Adventure Gamers - Forums
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
Post Marker Legend:
-
New posts -
No new posts
Currently online
The most ridiculous puzzle you’ve ever witnessed
For me it was probably the first puzzle of Riddle of the Sphinx, since it’s the only adventure game I can remember where I rage-quit in disgust without solving a single puzzle. Even Blue Ice didn’t annoy me quite as badly.
At the start of the game you arrive at an abandoned dig site looking for an old friend. You find his tent, which still has all of his stuff including a trunk with a combination lock. Since this is early in the game, I figured it should be a fairly simple task to find the combination.
After discovering a few things but not making any real headway, I gave up in disgust. I looked at a walkthrough. Apparently I was supposed to…
Look at the bed to discover a wallet, containing a note written in two columns. One column simply says R, L and R, while the other has the headline “Numbers” and 6:10, 15:24 and 8:25. You might think that this has something to do with the combination, and that the R and L refer to left and right, but it’s not as simple as just using these numbers.
There’s also a paper under the pillow, but it’s blank.
Lie down on the bed and sleep, because then you wake up in the middle of the night when it’s dark, and if you light the candle by the bed you can read the message on the paper was apparently written in invisible ink. It says that “The more you stew over the key, the better your chances of finding it will be.”
From this, you’re supposed to figure out that if you light the gas stove, the pot of stew will start to boil, revealing a key. Because that’s apparently the most sensible way of finding a large key in a small amount of stew. Oh, and you can’t carry the matchbook, so you have to light a match by the bed, turn around and walk back to the stove before the match burns out.
The key unlocks the drawers of a desk. Search the desk to find paper with references to three tapes, each with a four-digit number written in boxes, and the tapes themselves.
(I think this was about as far as I got before I got bored.)
Realize that the numbers refer to the the counter on the tape player, and therefore to specific passages on those tapes.
The messages on the tapes refer to numbers and gives you some numbers to add up, e.g. the day number, plus the number of doves, plus the number of pigeons.
Realize that “numbers” refers to the Biblical book of Numbers, that there is a Bible by the bed, and that the numbers on the note you found earlier are Bible verses.
[spoiler]Use the Bible verses to work out the clues on the tapes, and that finally is the combination.[/spoiler]
At that point, I decided that I must have misheard, and that my old “friend” didn’t really want my help. I haven’t looked at the game since then.
I can’t agree about the goat puzzle in BS1 - everything’s there for you to solve it even if it did take me a week to work it out & you don’t have to be that quick to call it timed!!! 
The solution for the Fascination puzzle is hilarious, reminds of the obscure solution for the recent PT demo endgame.
I believe the game was Dark Side of the Moon. There were three puzzles you needed to complete in order to finish the game. One was a variation on the ring and pole puzzle, where you have to move rings from one pole to another and you can’t put a larger ring on top of a smaller ring. The usual puzzle we run across is three poles and five rings. It can be completed in about twenty moves. This puzzle required over 180 moves. There was no way to complete it without a WT. And even with one, if you accidentally missed a step, it was start over again. Just brutal.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
can’t say which is the most.. but there are hundreds of those, I remember (now) Larry 2 where you steel the sewing needle from your ship neighbor was randomly tiring, once every 10s of deaths you can succeed. and that Deponia’s 2 was stupid!, also Deponia 3 has a stupid one that concerning clicking at random/illogic space to throw a paper(something like that) to get it done.
Leisure Suit Larry 2 is the ultimate troll game.
The one “puzzle” that really stands out to me is when you have to take the spinach dip just to throw it off the side of the cruiseship before you leave in a life boat or else you die.
Leisure Suit Larry 2 is the ultimate troll game.
The one “puzzle” that really stands out to me is when you have to take the spinach dip just to throw it off the side of the cruiseship before you leave in a life boat or else you die.
+1 that part is so dumb. It’s not the worst (since you don’t have to reload a much earlier save, you can dump it in the last second) but I think it’s the first (and only) time I’ve seen this kind of dead end, where not missing inventory (that you were awarded points for taking!) resulted in death further down along the road.
