Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
Post Marker Legend:
-
New posts -
No new posts
Currently online
Puzzle Difficulty/Design
Kind of the topic of the moment, but the standard review to most modern adventure games is that they are too easy. Perceptions of difficulty are always going to be different for different people, but have they gone to far to ensure that people get to the end of their game.
What has made puzzes easier and/or how do they make them more challenging, but keep them fair?
Interface
Has the streamlining of interface made games easier? From the days of text adventures which had the illusion of infinite possibilities (reality was limited by the parser and the immagination of the developer), to the nine verbs of Scumm, the four options verb coin of later Lucasarts, 2 mouse button interact/look interface and finally we have the one click does all option.
Obviously the more options on the interface means there is potentially more things you can do to a hotspot, but in reality does that pan out. You come across a lever in Day of the Tentacle is it realistic to suggest open/close/talk/give where it is fairly obvious that push or pull is the way to go and more likely that the position of the lever will probably highlight which of those options is needed.
Has the slimming down made games easier or just more efficient? What is the best interface?
Interaction Density
Could be linked to the interface, but the number of hotspots available in any one screen narrows down the possibile solutions or does it just thin the clutter.
I believe that more interaction can enhance the atmosphere and personality of a game. It gives the player an insight into the characters via their narrative and can be used to clue the player into the story and enhance the immersion. But how does it affect puzzles, Syberia is notoriously empty of interaction, but does that make it easier.
From a purely mathematical point of view the more interaction points combined with the number of inventory items and interface options make for more puzzle options.
For Example look at the first puzzles in Day of the Tentacle vs Broken Age (SPOILERS)
Day of the tentacle has 9 potential verbs, about 25 hotspots and 6 inventory items to solve the puzzle of where is Dr Fred so does that mean there is 375 potential solutions (Use coin with barf, use coin with flyer, use coin with door, use coin with stairs etc etc etc)
Broken Age has 1 click, 10 hotspots and 2 items to find the knife so only 20 potential solutions.
Of course that’s pure mathematics and logically the player will use judgement etc to narrow both considerably to the potential answer. Does the increased hotspots make one of those puzzles easier.
So does having more options make puzzles more difficult or just put in pointless interactions that nobody would realistically attempt except where the developers have failed and the puzzle solving is dependant on just try everything with everything else.
Logical vs Illogical
Does making the puzzles logical, make them easier.
Real world logic solutions would probably make things easier. Using a key to open a door seems more logical than using a bit of rubber chicken and a pulley.
In-Game logics are harder to convey to the player, but if they are done in the appropriate manner then it can be effective.
Does using a banana to hypnotise a monkey, then using that monkey as a wrench seem logical, is it presented in Monkey Island 2 logic or is that a logic jump too far.
King’s Quest V adominable snowman puzzle, does it seem logical to not use the magic wand or cloak you have but throw a pie in his face to get past him.
Does the hardness in most old adventure rely on giant lateral leaps of logic just in increase difficulty. (and I’m not even going to the rubber duck Longest Journey puzzle)
Clues/Hints
Are we being fed too many clues in todays games? Should they be more obscure and difficult to obtain. Should we be able to turn them off if not needed.
I quite liked the fact recently in The Raven that you were penalised points for using the hotspot highlighter or using hints and could therefore get a score at the end as to how much you used that stuff.
Some old games took pleasure in not telling you where to go or what to do making guess work and trial end error essential. Does that make the puzzles difficult or just annoying. Players should be given just enough information to allow them to solve the puzzles, but not hit them over the head with clues.
FOr example in DOTT the first puzzle there are a couple of clues that I remember. The flyer suggests that there is a basement and when you look at the clock it says that there is something funny about it.
Broken Age seems heavy handed with clues. In the first puzzle, the old man grunts every time the knife is mentioned, when you pick up the towel he says “Never going to find it” and talking to him points you towards the cupcakes and splitting it. The clues get more blatent in later clues.
How should hints/clues be handled? Is the abscence of them a valid difficulty tactic, should it make you go into a notebook or other screen to get them.
