also, I think puzzles should gradually teach you more about the game world and the plot and the characters. This does not happen in games like Apprentice II and Cirque de Zale. There's a very fixed goal with no surprises.

In Apprentice II you learn more about the plot and characters as you progress. Especially with the whole deal between Master and the fisherman and the centaur races. So while you don't necessarily get any farther in the plot, you learn more about things.

Yes, I think I should just shut up now...

Wormsie, you're not gonna accomplish anything by shutting up. Your original post was full of very valid concerns. So STFU and don't STFU!! :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

...you're not gonna accomplish anything...

Don't you mean "no need to go down there!"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

Why?

I started dissin' HEP a bit too much there, though it wasn't my intention. I think in my original rant I wrote that you do learn things about the characters... must be more cautious.

Slightly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wormsie

... must be more cautious.

Slightly.

Baby, you know you can always be slightly dangerous with me. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wormsie

I started dissin' HEP a bit too much there, though it wasn't my intention. I think in my original rant I wrote that you do learn things about the characters... must be more cautious.

Slightly.

You're not dissing anything at all. Genuine critique and criticism. And if nobody listened to critique and criticism, no progress would be made.

Yeah, look at the puzzles in a game like monkey island. You have mini goals and macro goals. The monkey island puzzle structure usually goes like this...

Macro Problem "get a ship or whatever" needs solutions to, Problem 1, Problem 2, and Problem 3.
--------------------
"Problem 1" needs A, B, C
.........
puzzle X1 = A
puzzle Y1 = B
puzzle Z1 = C
---------------------
repeat above for the other two.

What you get are a ton of things to do when you start. If you get stuck on one you can always come back and try it later. Most of the time you will have to do this because the puzzles for any of the problems could be intertwined with each other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Quote:

Originally Posted by geoffkhan

You're not dissing anything at all. Genuine critique and criticism. And if nobody listened to critique and criticism, no progress would be made.

Well, I had a few uninformed and misguided opinions there. And calling Apprentice II "badly designed" is really stretching it a ~~bit~~ lot.

Hey... Shoo! Get back to working on the Find/Apprentice Deluxe! :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wormsie

Hey... Shoo! Get back to working on the Find/Apprentice Deluxe! :D

Oops, yes sir!

If it weren't for fans like you, we probably wouldn't get any work done at all! ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Maybe it's just that many adventure games, commercial and underground, merely blindly follow the conventions without ever actually examining them very closely, critically, and constructively.

All too often it looks like this: story > puzzle > story > puzzle > story... There doesn't seem to be an organic structure to these games, if you know what I mean. They don't seem to follow a particular cohesiveness and even chaos, that we are accustomed to when we step out our front doors. And so they end up not only lacking cohesion, but also dimension. I feel like the games take me by the hand and lead me from point A to B, no questions asked.

The elements in the games - character, details, narrative expositions, items - have nothing to do with each other and exist for the sole purpose of waiting for you to click on them.

I've played only a few underground games, and mostly forgot about them. But it seems that they merely mimic what many commercial games do, and what they do is mimic as well. Which imparts a feeling of sheer drone mechanics, and the world never cracks open for me. I feel like I'm just.....playing a game.

All very valid points. Just one question... Do you have any idea how that might be fixed, other than with careful designing where you counscioucly try to think about your game and its themes?