I believe the game was Dark Side of the Moon. There were three puzzles you needed to complete in order to finish the game. One was a variation on the ring and pole puzzle, where you have to move rings from one pole to another and you can’t put a larger ring on top of a smaller ring. The usual puzzle we run across is three poles and five rings. It can be completed in about twenty moves. This puzzle required over 180 moves. There was no way to complete it without a WT. And even with one, if you accidentally missed a step, it was start over again. Just brutal.
Could I just point out that the game you’re referring to is not my game “Captain Disaster in: The Dark Side of the Moon”. I think most of the puzzles in my game were pretty fair 
(Even though there are a couple of pixel hunts, which is pretty bizarre as I hate pixel hunts myself!)
Until just now I had no idea that there was another AG called Dark Side of the Moon - so few people have played my game that I would hate anyone who actually does stumble upon it to then avoid it thinking that it had this hideous puzzle in it. 
Until just now I had no idea that there was another AG called Dark Side of the Moon - so few people have played my game that I would hate anyone who actually does stumble upon it to then avoid it thinking that it had this hideous puzzle in it.
That is surprising. Dark Side of the Moon is very well known game, and an excellent one aside from one or two puzzles. I don’t remember that particular puzzle, but I don’t usually have much trouble with Tower of Babel type puzzles anyway.
That is surprising. Dark Side of the Moon is very well known game
Tbh I used to think I knew a lot about adventure games, until I started spending time on forums like these. There are literally hundreds of games I’ve never played or even heard of. (I can claim to have a reasonable knowledge of AGS games and LucasArts adventure games I think, but other than that I’m starting to feel like a complete novice! 
) Plus since I’ve started spending serious time making games, I very rarely have time to actually play them.
I believe the game was Dark Side of the Moon. There were three puzzles you needed to complete in order to finish the game. One was a variation on the ring and pole puzzle, where you have to move rings from one pole to another and you can’t put a larger ring on top of a smaller ring. The usual puzzle we run across is three poles and five rings. It can be completed in about twenty moves. This puzzle required over 180 moves. There was no way to complete it without a WT. And even with one, if you accidentally missed a step, it was start over again. Just brutal.
You may be talking about the three final puzzles in Reah. I agree with Oscar that there’s no such puzzle in Dark Side of the Moon.
See you around, wolf. Nerissa
I don’t usually have much trouble with Tower of Babel type puzzles anyway.
It’s called Tower of Hanoi, actually.
I believe the game was Dark Side of the Moon. There were three puzzles you needed to complete in order to finish the game. One was a variation on the ring and pole puzzle, where you have to move rings from one pole to another and you can’t put a larger ring on top of a smaller ring. The usual puzzle we run across is three poles and five rings. It can be completed in about twenty moves. This puzzle required over 180 moves. There was no way to complete it without a WT. And even with one, if you accidentally missed a step, it was start over again. Just brutal.
If it had 7 discs, it would (ideally) take 127 steps, and if it had 8 discs, it would take 255… 
Until just now I had no idea that there was another AG called Dark Side of the Moon
It’s a very popular title.
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
You may be talking about the three final puzzles in Reah. I agree with Oscar that there’s no such puzzle in Dark Side of the Moon.
I knew it was one of the two. They actually sit side-by-side on a bookshelf. I didn’t feel like playing either at the current time. The second of the three was a typing puzzle that was relatively easy. The third was a mechanical puzzle of some sort that was actually a series of puzzles of increasing difficulty. It, on a difficulty scale, fell somewhere between the two. Thanks for pointing out the correct game.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
If it had 7 discs, it would (ideally) take 127 steps, and if it had 8 discs, it would take 255…
I’ve never worked out the mathematics, but if the number of disks is over six, I’m headed for a SKIP (casual) or a WT.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
Incidentally, Dark Side of the Moon did come on six disks. CD-ROMs, that is. So if the Tower of Hanoi (thanks TMM) puzzle wasn’t in the game, you could always just put 3 empty CD spindles on your desk and get to work!
Bonding Root puzzle from Return to Zork.
Oh right, I had to have DIG UP the root with my knife. OBVIOUSLY!
THANKS FOR TELLING ME 2/3RDS OF THE WAY THROUGH THE GAME!
Agreed. I’m still angry with that one. Total flip-the-table puzzle design.
Now developing: The Journey Down: Chapter Three
You are here: Home → Forum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread
