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And it's not just the exploration, either. The whole point is that the puzzles are interlocking. You need to solve one puzzle before you do the other. That's what you primarily do in these games, not hunt for items.
What you're asking for is essentially a series of unrelated puzzles, disconnected from one another, like the Castle of Dr. Brain or something like that.
It depends on the game, but a lot of adventure puzzles are set up such that you have to solve multiple simple puzzles to get the pieces you need to do the harder one.
Also, according to your definition, jigsaw puzzles are not puzzles.
OK, define a puzzle however you want, but would you call a jigsaw puzzle a good puzzle? I am only saying adventure game puzzles are not very good, because instead of figuring out what to do under known conditions, you spend most of the time figuring out what is pick-up-able, what can be used where, where can the character go, etc.
Infinitron, tuluse, I can see how giving each puzzle clearly defined parameters would make them more isolated, so I will think about that.
Yeah, you know - the mentality of the game isn't for everyone, and you - that's cool. I mean, that's why there's such variety in video gaming, as it were. I love a lot of different genres - I mean, I grew up on a diet of not only PC gaming, but Arcade gaming, Atari 2600 & 7800, NES, SNES, Genesis and the N64 were all huge in my life. In fact, I have an itch to make an old-school beat 'em up in the style of Double Dragon and Golden Axe using some of my QFI characters, and keeping it's irreverant attitude and charm. Whether or not I ever get around to making it, heh, that's another story.
But, for me, Adventure Games - at the time in my youth - offered such a different alternative. RPGs as well - the gaming world has come so far now; there's something for everyone and everything out there. With QFI, though, I did try to blend a love for many different retro styles of games - there are some puzzles in the game that might be head scratchers, but almost all of them have several different solutions, and if one is to explore the game thoroughly, the solutions are offered. Hopefully it all works out - I just wanted to capture that magic of story-telling, with the fun of having to work things out - and keeping the puzzles and quests plot relevant. Also, with combat, there's a bit of RPG gaming and Arcade gaming in there.
I don't want a game to be easy, but I don't want it to be so hard you bang your head. But still, there was that kind of satisfaction in the old days about getting stuck, and somehow later getting unstuck.
Well this is the thing - I love adventure games, I just don't have the mentality to play them smoothly. It's funny because when I play something like Grim Fandango I love it, I am excited and I feel like I am playing a wonderful game, but I never quite 'click' into how these puzzles work and when I am forced to look them up I think, I don't think I could *ever* have figured out that combining a sombrero and a sausage is meant to unlock that door or whatever.
It makes me almost feel like I am a noob and I can't really play the game the way it's mean to be played, but at the same time I can glimpse at how satisfying it must be to solve these puzzles after hours of, well, puzzling. I would totally tell everyone that adventure games are meant to be played without handholding and the whole fun of those games is to work things out yourself, otherwise you're cutting the experience in half at least. It's just that myself I feel like I don't have the right brain for the way these puzzles work. (I just started Full Throttle on the tablet and I can see it's a pretty limited set of interactions but I'm already getting stuck.) It's as if I'm playing Arcanum by spamming Disintegrate and Haste, I'm aware that there are all these schematics and stuff that is really a lot of fun to play, but I'm too crap and keep dying when I try to play the way I know is fun.
This actually means I really enjoy adventure game LPs, e.g. I really loved the Primordia one, but I could also see I'd be hopelessly stuck on several occasions - and, with all apologies to the creators but speaking honestly, I felt like the LP comprehensively exhausted my need to buy and play the game for myself. I don't think that means I think adventure games are just story and pretties, because I really enjoyed seeing how the puzzles worked...anyway, I'm certainly not the 'core demographic' any adventure game maker should be looking to, but I suppose even in my own position I wouldn't want adventure games to give more handholding or easier puzzles. I certainly would appreciate multiple solutions and puzzles that don't block progress.. and perhaps more puzzles that broke the mold of 'combine weird items in improbable ways' (though they're pretty awesome and shouldn't disappear).
OK, define a puzzle however you want, but would you call a jigsaw puzzle a good puzzle? I am only saying adventure game puzzles are not very good, because instead of figuring out what to do under known conditions, you spend most of the time figuring out what is pick-up-able, what can be used where, where can the character go, etc.
