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Possible way to repopularize adventure games: Puzzle difficulty setting

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Joined 2019-10-13

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This is a thought I’ve had for a long time, since the mid 2000s, when the adventure game had only recently faded from popularity:

It seems that most of the more recent adventure games, especially story-based ones, have really easy puzzles compared to the heyday of adventure games, and I feel we’ve lost something because of that. In many cases, they can scarcely be called puzzles at all. Yes, I know; some of the well-known games from the early days had some absurdly-obtuse puzzles that could only be solved through brute force or reading the guide; but there were also plenty of games with tough, yet fair puzzles. The Myst series, especially Riven, comes to mind for that. I think a lot of folks here miss those sorts of puzzles. The kind of puzzle where you poke and prod at mysterious machinery, gradually figuring out how it works. Puzzles that occasionally would stump you for days, while you resist looking at hints, until finally, you get an epiphany and rush to your computer to see if it works.

It was a unique joy, finally solving a difficult problem that you’d been working on, on-and-off, for a significant amount of time. Progressing more quickly has its perks, but with puzzles that kept you a while, you’d establish a sort of familiarity from returning to them again and again. Your imagination would run wild about what exactly is on the other side of that locked door. But oh well, there were other puzzles that were more approachable at this stage, so you left this door behind for later. And when you finally solved it, you were INVESTED. It wasn’t like just a quickly-dispatched challenge, it was something you’d been wondering about for a long time, and now you’d done it! And now you had the excitement of finding out what was on the other side.

Today, we’ve come to expect the challenge/reward cycle to be a lot shorter, and I feel like this expectation is at least partly responsible for the decline of adventure games. I think a huge part of the appeal of adventure games was what I described above, so simply reducing difficulty, while correcting for more current expectations, would also eliminate a huge part of the charm. The few modern adventure games that did gain fame had to have something else that really sold them, be it a gimmick, or a really compelling storyline, which usually could be done in another genre anyways. Therefore if you make it too easy, you’ll need something else to prop it up, and if you make it too hard, few people will be patient enough to stick with it. And I’m not sure there even IS a sweet spot between those two.

So what can be done? Well, give people a choice! Just like how regular game have easy, medium, and hard difficulties, why not do the same for the puzzle difficulty? That way, you can appeal to those who want to just get on with the story, without sacrificing the game’s quality. And this may even end up drawing in people who wouldn’t otherwise be interested in harder puzzles; a lot of players can’t resist completing optional challenges, even when they would hate them if the game made them mandatory. Just having the game ask them what difficulty they want when they start a new game may pique the curiosity of some people. They can always start again on a lower difficulty if it proves too much for them.

I’d say ‘hard’ difficulty would be about the same as you’d expect from a classic adventure game. The game would warn you at the beginning that a pen and paper are a must for such a difficulty. ‘easy’ mode is for those who are only interested for the story or setting, and would either have no puzzles, or puzzles that are simple enough to be completed in minutes without much pondering. ‘medium’ would be the compromise: hard enough to feel like an actual challenge, but not likely to keep someone stuck for more than a session.

This needn’t be a massive drain on resources or dev time, either. Developers could make hard difficulty first, then, for easier difficulties, remove stuff in some places, and make relatively small tweaks in other places. Some puzzles will remain the same between modes, and others will be removed entirely in easier difficulties. The most demanding changes will be puzzles that are left in but made easier. Even this, however, can be done without much extra work. For instance, adding an extra path to a maze, or blocking off paths to dead ends. Or adding a few extra clues (which can be something as simple as a diagram painted on a wall) which are technically redundant, but make the point more explicit.

I think that this could potentially greatly improve modern adventure games, by simultaneously applying modern design principals, and still including what made adventure games special in the first place. This could also pique the interest of others that might not have sought such an experience otherwise.

     
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ianfort - 27 October 2019 06:06 PM

Today, we’ve come to expect the challenge/reward cycle to be a lot shorter, and I feel like this expectation is at least partly responsible for the decline of adventure games.

In gambling, it’s called the “slot machine syndrome.” When you lose money betting on a horse, it may take as long as thirty minutes for the next race to bet on. When you lose your quarter in a slot machine, the time you have to wait for gratification is the time it takes to put the next quarter in the slot. The same hold true for adventure games. Although, more practically, for adventure game players. The era you described was what it was. You had to have patience to finish a puzzle or the game. When the market turns to players who require instant gratification, that model no longer works.

