Realism

[Cromwell]

I played Grey Matter a while ago and it had one Puzzle which serves as a good example what i want to discuss in the Thread.

It was possible to pick up a towel, and then stuff it in the drain and that was it, you had no reason to do so but you could. The question for me is now do you like this kind of stuff in adventure games? The other method of writing puzzles for theese games would be to only allow thinks which are logical for the character which in this case would mean you needed a reason to take the towel.

How would you write your puzzles, or what do you like in theese games. It interests me just out of curiosity of course, also maybe there are some examples for games I may not know about which go the realistic way. For example I liked still llife but found some of the puzzles horrible for example the part with the robot or the part with the secret door in the club. It may come off as "mah precious imershun" but it really bugs me if I have to think "who the fuck would do that" in the more realistic adventures where I would have no Problem with that stuff in games like monkey island or the discworld games.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

If it's not required to do it then ti's really cool because it adds a bit of replay value and shows they went the extra mile. However, if it's required then unless it makes some sense or you're steered in its direction then ti's going to be too much headache imho.

I don't like it when games force you to find obscure things without giving you any clues or making it intuitive. HOwever, maybe sometimes games try to do that, but fail. Maybe what's intuitive to them is not intuitive to me? Or maybe their clue goes right over my head. For those cases, they need good quality testers to weed them out.

 

[Aenra]

though not a proponent of genre classifications and overall categorising, adventures games are an instance of said practice working to the benefit of both audience and developing team

By being aware you are entering a world that is closed off, limited, segmented by necessity to some degree or other (proggression) and relying entirely on your puzzle solving capabilities..you effectively enter it already in the appropriate mood for it;
So it need not be 'open', resembling of anything you know, totally interactive, realistic, or even logical as you would define it. Even more simply, it shouldn't as such offer riddles catered for your personality in specific;
All it needs be is organic, that's one, and uniform/intellectually consistent. Whatever its logic/ways of functioning/governing attributes, there must be a good presentation of them (i am being shown where i am stepping into) and an effort towards fidelity, as in their underlying everything built on them (i will find nothing incogruous or irrelevant to how you told me to think)

So it is never a matter of "how would you write your puzzles", or "who would do this? I sure wouldn't"
For me, as game products, adventures are successful only when you do not get to have the above thoughts. Which is their point ultimately. You are not being served a piece of your life albeit in pixels, you pay so that you are transported to an alternate reality that (by genre definition) is supposed to be one mastered by your intellect alone. Not your experiences

(now obviously you put this to practice, your definition of good adventure games leads to some unpleasant results..)

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

If I had to do a detective game (I wanted to do it once, but I had no ideas for a detective-like story, alas), where you take notes on everything and then try to form a coherent and plausible theory, but you could also mess shit up and make quite some bizarre theories (Ms. Sparkle went to the shop to the east, but died 5 minutes later thanks to a dog hitting her repeatedly with a cucumber).

 

[Aenra]

the more interactivity and branching you allow for, the higher the chances your story will appear shoddy or half-thought though, that's the catch. Easily circumvented you would say if you had good funding? Not necessarily, different writers, diffrent mind frames. Takes the rare project lead to coordinate them productively even so

or put differently, in your setting, you would need to first have an overlay where bad/loose ends would in someway complement the progression (rather than just "being there" for the OCD player) and reward the participant for chasing them. In which case, they kinda stop being just that, as even Ms Sparkle becomes a part of your core;

so for me (obviously,lol), riddles and branches and enriching should in my opinion come as an after effect of a setting that is already in place. In advance. In adventures i think the best thinking, from the side of the developer, is the backwards one.
If you start broadening it after you are settled on something central, chances are you are bringing gaps in.