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What is your favourite adventure game puzzle?
Simple question. Name the game, describe the situation and its puzzle solving.
Perhaps the animal puzzle in Riven. Took me lot of time to figure out the solution, which was a perfectly logical one and based in the explore first - solve later riddle method. Required lots of notes and attention to detail both to what you see and also to what you hear. And there is a tricky part where you can solve it either with some inspiration or with even more reading and attention to detail. I am talking about the part where you have to find out what the first animal is. You can either realize that since no sound is applied, then there must be a no-sound animal (making the fish a strong candidate) or you can read in Gehn’s journal that the small ball was found at the middle of the village’s lake, then travel to another island, use the lens machine to look through the lens in the lake and spot a rock’s shadow that looks identical to a fish. Magnificent.
Nice one Sefir! Thanks for spoiler alert.
My all time favorite puzzle has to be the Insult Sword Fighting in Monkey Island.
I think everybody knows what i’m talking about, so no further explanation is needed.
You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ
Perhaps the animal puzzle in Riven. Took me lot of time to figure out the solution, which was a perfectly logical one and based in the explore first - solve later riddle method. Required lots of notes and attention to detail both to what you see and also to what you hear. And there is a tricky part where you can solve it either with some inspiration or with even more reading and attention to detail. I am talking about the part where you have to find out what the first animal is. You can either realize that since no sound is applied, then there must be a no-sound animal (making the fish a strong candidate) or you can read in Gehn’s journal that the small ball was found at the middle of the village’s lake, then travel to another island, use the lens machine to look through the lens in the lake and spot a rock’s shadow that looks identical to a fish. Magnificent.
Interesting that you should mention those two methods. The first is how I solved it, but at the time I found it unsatisfying. Later in the game, I stumbled across the second method and startled my wife with my sudden, loud “OH!”.
One of my all time favorites has to be winning the Human Show contest in Day of the Tentacle. It’s a brilliantly designed, multi-part puzzle that requires you to switch back and forth between characters and time periods, manipulating things in the past to affect changes in the future. And it’s hilarious, to boot. It takes up a significant chunk of game time, so I won’t go into the various parts and solutions here, but it’s awesome.
It’s also a great example of the type of complex puzzle Telltale would never be able to do justice to if they ever got the rights to do a Maniac Mansion game. Here’s hoping that never happens.
You can’t really count this as a puzzle because it’s really an entire chapter consisting of a great bunch of puzzles, but I’ve always considered Year Two of Grim Fandango (the Calavera Café / Rubacava part) as the pinnacle of adventure gaming.
Rubacava is a big place so there’s lots to explore, but it’s not so big that you’ll get lost. The environments are beautiful, and the game’s ‘noir’ atmosphere is at its peak there. Your objective is relatively simple: you need to board a ship but the captain won’t let you (since he’s got enough crew). Unless, of course, one of his sailors doesn’t show up (and you need to make sure that happens), and unless you manage to obtain a Union card for yourself and official Sea Bee tools for Glottis…
And then you run around doing all the necessary things to finally obtain passage on the ship.
It’s the longest chapter in the game and the one with the most locations, it’s soaking with atmosphere and it’s by far the best piece of adventure gaming I can imagine.
As for specific puzzles, there’s a few that come to mind:
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: the multiple locations where you can find The Lost Dialogue of Plato
- The Dig: retrieving the part of a door panel that a rodent-like critter stole
- Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon: making chocolate in the Brazilian temple in Josie’s story
The one in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is by no means a difficult puzzle, but the fun part of it is that The Lost Dialogue of Plato can be found in one of three different locations (and its location changes in subsequent playthroughs). This means that you’ll often have to complete the puzzles for all three locations before you finally find what you were looking for (two locations being wild goose chases). If you’re lucky, it was at the first place you looked, but that’s not a certainty…
Too few games use a bit of ‘randomness’ like this in their puzzles - it’s one of the reasons why replaying Fate of Atlantis is such fun. The middle part of the game has three separate paths (so it’s already three different games in one), and quite a few of the puzzles in the game have a bit of randomness thrown in there so you have to actually solve them instead of just going by a walkthrough…
The one in the Dig starts with a joke: you enter a new area, and the first thing you see is a rodent-like critter that takes *something* from near a door panel, and then you see the door closing. Brink (your character)‘s first remark is along the lines of “whatever it is that that critter just stole, I have a feeling that I’ll be wanting it real soon”...
I really love this puzzle because it’s layered and makes clever use of an object that was (in most playthroughs) obtained a lot earlier. You can lure the critter out of its hiding hole, but it’s too fast to catch it, so you need to construct a trap to catch the critter. After you’ve done that, you still need to chase the critter in the trap’s general direction, but once you’ve caught it, it doesn’t have the part you were looking for - it left that in its hole…
And here’s the clever bit: you need to find the critter’s hideout and for that you need to be able to track it. Earlier in the game you found a device that pointed to a location. You found a bracelet at that location, that’s what the device was pointing at. So now you need to put that bracelet on the critter and then release the critter. 