So what can be done? Well, give people a choice! Just like how regular game have easy, medium, and hard difficulties, why not do the same for the puzzle difficulty? That way, you can appeal to those who want to just get on with the story, without sacrificing the game’s quality.

I’m not sure there is a practical way to do this, unless, God forbid, designers borrow from the casual game design style. In a casual game you are generally offered between three and five difficulty levels. At the easiest level you get everything. Inventory hot spots sparkle. Hints refresh instantaneously. Puzzles can be skipped. Et al. At the hardest level, you get nothing. The basic gameplay is the same regardless of the level you’re playing at.

The other method casual game designers use is to simply increase the number of steps required to complete a logic puzzle. At the easiest level, a Hanoi Tower puzzle might only have five disks. At the expert level, it might have nine disks. Unfortunately, that often results in what I have referred to as a “tedious” puzzle. I.e. you know how to solve it, but it just takes too long to go through all the steps.

There’s probably a solution in there somewhere. But, with indie game designers strapped for cash and other resources, I’m not sure how making multi-level games fits into their design scheme.

     

For whom the games toll,
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I don’t think we should be looking to the casual developer as a role model. This is an adventure site after all.

“Mega-monkey mode” (MI3) or “lite-mode” (MI2) tried to increase accessibility, but I don’t know anyone in their right minds who would choose to strip content out of the game voluntarily. Maybe young kids?

     

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Fair points. I suppose I should always take into account how an idea could potentially be abused.

Need to think about this for a bit to see if this idea is salvageable.

     
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Luhr28 - 27 October 2019 08:01 PM

I don’t think we should be looking to the casual developer as a role model. This is an adventure site after all.

“Mega-monkey mode” (MI3) or “lite-mode” (MI2) tried to increase accessibility, but I don’t know anyone in their right minds who would choose to strip content out of the game voluntarily. Maybe young kids?

Karlok - 14 May 2015 02:51 AM
So why aren’t you contributing adventure game scenes?

He is. Casuals are a subgenre of adventure games. And they have been largely ignored for two years in the AGSotD. Only Kurufinwe posted a couple during his run.
One screenshot a week for a subgenre that spawns more games than the entire rest of the genre combined? Long overdue, imo.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

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My dear Mr rtrooney, I would appreciate it if you didn’t quote me in a thread that I do not want to participate in. Since you didn’t supply a link with the context to my 4-year-old quote, which of course you should have done, I will. https://adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/5434/P15/#91003

And here is TimovieMan’s 4-year-old reply, which taken out of context might be mistaken for yours:
https://adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/5434/P30/#91014


EDIT: this post was edited for the sake of the children

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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rtrooney - 27 October 2019 10:08 PM
Luhr28 - 27 October 2019 08:01 PM

I don’t think we should be looking to the casual developer as a role model. This is an adventure site after all.

“Mega-monkey mode” (MI3) or “lite-mode” (MI2) tried to increase accessibility, but I don’t know anyone in their right minds who would choose to strip content out of the game voluntarily. Maybe young kids?

Karlok - 14 May 2015 02:51 AM
So why aren’t you contributing adventure game scenes?

He is. Casuals are a subgenre of adventure games. And they have been largely ignored for two years in the AGSotD. Only Kurufinwe posted a couple during his run.
One screenshot a week for a subgenre that spawns more games than the entire rest of the genre combined? Long overdue, imo.

Casuals are just as much action, arcade, platformer as adventure. Pac-man, tetris, bejeweled are casuals.

     

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For the record, I wasn’t talking about casual games, or even thinking about them when I made this argument. My intention was, to the contrary, to allow more games like Myst to be made.

That said, after hearing your criticism, I can see how you’d think this sounds reminiscent to causal. I may have been overly idealistic with this idea.

Still need to think about this further.

     
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Joined 2012-10-03

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I don’t understand this thread very well. You take Myst/Riven as an example and I see what you mean, it was a golden era, but there are still many 1st-person adventure games made nowadays that have been released, and I don’t think they are easy (Obduction? Haven Moon? The Five Cores Remastered? RoonSehv?). I don’t really want to talk of my own games because I don’t want to advertize them here (they are difficult), but I had to react to this thread. The problem is that usually that kind of game doesn’t meet a commercial success *because* they are too hard for most people. So I don’t think there is a way to solve this.
!!Carefull I will only talk of Myst-like games here, not 3rd person!!