Experience
The biggest thing I think that effects the perception of difficulty is the experience playing the genre. Personally I have been playing adventures for about 25 years so can draw on previous games and similar puzzles to solve anything that is thrown my way.
How can developers design puzzles and their games to appeal to new gamers without being too easy to the hardcore? Puzzles that are easy to me may be challenging to others with less experience, but puzzles that are easy to newer player will be waay to easy to an experienced player. The obvious answer is to come up with new puzzles that experience would have no effect on, but It’s a conundrum that some recent games seem not to have cracked.
It invariouble means that we experienced players have to fall back on the other parts of the game to find enjoyment
An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams
nice survey for the core subjects for easing or Hardening one adventure ,
I think it all about the design of course,
Interface should have more than one left click ,end of story.
Interaction Density could be with puzzles ,inventory items ,locations .. doesn’t matter as long I I feel the protagonist is natural and belongs to me , before at that other thread you didn’t like when I said things shouldn’t obtained until knew what reason for , that may be one point is far fetched (I see now),but look this black mirror Gordon enters one graveyard , you have you the players must have an idea why I am here for ,so if the tombs not interacted yet that is a plus to the difficulty ,means Gordon and me the player not into digging yet but when the time comes we are , which make endless logical options within every screen you visit ,Syberia was involved into much mechanical puzzles ,which gives the designer an excuse for less interaction with surroundings and love it , because it always had given me the feeling of Myst playing into a great 3rd person adventure Syberia II messed up with the interaction and the NPCs ,it was a total different game for me but not as it original .
Logical vs Illogical speaking of KQV ,well that is one stupid puzzle, but its known for all Roberta’s adventure by trying to lighten up the game with some foolishness around , no excuses but that was her idea of an adventure game.
Clues/Hints lets not talk about it.
Experience I guess its the same idea of every art , movies ,music do not all sound and look the same after a while , and for an adventure games ,you will still need a key to open a door and some dialogues with NPCs to get some clues ,Experience has nothing to do with representatives I think one played 2 adventures only is experienced, again it all about the design what you what me to see and what you want me to miss and have hard times with. ..huh that rhymed! 
I always swither back and forth over the pick up everything or only allowed to pick things up when needed mechanic. Picking up random items with the supernatural knowledge that you will need it later is weird.
The other option adds an element of you needing to think about what you are picking up, but on the other hand it’s just time wasting making you back track to pick something up.
Vampyre Story had a need trick for that in that it remembered the item, but didn’t take it. So when you used the item in a puzzle it warped you back to the item.
What I didn’t think was fair was the likes of Runaway where it doesn’t even mention the item when you first search making you go back and randomly search the same places incase you missed something.
Does either option impact the difficulty though?
An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams
Excellent analysis Lucien, really like it. I think you make a lot of very relevant points in there. For me, the best puzzle/game design are puzzles which make me think at times, but that nonetheless I feel are solveable and so don’t feel inclined to look up a walkthrough. A puzzle where I don’t have a clue how to solve, or a situation where I have no idea what to do next, suggests to me something’s probably gone wrong with the game design.
I do think there is sometimes an “idealising” of the so-called “Golden Age of Adventures” when actually a lot of games from that time just had obtuse puzzles and a lot of padding. Noticeably, the game which I think has the BEST game/puzzle design is actually only a couple of years old. And that is….Resonance - puzzle desing, difficulty, and logic is virtually perfect for me. Next best for me as a whole would probably be GK1 I think. And then Monkey Island 1. Would be interested to hear other opinions - not for specific puzzles (you often hear about that, e.g. Serpent Rouge) but for a game as a whole.
On the specific categories:
Interface - 1 click is definitely a step too far I think. Personally I find the 2-click a bit too simple too. Old Scumm-type interface may have often been unnecessary, but there were cases where the difference was used cleverly with a puzzle. My personal favourite is probably the “intelligent cursor” a la GK3.