Infinitron, tuluse, I can see how giving each puzzle clearly defined parameters would make them more isolated, so I will think about that.
The way I see it, putting a Metroidvania aspect into an adventure game doesn't just mean that you can solve things in a variety of different orders, but also, that by making your way through the game, your options increase in a meaningful way. You gain allies who can offer useful advice, abilities that can help you diagnose problems and approach them in different ways, ways to bypass problems entirely or even buy items from, say, a merchant. So the game isn't just about solving problems, but also building a toolset you use to solve them, if you see my meaning. I'm also hoping that this will reduce the sense that earlier areas are 'obsolete', by making revisiting earlier places an option that's genuinely useful for solving problems elsewhere; that way, players can also modulate the difficulty of the game simply by changing how they play the game.
Not to go too deep into this, but from a design standpoint, too, I think treating items even a bit less as "necessary quest objects" and more as "variable resources" gives a designer useful tools for creating mood and integrating narrative and gameplay. Gaining resources feels more like a reward than gaining a "quest object"; on the other hand, resources that have been gained can also be taken away. It's a trick that's positively ancient in many other genres, but only rarely used meaningfully in adventure games, which is a damn shame.
Indeed, a system where you have resources you can increase/improve can bring a whole new depth. Adventure/RPG hybrids is the obvious choice, the QFG series, Veil Of Darkness and Bloodnet have already done it successfully, but even the simple need to have to somehow gain money in order to progress could add a lot to the gameplay. Brian Fargo's first (and only?) game he actually took active part in design, Neuromancer, comes to mind. Of course all the above games incorporate combat in one way or another. Combat is the easiest and surest way to reward the player for his increased resource-gathering and skill improvement, and also the easiest way to spice up things. Hearing you talk about a metroidvania-adventure game I assume you'll also include combat. So, here is the question : Could you totally avoid combat in a good resource/ability-based adventure game ?
Hah, a good question. The short answer is, "I'm not sure", but let's see if I can unpack it a bit.
I tend to think that if gaining resources takes the form of modifying character statistics, some manner of combat is almost inevitably necessary. Sure, you could have skill checks, but those are generally binary and simplistic in nature, whereas in combat, statistics have a highly granular effect and have tactical and strategic implications. On the other hand, new tools and abilities may change the gameplay qualitatively, not quantitatively, by giving the player new ways to traverse the gameworld and access areas. I think these can very well work as "rewards", provided that some may be optional, their effects overlap and you don't have to get them in a strictly sequential order. Having multiple feasible (if not necessarily equally easy or practical) routes through the game is about as real as you can get in giving the player agency, after all.
There's also the question of how you define 'combat'. Is any conflict resolution system with consistent mechanics a combat system? This may be cheating to bypass the question, but I believe that you can use some of the fundamental elements of a combat system without using it to represent combat. To illustrate my point, let's say you have an adventure game about an occultist who can summon ghosts to answer his questions. Now, say that you have a limited amount of time to question them while a magic candle is burning. You could abstract the candle's lifespan as an equivalent of "HP", with various spells, ritual implements and whatnot impacting how much time you have, and how pliant the demon is to your inquiries. So you would have a system that is technically about peaceful interaction, implemented as a dialog tree, but which also has a clear lose condition and could be manipulated with equipment, consumable items and character skills. So would that be combat, or just "sim elements" or something? I'm honestly not sure.
Either way, I think this is actually about as good an answer as I can arrive at: part of the issue is that traditional adventure games don't really have many systematic game mechanics, but rather, the effect of most items is contextual in a way that can be highly arbitrary. If even a few items had a tangible, systematic effect, the game would feel more real and manageable, while decreasing the feeling that your goal is just to guess what the designer was thinking. Much of the game could still revolve around traditional adventure game puzzles, but progression through the game wouldn't be exclusively founded on them.
What a great discussion. Although I'm not a long time adventure fan (my first adventure games were The Longest Journey, then Syberia), I have played a few more after that, more modern ones such as Resonance and "classics" recommended by friends. The last few years, almost every adventure game I have played has been meh and the most recent positive (incline) experience I had was with Primordia. Thanks to everyone involved in this.
I’m not sure whether there isn’t any adventure puzzle that can keep you thinking about it for days. Obviously, we are talking about personal experiences. But, in my case, I’ve been stuck for days sometimes in a puzzle because of its complexity or its subtlety. I don’t remember exactly for how long, but sometimes for days and, when I was a kid, even months. But, as I said, being stuck or not is secondary; it’s a consequence. Some people are going to be stuck and other not.