I am again making a 1st-person game, and I had to take the decision to make it easier this time, a bit more casual I would say (which might not please everyone, I know it). In the past I have been too discouraged by the lack of perseverance of many players who were complaining - not about the gameplay (which is a known and agreed issue in my first games) but the difficulty.
In Catyph I tried to add different difficult levels. I know the system was not perfect but the problem wasn’t even that: it’s just that most people who are “scared” by difficult puzzles will stay stuck at that:
“Wait, there are puzzles in this game? Oh no!!

I have witnessed it again with the release of Myha this year: Myha doesn’t suffer of the gameplay issue that I was talking about before (because it’s full3d like RealMyst), but it’s quite challenging too and we really thought it for the fans of Myst-like games. Denis didn’t want to publish a walkthrough/guide (to force the fans of the genre to find the solution on their own) but a lot of people stayed stuck and didn’t even try to solve the puzzles to continue the game. We were very available after the release, to reply to questions and to help stucked players, but what we read were mainly complains: “It’s too hard, this is crazy, it’s worst than Myst, etc.”
We have not even had feedback from our Kickstarter backers, we don’t know if they liked the game - except for a minority of them. The game is good (the review on AG was amazing), What else could have we done?

It is difficult for me to explain this in another language than mine, and such a text could be misunderstood, so I want to insist on the fact that I am not angry, not at all; it’s just a testimony. I think that, having developed that kind of game since 2012, I start to have a bit of experience and know the genre and the market enough to share my opinion (very humbly, because I know well how you are all experts around here!)

What I wanted to say through all of this is: according to me if developers choose to put easy puzzles, it’s because almost nobody wants to spend time and brain in this kind of game anymore if there is no nostalgia (Myst/Riven, Rhem, Schizm, etc). Happilly there are still fans of the genre and motivated adventure gamers who are still opened to this, but the new generation (the people who buy games today) don’t seem to have the same tastes. And the market is driven by this. If there is no market to sell challenging Myst games, there is no money for publishers, there is few money for indies to create these games, so of course developers will try other things. I have not played Zed (from Cyan) but to me it doesn’t seem very challenging and looks like a good product for the current market, what people in general want to play.

- As long as there are fans of the original Myst series who want to create similar games, if they can afford to work on their games at home in their free time with their own money (amateur or indie devs), you will continue to see such new games come to life (Neyyah for example - keep an eye on this one Wink.
- As long as there are creators of old successful games who continue to receive funds to make Myst-like games, you will continue to see new games come to life (we will see with Schizm III soon, but we know at least that Cyan will stay around for a while).
However more and more, we will see “narrative” or “casual” experiences become the standard of 1st person adventure (if it isn’t already), with easy puzzles or no puzzles at all.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, these games have other qualities (immersion), I certainly won’t say what is good or not and I certainly can’t judge. I’m just worried that the Myst recipe will die in a few years and will only hardly survive through the memories of rare, passionate people.

I hope my words will not be misunderstood, I really wrote this without bad thoughts, just to share my own opinion and fears, for what it’s worth (probably nothing ahah).

     
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There are games with both adventure and casual modes available in them. Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World comes to mind as an example.

     
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If you guys want a pretty good example on puzzle difficulty, I’d recommend checking out the remake of Shadowgate. The difficulty affects how the puzzles are solved but also rewards playing on more difficult levels by having new locations as well as some additional story snippets not present on the easiest level.

You do get the full story on the easiest level, but the new locations and story snippets are a good reward for those who want to challenge themselves further. Granted, it’s not necessarily a fit for all solution, but it might be something to be considered of during the design of the game.

     

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Excellent post, Simon.  For me there are two things that influence how long I stick to solving a puzzle without going to a walkthrough or hints. The first is I need faith enough in the developer that I believe the puzzle is fair, although there are some games where a puzzle is “fair” but my brain is so out of tune with the developer that I would never solve the puzzle in a million years.

The second thing is how immersed I am emotionally in the game. The more involved I am the more I am willing to work to solve the puzzles and in the case of games that I don’t want to see end I can actually enjoy being stumped.

     

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