Interaction Density - does make a difference. Especially where you are not actually sure where it’s necessary to make progress next. It’s a tricky balance to find - not leaving the player without a clue so that it becomes a “try everything or everything” situation (not much interest in that) but nonetheless that a wide range of options are there. GK1 was great because of the wide range of hotspots. Siberia & Dreamfall had very few which (together with a small inventory) meant inventory puzzles in both were very easy. Siberia kept up difficulty through the mechanical puzzles, Dreamfall with the stealth aspect.
Logical Vs Illogical - current games do try more to be logical & to be honest, in my opinion, it’s an improvement. There’s no good thing about rubber ducky or cat mustache puzzles, even if they are afterwards memorable 
.
Clues/Hints - I think there’s a place for them but shouldn’t be overdone. There are different types though:
1) Where you try something reasonable to solve a puzzle & get a response which helps to find the right solution. Games should do this (though without making the solution too simple) - a “you can’t do that” when trying something perfectly reasonable doesn’t help anybody. The example in Broken Age with the ladder in the cloud colony where the bird takes it off & it sinks is a good example of this.
2) More general comments by characters to direct the player to what he/she should be doing next and/or to help the player along. These often make things too easy & ideally should have an on/off option or something similar.
3) Things like hotspot indicators, indications where locations are finished with etc. I like them being included, but as Lucien says, they shouldn’t be forced on a player, but remain optional. Another way, though, where old games were more difficult is down to pixel hunts. I’m glad they’re rarely an issue these days.
Experience - Lucien’s totally right. It’s hard to make a puzzle which is totally new for an experienced player - chances are, you’ve seen something like it before. Which means it’s easier. Hard to get round that one.
What kind of punk would turn puzzle difficulty into a hot topic!?
I have to say that your analysis is pretty good. Personally, I think that pixel hunting is completely artificial and isn’t legitimate difficulty.
Nowadays, the limiting factor seems to be the amount of locations, followed by amount of items and amount of places to interact with in each location. This has mostly been caused, imo, by episodic gaming and short games.
Episodic games are smaller, with less locations, less items, etc. There isn’t that time where there are many locations, items, etc. Episodic gaming might be good for the developers to get money before they complete a full game, but it is way worse for gamers who care about this kind of thing. There is nothing more enjoyable to me than having a ton of locations, items, and opportunities. I don’t like being limited to tiny areas with very few items.
As for the simplicity of cursors, this also can affect things. Being a one click button like Broken Age apparently is, is the worst offender. Having options to look/interact/etc makes some cursors ok. I don’t feel like having verbs is necessary, though that would be nice. It just seems like it is too late to do anything about that because it is long gone.
A few random, disconnected thoughts on the matter.
1) I really wish the old argument about interfaces were laid to rest once and for all. If you look at the LEC games from MI1 to DOTT, you’ll find that you can go almost entirely through them using only the default (right-click) verb. Likewise, I was recently replaying KQ6, and I realized that the puzzles would work exactly the same with a KQ7-style interface. As a matter of fact, the Kyrandia games have a similar interface and are certainly not devoid of challenge.
The reason why it doesn’t matter is that most of the puzzles in these games are inventory-based (+ conversations in certain games). As long as you can pick up items and use them on stuff, you can have complex puzzles. That the game won’t allow you to try to close a tree or pick up a door is immaterial.
2) Clearly, there has been a drive towards games featuring fewer simultaneous locations and hotspots accessible at a given time, which does make puzzles simpler (at the very least for mathematical reasons). Having numerous concurrent puzzles and all the locations and hotspots for these going on at the same time increases difficulty. It also requires much more personal investment from the player, who has to keep track of everything that’s available and all the problems he’s supposed to work out. Not all players are willing to offer that kind of commitment to a game and many would rather be able to just pick it up for a short while, stop playing for a few days, get back to it, etc.
Ultimately, you can’t fault companies for trying to cater to more than the handful of people who are willing to devote 15 hours a week to a given game. But it does put a limit on the “raw (mathematical) complexity” that drove the difficulty of most classics.
