Adventure Gamers - Forums

colpet - 01 May 2013 09:09 AM

I think you missed an important type of puzzle - 3D spacial exploration. Rhem is a good expample of this where you have to process the 2D slideshow into a 3D environment. Somewhat maze-like, but requires more thought and recognition. One of my favorite types of puzzles. Other examples are Obsidian, Riven and Riddle of the Sphinx. Of your list, I like the standalone puzzles and some inventory based challenges. I absolutely hate dialogue and timed/stealth puzzles.

Wow, did not think of that kind of puzzles. To be honest, I am not a big fan of solitary exploration games, and I have only played a few of them. It sounds like a pretty fun puzzle design though.

should the Mechanical Puzzles go under Environment puzzles , (you know) those puzzle when you start click that switch this until you know what the hell is going on or has to be done , the water tank at Riven (as it stands alone from all the other connected puzzles of Riven represent this example good enough)

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Advie - 01 May 2013 09:22 AM

should the Mechanical Puzzles go under Environment puzzles , (you know) those puzzle when start click that switch this until you know what the hell is going on or has to be done , the water tank at Riven (as it stands alone from all the other connected puzzles of Riven represent this example good enough)

Good question, I was actually thinking about that before, and I could not figure it out. I would probably put it under Stand Alone puzzles, but it is a thin line between that and Environmental puzzles.

Nice input, Niclas! One of the classic criteria when trying to categorize puzzles is if they’re “self-contained” or not. However, even that’s not fully precise because often you’re having some sort of “middle-ground”, meaning it’s basically a self-contained puzzle, but you still need some action, inventory item, info… in order to start it, or even solve it.

I’ll add also:

Riddle/quiz puzzles - will be familiar to anyone who played Conquests of the Longbow or Nemesis/Awakened. They can be further broken down to:

- Puzzles that demand manual input from player - for example, you need to type the riddle answer manually with your keyboard.
- Puzzles that don’t demand manual input - you can select the answer from the contextual menu.

Also, it can be combination of several approaches, or it can a sequence of actions (making chocolate in Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon). And “lateral thinking” puzzles, or “creative” puzzles can be found either in, let’s say, Monkey Island, or a Myst-clone game.

Here’s one of the many articles on the subject.

Apart from exploration puzzles i think there are other kinds of puzzles also left out on the list, or at least subtypes of the ones mentioned that it might be best to distinguish from the main-type.

Deduction puzzles where you have to make some conclusions on the information you have found in the game. The most obvious example is of course the deduction board in some of the Sherlock Holmes games.

I think this is a very underused kind of puzzle, and i always hate when the game lets the protagonist make all the conclusions instead of letting us players do that for ourselves.

Mini-games technically a form of Isolated puzzle, but sometimes isolated puzzles can simply be in the form of decoding a message, or it can be in the form of an outright mini-game like the hacking in BS4 or the Platypus Bataka or Corner the Submarine in Deponia 2.

The outright mini-games are usually just ridiculous and something that simply doesn’t belong in AG. The ones i mentioned above are some of the best example, and if they were all that good i could live with them, but they aren’t and i can’t.

Mazes a subtype of Exploration puzzles (or perhaps the other way around), but there is a difference between having to explore an area and navigating through an outright maze.

I personally like mazes if they a constructed right.
A perfect example of how not to construct a maze is in Black Mirror 2, where they constantly flip the camera angle 180, so you exit a scene to the right and enter the next scene from the right, making you all disorientated.

Pixel hunting also a kind of puzzle in its own right. You don’t see it much nowadays with hotspot finders etc. but many old games had quite a bit of pixel hunting. And there are still some games like the Sherlock Holmes series that uses hidden objects elements.

Personally i’m not particularly fond of pixel hunting, but i don’t mind a bit here and there.

As for the ones you did mention:

1. Inventory puzzles
I kind of like these, and it is still the most used type of puzzle in AG, but it depends entirely of how they are made.

