Adventure games from last 10 years with challenging puzzles

[ValeVelKal]

I am in the dream that looks like a video game / Tetris world and boy is it bad indeed.

There's a schtick to this chapter that it seems you haven't uncovered yet.

Spoiler

It actually consists of two connected dreams - the gamer guy and the tired girl from the upper floor. I found it very creative and enjoyable, on long tightrope walking animation notwithstanding.
The problem is that it isn't communicated very well from the gamer's dream, only from the girl's, and getting her to sleep is also a bit counterintuitive.

The bad chapter is the one after that.

Yeah I did not get the other girl to sleep but I knew both dreams are bound to be connected due to the "dream map" in the office. I destroyed a bunch of eyes in the gamer dreams, and I don't have anything else to do so I am actually going to try to get the girl to sleep. I

 

[V_K]

Yeah I did not get the other girl to sleep but I knew both dreams are bound to be connected due to the "dream map" in the office. I destroyed a bunch of eyes in the gamer dreams, and I don't have anything else to do so I am actually going to try to get the girl to sleep. I

Spoiler

You have to annoy her. Hard.
Oh, and when you get to her dream, don't take the shovel until you find the other way in. It'll save you some tightroping later.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Yeah I did not get the other girl to sleep but I knew both dreams are bound to be connected due to the "dream map" in the office. I destroyed a bunch of eyes in the gamer dreams, and I don't have anything else to do so I am actually going to try to get the girl to sleep. I

Spoiler

You have to annoy her. Hard.
Oh, and when you get to her dream, don't take the shovel until you find the other way in. It'll save you some tightroping later.

So finished it just now. Last chapter is not as good but (except the railroaded beginning) not horrible neither on puzzle or story. The vide game dream was more annoying and non-sensical. Was fun all around.

The stuff that were the hardest to me were :

Spoiler

- Chapter 1 electrical circuit
- Chapter 1 finding the entrance to the secret lab (missed clicking on THAT part of the library, stupid I know
- Chapter 5 The alarm button on the lift ^^
- Chapter 5 Finding the ladder when you are a giant ^^ I know
- Chapter 6 : The baby map. Like the alarm button, hidden in plain sight

No spoiler were used, but I am with my wife so 2 brains.

Very good game. Great story

Moving to Goetia

 

[Narushima]

For adventure games with puzzles, I'd recommend Puzzle Agent (and its sequel, I guess, I never played it), which is all about puzzles, some of them really tricky.
The Myst-like RHEM series has very tough puzzles.
And The Fool and his Money, which is almost nothing but difficult puzzles, with some story (as well as the other games from the same author on that site).

 

[V_K]

Last chapter is not as good but (except the railroaded beginning) not horrible never on puzzle or story

My big issue with that chapter puzzle-wise is that you have to exhaust every dialog option, even the boring/useless ones for things to trigger. And while I generally enjoyed the game's story, I found the dialogs a bit overwritten and tried to skip as much as possible.
Story-wise the thing that doesn't make sense is

Spoiler

if the machine was not in baby's dreams until Victor opened the door, why didn't the wife wake up?
Plus that whole final sequence is corny as fuck.

Moving to Goetia

A hint about hints: journal entries are basically that, even though it's not explicitly stated anywhere. They tend to reveal too much about some puzzle solutions. So for the best experience, don't read them - you'll have enough stuff to read in the game anyway.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

oh no I forgot to click the 1-pixel rock in the middle top right edge of the screen 5 screens back, little did I know that behind that 1-pixel rock was a KEY that I require to unlock the door on this area 20 screens later to progress the story.

Ah shit! I'm so stupid

 

[V_K]

Ah shit! I'm so stupid

Warms my heart to see self-aware folks still exist.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Last chapter is not as good but (except the railroaded beginning) not horrible never on puzzle or story

My big issue with that chapter puzzle-wise is that you have to exhaust every dialog option, even the boring/useless ones for things to trigger. And while I generally enjoyed the game's story, I found the dialogs a bit overwritten and tried to skip as much as possible.
Story-wise the thing that doesn't make sense is

Spoiler

if the machine was not in baby's dreams until Victor opened the door, why didn't the wife wake up?
Plus that whole final sequence is corny as fuck.

