Adventure Gamers - Forums

Ok, this is something that has been going through my head lately - where you’re trying to think or even SOLVE a puzzle in your mind while you’re actually not playing the game - whether it’s while you’re riding on a bus, or just before you’re about to sleep. Once I thought about it - there’re many games, or parts of those games that let you do this, but some don’t.

I think we can all agree that it needs to be a damn good, addictive and interesting game with a good story in order to make you think about it once you put it to hold, whether you’re thinking about some plot elements or puzzles. But now - the issue I wanted to talk about the most - don’t you think that, in order for you to think about the puzzle solution while off from a game (and possibly, solving it), it requires a pretty good game and puzzle design in order for this to work?

I’ll try to explain - the game needs to act like a detective novel, TV-show… where you’re PRESENTED with all the necessary clues in order to solve the mystery! So, pulling out the hidden character for the first time as a culprit right before the end won’t work, because no way you could have solved that mystery because you didn’t know that character existed at all! But now, the adventure game needs to implement this logic in many small steps during the course of the game, in such way that you have all the necessary clues that you can even exit the game, and think about the solution for a particular puzzle. Of course, it’s not always possible because exploration is a major factor and it could be simply that you haven’t reached some dialog, object… in order for you to solve a puzzle. But at least, when cleverly designed it can work within a single or set of closely related locations, within a chapter…

I’m playing The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav, and some parts of the game let you do this, and some don’t, because the solution is simply to find a hot-spot or talk to a character. However, once you’ve completely explored the current area in some instances, like a town with the dock and ship, and talked to all the characters, you can actually exit, or just pause the game and THINK about how, for example, to steal the prism. I think it’s a special quality of any game, because it’s not really about you solving the puzzle while not playing the game, but about the game’s ability to present all the necessary clues, in such way that you can just stop for a second and think logically about the solution. But the most important thing - the game needs you to convince and hint in some way or another to you that you’ve gathered all the necessary clues, practically saying to you: “Think about it, dummy!”. I’m sure there’re many classics which succeeded at that, and I’m sure one of the reasons we think they’re so good is exactly that.

So, did you ever solve a puzzle while stopping and thinking logically for a second, or even while completely off from a game? And which game do you think did best in that regard?

the most important thing - the game needs you to convince and hint in some way or another to you that you’ve gathered all the necessary clues, practically saying to you: “Think about it, dummy!”. I’m sure there’re many classics which succeeded at that, and I’m sure one of the reasons we think they’re so good is exactly that.

I Think it all about the design of a Puzzle.
if the Designers want me to find the solution they decide the probabilities of an adventure game player mind and either make it complicated or not

for example Inventory Items would look very compatible with the surrounding
i would to explain this better with examples for the lack of vocabulary here:-
a key and a door =  for dummies
a key and door and something sharp = for dummies
a key and door and something sharp but doesn’t help = hmm ...could be smart
lets search another location )

a key and door and something sharp that never helps and with a way or another you get to forget about that door= sound very smart lets go another location and do something entirely different and maybe we would open that door sooner or later = now we are talking

but even that last example would be ruined if the hero would say something (nasty) like i need to find an expert in picklocking .. if you lately played Last chronicles of Zerzura well get what i mean

but in the same time of course it not all about inventory and items there are other ways the designer and even makes thing hard or easy ifs like the object on one screen (hotspots)or if there are something clickable you use/look at and its eliminated from the the screen (become unusable) or he can leave it there to recheck it again

but lets get back yo your question diego

did you ever solve a puzzle while stopping and thinking logically for a second…..?

yes in gold/good ol’ days , remember the DOME at start of(Riven) .. five openings , two doors and a dynamic Floor.

diego - 29 March 2013 08:43 AM

So, did you ever solve a puzzle while stopping and thinking logically for a second, or even while completely off from a game? And which game do you think did best in that regard?

Oh yes, sometimes only after a small pause, but often in bed just before i go to sleep.
For me there is nothing unusual in this, quite often when driving back from work i get an idea or a solution to a problem i have been working on for several hours with no success.

I am however not sure that i agree that it comes down to the puzzle design, at least not to the extent you do. Even if you are just stuck because you haven’t talked to someone or found some object, then you might not realize this, you might be convinced you have everything you need and just can’t figure out how to use it, and then after a pause it hits you, perhaps i need to find some other unknown object, or hey i haven’t talked to x about this subject.

But there are some kind of puzzles that i believe makes this impossible, and that is if you are in a very small place, perhaps trapped in a cage or something, where your options are very limited, and of course puzzles as mini games. In order for an epiphany to hit you when least expected, there has to be a high complexity to the puzzle, meaning that there has to be a large number of things you can try, otherwise you can just try all the options available. And this complexity can only happen in a more or less open environment, trapped in a cage or similar your options are simply too limited. That is as i read it also Advies point with the door example, that you have the option to leave and get back when you have found other items. 

I must admit this doesn’t happen to me as much now, as it did in the past. But i believe Ozzie explained the reason for it excellently. Nowadays i tend to use walkthroughs too much, so i don’t really get stuck because i cheat. But this also depends greatly on the game and the puzzle design, if the game is only mediocre or the puzzle i’m stuck at is poorly designed, or worse a mini-game, then i haven’t got much patience and will soon look for a walkthrough.