The point I was trying to make in my previous post has to do with the “complexity” and the “subtlety” of the puzzle. I value puzzles that are complex. I understand complex as a puzzle where you need to connect various elements to solve the puzzle. (I think this is also what you implied in your use of the word). But I also value puzzles that you can’t solve because you missed a detail regarding what you have to do to solve it. With “detail” I don´t mean not seeing an item, but “missing” a hint. With “missing” I mean not relating something that is necessary to solve a puzzle with the puzzle. So, I’m not talking about “pixel hunt” here. I´ll give two examples. One of a simple but subtle puzzle, and one of complex but rather "obvious" one.
1) In Monkey Island 2, when you’re trying to recover the four parts of the map, there’s one piece that is in the cabin in the tree together with another papers. To solve this puzzle,
you have to remember the time when Guybrush tried to steal the map. On that occasion, the dog sleeping outside of the governor house starts barking and the gardener stops you saying that the dog can smell any of the governor´s possessions. So, you have to take the dog and use him with the papers.
That was a simple puzzle: one item to solve it. But I remember, at my 13-14 years, being stuck in that part. After some days, thinking about the game and solving another puzzles, my brain clicked and connected the two elements when I wasn’t playing. Rushed and excited, I returned and tried my hypothesis, and it worked. Unless one connects that episode and that dialogue with the new scenario, one can wander for days.
2) Recently, in the second chapter of the second season of Telltales’s S&M, there is one puzzle that includes working with some teleportation triangles. The goal is to get a drink from the Fountain of Youth. To solve this puzzle, you know you have to kill the piranhas that are swimming in the fountain. And to kill them, you have to
Play with triangles: If the triangles are not up on the stands flanking the portal triangle, use the mallet or use the gun to hit the gong on both side (blue and yellow) of the portal triangle. See a triangle rise from the top of the stand.
Click on either one of the triangles and see that the hand goes to the other triangle.
So a blue is one end of the portal and the yellow is the other end.
Hit another blue or yellow gong and see that the other gong of the same color is turned off.
Take care of the Piranha's: Hit the big yellow gong right of the fountain of youth and yellow triangle appears above it.
Go to the big blue gong left of the buried Moai on the left. Hit the blue gong and the triangle above appears.
Click the conch on the bored middle female Moai. She blows a wind.
Immediately, click on the buried left Moai and anger it to produce a thundercloud above.
The thundercloud is blown to the blue triangle and exits out the yellow triangle right of the fountain of youth.
The lightning strikes and takes care of the piranhas.
You can see there is a complex puzzle here, with all the elements being in front of the player, but the player has to connect all these parts without any help. I was stuck for some days. But then, voilà, I connected all the elements together and found the solution. This is one of the best recent puzzles I have played.
So, to sum it up, I agree with you that
a good adventure game puzzle should be solvable fairly quickly by an observant and intelligent player, and perhaps not at all by someone who isn't paying attention and has poor deductive/problem solving skills.
But that’s like an ideal condition. Maybe the kind of player the designer has to think of at the moment of evaluating his puzzle design. But the concrete player is never going to be 100% observant all the time and neither his intellect is going to work at 100% through all the adventure. So, the real player is going to get stuck sometimes, if there are complex puzzles and puzzles based on subtle hints.
And here lays my other disagreement with you and your analogy with the IQ test. But this also has to do with the comments of
Midair
and the thing is that, in adventure games, “puzzle” is a metaphor. In reality, if I have to describe exactly the “nature” of the “adventure puzzle”, I will define it more or less like this: “An obstacle, in a narrative frame and in a concrete context, that has to be overcome by reason of the player (and not by his dexterity)”. In that sense, and adventure “puzzle” (or obstacle) isn’t as an IQ test or as a riddle. It’s broader and, at the same time, more specific. It’s broader because “logical puzzles” are only one possibility of adventure puzzles. And it’s more specific because they have a context, they only work in a concrete situation, that of the game played. That’s why part of the fun of solving adventure puzzles is exploring the scenario, looking for clues when speaking with characters and when searching the surroundings, finding hidden items, connecting one thing with another, etc. It’s not like solving a Tower of Hanoi or a Sudoku, in an abstract way. That’s why I don’t share the idea that having all the conditions explicitly and obviously (and I remark explicitly and obviously) showed to the player is good in an adventure game. That’s why I also think missing hints is part of the fun.
