Adventure Gamers - Forums

diego - 17 October 2017 07:48 AM

Phlebas - 17 October 2017 06:52 AM

I’d partly agree - if you get the grog you can see the mug melting, so it’s quite obvious that that would be the stuff to use (and then you can solve the puzzle of how to get it across town). But you’re less likely to pick up on a remark that might just have been a joke. The person who thinks “Hey, I can get a grog! That might be fun, I’ll try it!” will solve the puzzle a lot more easily than the one who waits until they hit a problem and then looks for a solution.

I think many players will fill the mug with a grog out of curiosity, and only when they see the mug melting, they’ll think of another use for a grog. And that’s fine. We often pick various items in an adventure game, only to think of their purpose later. I’m the one who often, if I do have bottle, glass… in my inventory, fills it with water whenever I see a tap or a body of water. Why not with grog, too?

Exactly. The player who asks “What can I do?” will find it. The player who asks “What must I do?” might not (and will probably have less fun overall, too).

(NB I’m not saying you should expect the player to have tried absolutely everything they can do in order to solve puzzles - that’s just poor, lazy design. But if the player doesn’t experiment with things that obviously might be interesting, they should expect to miss out. If you only rewarding the actions that are essential to completing the game, that is also poor, lazy design.)

diego - 17 October 2017 09:26 AM

Aren’t adventure games great teacher about how life works? We go to school as kids, not knowing how it will benefit in our future. You meet a girl, not knowing that you’ll fall in love with her later. And you fill your mug with a grog, not knowing that you’ll solve a puzzle. 

Ahh, the number of times I’ve filled my mug with grog hoping it’ll solve a puzzle…

diego - 16 October 2017 06:48 PM

Not really a good example, IMO - not only that Guybrush mentions that:

the game even makes sure that the player notices an inventory item called “melting mug”:

With its green, acid-like color, it’s quite a logical, even quite a smart puzzle.

And pirate elders say that there is sulfuric acid amongst ingredients. And this puzzle is nothing compared to some puzzles in Leisure Suit Larry 7 that make only sense when you listen to things that characters of the game say about their cartoonish mishaps with makeup products in the past

Phlebas - 17 October 2017 09:28 AM

diego - 17 October 2017 09:26 AM

Aren’t adventure games great teacher about how life works? We go to school as kids, not knowing how it will benefit in our future. You meet a girl, not knowing that you’ll fall in love with her later. And you fill your mug with a grog, not knowing that you’ll solve a puzzle. 

Ahh, the number of times I’ve filled my mug with grog hoping it’ll solve a puzzle…

Talking of educational, you should heed the health warnings about grog that come with certain games…

Phlebas - 17 October 2017 06:52 AM

SG59 - 17 October 2017 01:11 AM

@Diego

I agree with your story post, however I still disagree with the Monkey Island Puzzle being good I’m afraid. You have no vaild reason to think a product everyone drinks with mugs on display in the other room would melt bars unless you simply decide to fill the mug up on a random whim. Don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to drink stuff that melts metal.

I’m okay with having tough puzzles, but they need to be constructed in a way that doesn’t break logical sense or make you feel cheated because the developers forgot to explain something that only works in their game world.

I’d partly agree - if you get the grog you can see the mug melting, so it’s quite obvious that that would be the stuff to use (and then you can solve the puzzle of how to get it across town). But you’re less likely to pick up on a remark that might just have been a joke. The person who thinks “Hey, I can get a grog! That might be fun, I’ll try it!” will solve the puzzle a lot more easily than the one who waits until they hit a problem and then looks for a solution.

That said, I loved the puzzle and thought it fit perfectly into the world of the game - if you’re offended by solutions that break real-world logic and you ignore clues that might be jokes then perhaps a comedy game just isn’t for you.

Hmm. Maybe you’re right there. I do like comedy in games, but perhaps the approach these old classics took just isn’t to my taste. I figured the solution out to this one fairly quick, but it left me a bit annoyed when other more solid solutions were left on the table. Hmm, there’s a thought. Multiple solutions for a puzzle.

SG59 - 17 October 2017 12:12 PM

Hmm. Maybe you’re right there. I do like comedy in games, but perhaps the approach these old classics took just isn’t to my taste. I figured the solution out to this one fairly quick, but it left me a bit annoyed when other more solid solutions were left on the table. Hmm, there’s a thought. Multiple solutions for a puzzle.

Multiple solutions and open-worlded adventure games are overrated. I like to relax after a work and play some linear point’n'click classic without stress. I get a cozy feel when a game is progressing scene by scene with some puzzle to solve like for example first scene in Marseile in Broken Sword 2. You know that the solution is somewhere in those 3 scenes. When a game is throwing me into open world of 20+ locations at once it gets overwhelming.

tom - 17 October 2017 02:59 PM

SG59 - 17 October 2017 12:12 PM

Hmm. Maybe you’re right there. I do like comedy in games, but perhaps the approach these old classics took just isn’t to my taste. I figured the solution out to this one fairly quick, but it left me a bit annoyed when other more solid solutions were left on the table. Hmm, there’s a thought. Multiple solutions for a puzzle.

Multiple solutions and open-worlded adventure games are overrated. I like to relax after a work and play some linear point’n'click classic without stress. I get a cozy feel when a game is progressing scene by scene with some puzzle to solve like for example first scene in Marseile in Broken Sword 2. You know that the solution is somewhere in those 3 scenes. When a game is throwing me into open world of 20+ locations at once it gets overwhelming.

I much prefer the way Broken Sword does puzzles too. Open world games don’t really do much for me in any genre.

Mr Underhill - 17 October 2017 05:02 PM

Multiple solutions to puzzles is a nice idea, but it tends to add a huge multiplier in front of hours needed to develop, and while that might be Ok for bigger teams, it’s not really in the cards for small indies with tight budgets and the desire to release their game some time during their mortal lifetimes  

I don’t even think it’s a nice idea.

The idea of pirates drinking grog so strong it can burn through a metal lock was hilarious, especially to me as a child. I would be quite annoyed if I missed out on it because I found a key to the cell door somewhere!

cyfoyjvx - 17 October 2017 09:08 PM

Mr Underhill - 17 October 2017 05:02 PM

Multiple solutions to puzzles is a nice idea, but it tends to add a huge multiplier in front of hours needed to develop, and while that might be Ok for bigger teams, it’s not really in the cards for small indies with tight budgets and the desire to release their game some time during their mortal lifetimes  

I don’t even think it’s a nice idea.

The idea of pirates drinking grog so strong it can burn through a metal lock was hilarious, especially to me as a child. I would be quite annoyed if I missed out on it because I found a key to the cell door somewhere!

Absolutely! It depends a lot on the style of the game - in something like Still Life 2 or Return to Mysterious Island, where you’re in a realistic-ish setting and it’s about solving problems with the available resources, multiple solutions are a great idea. And of course a game like Fahrenheit is all about seeing which solutions you choose and following up the consequences, and is all the stronger for it. But in a comedy game with cartoon logic, better to have one really amusing solution!

And thinking about it, implementing a puzzle with one solution really well is also a lot of work, because you have to allow for the player trying lots of things that aren’t quite the right solution, and respond appropriately to justify why that isn’t the answer. It’s all the things you’ll only notice if you play the game without a walkthrough - all the things that games like Syberia and Secret Files tend to leave out.

I think it could work, but it depends on the devs approach. It worked well here for example: http://www.kramsdesign.com/games/egress/