2. Isolated puzzles
Generally i don’t mind isolated puzzles in the form of decoding messages or similar, but slider puzzles and the likes, i simply hate those. The problem with many isolated puzzles is also that they are usually best solved simply by using brute force.

3. Environment puzzles
This should probably also be divided into subtypes, as there are many different kinds of environment puzzles.

The example you used with opening a safe etc. by finding clues in the environment is also among my favorite.

But the mechanical kind where you have to operate some kind of machinery without an manual, like randomly pulling 7 different levers just to see what they do, and finding the right combination to lower a drawbridge or something similar, I absolutely hate those, they also have the same problem as many isolated puzzles as they can often best be solved by brute force.

4. Dialogue puzzles
My absolute favorite kind of puzzle!
Unfortunately also a grossly underused type of puzzle.

I don’t think your example with Resonance is the best example, even if it did require you to think about what you want to ask, then it has the same general problem as the traditional dialog tree, that what you say doesn’t have any consequences.

Personally i prefer the kind seen in LA Noire or Culpa Innata, where you really have to think about what you want to ask or say, because there is consequences to it.

5. Timed puzzles
No self-respecting adventure gamer can possible enjoy being under time-pressure, part of the reason I/we play AG is because I/we like to take our time thinking instead of just reacting.

Niclas - 01 May 2013 08:54 AM

1. Inventory puzzles

Combine Object A with Object B

Not many games get this right, but I love games that only allow objects getting picked up when they are needed, or when you only can combine object A with B when it makes actually makes sense to do it.

Ok, but let me ask you this - in Toonstruck, somewhere right after the beginning, there’s a certain “puzzle”, or let’s say - a situation, that cannot be solved until later in the game. I’m sure there’s a ton of similar examples. And now - is it an unfair puzzle design?

Why do I ask this? Because, do you think that it’s possible to design a game where EVERY player will KNOW he/she will “need” that object, or that a player will in advance KNOW that he/she needs to combine items? Is it possible to create a puzzle that will make “sense” to EVERY player at the exactly same moment in game?

Similarly, in Toonstruck example, I said “puzzle” and not puzzle because the game doesn’t always tell us - “You’ve just encountered a puzzle - now solve it!”. The gameworld can “breathe” and be flexible, and the puzzle - or “object” might be lying around just for the sake of it, whether you can actually solve it or not, and whether it makes any sense to you or not. The puzzle is sometimes also in NOT knowing that it’s a puzzle.

Also, I see no problem at all at objects lying further from the spot where you’ll actually use them - if you’re going to dig a hole near the end of the game, does it matter if you’ve picked up a shovel in the first act, or at the end? And you can actually carry the shovel for the entire game without using it, but that’s just a design choice and sort of a red-herring, and not the bad puzzle design. Remember “wallet”, or credit cards in many adventures - you’ve got them right at the start, and it can be that for the entire game you don’t have to use it.

I sort of agree with Niclas on the inventory thing, it is better if you first realize you need to dig a hole, and then go looking for a shovel, then running around with a shovel for half the game waiting for somewhere to dig a hole.

But for all practical purposes it is impossible to ensure this!
Or at least it is impossible without either making a restriction, so you can’t pick up the shovel before your have first tried to dig the hole with your hands, or making the game 100% linear so you are guaranteed to find the hole-digging-place before you find the shovel. Both of which i would hate.

Iznogood - 01 May 2013 01:59 PM

it is better if you first realize you need to dig a hole, and then go looking for a shovel, then running around with a shovel for half the game waiting for somewhere to dig a hole.

But you’re not waiting to dig a hole! Heck, you may even need a shovel to smack someone up theirs head along the way and not dig the hole at all. Or you may need a shovel for both. And if puzzle design would allow you only to pick up objects once you realize you need them (although, as I said it’s impossible that all players realize the same thing at the same time), then it would narrow the design possibilities too much.

The puzzle is not only knowing which object to use, but could be realizing what to do with the object you’ve already collected.