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What are your game-stoppers?
I’ve just got this idea after joining in with the playthrough of Apocalipsis .....I’m a lady (honestly!) & you will never hear bad language from me except ......when trying to get through those really infuriating cannonball-fire sequences or anything similar!
Thankfully no-one was recording me at the time & I managed to get through it but otherwise I was going to ditch the game!
So, that was potentially one ‘game-stopper’ for me & actually there is a sequence in Gemini Rue I couldn’t do that led me to abandon it - I can’t think of many others but
are there games you’ve given up on because you just can’t get past a certain point?
There was also an ‘impossible’ puzzle in Next Life.
Also, a different reason to come to a standstill is when you have a game that crashes on you - it might be because your system was not up to playing it but in my experience it happened to numerous players in certain games - the ones that spring to mind are 15 Days & I hate to mention The St Christopher’s School Lockdown…...I know there’s more!
What are your ‘game-stoppers’ for whatever reason - it might be you just started a game & decided you hated it even! ? 
Interesting question.
1. A game-stopping bug will definitely stop me unless the game is interesting enough to find a fix somewhere.
2. An impossible action or puzzle I can’t get past. For me that would be Story About My Uncle. I was really liking the game until I got to one point I couldn’t get past.
3. I lost faith in the developer’s fairness. Sometimes that would be losing faith in the fact that the puzzles had a reasonable (to me) solution, or the game was forcing me to do something I really, really did not want to do or the steps to finish a puzzle became an exercise in tedium.
4. Boredom but that is rare.
I’m very thankful that the internet exists, and can provide me with walkthrouhs.
Not being very patient, there would be a long list of games otherwise lol.
In earlier days, something that could totally ruin the fun was checkpoints or in I think Tomb Raider (one of the early ones), where you can only save at certain places. I know, that’s probably common, but that’s what came to mind right now anyways.
Another reason for loving the internet is that I can now watch someone else playing through these old games that I never finished. And without all the stress and anger. 
there is a sequence in Gemini Rue I couldn’t do that led me to abandon it
i know, it is near the end when you REALLY needed to have gotten hold of the shooting sequences and trained well at the infirmary when the part you gain access to the shooting range anytime is there!, its like an RPG (that part) but without points.
There was also an ‘impossible’ puzzle in Next Life.
Ahhh, my sanctuary, i played this game like 3-4 times, beautiful, and the designer approach to put you under stress-timed scene (long) is an adrenaline pumper, great anyway.
my game-stoppers in general or my turn off i would call it, are silliness, that is it; the amount puzzles***** silliness i grasp after solving one… Uninstall! that is that, i can go with any kind of ‘let us say’ irritation, but the feeling i get from designers and developers they are not putting much thought behind thier puzzles is unforgivinable, even with a game its amount of work and researches made for it only God knows how long it had taken, is not my issue, i am not looking for a sort of encyclopedia feeding thru gaming, neither abstract approaches that take me away (long time) from the story and most important The Scenes, for example as i said in the other thread about JJ espcially when the design for hers scenes are of the great ones.
For me a game stopper is just about any timed QTE that requires keyboard mashing specific keys correctly/speedily. I have essential (hereditary) tremor in my hands, and those are almost impossible for me. One “game” (actually more of a walking sim) that comes to mind was INFRA which I really enjoyed until I got to the point where I had to deactivate the (nuclear) reactor. The only way I could past it was to email the developer and ask for the specific steps I needed to take, and even then it took me about a gazillion tries before I finally beat it!
Tales from the Borderlands was another toughie for me. Even the QTE’s in chapter one of the new Kings Quest game was a PITA, and they were supposedly easy (for most peeps)!
Life is too short to drink bad wine…
I dislike QTE’s and timed puzzles, but I can usually get through them before giving up.
Probably the biggest one for me are sliding tile puzzles… ugh!!! Fortunately a lot of developers will add a way to skip them.
This message will self destruct in 3… 2… 1… BOOM!!!
-Action sequences or ones acquiring high agility (Gemini Rue, Catyph)
-Dumb or poorly clued puzzles (The Wardrobe)
-Dreadful voice acting and localization (Deponia seriea)
I often quit playing games if I get the feeling that there are too many dead-end scenarios, because, well, life is too short.
