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Is there any game from the past 5 years that would enter your Top 10?

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Luhr28 - 09 September 2020 08:29 PM


Difficult doesn’t have to mean bad puzzle design. When Discworld was released, it was praised for being long and challenging. The developers said it would take over 100 hours to finish. Somewhere around the turn of the century, adventure gamers became ‘soft’ and thought that getting stuck for longer than a few minutes meant turning to a walkthrough, so ‘difficult’ became ‘bad puzzle design’. You can see this reflected in the reviews over time.

Oddly, other genres appreciate challenge. There’s a big appreciation in the action genre, due to the Dark Souls series. Players expect to face the same challenge for hours, days or weeks until it’s beaten. The same mindset just isn’t there for adventure gamers any more.

 

There were plenty of reviews that thought differently. Almost all praised how it looked, but many also pointed out that the difficulty level of the game was insane. It’s a prime example of a moonlogic game.

I’d also claim Discworld suffers from bad design choices, as it often doesn’t give you any hints on how you should approach the puzzles. It more or less forces you to do the most annoying thing on any adventure: try everything on everything just because. In that sense, Discworld 2 went into an entirely different direction and became almost too easy as it drops hints constantly.

Puzzle difficulty can’t really be compared to challenges on other genres. Let’s say you read combat tips for Dark Souls. The tips are exactly that, tips on how to play the game better and hone your skills in it. On puzzles, the tips are generally just someone telling you how to solve the puzzle. And puzzles you need someone else to solve for you are rarely fun. Especially if the solution belongs to the group of “How the hell should I had thought that?”

 

     
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I thought the same thing about the ‘moon logic’ thing first time around. My 2nd playthrough I found hints all over the place, mainly in the dialogues.

I suppose it comes down to taste in the end. I absolutely can’t stand “Dark Souls” and games of that caliber. I’ll never be able to do the combat, I know I’m bad at it, but that doesn’t justify me calling it “moon combat” or something like that. I could say the combat should be way easier, but that would be unfair to the many players who enjoy tough combat.

     
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Karlok - 09 September 2020 06:23 AM
diego - 09 September 2020 04:14 AM
Karlok - 08 September 2020 09:51 PM

Return of the Obra Dinn has been recommended 5 or 6 times (Vehelon?). Are you going to play it, diego?

I started the playthrough on the forums, and gave it a go, I can’t remember why I abandoned it. As I like detective games (AND history), it is on my radar, and answers in this thread is surely a boost to finish it.

It seems to be sort of a “rule” that people who stop playing a game won’t like it the second time either. Whether you know why you abandoned it or not doesn’t matter, those things are subtle and elusive, but very real.

Not in my experience, at least for me. There’s a few games I stopped playing and enjoyed the second time. However, I think the main reason I stop games is that when I have too much work, I’m too tired when I’m finished with work in the evening or the weekend and don’t want to think for my entertainment… Adventure game puzzles are fun, but they require the same kind of brainpower as my work…

     
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@giom: What I meant is that people who abandon a game because they aren’t enjoying it much, won’t like it the second time either. Some sort of “rule” with exceptions of course. Jenny Leclue was far too casual for me, I got bored and stopped playing after more than an hour. But someone here (Harald?) convinced me that the game would get better when I’d reached a certain point. He was right and I ended up having a great time with Jenny.

PS: I assumed diego wasn’t enjoying Obra Dinn. Not much of an assumption. If he had enjoyed it he would have gone back to it.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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Yup, same here for me for Obra Dinn, I only played through the first flashback during the community walkthrough, didn’t continue because of work but will eventually get back to it…

Anyway, besides this, hard to say for my top ten. Maybe Technobabylon? I really enjoyed that game but I’d need to play it a second time to tell for sure.

     
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I haven’t contributed to this thread cs simply the top 10-20 is a very critical subject, not like the top 100, you have to look at only great games at the top 10, you supposedly need games the changed that genre or had an effect on it, the masterpieces in another word, games on the level of Manic Manson, Monkey island, Kings quest VI, Gabriel kNight2, Myst, The Walking Dead, Nevrhood, Machinarium. (sorry for the mentioning a lot).

I am just trying to make a point here, bc I never liked the list of top 20 here, anyways, there is only one game, and many already had mentioned it, it is Return of the Obra Dinn, other than that the thread cant not bring any more debate or discussion, it is just plain flat obvious these last 5 years are just poor, and we can expect the genre to be like this from now, just look at the HypeoMeter, its only interactive movies/adventures; the ttg era where that latter does not exist, but sadly (for me) it left its mark, in the equal extent to Sierra and LucasArts.

