Do long puzzles kill the momentum?

[Jaesun]

http://ask.fm/WadjetEyeGames/answer/129185464182

While I enjoy adventure games, I've noticed a trend towards me pretty much always end up using a guide for the final stretch. It's not often due to the puzzles being obtuse, but due to me really wanting to see WHAT HAPPENS NEXT and long puzzles kill the momentum. As a designer, any thoughts on this? I have quite a few thoughts! Endings in story based games are problematic for exactly this reason.

If you've done your job right, things are reaching an exciting climax and the player is being rewarded for all their hard work. That is precisely the wrong time to give the player *more* hard work. It grinds the action to a screeching halt and becomes extremely frustrating. It stops being fun, and if you aren't enjoying yourself than I've done something wrong.
It's a difficult balance to strike, for sure. You want the player to have agency, you want events to flow and move naturally, and you still want it to feel rewarding. There's no formula for getting this right. If it feels right, it feels right.​

Curious what other people think of this.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Whenever I get stuck on a puzzle in an adventure game I'll stop "playing" the game but still think about it while I'm doing other stuff. Like if I'm waiting in line I at the grocery store I might think about it a few minutes. I find the pause in play and coming back helps.

Turning it off for 5 minutes then coming back can help too. I think the issue is you get so caught up in one way of thinking that you can't back off your wrong ideas until you distance yourself from the problem for a little while.

I also don't come at games like I want to beat it in just a few sittings either so that also helps temper my expectations. If I can solve a few puzzles or learn something new each time I play I'm satisfied.

I think the puzzle type games necessarily shouldn't be designed to be rushed through otherwise the puzzles are stupid and shit. I think the issue here is adventure games has two meanings and he's trying to merge them together.

There are adventure games where you point and click / solve puzzles and then there are Adventure games which are basically hack and slash adventure through towns and solve simple puzzles.

 

[Forest Dweller]

http://ask.fm/WadjetEyeGames/answer/129185464182

While I enjoy adventure games, I've noticed a trend towards me pretty much always end up using a guide for the final stretch. It's not often due to the puzzles being obtuse, but due to me really wanting to see WHAT HAPPENS NEXT and long puzzles kill the momentum. As a designer, any thoughts on this? I have quite a few thoughts! Endings in story based games are problematic for exactly this reason.

If you've done your job right, things are reaching an exciting climax and the player is being rewarded for all their hard work. That is precisely the wrong time to give the player *more* hard work. It grinds the action to a screeching halt and becomes extremely frustrating. It stops being fun, and if you aren't enjoying yourself than I've done something wrong.
It's a difficult balance to strike, for sure. You want the player to have agency, you want events to flow and move naturally, and you still want it to feel rewarding. There's no formula for getting this right. If it feels right, it feels right.​

Curious what other people think of this.

This...isn't posted in ridicule?

 

[Ranselknulf]

Yah, the guy is obviously trying to justify the hack and slash type adventure games as being smart, but not so smart that he can't solve it quickly and keep hack and slashing.

 

[Norfleet]

Long puzzles aren't what kills momentum, running into a wall is what kills momentum.

 

[Jaesun]

Yah, the guy is obviously trying to justify the hack and slash type adventure games as being smart, but not so smart that he can't solve it quickly and keep hack and slashing.

Indeed. That is what kind of scares me.

 

[agentorange]

Most effective pacing, I think, would be to have the longer puzzles in the middle, usually exploratory, section of the game, since that is the time when players are working at their own pace and aren't too concerned with seeing the story being carried forward. Putting very difficult or long puzzles into a section that is heavy on the story is definitely a bad idea, and when a game does that I do usually end up using a guide.

Resonance did a good job with this; very story heavy game, and the most difficult puzzles all came before the climax, during the time when you were getting to know the characters.

 

[tuluse]

It seems pretty easy to break up "long" puzzles into parts and get story in between various steps of doing said puzzles.

That said, I agree you don't want the hardest ones at the end, at the same time the puzzles at the end should be the kind where you put together everything you learned into combo puzzles.

So, I dunno, game making is hard.

 

[Jaesun]

Whenever I get stuck on a puzzle in an adventure game I'll stop "playing" the game but still think about it while I'm doing other stuff. Like if I'm waiting in line I at the grocery store I might think about it a few minutes. I find the pause in play and coming back helps.

Yeah, I do the exact same thing. I just stop the game, and then think. Like when I first played (and finished) Myst, I stopped many many times, just to think. I just needed to think and evaluate all the info I had learned, and then thought about different ways I might learn or think about something differently.

And I completely agree with agentorange. Hard puzzles should be in the middle. Don't just slap OMG! HERE IS THE DIFFICULT PUZZLE IN THE GAME WE COULD THINK OF! At the end. Resonance did this well, in the middle. And I think also that was done well for pacing.