Finally I want to make clear that what I’m explaining is my personal view (ie: what I like most) regarding what I expect of an adventure game. I know that there are other views (that from adventure gamers sites, for example). And I’m fine with that and with people that prefer those types of adventures. But I’m sure I’m not the only one that thinks this way and that misses more games with the kind of interaction and puzzles I describe.
MRY
Yeah, I understand you regarding time. I don’t even have kids yet and have very limited time to play games and write in forums. Thanks for your answers. It’s interesting that you mention a puzzle in GK2 that I remember fondly. But your comments make me feel like playing the game again, this time from a more critical perspective. The thing is I’m a fan of Gabriel Knight. When I played the first game, I even wanted to be Aquarius (instead of Gemini) and I bought an overcoat. He he. But I´ll play Primordia first . I installed it yesterday motivated by these conversations.
Ah, one more thing: I’m not sure if you, with “I found your analytic framework really interesting”, implied that the articles on that page are mine. They are not. But I like the site a lot and their analysis are some of the more interesting I’ve found.
Tigranes
It’s funny. I feel the same as you but regarding Strategy games, especially those in real time. For example, I like the idea of playing Starcraft or Command & Conquer. I fantasized with the story, the units, the protoss and the war. But, when I began playing them, I realized I wasn’t good nor was I interested in that kind of gameplay. In other words, I was bored. The only strategy games I’ve played in a compulsory way were the first two Civilization and, later, Alpha Centaury. The same happened to me with FPS.I think, as Blackthorne implied, some genres aren’t for everyone.
And with this long replay, I think I’m going to go on lurker mode again… but it is known we all return to post on the Codex eventually.
@ Manny -- No, I meant in your posts. I realized the articles were not yours. I was a big fan of GK1 (although I don't understand how the crypt graffiti puzzle was really supposed to be solved; it's the same thing as the voice splicing, only less ridiculous). In fact, so big a fan was I that when I went to New Orleans (shortly before Katrina) I was staggered. It was like waking up and finding yourself in Spielburg or Daventry. I insisted on my wife (no kids at that point) going with me to the local voodoo museum, and even much of the stuff there was redolent of GK. My favorite item, though, was a kind of crude riding crop that was captioned:
ZOMBIE WHIP
This whip is from Haiti and is over 100 years
old. It was used, as the name implies, to whip
zombies.
(Alas, no image hosting or I'd post the photo I took.) They also had Marie Laveau's "kneeling bench," but the zombie whip was my favorite insofar as there was no effort to contextualize it at all. It just took for granted that what we were curious about was the whip's function not the fact that someone was whipping zombies.
@ The rest -- I can't keep up! I surrender. I'm following the discussion, but contributing is beyond my abilities at this point. That said, this is all a great help for our design on the next game.
MRY
What, no sekey madoulé in the voodoo museum ? I am disappoint.
Actually the whole voodoo code puzzle is one of my favorites puzzles, even if as you say figuring out what to write on the tomb was pretty difficult, but not illogical. I was playing this game with a friend and we were helping each other over the phone, and this puzzle had us stumped for a long time, but when we solved it, it was a moment etched in history ! And damn, this was a collection of puzzles that merged brilliantly:
First you have to get the vodooeine to translate for you the message on the tomb.
Then you get to realize that fwet kash is the voodoo whip thus you know it's a message from the voodoo cult.
Then you find another message and even though you're missing on some symbols you can decipher them from the meaning of the words.
Afterwards using the rada-drum book you must translate the code from the drummer in the square. And it's not done automatically, you must use your head.
Once you've done that you'll know that there will be a conclave the same night in the swamp.
You realize you can't navigate the swamp by yourself, so using Mosely's tracking device on Dr. John might be the solution.
You place the tracker inside the little coffin but then you must be sure he'll bring it along for the ritual.
So, finally you go back to the tomb and write you own message, using the symbols you already know, telling him to bring the sekey madoulé.
Maybe a few more hints would ease up the difficulty, but still, we're talking about a series of nicely interwoven puzzles over the course of the first half of the game...