Moving to Goetia

A hint about hints: journal entries are basically that, even though it's not explicitly stated anywhere. They tend to reveal too much about some puzzle solutions. So for the best experience, don't read them - you'll have enough stuff to read in the game anyway.

Well, did not like Goetia. I just don't find it fun, though yes I understand it is innovative and well-thought, like the schtick with the pictures. Nonetheless, I stopped it.

Moving to the Fool and his Money I guess.

On your side, I keep recommending to everyone tiny and Tall, so try it

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I recently replayed Deponia, because I wanted a refresher before playing the sequels. It’s definitely harder than I remember, but somewhat unevenly so. The beginning is almost Pajama Sam level easy. It ramps up a bit and then gives a brutally difficult sequence (accessing the radio), where even once I figured out what I needed to do I was still stuck for a while because the game wanted me to do it in a very specific way. Other than that sequence though the game is generally fairly easy.

 

[V_K]

Finished Resonance today, wouldn't call it very hard - I'd say probably on the same level as Dream Machine: pleasantly stimulating but not reaching the hair-pulling levels. Though compared to harder game like e.g. VirtuaVerse, it has almost no bullshit sequences (VV is all bullshit sequences) - I can only think of one very badly clued interaction, and one that is a little misleading. That it manages to offer some challenge while staying very fair throughout is a rather impressive feat.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Finished Resonance today, wouldn't call it very hard - I'd say probably on the same level as Dream Machine: pleasantly stimulating but not reaching the hair-pulling levels. Though compared to harder game like e.g. VirtuaVerse, it has almost no bullshit sequences (VV is all bullshit sequences) - I can only think of one very badly clued interaction, and one that is a little misleading. That it manages to offer some challenge while staying very fair throughout is a rather impressive feat.

Ah I found it wayyyy harder than the Dream Machine.

 

[V_K]

Finished Resonance today, wouldn't call it very hard - I'd say probably on the same level as Dream Machine: pleasantly stimulating but not reaching the hair-pulling levels. Though compared to harder game like e.g. VirtuaVerse, it has almost no bullshit sequences (VV is all bullshit sequences) - I can only think of one very badly clued interaction, and one that is a little misleading. That it manages to offer some challenge while staying very fair throughout is a rather impressive feat.

Ah I found it wayyyy harder than the Dream Machine.

I got stuck the same number of times in both. But in Resonance half of those times were because I missed an obvious clue/action, which I never felt in DM. Although at least one time in DM I got stuck because I simply didn't exhaust all dialog options.
Resonance is also a more open game - in its second chapter at least - which might have made it seem easier since harder puzzles get time to marinate while you're solving the easier ones.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Finished Resonance today, wouldn't call it very hard - I'd say probably on the same level as Dream Machine: pleasantly stimulating but not reaching the hair-pulling levels. Though compared to harder game like e.g. VirtuaVerse, it has almost no bullshit sequences (VV is all bullshit sequences) - I can only think of one very badly clued interaction, and one that is a little misleading. That it manages to offer some challenge while staying very fair throughout is a rather impressive feat.

Ah I found it wayyyy harder than the Dream Machine.

I got stuck the same number of times in both. But in Resonance half of those times were because I missed an obvious clue/action, which I never felt in DM. Although at least one time in DM I got stuck because I simply didn't exhaust all dialog options.
Resonance is also a more open game - in its second chapter at least - which might have made it seem easier since harder puzzles get time to marinate while you're solving the easier ones.

The later is very true, and I don't know many games that allow this.

 

[V_K]

The later is very true, and I don't know many games that allow this.

Of the recent games, Roki is a very good example. So is Goetia, but you already didn't like it.

 

[ValeVelKal]

The later is very true, and I don't know many games that allow this.

Of the recent games, Roki is a very good example. So is Goetia, but you already didn't like it.

I am putting Roki on my list, though I won't play soon. I play adventure games mostly with my wife, and for some reason she is very much in "The Sigma Theory" spy game at the moment .

 

[CryptRat]

Man, did not want to write a novel here... Sorry.