I do find the head of Wadjet Eye games wanting games to flow better, just for the sake of convenience better terrifying.

 

[Redlands]

Remember, this is from the same guys who MULTIBALL! MULTIBALL!ed the ending for their most popular franchise, so I'm not really going to take their opinion on how to end a game to heart. (Kind of sad, because I actually remember the ending to The Shivah as being clever and had a good puzzle to go along with it).

I think this is one of the big problems with "story first" adventure games: in order to service the all-important story, you need to sacrifice all of the other reasons for people to play adventure games (puzzles, exploration, and characters to a lesser extent) as they either get in the way, or have already been used up by, the story.

Ways around this are:

• Build the story around an ending puzzle: this could work really well with a detection-themed story, where the conclusion of the game is you accusing the guilty party, using all of your evidence.
  
• Build the story around further exploration: this might seem sequel-baitish, but there's the adage that the journey is more important than the destination. Have a shipwrecked guy try to survive and get enough resources together to make a boat to get off the island or to spell out a message asking for help, and stumbling across some other interesting things. Or, have it on someone trying to get into space, and having to figure out how to get all the components they need.
  
• Build the story around one particular non-player character: this idea would require you learning more about the character, and that familiarity is what helps get you through the end puzzle as you've come to know the character so well.
  
• Having multiple endings: this way, even if you get stuck with a puzzle, the story concludes (even if it's not the best conclusion).
• Make the story secondary: I think Myst is a good, relatively-modern example of this; it's a simple story where you don't have to remember much of it when it comes to the end, and you only have a very small number of options left for you. The rest is just there for you to discover out of interest.
• Limit the player options at the end: King's Quest IV showed how this could be done (though it wasn't in that game), by having the player lose/use up most of their inventory before the ending. Between this and a limited quantity of action points in the ending puzzle, this should limit the frustration a bit as you can just brute-force the ending if you don't know what to do.

 

[MRY]

It's all much easier said than done. With Primordia, I deliberately designed the last chunk of the game to be puzzle-light and to involve little exploration, and everyone felt it was too rushed. My feeling was that you didn't want to have a puzzle-heavy ending if the plot was moving at a fast clip -- for the reasons the questioner and Dave state. But I also felt that you couldn't have a long non-puzzle stretch because that's not an adventure game (to me). The result was something too thin and too short.

The best thing of all is for the ending puzzle to take some significant earlier puzzle and vary it -- Monkey Island 2 has the best final puzzle in any adventure I've played, but Loom does a pretty good job, too. (IIRC, The Shivah had a clever variation on the rabbinical fighting as the finale, which is a good example of this.) At the same time, whatever puzzle you do, you want it to be of an incremental sort where the player isn't going to be stuck for too long making no progress. Also probably a good idea (though not followed in Loom or Monkey Island) to have various solutions, some "better" (read: trickier) than others, such that the player is never really stuck -- he can always "win" the game, albeit in a less-than-ideal fashion, through some pretty obvious but pretty obviously blunt approach. (So, in Primordia, you can "win" by agreeing to merge with MetroMind, for example, which requires no puzzle-solving at all.)

I really think adventure game ending puzzles are fantastically hard to get right, though, because (contra Dave) I think they should be somewhat challenging. You should overcome the last obstacle using the skills you've developed, not through some lateral move (a la Rise of the Dragon) or scripted cutscene. It really shouldn't be just a use-X-on-Y type one-step puzzle, either; not much satisfaction in that. Like I said, I think MI2, Loom, maybe KQV and perhaps some of the QFGs get this right, but not much else immediately pops to mind. Dragonsphere, IIRC, had a very slogging, frustrating finale sequence.

 

[Sceptic]

Most effective pacing, I think, would be to have the longer puzzles in the middle, usually exploratory, section of the game, since that is the time when players are working at their own pace and aren't too concerned with seeing the story being carried forward. Putting very difficult or long puzzles into a section that is heavy on the story is definitely a bad idea, and when a game does that I do usually end up using a guide.

I don't agree. I'd much rather the game sacrificed that "must have climactic story at the end!!!!" approach. Some games have done great with easy and not-very-interactive finales, Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle are good example of this, but quite frankly the most memorable adventure game endings to me are not these, but rather the ones where the last stage of the game was a convoluted puzzle that took me days to resolve - the satisfaction from beating such an endgame sticks with me for far longer than whatever animated cutscene will be there. Case in point: Sam & Max Hit the Road and its four totem poles at the end, by far the longest, toughest and best puzzle in the game, and IMO one of the best multi-step puzzle ever designed. I spent an entire week, maybe more, trying to solve it. But it was so well designed that every play session, I'd make some progress towards the solution. Even if it wasn't obvious how this small progress would help in the grand scheme, it still encourages you to keep going and keep trying to solve the puzzle. As I said earlier, the satisfaction was immense. (Edit: also Monkey Island 2's final and loooooooooooong puzzle, thanks to MRY for reminding me)

For a completely different example, but one that perfectly illustrates Redlands's first point above, take Laura Bow 2. You spend the entire game collecting items, clues, evidence, and then the game ends with the trial, where you present your evidence and have to answer a long series of questions. There's nothing more satisfying than an elaborate ending like this that brings together all the information you have spent the entire game gathering. Nowadays the entire process would've been turned into a cutscene.