Ozzie has also got another point, and that is that in story-heavy games with lots of long cut-scenes and endless dialogs that explains everything, then you just want to progress so you can be told the story. For this reason, though not this reason alone, i prefer games where you are allowed to discover the story for yourself rather then having the story told to you. If the total of the cut-scenes takes more than just a few percentage of the total time playing the game, then the developers have done something terrible wrong imo. (Yet another reason i don’t like TWD) 

Deponia is an excellent example of a game that allows you to discover the story for yourself, anther example is Haunted which i have just played. After playing a game with endlessly long dialogs, and an incredible amount of waste time, like waiting for the elevator (i’m not kidding, you had to wait for the elevator!), the dialogs and cut-scenes in Haunted was refreshingly short and precise, allowing you to focus on the most important - playing the game!

These days I just have to quit out and give my mind a rest.

Found this out recently playing Black Mirror 3. Went on a walkthrough for a puzzle even though the solution was fairly logical.

Got a bit annoyed with myself. Went back on the following day, fresh as a daisy, and completed the final bit of the game with no trouble.

Advie - 29 March 2013 11:45 AM

remember the DOME at start of(Riven) .. five openings , two doors and a dynamic Floor.

Good point, I forgot to mention it - “self-contained” puzzles and majority of logic puzzles in Myst-clones are usually by default like that, that you can be pretty sure at some point that all you need to do in order to progress is to think about the solution, not worrying whether you obtained all the info and items. And like Oscar said, it’s pretty harder for you to know that in a 3rd-person game because the puzzle usually spans through multiple locations.

ozzie - 29 March 2013 01:25 PM

What else is there to do in an adventure game until you hit on the solution? You can pretty much only go around the environments in circles and examine everything again and click every inventory item on another.

Exactly! But now, how do you know, or at what point does a player feel he’s got everything he needs to solve a puzzle, and can even exit the game and think about the solution? For example, at the beginning of Curse of Monkey Island - you know that you need to lift the curse of Elaine, but it is obvious that you can’t possibly know how to do it yet, no matter how much you think about it outside the game. You need to play and explore more. However, the snake puzzle is limited to one screen and you know that you have all the information and inventory items in order to solve it. But those are two extreme cases, and to answer my own question - there isn’t a way to “directly” say to player “You’ve got and you’ve heard everything you need to solve that puzzle”, because it would be too stupid and too easy, but the player needs to feel himself that moment.

Player doesn’t always have to possess all the clues in order to think about the solution - for example, you may lack an inventory item, like scissors. If you’ve explored enough, you’ll realize that you need to cut some wire. Now, you can even exit the game, go to bed and remember - “AHA! I’ve seen scissors there!”, or “I remember that character showing me scissors” and you can guess that you need to obtain scissors first and then cut the wire.

Iznogood - 29 March 2013 03:33 PM

Nowadays i tend to use walkthroughs too much, so i don’t really get stuck because i cheat. But this also depends greatly on the game and the puzzle design, if the game is only mediocre or the puzzle i’m stuck at is poorly designed, or worse a mini-game, then i haven’t got much patience and will soon look for a walkthrough.

Yes, walkthroughs at hand mean you can’t be stuck unless you WANT TO - and that’s why I mentioned “good design”, because what is “good design” if not when the game manages to convince you in some way to think about the solution for yourself? And knowing, or feeling that you at least explored enough to solve a particular puzzle is a great boost IMO to think without looking at the walkthrough. One game feature closely-related to this is that in GK2, where you can check at what locations there’s still work to be done.

I can’t really recall a lot of puzzles that had me thinking while “offline”.
I usually do my thinking “on the fly” while playing the game. That way, the situation is presented before me. While offline, I’d more easily think “I must have missed a hotspot/dialogue option/other item” and then stop thinking about it because it’s irrelevant.
An exception would be small stand-alone riddles, like the opening quiz in Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon.

Usually, when I think about games while offline, it’ll mostly be about plot elements, not puzzles…

As i see it there is really two kinds of offline thinking about puzzles:

1) Where you deliberately take a small break to think things through, instead of just running around like a headless chicken trying everything you can possible think of.

When you are sitting in front of the screen, it is very easy to “stare yourself blind” at something, and not see what should otherwise be rather obvious.

So if you are stuck in a game, turn off the screen, grab a cop of coffee, talk to someone, go to the loo, whatever, just make sure that you distract yourself so you can clear your head. Then after a short break, try to think about the solution, still with the screen turned off, if necessary consult you notes, and only turn the screen on again and return to the game, when you think you have a solution or at least have found some new inspiration.

I also use this technique a lot in my work, and i can I can highly recommend doing this at regular intervals, even if you aren’t actually stuck at anything, but are just looking for inspiration.

2) The other one and perhaps most interesting, is when you aren’t consciously thinking about the game, or at least not thinking about the puzzles, but subconsciously your mind is still working on the problem, and suddenly the solution just comes to you like an epiphany.

This of course can’t be forced, but if you are prepared to stop playing when you get hopelessly stuck, and go to bed or do something entirely different, then there is a good chance that the solution will come to you. Personally this doesn’t happen to me as often as it used to, but this is because i have become more impatient and aren’t really prepared to stop playing just because i’m stuck.

Iznogood - 31 March 2013 08:40 PM

Personally this doesn’t happen to me as often as it used to, but this is because i have become more impatient and aren’t really prepared to stop playing just because i’m stuck.

I’m mostly too stubborn to stop playing. If I really like the game, then I’m continuing until I find my solution, going over *everything* again…

If I’m not blown away by the game, though, then I’ll probably head for a walkthrough. Impatience is a bitch…