Finished Resonance today, wouldn't call it very hard - I'd say probably on the same level as Dream Machine: pleasantly stimulating but not reaching the hair-pulling levels. Though compared to harder game like e.g. VirtuaVerse, it has almost no bullshit sequences (VV is all bullshit sequences) - I can only think of one very badly clued interaction, and one that is a little misleading. That it manages to offer some challenge while staying very fair throughout is a rather impressive feat.

It's fine that I like games which other players don't, but I think calling what puzzle is bullshit or not is very complicated, given the context and all. For example, I stated that more than one time I talked to someone and something new was unlocked, I would not call that very good but each time it was, ultimately, not terrible, for two reasons : first it's just that I did not get something but not that it was retarded, it was not that you need to talk to someone and something not related happens or such, it was just me who did not get something the character got, which can happen, and secondly it's not the kind of things which would get me stuck, talking to people I would try, it's not using some item on some spot, so there would be worse things to talk about before this anyway.

On the contrary if you told me the way to get the jetpack in Space Quest is bullshit, I would agree. I think this kind of things can be fun once in a while for a change, because it's so much satisfying to finally figure out, but it's unfair, that I agree with. Also there's one worse thing in Space Quest, if you get the robot to follow you in the cave before getting told to get the meat of the monster then the monster is not here (or maybe the robot does not follow you, I'm getting confused while typing, but anyway, what you're meant to do you can't, that's terribly stupid), that is absolutely terrible, that I just call very bad design.

Now, to the point, I have got one precise question : did people who think VirtuaVerse is bullshit have completed Deponia 3 (not the first one, not saying I can't be wrong about that but I think 3 is much harder)? From my memory Deponia 3 is harder than VirtuaVerse, and there's no reason why I would call its difficulty particularly fair compared with Virtuaverse (there's no dead end etcetera but that's it, just the same).

I am surprised the game gets so much trashed about its puzzles by people who've no problem with hard puzzles (no problem with hating the game for other reasons like the plot ...), especially since the game even tried to elaborate a bit sometimes (with the full chatting program which is there only to click on the guy's portrait, the sushi thing, in the second chapter you can try to look at barcodes too high like it could be possible, and there's this box in the water you would really want to pick to get and climb to look at the bar codes, I love such kinds of false trail once in a while, two of the best, absolutely brilliant ones, being the car section in Grim Fandango and the moment where you can ask the girl to read poems in Grim Fandango), I know I noticed there are some lines of text for trying logical things which lead nowhere but maybe it's just the exact same example I was talking about in the parenthesises, and the game has big inventory and logical interactions, I think it's a cool way to have not-bullshit difficulty, it's totally not about bruteforcing then.

In a world where Gibbous, Guard Duty, Tsioque, Paradigm and other Inner World series, series which is fine and better than the other games mentioned but still not that ambitious when it comes to puzzles, exist, I'm a bit mad that the game which gets trashtalked for its puzzles is VirtuaVerse.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Are there actually any?

Haven't played it myself, but I've heard a lot of good things about the puzzles in Quern – Undying Thoughts.

 

[V_K]

I'm a bit mad that the game which gets trashtalked for its puzzles is VirtuaVerse.

The first half of VV is ok puzzle-wise. It's from the point where you actually meet the girlfriend that a lot of puzzles start going to shit. Some of them require utterly random items, not clued anywhere (the altar offering), some require very precise actions (sawing off the branch) or won't allow certain actions until after certain points (painting the action figure). It's not like these puzzles are hard per se - it's that they don't have logical solutions, or the game flatly rejects otherwise logical actions done out of order, making you think you were on the wrong path. Not to mention that much of the time in the game you're doing things without any idea why you are doing them or what you're trying to achieve - which is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but combine it with the previous point and you get a game with utter lack of direction. And then there's the issue of backtracking - painfully, excruciatingly slow backtracking through huge locations at uniformly zoomed-in level - without ever knowing whether you're backtracking because you missed something, or because you need to trigger some random event in some random part of the world to proceed, or you already have everything you need and just failed to think of the solution. Yeah, thanks, hard pass.
For me, the difference between hard but fair puzzle and bullshit puzzle is a sort of walkthrough test. I don't have a lot of patience these days, so when I get stuck for a long time, I read the walkthrough up until the first action I haven't thought of trying. If that makes me go "How could I not think of that?" or "Oh wow, that's clever!" - the fault is with me, but if it's "How on Earth was I supposed to come up with that?", then the puzzle is bullshit. VV has all three kinds, but the further the game goes, the more the third kind starts to dominate.