3) Obviously experience is a huge problem. Trying to come up with a puzzle that’ll be satisfying for both people who’ve been playing for 25 years and newcomers is like trying to come up with a maths problem that’ll be intellectually stimulating and doable for both middle-schoolers and grad students. It seems to be an impossible task.
This is made all the worse by the fact that adventure games tend to be awful at teaching the player how to get better. Games like Portal or Phoenix Wright do a brilliant job of letting the players discover and master their logic and techniques while ramping up the difficulty. Most traditional adventures, on the other hand, seem to be stuck in some Dickensian conception of education: failure and failure and failure until a few people somehow “get it” (and the rest get thrown out). It seems like traditional, inventory-based, adventures are like these jaded teachers who have given up on actually teaching and either decide to only concern themselves with their best students or choose to make everything super-easy and give A’s to everyone.
I’m trying to figure out if I can think of a traditional adventure game that actually does teach player how to get better at adventure gaming, and I’m having a hard time with that. I guess RTMI might be the closest to that? In any case, there’s a lot of room for progress there, and maybe that could be a way to come up with puzzles that are entertaining for both newcomers and oldtimers.
4) It’s important to bear in mind that lots of older adventures were difficult for the wrong reasons. I recently replayed KQ6 and Discworld. The former was brilliant and hasn’t aged a day. The latter, however, feels extremely unfair. Part of the difficulty comes from “raw complexity” and wacky Discworld logic, and I guess that’s fair (if you’re into that). But another huge part of the difficulty comes from a constant lack of feedback, with the game almost never letting you know what the blocking point is or why what you’re trying to do is not correct. (And then there’s pixel-hunting…) Frankly, that’s a school of design I don’t miss.
On the other hand, classics like MI1, Fate of Atlantis or Broken Sword 1 are actually pretty easy and wouldn’t pose much of a challenge for an experienced adventurer, even though they did feel harder to those of us who were younger and less experienced when we first played them. So it’s important when discussing these things that everyone take off their rose-tinted glasses and realize that one of the reasons why they don’t experience games now the way they did back then is that they have changed, and not just the games.
There is nothing more enjoyable to me than having a ton of locations, items, and opportunities. I don’t like being limited to tiny areas with very few items.
Totally depends on the type of game for me. Investigative games a la Gabriel Knight are definitely suited to it. Others (e.g. gloabtrotting games following a trail such as Broken Sword games or Dreamfall) maybe less. Ultimately I think both can be enjoyable.
As for the simplicity of cursors, this also can affect things. Being a one click button like Broken Age apparently is, is the worst offender. Having options to look/interact/etc makes some cursors ok. I don’t feel like having verbs is necessary, though that would be nice. It just seems like it is too late to do anything about that because it is long gone.
I don’t see a single click interface (a la Broken Age) compared to a 2-click (left click use, right click look) make any difference re difficulty. I just miss not being able to look at everything in Broken Age. The individualised responses you get for look, use, combine actions are great though 
A few random, disconnected thoughts on the matter.
1) I really wish the old argument about interfaces were laid to rest once and for all. If you look at the LEC games from MI1 to DOTT, you’ll find that you can go almost entirely through them using only the default (right-click) verb. Likewise, I was recently replaying KQ6, and I realized that the puzzles would work exactly the same with a KQ7-style interface. As a matter of fact, the Kyrandia games have a similar interface and are certainly not devoid of challenge.The reason why it doesn’t matter is that most of the puzzles in these games are inventory-based (+ conversations in certain games). As long as you can pick up items and use them on stuff, you can have complex puzzles. That the game won’t allow you to try to close a tree or pick up a door is immaterial.
2) Clearly, there has been a drive towards games featuring fewer simultaneous locations and hotspots accessible at a given time, which does make puzzles simpler (at the very least for mathematical reasons). Having numerous concurrent puzzles and all the locations and hotspots for these going on at the same time increases difficulty. It also requires much more personal investment from the player, who has to keep track of everything that’s available and all the problems he’s supposed to work out. Not all players are willing to offer that kind of commitment to a game and many would rather be able to just pick it up for a short while, stop playing for a few days, get back to it, etc.Ultimately, you can’t fault companies for trying to cater to more than the handful of people who are willing to devote 15 hours a week to a given game. But it does put a limit on the “raw (mathematical) complexity” that drove the difficulty of most classics.
