Adventure Gamers - Forums

What a great idea for a thread

I was going to mention “hidden object” or “pixel hunting” puzzles as they aren’t in the OP. However, they’ve been mentioned several times in this thread already, so are they left out on purpose? Unless it’s a HOG, most people tend to hate pixel hunting!

Hidden-object puzzles are for casual games.

I added pixel-hunting but the only game I could think of was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where you have to click the tiny dot to avoid the blades. Anything else?

Well, I don’t know if it was just me, but there was a cable on BASS that I remember took me freaken ages to find, not even too far in. Not sure if it was pixel hunting, or, as my wife would say, me using my ‘man eyes’.

Great, thanks. Added a few more of the suggested categories as well.

I wonder if the line drawing of The Witness deserves its own category. I can’t really think of anything comparable. Although in a way, they are too diverse and are all essentially logic puzzles.

Caliburn - 15 May 2016 01:56 PM

Bob Bates (a designer from Infocom and Legend) called them “Machinery puzzles” in his own attempt at listing some puzzles types in Designing the Puzzle.

A very interesting read. Still not sure though where most of Blackwell would go. Information puzzles?

I think that essay is still heavily influenced by text adventure paradigms. There are cases where text output or a static picture doesn’t quite work, and those scenarios are still underused:

NPC puzzles:

  • spying on an NPC:
    • observing his actions directly*
    • or using binoculars or something similar
    • tailing him*
    • using video/audio recordings
  • getting an NPC to perform certain actions*
  • getting an NPC to move in a certain way: (mime in Gabriel Knight, dog in Blackwell)
  • other puzzles involving luring/distracting an NPC
  • with variations like hiding from him or preventing him from seeing/hearing something

* The shopkeeper in Monkey Island covers all three.

Movement-based or position-based puzzles (Joey’s interference ability in Blackwell)

Purely visual/audio clues (the “how many fingers” game in Yesterday)

Karlok - 16 May 2016 11:59 AM

lancelot - 16 May 2016 09:39 AM

I think that essay is still heavily influenced by text adventure paradigms. There are cases where text output or a static picture doesn’t quite work, and those scenarios are still underused:

NPC puzzles:

  • spying on an NPC:
    • observing his actions directly*
    • or using binoculars or something similar
    • tailing him*
    • using video/audio recordings
  • getting an NPC to perform certain actions*
  • getting an NPC to move in a certain way: (mime in Gabriel Knight, dog in Blackwell)
  • other puzzles involving luring/distracting an NPC
  • with variations like hiding from him or preventing him from seeing/hearing something

I hope you’re not saying text adventures can’t do the above, because you would be wrong.  Even the old Infocom ones allowed you to spy or follow people, order NPCs to do something, have them follow you, distract them, and so on.

I’m not saying all this is new. But I was thinking about puzzles that cannot be condensed to executing a single command. The player is either performing an action or observing an event, and the action/event does not happen instantly. In principle it still can be put in text form, but it would go something like this:

>look at shopkeeper
The shopkeeper is walking up the stairs.

>again
The shopkeeper is standing at the safe.

>again
The shopkeeper is turning the safe handle to the right.

>again
The shopkeeper is turning the safe handle to the left.

I don’t quite see it working like that. If all four responses are given immediately after the first “look”, it’s no better, it just tells you the answer to the puzzle. It feels very different when you’re making your own observations and drawing your own conclusions.

I’d like to know about some similar examples in text games. I don’t consider “Centaur, follow me” or “Throw smoke bomb at guard” to be in the same category as, say, the two Blackwell examples I mentioned.

Lancelot, there’s a puzzle in She’s got a Thing for Spring where you need to get an elk to move a certain way over many moves by observing its movements and executing a series of moves yourself. And another one involving observing a rabbit in burrows.

There’s also an NPC, Bob, who has one of the most complicated routines I’ve seen in an adventure game. Most graphic adventures the character stands still in one screen, this one moves around on his own like a real person doing things, saying unprompted lines and responding to a huge range of questions.

The shopkeeper puzzle is a visual one, but could easily be adapted to text - probably by requiring you to observe his hands in a certain way so you need to figure out that’s what you want to do and how to do it.

Spying can easily be done too - simply get the player to hide behind something, otherwise they are spotted and the NPC does not do the desired action.

Oscar - 16 May 2016 02:54 PM

Lancelot, there’s a puzzle in She’s got a Thing for Spring where you need to get an elk to move a certain way over many moves by observing its movements and executing a series of moves yourself. And another one involving observing a rabbit in burrows.

But the pika puzzle just involves figuring out on which of the three paths the pika will appear when it comes back. Let’s put it this way: I think we can have much more elaborate puzzles of that kind if we’re not limited to static output.

Karlok - 16 May 2016 06:32 PM

lancelot - 16 May 2016 05:42 PM

Let’s put it this way: I think we can have much more elaborate puzzles of that kind if we’re not limited to static output.

You underestimate text adventures. They can do everything graphical adventures can do, and more. Seriously.

When I said that static output “doesn’t quite work”, I meant that for certain puzzles it’s too limiting. So far I haven’t been convinced otherwise.

Karlok - 16 May 2016 06:32 PM

I played one of the Blackwell games for two hours and decided to give the rest a wide berth, so I don’t know what puzzles you’re talking about. But your safe example is not a puzzle and it doesn’t prove anything.

Are we on the same page here? I was referring to opening the safe in Monkey Island. If you claim that’s not a puzzle, then I guess there’s too little common ground for any meaningful discussion.

Doom - 16 May 2016 05:45 PM

Great, now I know Oscar ignores my posts. Why I even bother.

Which post? I already added your suggestion of pixel-hunting.