Also, I did stop playing Curse of Enchantia because the puzzles and interface were so incredibly awful, and I think at one point I got hopelessly stuck and couldn’t bother to look up a walktrough because I had already suffered enough.
And I stopped playing the Westerner because I just hated everything about the game, collecting carrots being just the tip of the iceberg.
So game-stoppers : dead-ends, atrocious puzzles (mere bad ones won’t scare me away ), and just plain overall awfulness.
Sneaking. I don’t mind stealth games, but in adventures like Broken Sword 3 or Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring, those parts are just terribly done. The camera isn’t made for it, the controls aren’t made for it, and the AI of the guards isn’t made for it either. You want to add stealth sequences to your adventure? Fine, but ask someone who has made a stealth game before for advice. Else I’ll quit playing right there.
Counter-intuitively, I often end up abandoning games I really like because the more I like a game the less inclined I am to want or get help when I’m stuck. I don’t do it on purpose but I persevere to the point where I’m just wandering aimlessly and end up getting focused on another game.
I’d like to echo previous posters’ mentions of anything that involves stress of any kind (QTEs, timing, dextrous tasks) as I really play adventure games to unwind to the point of being comatose. 
Games that constantly crash are a game-stopper for me. After a while, you just give up.
I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.
The most frequent one for me is something I’ve heard others reference as a strength. Being thrown into a huge world with little direction. Although I say this with the stipulation that the characters / descriptions of things are not very interesting.
Some adventure games (particularly more common with older ones) will throw you into this big wide open world and let you do what you will. But if the characters you meet and the the world around you isn’t very interesting I have no desire to explore it, and I often move on to something else before giving it much of a chance.
I remember when I was younger, the amount of leash I would give a game would be massive. But now with my time being more limited, if something doesn’t hook me within the first few hours I tend to move on to other things that do.
Interesting point, Detective Mosely. I definitely gave more chances to a game when I was younger before I gave it up. I wonder if it’s partly because back then it was usually the only new game I had, so I persevered more. These days there’s so many out there, I always have more than I can play. The other reason may be that I have so much less patience these days.
The real problem with reality is the lack of background music.
Knightette of the Order of the Caption
Music is what feelings sound like…
I dislike QTE’s and timed puzzles, but I can usually get through them before giving up.
Probably the biggest one for me are sliding tile puzzles… ugh!!! Fortunately a lot of developers will add a way to skip them.
I find that I’ve gotten really good at slider puzzles, due to the sheer number of games that use them. Whenever I come across one now, I just roll my eyes and yell “Slider puzzle” to my wife, then set about it!
I think I came close to abandoning the game chrissie mentioned, but didn’t name in the opening post. That would have been a shame since it was me that suggested the playthrough. This was the second action sequence in the game. Embarrassingly she quoted back to me the same “Relax” statement I gave to her when she was having trouble with the first action sequence. I took her/my advice, and finally got through it.
That said, it took me close to two hours, if not more to get through the sequence. If I were a mere player instead of the person that nominated the game I would have abandoned the game.
Other things:
Timed puzzles. Double down on puzzles that are timed action sequences. (I’m recollecting an Amerzone and Cameron Files game that require an under water traverse that was just maddening. It was a maze, and it was timed. 
Dead ends. What can you do when a game gives you a dead end? Quit or start from scratch. Most often I would say “That was a total waste of my time.” And I would move onto the next game in queue.
Boring - I think furgotten mentioned this. Under normal circumstances I will try to finish a game. But there are some that are so horrible that I simply give up. This is more likely to happen with casual games. But there are quite a few adventures that I’ve pulled the plug on as well.
The last category is Difficulty - There are some games where the designers have tried to make a game that is impossible to complete. It’s as if they are daring you to solve the impossible puzzles they’ve designed.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
The last category is Difficulty - There are some games where the designers have tried to make a game that is impossible to complete. It’s as if they are daring you to solve the impossible puzzles they’ve designed.
Such as? I’m very curious.
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