Then you have Timequest, where the final puzzle wasn't particularly hard, but the endgame sequence was quite long, longer than most of the time-travel vignettes you visit, and most importantly the puzzle was very clever and very original. THIS is an exciting endgame. Figuring out what to do, then painstakingly typing it out, in a text game that doesn't even run in real time, was more tense, thrilling and satisfying than any story tweest or cutscene or whatnot could ever be. The endgame isn't just the last stretch that people want to complete to finish the game; it's also the last impression they'll have of that game. If you fuck up its gameplay, then the last memory of the game will be nothing but disappointment.

 

[tuluse]

The final encounter in Loom is rather epic if you forgive my word choice. Pulling in several of the abilities you acquired over the course of the game and nice back and forth.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I can SO relate to the point of that article about the endgame. Being close to the end of a game and then almost shouting in frustration as I get slammed in the face by a needless or unannounced puzzle/obstacle. Genre is irrelevant, many games do this just to pad their playtime.

Of course it's not always like that, but it's happened too often for my liking. While the most examples come from RPGs, to the point that I've coined the term "The Quadruple Lock" for them (because far too many times the solution is a four-step action) the truth is that adventure games also tend to have a Final Puzzle come out of nowhere and grind the game to a halt.

There's a certain art in setting up the endgame, and far too many times designers stuff unneeded and unwanted filler material at the end, which screws up the pacing to say the least. In RPGs I can name examples like Gothic 2 and Lands of Lore 1, where the end is just in sight - only to be whisked away by a four-step process like arranging statues properly or pulling four levers. In adventure games it's no different. Look at Gabriel Knight 1 and Space Quest 5. They have big-ass mazes at the end (for no reason) with trial and error being the only real way to progress through them. SQ5 is slightly more lenient in that the game requires a few more simple actions after the maze, while GK1 leads straight to the final encounter. And both games have a trap or two involved as well, meaning that if you missed a particular action the game still goes on and can screw you over. In fact, look at ALL the Space Quest games. There's ALWAYS a maze near/at the end - in every single one of them. (Gives you some expectations about SpaceVenture, doesn't it?)

(Warning: Anecdotal evidence usage ahead!)

Monkey Island 2 is a brilliant example of an Final Puzzle done right. Back in the day me and my friends used to play all the big adventures games (seperately, of course) and all of us realized at the end of MI2 that we were supposed to repeat the voodoo puzzle from earlier in the game - just differently. (The LucasArts policy of "don't trap the player" played a big part in making this puzzle work so well.) We approached this puzzle at different speeds, but in the end no one was unhappy. Day of the Tentacle was another smooth ride in this regard.

By comparison, Sam & Max Hit the Road had everyone stumped for months. No one I know of could beat it all by themselves. The final puzzle never even came specifically into discussion, the whole game was full of baffling and misleading puzzles. (That may be due to a language and/or cultural difference, which is another topic.) Another stumper was Rex Nebular. Only a few of us played this one back then, but the furthest anyone got then was the City of Men, which I found out many years later was pretty much one gigantic Final Puzzle. The City of Men is one TEDIOUS Final Puzzle. Endlessly whizzing back and forth between the same dozen locations, and ALWAYS having to watch that unskippable cutscene of the car - urgh.

tl:dr - Long puzzles don't kill adventure games, stupid puzzles at the end of adventure games do.

 

[Aeschylus]

I actually don't really disagree with this, although I suppose it sort of depends on what kind of adventure game you are trying to make.

If you're trying to make a more puzzle-game-like adventure game (such as, say the Gobliiins games), then a lot of escalating difficulty towards the end is appropriate. If you're trying to make a more narrative-focused adventure game, though, I think an overly difficulty and obtuse end-game can bring things down a lot. I'd say a good example of this contrast are the end-game sequences of Kings Quest 5 and 6. One of the reasons I prefer 6 to 5 is the end-game -- KQ5 has a needlessly finicky, frustrating, and often downright illogical end-game. combining a horribly designed maze, random deaths, and dead-ends. KQ6 on the other hand has one of the best end-games in adventure gaming, with multiple paths, fairly simple puzzles which flow logically from your previous less simple actions throughout the game, while still maintaining a sense of urgency and danger.