Haven't played it myself, but I've heard a lot of good things about the puzzles in Quern – Undying Thoughts.

Nope, I played it for a bit - it's extremely linear (which utterly defeats the purpose of having an open world) and repetitive. And pixel-hunting in free movement full 3D isn't fun.

 

[ValeVelKal]

I am surprised the game gets so much trashed about its puzzles by people who've no problem with hard puzzles (no problem with hating the game for other reasons like the plot ...), especially since the game even tried to elaborate a bit sometimes (with the full chatting program which is there only to click on the guy's portrait, the sushi thing, in the second chapter you can try to look at barcodes too high like it could be possible, and there's this box in the water you would really want to pick to get and climb to look at the bar codes, I love such kinds of false trail once in a while, two of the best, absolutely brilliant ones, being the car section in Grim Fandango and the moment where you can ask the girl to read poems in Grim Fandango), I know I noticed there are some lines of text for trying logical things which lead nowhere but maybe it's just the exact same example I was talking about in the parenthesises, and the game has big inventory and logical interactions, I think it's a cool way to have not-bullshit difficulty, it's totally not about bruteforcing then.

In a world where Gibbous, Guard Duty, Tsioque, Paradigm and other Inner World series, series which is fine and better than the other games mentioned but still not that ambitious when it comes to puzzles, exist, I'm a bit mad that the game which gets trashtalked for its puzzles is VirtuaVerse.

I really hated VV, just like V_K, due to the bullshit puzzles indeed. I would not even be so kind as V_K to say that early game puzzles are not BS ; imo they are also not logical, but since you have less options you ultimately find them. I am sorry, but sending a pizza to a guard so he is fired is non-sequitur. Similarly, the game expects you to know that in-universe you find some kind of items in the console box you have at home, items that don't exist in real life... There is also iirc a sequencing puzzle with the beggar that is not logical and really based on "thinking like the dev". Anyway, I quickly became upset with these, and as the game opens it becomes harder and harder to brute-force the BS logic.

 

[samuraigaiden]

What you guys think of The Witness?

 

[V_K]

What you guys think of The Witness?

Too pretentious and overstays its welcome.
It's kinda impressive how many different types of puzzles they managed to make from a very simple basic mechanics, but not all of them work equally well. The ones I enjoyed the most were the ones incorporating parts of the environment (Castle, Orchard, Forest, Temple...). On the ither hand, the polyomino puzzles were particularly infuriating in how they only accepted some solutions, but not equally valid other solutions.

 

[Red Hexapus]

What you guys think of The Witness?

I've enjoyed it a lot, but I tend to enjoy abstract puzzles such as these. It gets more interesting from more or less the middle of the game (but I prefer not to tell why not to spoil it). This being said, I detested the sound puzzles and some of the puzzles at the end were really obnoxious. The environment puzzles as mentioned by V_K are excellent though.

 

[V_K]

Played Oknytt today, found it to be quite challenging, though not always for the right reasons. At its best (e.g. all of the mechanical puzzles or the hag sequence) it's quite brilliant; at it's worst (e.g. faking the amber or getting the chain), it's a shining example of all the typical criticisms levied at Adventure games. Heavily desaturated graphics are certainly atmospheric, but they add a fair share of problems. There should have been hotspot highlighting and the devs shouldn't have included puzzles that rely on subtle visual clues because those clues are barely possible to discern. Elemental interactions mechanic was fun but I wish it was used more and in more complex ways (like e.g. in the tablets puzzle). Overall, I'm not in love but I don't hate it either.

 

[El Pollo Diablo]

I decided to give Edna & Harvey: The Breakout a try (thanks for reminding me about this one!). The part of the game in the asylum is quite satisfying with lots of locations to explore, lots of items and some of the puzzles requiring the player to actually stop and think. Fortunately, this is the largest part of the game. Because after that, towards the end, it also commits the sin of presenting the player with only a couple of locations at a time and becomes pretty straightforward. The ending was pretty disappointing too. Still solid overall.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Puzzles are cancer which should be eliminated from adventure games.