3) Obviously experience is a huge problem. Trying to come up with a puzzle that’ll be satisfying for both people who’ve been playing for 25 years and newcomers is like trying to come up with a maths problem that’ll be intellectually stimulating and doable for both middle-schoolers and grad students. It seems to be an impossible task.This is made all the worse by the fact that adventure games tend to be awful at teaching the player how to get better. Games like Portal or Phoenix Wright do a brilliant job of letting the players discover and master their logic and techniques while ramping up the difficulty. Most traditional adventures, on the other hand, seem to be stuck in some Dickensian conception of education: failure and failure and failure until a few people somehow “get it” (and the rest get thrown out). It seems like traditional, inventory-based, adventures are like these jaded teachers who have given up on actually teaching and either decide to only concern themselves with their best students or choose to make everything super-easy and give A’s to everyone.
I’m trying to figure out if I can think of a traditional adventure game that actually does teach player how to get better at adventure gaming, and I’m having a hard time with that. I guess RTMI might be the closest to that? In any case, there’s a lot of room for progress there, and maybe that could be a way to come up with puzzles that are entertaining for both newcomers and oldtimers.
4) It’s important to bear in mind that lots of older adventures were difficult for the wrong reasons. I recently replayed KQ6 and Discworld. The former was brilliant and hasn’t aged a day. The latter, however, feels extremely unfair. Part of the difficulty comes from “raw complexity” and wacky Discworld logic, and I guess that’s fair (if you’re into that). But another huge part of the difficulty comes from a constant lack of feedback, with the game almost never letting you know what the blocking point is or why what you’re trying to do is not correct. (And then there’s pixel-hunting…) Frankly, that’s a school of design I don’t miss.On the other hand, classics like MI1, Fate of Atlantis or Broken Sword 1 are actually pretty easy and wouldn’t pose much of a challenge for an experienced adventurer, even though they did feel harder to those of us who were younger and less experienced when we first played them. So it’s important when discussing these things that everyone take off their rose-tinted glasses and realize that one of the reasons why they don’t experience games now the way they did back then is that they have changed, and not just the games.
I skipped Discworld 1 because the puzzles were supposed to be ridiculous, but Discworld 2 was absolutely brilliant. Hilarious, tons of logical and fair puzzles, and just enough difficulty.
“It also requires much more personal investment from the player”- I disagree completely.
“willing to devote 15 hours a week “- Again, I completely disagree.
I pick up and play adventure games, rarely spending a long time per sitting. They are made so that when you are stuck, you can think about it a bit, and then play for 15 minutes at a time, trying new solutions that you’ve thought up in between sessions.
It also isn’t difficult at all to keep track of your options/objective. You do realize that people read complex books over long periods of time, right?
There is nothing more enjoyable to me than having a ton of locations, items, and opportunities. I don’t like being limited to tiny areas with very few items.
Totally depends on the type of game for me. Investigative games a la Gabriel Knight are definitely suited to it. Others (e.g. gloabtrotting games following a trail such as Broken Sword games or Dreamfall) maybe less. Ultimately I think both can be enjoyable.
As for the simplicity of cursors, this also can affect things. Being a one click button like Broken Age apparently is, is the worst offender. Having options to look/interact/etc makes some cursors ok. I don’t feel like having verbs is necessary, though that would be nice. It just seems like it is too late to do anything about that because it is long gone.
I don’t see a single click interface (a la Broken Age) compared to a 2-click (left click use, right click look) make any difference re difficulty. I just miss not being able to look at everything in Broken Age. The individualised responses you get for look, use, combine actions are great though
I did not find Dreamfall enjoyable at all, so I didn’t last long. Dreamfall reviews pointed out that there were barely puzzles, and you know how I feel about that… I loved TLJ. Hell, TLJ did a great job at making a ton of different chapters. Some of them had expansive amount of locations and items and some didn’t. It doesn’t have to be expansive during the entire game.