So yeah, a good adventure-game endgame should be fast paced and not bog down in overly complex and difficult puzzles, as often happens in a lot of the middling modern adventure games. From a narrative structure point of view it is the climax, which should bring things to a head, building on everything that came before, not stop dead. Easier said than done, of course.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I actually don't really disagree with this, although I suppose it sort of depends on what kind of adventure game you are trying to make.

If you're trying to make a more puzzle-game-like adventure game (such as, say the Gobliiins games), then a lot of escalating difficulty towards the end is appropriate. If you're trying to make a more narrative-focused adventure game, though, I think an overly difficulty and obtuse end-game can bring things down a lot. I'd say a good example of this contrast are the end-game sequences of Kings Quest 5 and 6. One of the reasons I prefer 6 to 5 is the end-game -- KQ5 has a needlessly finicky, frustrating, and often downright illogical end-game. combining a horribly designed maze, random deaths, and dead-ends. KQ6 on the other hand has one of the best end-games in adventure gaming, with multiple paths, fairly simple puzzles which flow logically from your previous less simple actions throughout the game, while still maintaining a sense of urgency and danger.

So yeah, a good adventure-game endgame should be fast paced and not bog down in overly complex and difficult puzzles, as often happens in a lot of the middling modern adventure games. From a narrative structure point of view it is the climax, which should bring things to a head, building on everything that came before, not stop dead. Easier said than done, of course.

I was about to say exactly this. But less succintly.

 

[SCO]

Eh, this topic reminds of the final puzzle in RAMA.

War is hell. And being atomized by a nuclear bomb on a time limit of 20 minutes while searching for obscure code sequences everywhere on a huge area is too.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Puzzles should be logical or at least comprehensible, unless the game states otherwise (alien/otherworld-y stuff).

If you think it's fun and comprehensible to make the player combine a dildo and a lion to make a frog to continue the adventure about Sir Lancelot (even with clues), you should not develop adventure games.

 

[Redlands]

If you think it's fun and comprehensible to make the player combine a dildo and a lion to make a frog to continue the adventure about Sir Lancelot (even with clues), you should not develop adventure games.

On the plus(?) side, you've probably got the makings of an erotic furry novella writer.

 

[evdk]

Puzzles should be logical or at least comprehensible, unless the game states otherwise (alien/otherworld-y stuff)..

Have you played Mission Critical? Just asking.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Puzzles should be logical or at least comprehensible, unless the game states otherwise (alien/otherworld-y stuff)..

Have you played Mission Critical? Just asking.

Nope. Why?

 

[Jools]

Do long puzzles kill the momentum?

My short answer is "no they don't". Because puzzles, however long or short, are part of the momentum. As I mentioned in another post, I find puzzles to be pacing the game and dictating the flow, rather than disrupting it as if they were an external disturbance. Treating puzzles as the latter is probably the wrongest approach possible, which is what TTG managed to make a business out of, by -basically- removing the puzzles entirely.

Puzzles are what make adventure games, games, as opposite to "powerpoint slideshows".

 

[Animal]

2 cents:

If the game revolves around puzzle solving, it makes sense to save the hardest one for last.

If the main strength is the story, it makes sense to prioritize momentum.

 

[Bubbles]

The ideal game lets good puzzles run simultaneously with strong story momentum and atmosphere; if done right, they all complement each other.

Daedalic's games are generally good at that; Memoria's finale hinges on what is effectively a series of dialogue puzzles, but they're clever puzzles that require you to have paid attention to both the story and the female protagonist's method of puzzle solving. In general, Memoria's puzzles also reveal a lot about its protagonists through their comments and observations; too many modern "adventure" games reserve that kind of character building for cut scenes and narrated exposition.

In Harvey's New Eyes the puzzles - which can be very challenging - work mostly in the service of creating a specific mood (childlike and innocent protagonist solving everyday problems in ways that lead to mass slaughter). The game rewards every major puzzle with a ridicuous "censored" screen showing the quest giver's mutilated remains, culimating in what is still my favourite pay-off moment in video game story telling. The Deponia games also offer mechanics that inherently combine story telling and puzzle solving, like switching your companion's personality by remote control. Their finales combine tough puzzles (the series of deliberateThe Fly-style teleporter mishaps is most memorable to me) with major pieces of character development for the protagonist, usually in rather questionale ways (man, how far is this guy willing to go to wipe a woman's mind?).

In the hands of unskilled developers (pretty much anybody else who's active today) these kinds of mechanics could result in an heterogenous experience that divides "puzzle sections" from "story sections"; but that's simply a matter of developer talent, not an inherent problem of the genre.

 

[madrigal]

No, I would much prefer an unforgiving ending like in The Dagger of Amon Ra, than a game like Phantasmagoria, where momentum is valued above all else. You can't dictate how long something is going to take in a game unless it is a cutscene and if designers want an uninterrupted story they should make movies instead.