Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
Post Marker Legend:
-
New posts -
No new posts
Currently online
There are no easy/hard puzzles, there is only the amonut of info the designer provides..
First, there weren’t any apples fallen on my head when I came up this statement/idea/title, so I can sit back and relax!, if turns out I am wrong.
@tommit, if I am not mistaken but I see your KQ example agrees with me ,right?
@Izno & Jabod I haven’t played Pandora Directive nor Black Dahlia, sorry, its hard to follow your points.
Some players require more hand holding and others want less or none. I think developers should give the player some choice. An option to control the frequency or quality of hints would be an effective start.
If your talking about games like ToMI and S&M or Primordia then that might be close, but it bothers me hear the hero or the sidekick comes up with those hint out of nowhere, what I am craving for that those hints/info could be accessed from within the flow or the script of the game’s story.
Then again, I remember a game (Toonstruck) where there’s a puzzle right after the beginning which is impossible to solve until a bit later in the game, or at least until you acquire an item - and I don’t really think it’s “unfair” game design - it just motivates you to keep looking further.
^This.
Sliding puzzles (to mention one type that I encounter a lot in something like a Professor Layton game) have wildly varying levels of difficulty to them, which has nothing to do with the information given.
But I still have to oppose this as neither the sliding puzzles shouldn’t be hinted out as one of the threads that weaves in the texture of the puzzles at any adventure, nor they are the ones aimed to be grabbed in into this discussion. Nevertheless that they are always tend to evoke trial and error processes, which makes them a stand alone puzzles they might sometimes, even be accessed from the game’s menu. as the case with BMIII.
I disagree with the thread title. Diego’s jigsaw examples proves why.
it’s impossible to please *everyone*. Attempting to do so will at best result in a game that’s liked but not loved. Game designers (as well as movie directors, book authors, musicians, etc.) should not worry about pleasing everyone, since that’s not going to work anyway.
They should just try to make the piece of art that they want to make, and hope it strikes a chord with people.
I like this, it couldn’t had been spoken more artistically than this.
Maybe I am too paranoid when comes adventures with too obvious puzzles.
Sliding puzzles (to mention one type that I encounter a lot in something like a Professor Layton game) have wildly varying levels of difficulty to them, which has nothing to do with the information given.
But I still have to oppose this as neither the sliding puzzles shouldn’t be hinted out as one of the threads that weaves in the texture of the puzzles at any adventure, nor they are the ones aimed to be grabbed in into this discussion. Nevertheless that they are always tend to evoke trial and error processes, which makes them a stand alone puzzles they might sometimes, even be accessed from the game’s menu. as the case with BMIII.
I’m not sure I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying this just isn’t the KIND of puzzle you are talking about in your original post? Because that strikes me as kind of self-fulfilling, if you make a blanket statement about puzzles, then say that you were only talking about the kinds of puzzles that your statement actually applies to. Of COURSE your statement is true, if you exclude all puzzles for which it is NOT true. I must be missing something.
Sliding puzzles (to mention one type that I encounter a lot in something like a Professor Layton game) have wildly varying levels of difficulty to them, which has nothing to do with the information given.
But I still have to oppose this as neither the sliding puzzles shouldn’t be hinted out as one of the threads that weaves in the texture of the puzzles at any adventure, nor they are the ones aimed to be grabbed in into this discussion. Nevertheless that they are always tend to evoke trial and error processes, which makes them a stand alone puzzles they might sometimes, even be accessed from the game’s menu. as the case with BMIII.
I’m not sure I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying this just isn’t the KIND of puzzle you are talking about in your original post? Because that strikes me as kind of self-fulfilling, if you make a blanket statement about puzzles, then say that you were only talking about the kinds of puzzles that your statement actually applies to. Of COURSE your statement is true, if you exclude all puzzles for which it is NOT true. I must be missing something.
you are not missing anything Mr.Ed, I just ‘believe’ that sliding puzzles are obtrusive to the genre, or not Immersive!, by anychance.
I guess you might either take my believe (no an Just an ‘IMO’) or exclude it .
with all due respect.
Well then, if your hypothesis is merely that all puzzles where the difficulty is controlled by the amount of information… have their difficulty controlled by the amount of information, then I’m forced to agree, but don’t see it as a very meaningful observation given that restriction.
One could posit the complementary “hypothesis” that all puzzles whose difficulty is NOT controlled by the amount of information given… do NOT have difficulty controlled by the amount of information given. Equally true, and equally lacking in meaning. 
Personally I would go further and argue that a jigsaw or slider “puzzle” isn’t really a puzzle at all, but rather a type of minigame.
They’re not puzzles because they do not puzzle us: they don’t leave us wondering what we should do to solve them.
Personally I would go further and argue that a jigsaw or slider “puzzle” isn’t really a puzzle at all, but rather a type of minigame.
They’re not puzzles because they do not puzzle us: they don’t leave us wondering what we should do to solve them.
Good luck with redefining that then.
I don’t see it as a redefinition. In general use, “puzzle” has two different senses that are only loosely related.
Random House explains the first as “a toy, problem, or other contrivance designed to amuse by presenting difficulties to be solved by ingenuity or patient effort” and the second as “a puzzling question, matter, or person.” WordNet suggests “a particularly baffling problem that is said to have a correct solution.”
While the typical adventure game puzzle satisfies both definitions, it’s the particular quality of being (at least mildly) puzzling, baffling, perplexing but having a specific correct solution we’re mainly concerned with in this context. That’s what makes a puzzle “puzzly”.
In that sense, the defining characteristic of a puzzle is that the hardest part is figuring out how to solve it, which is easy to do once you know how. If that’s not true, it’s not a puzzle but rather a test of skill, patience, reflexes, whatever.
This thread makes my brain hurt. Does that make it a puzzle?
I would heartily recommend Jon Ingold’s “Thinking Into the Box,” from the IF Reader - which is available free online from lulu.com.
The essay talks about the absolute best type of puzzle - the puzzle that you eventually solve through intuition by slowly leading your player to understand the logic of your world that eventually the solution - through usually an intuitive, and almost natural, leap of logic - leads you to the solution. I think it speaks to the original supposition of this thread - and the conundrum that any designer faces, how much information for a puzzle/riddle/challenge do you provide which gives insight into the game world, but does not make the solution without effort.
Mr. Ingold, who founded inkle (and did the Sorcery! iOS adaptation), was thinking about puzzles in terms of interactive fiction (or text adventures) but I think his analysis is spot-on for graphic adventures, too.
I can’t recommend it enough. Google IF Reader.
“The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.”
― Harlan Ellison, Stalking the Nightmare
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