As for the cursor, it gives you more control over your interaction, and I think it is nice to have. 1 click just smacks of laziness to me.
A few random, disconnected thoughts on the matter.
3) Obviously experience is a huge problem. Trying to come up with a puzzle that’ll be satisfying for both people who’ve been playing for 25 years and newcomers is like trying to come up with a maths problem that’ll be intellectually stimulating and doable for both middle-schoolers and grad students. It seems to be an impossible task.
you actually hit a very good point,i agree that while there are hopes for greater approach with kickstarter ,there is also ‘the walking dead’ ttg . I see there might be a promise with the rate kickstaters rewarding taking place ,yea LSLR was like some kid got a copyright/doll for some fancy child dream and blew it ,Broken Sword was like guessing the water and BA took some attention that there are good adventure than those ttg producing (how I which they stop or get out of the Adventure genre ,there should be some ttg haters thread round here) so there might be something even at the worst we hadn’t encounter for a some certain while with the quality of adventures . hopes!
Most of recent Japanese Hit games have nailed the Puzzle philosophy.
PW, Ghosttrick, HotelDusk etc.
Machinarium is another good example of how to hit sweet spot.
One can also take Papers,Pleasse route of analytical approach of making things interesting,
while keeping it real.
A few random, disconnected thoughts on the matter.
3) Obviously experience is a huge problem. Trying to come up with a puzzle that’ll be satisfying for both people who’ve been playing for 25 years and newcomers is like trying to come up with a maths problem that’ll be intellectually stimulating and doable for both middle-schoolers and grad students. It seems to be an impossible task.
you actually hit a very good point,i agree that while there are hopes for greater approach with kickstarter ,there is also ‘the walking dead’ ttg . I see there might be a promise with the rate kickstaters rewarding taking place ,yea LSLR was like some kid got a copyright/doll for some fancy child dream and blew it ,Broken Sword was like guessing the water and BA took some attention that there are good adventure than those ttg producing (how I which they stop or get out of the Adventure genre ,there should be some ttg haters thread round here) so there might be something even at the worst we hadn’t encounter for a some certain while with the quality of adventures . hopes!
I don’t know why people underestimate young people. WHen I was in elementary school/middle school, I enjoyed Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle. Just because something is challenging and may not give immediate gratification, doesn’t mean young people are incapable of it. The solution isn’t to dumb something down so much that a lobotomy patient can handle it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with continuing to try until you accomplish a difficult task. Besides, nowadays, you have a walkthrough at your disposal at all times, which make all adventure games doable if necessary. I still feel like the keep trying approach is better though. Hell, my first NES game was Ninja Gaiden, when I was 6… It took me a looong time to get to the final guy in that game.
The interface complaints are not about whether or not they make puzzles too easy, the real problem with simplified interfaces is that they heighten the sense of a disconnect between the player and the game world by allowing you to do significantly less to interact with it. The interface issue is about immersion and a feeling of discovery, not about puzzle difficulty.
That said, number of hotspots is certainly a factor in making puzzles too easy. If there’s only a few hotspots on a given screen, and everything you need to solve that puzzle is on that one screen, then it’s likely you’d be able to solve it without even trying, just by clicking everything.
One of the biggest issues in artificial puzzle difficulty is the aforementioned lack of feedback. The player needs visual, dialog, and sometimes plot-related cues in order to be able to properly figure out what they are supposed to do. So many adventure games don’t do this well at all. Puzzles can still be very complex, as long as they are properly telegraphed and laid out so that the player has a logical set of steps or cues to follow. This is not an exact science, however—items need to be visible (but not TOO visible), experimentation needs to be rewarded with specific responses that give you clues as to whether or not what you’re doing is working or is in the right direction, etc. The Designer needs to try and put themselves into the heads of the first-time player as much as possible, and to leave a proverbial “trail of breadcrumbs” for each puzzle. It’s easy to go too far with this, though, too—and make puzzles that the game practically tells you how to solve. That seem to be the issue with Broken Age’s puzzles.