Puzzles like these are memorable and leave a great impression on the player when he manages to solve them.
I actually had much less trouble with writing on the tomb wall (which, funny enough, seemed really damn obvious to me, and later I learnt that it's some sort of an "infamous" puzzle), than with figuring out I HAD TO PICK UP CLAY FROM AN INCONSPICUOUS BEACH, FFS
That part left me so infuriated, and I believe it's always my first association with GK.
Yeah, the clay thing was the worst puzzle in the game.
At this point we've reached the most frustrating point in the game. The day won't end unless we do something with the bracelet, and this "something" involves pixel hunting and unlikely actions from our part.
We head for the lake and have a look at the banks :
Clay deposits ? You can put some in your pockets, take it to the Cazanoux residence, use it on the bracelet to make a mold and then forge a new one !
I'm reminded of a scenario used in a study in which people were given a situation as such:
"You are part of a neurosurgical team and must remove a tumor in the brain using lasers, however, the intensity at which the laser beam must strike the tumor is too high and will damage other parts of the brain before it hits the tumor itself. In order to pass the brain without damage it must be at 1/3rd of its current intensity."*
People who were unable to come up with a solution were then asked to read a small snippet from a made-up historical battle from the middle ages.
"The lord of the North was laying siege to a fort that sits atop a river mouth and is safely guarded by the roaring waters. It has 3 bridges that connect it, but the bridges are built such that they collapse when too much weight travels on it. Unwilling to risk passing all his troops over a single bridge, the lord of the North split his troops into three groups and attacked from all three sides at once -- effectively reducing the weight he put one each bridge but still bringing forth the full muster of his troops."
Immediately afterwards participants knew how to solve the first problem.
Such occasions, when encountered naturally in life, are beautiful.
*May not be 100% accurate in regards to how lasers work but whatever.
It was supposed to show that when you cannot solve a problem, but are given a clear parallel with a solution, you can apply the parallel back to the original problem. The example there is simple but more complex versions were used to further find the exact point by which that parallel application/generalization works. It's been years since I read it so I'm hazy on the details.
I do like puzzles that use problem solving that is counter intuitive tho -- another example would be the orcs/hobbits or sheeps/shepherds example where you have to solve it by first increasing the gap from starting point to finish point to allow for a major shift that allows you to complete it.
Incidentally, just to grouse a little more -- there actually was one of the kind of "reversal" puzzles mentioned above in Primordia that WEG insisted we cut. You collected these five pieces of "Gordium conduit" and were told they had to be connected. Each conduit had one of three kinds of connectors on each of its two ends. The were a variety of permutations that could get you to four connections, but you could never get to five. Eventually (with plenty of hinting and prodding from Crispin), the player had to figure out that you didn't need to socket them because you could just weld them together using the plasma torch. Alas, people got too frustrated by being unable to solve the socketing puzzle and apparently a couple reviewers ragequit and refused to play further. :/
Hah I ragequit Primordia once because of the puzzle to fix Gimbal's motor, and Crispin was all like "give it back just like that" LOL I was so frustrated, but figured it out on the second try
Incidentally, just to grouse a little more -- there actually was one of the kind of "reversal" puzzles mentioned above in Primordia that WEG insisted we cut. You collected these five pieces of "Gordium conduit" and were told they had to be connected. Each conduit had one of three kinds of connectors on each of its two ends. The were a variety of permutations that could get you to four connections, but you could never get to five. Eventually (with plenty of hinting and prodding from Crispin), the player had to figure out that you didn't need to socket them because you could just weld them together using the plasma torch. Alas, people got too frustrated by being unable to solve the socketing puzzle and apparently a couple reviewers ragequit and refused to play further. :/
Yea, GK1 came out at a time where gamers were encouraged to click on everything and be as thorough as possible in exploring each environment. It was a time before hotspots were the norm in adventure games.
I can see people trying to play GK1 for the first time in the present day having trouble because, quite frankly, the difficulty of adventures 20 years ago was generally higher. The games were more challenging and really demanded you use a notebook and think outside the box.
I enjoy adventures in the current era and think there are some great ones, but man there was nothing quite like a feeling of solving the tomb message puzzle or something similar. You struggle and invest time, but when you figure it out it's just so damn rewarding.
. I installed it yesterday motivated by these conversations.