When it returns to its hole, you can use the device to find its location and dig up the piece of the panel that was stolen.
I really like that puzzle… 
And the puzzle in Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon is one that I elaborated on here. If you don’t want to follow the link, I’ve copy-pasted the contents:
It’s an example of a perfect puzzle for me: it’s logical, you get a rough guideline to help you (so you at least know what you’re supposed to do and you’re never really stuck), it takes quite a few steps to complete (none of which are obtuse - so it’s complex, but perfectly doable), some parts have a very clever (and not too obvious) solution, and the entire thing is even educational because that really is how you make chocolate…
And it even manages to make you crave chocolate, which turns it into a sensory experience…
My favourite part is crushing the nibs by placing them on the sliding doors and then closing the doors. It’s the least obvious of all the steps that you have to take in this puzzle…
As an aside, I’d also like to mention the sneaky puzzles that Cing put in their DS games where you need to solve the puzzle by closing the lid of your DS. Another Code, Hotel Dusk and Last Window all have one or two puzzles like this and you never see them coming…
I love them because they really require out-of-the-box thinking. Every one of these puzzles has had me stumped for a good while until I suddenly had an epiphany and was able to solve it. Really smart use of the DS’ functionality, and I hope I’ll see the same type of puzzle appear in a few 3DS games too…
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
Space Quest 5, banana in the tailpipe.
You can’t really count this as a puzzle because it’s really an entire chapter consisting of a great bunch of puzzles, but I’ve always considered Year Two of Grim Fandango (the Calavera Café / Rubacava part) as the pinnacle of adventure gaming.
Rubacava is a big place so there’s lots to explore, but it’s not so big that you’ll get lost. The environments are beautiful, and the game’s ‘noir’ atmosphere is at its peak there. Your objective is relatively simple: you need to board a ship but the captain won’t let you (since he’s got enough crew). Unless, of course, one of his sailors doesn’t show up (and you need to make sure that happens), and unless you manage to obtain a Union card for yourself and official Sea Bee tools for Glottis…
And then you run around doing all the necessary things to finally obtain passage on the ship.
It’s the longest chapter in the game and the one with the most locations, it’s soaking with atmosphere and it’s by far the best piece of adventure gaming I can imagine.
oh, yes, it really was. I even remember most of the dialogues. And the puzzles were quite difficult, I remember been stuck more than once… but I really loved it. 
I generally forget puzzles, because I’m not a puzzle gamer by nature; I play AGs for the story immersion. There are a number of puzzles I half-remember. But the one that comes springing to mind as the most infuriating-but-logical puzzle I can recall is the lock picking exercise in Still Life. It stumped me for hours, because there was just no way to get around it, and it was so tricky, I cursed repeatedly trying to complete it. But as far as I’m concerned, it was a worthy puzzle, and made perfect sense to me.
I refuse to get into another debate defending the cookie baking puzzle from the same game, however…
Lee Edward McIlmoyle,
Probably NOT the kind of guy you think he is.
BrokenSword, Ireland, Plaster of Paris, keys, soap, wet towel, go back , get guard
busy….this trick i tried later in reallife. BS had great puzzles, the buzzerhand shake,
hiding in hotel and throwing manuscript.
There’s a bunch that come to mind but for me, The Last Express with the elaborate way in which you pay off August Schmidt. You can potentially learn a ton about the world of The Last Express in the process looking at everyone’s private letters and things, plus the sequence of events you go through to get the gold are just plain fun and smooth. It’s not a typical “puzzle” per se, but I really loved the conversation-based intuitive work you have to do in that game.
I dunno about you guys, but I’m a big fan of a particular puzzle in GK4 when you have to construct a costume. I’m sure you’ve all heard about it.
Edit: I meant GK3. Just optimistic I guess 
I’m on a whole new adventure.
Growing a mustache?
No. Bigger than that.
A beard?!?
You mean GK3?
As for most memorable puzzle…. I’m like Lee in Limbo. I forget a lot of stuff once I complete the game. I recall a lot of the DoTT puzzles that involved doing things in the past to affect the future were quite inspired, though I cant seem to recall any particular specific one :-/
Talking of GK3, the funniest one for me was where you left candy in the hallway and tried to pick Mosely’s pocket. I kept failing the timing and I’d keep candy after candy and Mosely would diligently come again and again and eat the candy. I think he must have eaten at least thirty or forty candies before I picked the pocket. Wonder if he ever felt it suspicious that candy just kept appearing there every twenty seconds.
You mean GK3?
You got it!
It’s not my favourite by far, but it is hilariously bad.
My favourite puzzle is probably the scene with the robotic bunny rabbits in full throttle. It has all the makings of a good puzzle. It lets you know what your goal is, and then has a zany solution but gives you that a-ha! moment when you finally discover it.
That and it’s hilarious too. The music just tops it off.
I’m on a whole new adventure.
Growing a mustache?
No. Bigger than that.
A beard?!?
So… GK3’s infamous “cat moustache” puzzle gets a mention yet nobody talks about “Le Serpent Rouge”???
Weird, I’ve only heard great things about it…
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
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