I think the key with in game clues is to subtly influence the player’s thought process towards the right area, without actually directly referencing the problem’s solution.
With something like the knife puzzle during the opening of Vella’s story in Broken Age, you’re already in the correct location and, as the game’s only just starting, presumably in a mood to explore, so the numerous clues the game gives you at that point aren’t really needed. The Grandfather’s attitude should be enough to tip off the player that he’s something to do with the knife’s disappearance.
A few random, disconnected thoughts on the matter.
3) Obviously experience is a huge problem. Trying to come up with a puzzle that’ll be satisfying for both people who’ve been playing for 25 years and newcomers is like trying to come up with a maths problem that’ll be intellectually stimulating and doable for both middle-schoolers and grad students. It seems to be an impossible task.
you actually hit a very good point,i agree that while there are hopes for greater approach with kickstarter ,there is also ‘the walking dead’ ttg . I see there might be a promise with the rate kickstaters rewarding taking place ,yea LSLR was like some kid got a copyright/doll for some fancy child dream and blew it ,Broken Sword was like guessing the water and BA took some attention that there are good adventure than those ttg producing (how I which they stop or get out of the Adventure genre ,there should be some ttg haters thread round here) so there might be something even at the worst we hadn’t encounter for a some certain while with the quality of adventures . hopes!
I don’t know why people underestimate young people. WHen I was in elementary school/middle school, I enjoyed Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle. Just because something is challenging and may not give immediate gratification, doesn’t mean young people are incapable of it. The solution isn’t to dumb something down so much that a lobotomy patient can handle it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with continuing to try until you accomplish a difficult task. Besides, nowadays, you have a walkthrough at your disposal at all times, which make all adventure games doable if necessary. I still feel like the keep trying approach is better though. Hell, my first NES game was Ninja Gaiden, when I was 6… It took me a looong time to get to the final guy in that game.
I don’t think Kuru was underestimating the young , but its the product that attracts the people from whether old or new ,so a game like Obduction you cant not expect both to react to it the same way , old adventurer will deal with it as another Myst clone from the Myst makers ,new might have the experience of there life (for instance) and its for cyan is the decide if this game for both ,but at the end it might not satisfy the neither the hunger of the old gamers nor the new experience for the newcomers ,its impossible task as said , I wish new comers would learn adventure gaming the way we did . but again it all what is available . or then maybe there would has to be two market like music underground/indies and commercials and we don’t want that to happen.
The interface complaints are not about whether or not they make puzzles too easy, the real problem with simplified interfaces is that they heighten the sense of a disconnect between the player and the game world by allowing you to do significantly less to interact with it. The interface issue is about immersion and a feeling of discovery, not about puzzle difficulty.
That said, number of hotspots is certainly a factor in making puzzles too easy. If there’s only a few hotspots on a given screen, and everything you need to solve that puzzle is on that one screen, then it’s likely you’d be able to solve it without even trying, just by clicking everything.
One of the biggest issues in artificial puzzle difficulty is the aforementioned lack of feedback. The player needs visual, dialog, and sometimes plot-related cues in order to be able to properly figure out what they are supposed to do. So many adventure games don’t do this well at all. Puzzles can still be very complex, as long as they are properly telegraphed and laid out so that the player has a logical set of steps or cues to follow. This is not an exact science, however—items need to be visible (but not TOO visible), experimentation needs to be rewarded with specific responses that give you clues as to whether or not what you’re doing is working or is in the right direction, etc. The Designer needs to try and put themselves into the heads of the first-time player as much as possible, and to leave a proverbial “trail of breadcrumbs” for each puzzle. It’s easy to go too far with this, though, too—and make puzzles that the game practically tells you how to solve. That seem to be the issue with Broken Age’s puzzles.
One of the things that I find it highly under noticed in great games is how subtle clues are given/rewarded to players that pay attention to cursors with more options(look, etc). This kind of clue giving is much better than blatant clue giving(how I hear Broken Age is).
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