     
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I haven’t played Return of Obra Dinn yet, so I still don’t know if it would make it to my top 10 (reading people’s opinions and knowing what is the game about, I am confident).

The Walking Dead first season, Life is Strange, To the Moon and Kentucky Road Zero could be but I don’t think they are adventure games per se.

So I think the only game I have played and would be in my top ten is Technobabylon, my favourite WEG game together with Primordia. Primordia has an special charm and Crispin is my favourite sidekick ever, although Technobabylon has better puzzles.

Edit: Sorry, To the Moon and The Walking Dead first season are not from last 5 years. Gosh, how time flies…

     

Currently translating Strangeland into Spanish. Wish me luck, or send me money to my Paypal haha

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I forgot about To The Moon. It would certainly move into my Top 10. But I’m not sure it was released in the last five years.

     

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No, nothing even close even in top 20.

These are very sad times for adventure games.

     
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VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 06:23 AM

No, nothing even close even in top 20.

These are very sad times for adventure games.

Now I’m curious what your top 20 looks like. Third-person, point-and-click, inventory-based puzzles?

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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Karlok - 15 September 2020 07:56 AM
VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 06:23 AM

No, nothing even close even in top 20.

These are very sad times for adventure games.

Now I’m curious what your top 20 looks like. Third-person, point-and-click, inventory-based puzzles?


It would look something like this:

1. Monkey Island 2

2. Secret of Monkey Island

3. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

4. The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel

5. Toonstruck

6. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

7. Shadow of the Comet

8. The Curse of Monkey Island

9. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

10. Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail

11. Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within

12. Discworld

13. Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

14. Simon the Sorcerer

15. Sanitarium

16. Sam & Max: Hit the Road

17. Conquests of the Longbow

18. Day of the Tentacle

19. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

20. The Adventures of Willy Beamish


Honorable mentions: Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Legend of Kyrandia rest of Larry and Discworld series, Cruise for a Corpse, Laura Bow 1&2, KGB, Syberia, Runaway, The Dig, Loom

     

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Karlok - 15 September 2020 07:56 AM
VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 06:23 AM

No, nothing even close even in top 20.

These are very sad times for adventure games.

Now I’m curious what your top 20 looks like. Third-person, point-and-click, inventory-based puzzles?

So in other words… YES Content

     
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Thinking more about it.. If it were not top 10, then I think Sumatra Fate of Yandi would rank pretty high…. I would have to first spend some times determining what my top 20 or so is before I can say if it’d reach that high.

Very touching game though and well worth playing

     
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giom -

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Very touching game though and well worth playing

This was my reaction to Sumatra also. It is not really how I react to a “top 10” anything - more like Wow. That was incredible. Mind-blowing. Astonishing.  Gasp
I think even the makers of Sumatra would be surprised if anyone reacted to their game like that.

     
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VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 07:39 PM
Karlok - 15 September 2020 07:56 AM
VoodooDerina - 15 September 2020 06:23 AM

No, nothing even close even in top 20.

These are very sad times for adventure games.

Now I’m curious what your top 20 looks like. Third-person, point-and-click, inventory-based puzzles?

It would look something like this:

[top twenty snipped for brevity’s sake or Zobraks will never speak to me again]

So nothing more recent than 1999. How about for instance Kathy Rain – Prominence – Al Emmo – Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry – The Black Mirror – Oknytt – Memento Mori – The Whispered World – Silent Age – the Dream Machine - Virtua Verse – Pillars of the Earth – Vampyre Story – Stupid Invaders – Feria d’Arles – Technobabylon – Broken Age – Tony Tough – Dead Synchronicity – 1954: Alcatraz – Still Life – So Blonde – Detective Di – The Inner World – St Christopher’s School Lockdown – Journey Down – Machinarium – Deponia – Gemini Rue – Detective Gallo – Edna and Harvey – Moment of Silence – Kelvin and the Infamous Machine – Thimbleweed Park – Yesterday – Primordia – Lamplight City – the Blackwell series – Shardlight – Journey of a Roach – 1954: Alcatraz – Whispers of a Machine – Unforeseen Incidents - and many more.

Not necessarily top twenty material, but are they proof of very sad times for the kind of adventure games you love?

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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