[WitchOfDoubt]

I tend to like puzzles that require thinking outside of the "use-item-on-item" and "manipulate mechanical stuff" norm. Puzzles that completely change how you interact with a game or force you to question your assumptions about how an adventure game should be played really impress me.

One of my favorites are a set of four rooms in a text adventure called Ad Verbum in which the game only accepts commands beginning with certain letters.

[TimovieMan]

Originally Posted by WitchOfDoubt

I tend to like puzzles that require thinking outside of the "use-item-on-item" and "manipulate mechanical stuff" norm. Puzzles that completely change how you interact with a game or force you to question your assumptions about how an adventure game should be played really impress me.

Then you'll like some of the capabilities the DS offers. There are a number of puzzles in DS games that require you to close the DS to solve the puzzle, or that want you to blow in the mic. That requires you to do some serious out-of-the-box thinking, because it's not something you'd expect at all...

[Stargazer]

For me a good puzzle is one that makes you think to solve it, rather than relying on obsessive pixel hunting, obscure knowledge, or strange logic. For example, a puzzle that requires you to find a 1 pixel by 1 pixel pretzel that you have to combine with a box of dental floss and a drop of toothpaste to create a grappling hook would be considered a bad puzzle in my book! (although I'd laugh out loud if I finally figured it out )

[Gonzosports]

I hate puzzles.

I started a thread called that a few years ago. I think in the end, it degenerated into a discussion on semantics, in that when I think of puzzles, I think of sliders, or creating some absurd contraption to get a key in a subway station.

Because although they ARE technically puzzles, I don't think of the situations in Riven like puzzles. And Riven is my favorite game. Everything seems seamlessly integrated, not contrived, but perfectly reasonable machines that have been abandoned in a fantasy environment.

Myst - which i love, too - things were more puzzle-y, but I still think they worked.

The thing is, I'm interested in how we tell stories interactively, and nothing breaks up a good yarn like a poorly contrived, suspension-of-disbelief puzzle in the middle of nowhere.

The worst puzzles are there just to create, or extend, gameplay but do not ADD to the gameplay or the atmostphere.

The Longest Journey gets a lot of love around here - and having played it twice - I still enjoy the experience, but I hate so many of the puzzles. Just. Reach. Down. And. Get. The. Key.

I hate puzzles which ruin suspension of disbelief but love "puzzles" which further augment it. Seamlessly integrated so well into the story that you don't even realizing you're solving a "puzzle." Puzzle, hell no, i hate those things. I'm adventuring.

[Oscar]

Originally Posted by Gonzosports

I hate puzzles.

I started a thread called that a few years ago. I think in the end, it degenerated into a discussion on semantics, in that when I think of puzzles, I think of sliders, or creating some absurd contraption to get a key in a subway station.

Because although they ARE technically puzzles, I don't think of the situations in Riven like puzzles. And Riven is my favorite game. Everything seems seamlessly integrated, not contrived, but perfectly reasonable machines that have been abandoned in a fantasy environment.

Myst - which i love, too - things were more puzzle-y, but I still think they worked.

The thing is, I'm interested in how we tell stories interactively, and nothing breaks up a good yarn like a poorly contrived, suspension-of-disbelief puzzle in the middle of nowhere.

The worst puzzles are there just to create, or extend, gameplay but do not ADD to the gameplay or the atmostphere.

The Longest Journey gets a lot of love around here - and having played it twice - I still enjoy the experience, but I hate so many of the puzzles. Just. Reach. Down. And. Get. The. Key.

I hate puzzles which ruin suspension of disbelief but love "puzzles" which further augment it. Seamlessly integrated so well into the story that you don't even realizing you're solving a "puzzle." Puzzle, hell no, i hate those things. I'm adventuring.

Good post. I'm curious of what you think of games like RHEM? That game was based on Riven and yet you could say that it is a game consisting entirely of puzzles. But at the same time that is not true because the puzzles are part of the setting and make sense in the world the game is set in. Like Safecracker or the 7th Guest, the puzzles are part of the game's story and are there because they have a purpose in the game, in the story.

[WitchOfDoubt]

Gonzosports: I see it as a subgenre difference. Disliking adventure games with obviously artificial puzzles is like disliking musicals or operas with obviously artificial musical numbers.

All that singing in musicals can break the suspension of disbelief because it's so obviously unreal. But for some people, it contributes to the sense of a different world with different rules.

Just as people in a musical sing just because it's time for a song, puzzles sometimes exist just because it'd be cool if the protagonist solved a puzzle. Professor Layton does this fantastically well; the first five times you see a random puzzle pop out of a trash can, it's silly and nonsensical. By the hundredth time, that's just how things work in St. Mystere.

This kind of contrivance one of the charms and pitfalls of genre fiction and games. Miss Marple sure runs into a lot of mysteries for someone who isn't a detective! Princess Peach sure gets kidnapped a lot! And Guybrush Threepwood has a ridiculous number of obviously contrived puzzles to deal with.