Adventure Gamers - Forums

I would like to share some motifs and variations I’ve noticed regarding the most common type of puzzle in adventure games, the unapparent inventory item puzzle.

When I find myself stuck in a game having tried all logical (and even remotely logical and silly) ideas of what to do and still getting nowhere, 99% of the time it turns out I’m in that situation because I missed picking up an unapparent inventory item.

I call them “unapparent inventory items” instead of “hidden objects” because sometimes they’re not hidden at all, it’s just unapparent that they can be picked up and added to the inventory.

Let’s start with the most common one where the objects are literally hidden, pixel hunts. In almost every animated adventure game I’ve played there’s been at least one pixel hunt, so this is very important. When entering a new location or screen for the first time, someone shouldn’t just briskly move the mouse around checking the hotspots. They should instead look and visually take note of every object in that screen before they even touch the mouse. For every object ask “What is this and what is its purpose? Who owns it and what do they use it for? What does this object tell me about its owner or the location it’s found in?” After thoroughly looking at and thinking about all the objects in a location, only then should the exact point of the mouse cursor be slowly and meticulously moved over every one of these objects. Small objects, and especially collections of small objects clustered together, should be extensively combed over. Similar looking objects grouped together should likewise receive extra attention.

Placing the pixel-sized hotspot on the edge of a larger obvious hotspot is sometimes done, and makes it harder to find as the eye will not so quickly register a change in hotspot names as it will a new hotspot name showing up out of nowhere.

Sometimes the pixel hunt isn’t for an object at all, but for the entrance to a location. Whenever you see any kind of structure, alley, path, hole, etc,  you should check carefully to make sure there’s not an entrance pixel hunt. Missing a hidden location amounts to missing every item found in that location, so it can greatly hold back your progress in a game.

Another variation of the unapparent inventory item comes from an object which can be readily seen and observed but can’t be picked up because it is guarded by a character. It is not always the case that you must perform a fetch quest or exchange something for the guarded item, sometimes the only way to get the item is to distract a character at a key moment during their animations. Whenever you see a character that doesn’t just stand around but repeats a behavior over and over, you should be aware that there could be an item there to get.

Yet another type of item is one that must be obtained through dialogue. Going down a certain dialogue branch will sometimes result in an NPC giving you an item, but sometimes these dialogue branches must be unlocked through observing things in other parts of the game. Sometimes the dialogue branch resulting in the item will be impossible to unlock the first time you talk to an NPC no matter what you do, so it pays to go back and talk to people second times.

Some hotspots only become unlocked by observing existing hotspots. Example, you look at the hotspot for a book. Suddenly the character notices a bookmark in the book. Now there are two hotspots, the original book and the new bookmark.

Finally a type of unapparent inventory item comes from combining items in your inventory. Therefore whenever a new item is picked up, you should immediately think of any ways possible it can be combined with items you already have, and even mechanically go through and try to combine all your items with it (both ways, as sometimes the items only combine when done in a certain order).

I feel like I’m cheating if I use a hotspot revealer, and that if I have to resort to one the game has defeated me.

There have also been several games where I start out thinking “I’m going to beat this one, the designers aren’t going to be able to trick me” and then I get stuck for days and having the internet the temptation to consult a walkthrough like UHS is strong, after doing so I feel like I’ve lost.

That’s why I’m become so meticulous now. It’s more fun to be thorough with each screen as I get to them, and try to combine inventory items as I pick them up, rather than to get stuck later and have to do them all at once. I don’t want to get in a situation where I think “is beating this game on my own really worth the time and effort?” because then I’ll check UHS and lose.

TimovieMan - 14 May 2013 04:58 PM

I love hotspot revealers. Being able to double-check that I haven’t missed anything is worth a lot more to me than the time that I’d lose due to being stuck because of an obscure missed hotspot.
If the game provides one, I think of that as a minor helping tool, not as cheating.
Of course I only use it AFTER I’ve gone over the screen, just to check that I didn’t miss anything. Otherwise it’d take the fun out of it…

I agree with everything here. I definitely search a room first and then use the hotspot revealer to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Iznogood - 14 May 2013 06:39 PM

I don’t really see much difference between using a hotspot revealer and meticulous moving your cursor around the scene to reveal hotspots, both methods are used to reveal any hotspots you haven’t found and neither requires any real thinking. The only real difference is that using a hotspot revealer is much faster.

Just moving the cursor around the screen usually doesn’t reveal hidden items, as it is very difficult to touch every single pixel or even 75% of the pixels that way. This is why looking at the location and observing/thinking about the objects first is necessary, because it narrows down the areas of the screen to comb your cursor over. Doing that adds depth to the game because you notice more things.

I used to to move my cursor around a location first, I did it in orderly columns, and I still missed hidden items that way. It was only after I began really looking at the locations and thinking about every object (what are they, who owns them, how do they relate to the area they’re found in, etc) that I found the hidden ones.

If you use hot spot revealers, what’s the purpose of the designers trying to make it hard and creating these hunts in the first place? Why not just have everything lying out obviously in the open like Mixed up’ Mother Goose?

To me the designers trying to make it hard is what makes the games fun, and it adds to the sense of accomplishment when I beat it. There are tricks they can use that make it more than just a simple pixel hunt, and just when I think I’ve seen them all, a new one gets me.

Adventure games can’t challenge people by testing their reflexes like traditional video games do. Things like pixel hunts and other puzzles are how they challenge us, and if you take that away, it seems to take away some of the point to having an adventure game in the first place.

That’s why I like Al Lowe, in the Kickstarter video for Leisure Suit Larry reloaded he implied the game was going to be hard, and I hope it is. I hope they’re some really devious pixel hunt tricks in it, and that there is no hotspot revealer option.

AdorableMogwai - 14 May 2013 09:33 PM

Adventure games can’t challenge people by testing their reflexes like traditional video games do. Things like pixel hunts and other puzzles are how they challenge us, and if you take that away, it seems to take away some of the point to having an adventure game in the first place.

Yeah, I much prefer the “other puzzles” part of that equation. Pixel hunts strike me as rather a cheap and lazy way of increasing difficulty, and getting past them doesn’t give me a feeling of accomplishment like solving actual puzzles does…