Adventure game "puzzle logic"

also, see Old Man Murray's Death of Adventure Gaming

http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/Craft.Of.Adventure.pdf

the bill of rights and the stuff on what makes a puzzle

I miss Old Man Murray.

i'm looking at you, hitch-hikers

It's like the gamer application of Chekhov's Gun:

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

And that's where we differ, you crazy rogueist. I don't play video games to face harsh, brutal realities. I play video games for pleasure and escapism. If a game starts laying the smackdown on me for trying something silly, I personally feel less inclined to deviate from more obvious and safe paths/actions, because I don't want to "die." Such is the natural psychological result of "punishment."

Of course, this can go to the other extreme and become totally silly (e.g. FPSs where you can absorb hundreds of bullets), but in my mind adventure games are puzzle solving games that above all should encourage creativity, not simulations that owe us rogueism at any cost. Realism is the false grail here.

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."
-- kingfish orange creamsicle

That's a good point. It's important to realize, I suppose, that the intent on the part of artists/writers that goes into crafting media cannot be applied to our lives--that the items in our environment are not necessarily there "for a reason." Still, I kind of like thinking that they are.

THERE'S THESE THINGS CALLED SAVE GAMES

I thought you were against the proliferation of save points. And that doesn't change my principle point at all. If anything, tt creates an anxiety (you know, the one that makes you feel like you need to save your game every five fucking seconds) that really isn't enjoyable or necessary in adventure games.

JimD OTM.

THERE'RE THESE THINGS CALLED SAVE GAMES

Do not twist my words.

http://www.englishforums.com/English/IsOrAre/bwwzz/Post.htm

Well, exactly. That's why I think the "doing something stupid should kill you" principle doesn't really apply so well here. Especially in re: Lucasarts games where the vast majority of what you're supposed to do is stupid things.

I recall there often being puzzles in these games that seemed designed to intentionally contradict or bypass common sense and to generally fuck with the player. Satisfaction is derived from resolving this sense of frustration. Death is not a punishment in this case, it is essentially a glorified version of the "I do not understand" messages that occur when you use exotic words like "jump" or "put".

http://tmd.alienharmony.com/rw/sq2/pictures/pinkunz1.gif

"Say the word."

a lot of games replace "you are the dead" with annoying punishments, which have much the same inconvenience as restoring from a saved game, but without that meta- discontinuity.

Since then I've followed Laura's tactic of "collect everything".

That puzzle in Old Mans Murrays article is madness, obtaining the parts for the disguise and that. I don't think my puzzles will be anywhere near as complex.

Especially in re: Lucasarts games where the vast majority of what you're supposed to do is stupid things.

Popping the clown balloon, the spaghetti, etc. It all makes perfect sense. It's usually far more entertaining, and far less aggravating than any Sierra thing. I think the biggest inventory/thing-to-grab headache that I ever had was the plastic magnifying bubble from Sam & Max. I didn't know you had to grab that for the longest time.

Also: True or False: Adventure games & RPGs encourage & reward kleptomania, since you have to steal every single thing(treasure chests, a salt shaker, the jacket of your buddy, etc).

The extra fun bit are games like Divine Divinity, where you can steal everything, and then sell it back to shop owners at a profit.

Re: not dying in Lucasarts games - couldn't you get killed in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? (my favourite of the lot)

Yes. They encourage kleptomania and absurdity. Or to frame it in a slightly different way, resourcefulness and thinking outside the box. Which I think are pretty useful skills to acquire. There's nothing more mind-numbing than a predictable adventure game--anyone who played the Hugo series knows what I'm talking about.

Re: not dying in Lucasarts games - couldn't you get killed in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? (my favourite of the lot)

Yes, but I think the situations where you could die were fairly limited. And if, for example, you died during the second or third trial in the temple, you'd only be brought back to the first trial. Also when you died they told you what happened after your death based on your progress in the game, which was pretty cool.

the parser in the second game was impossible to satisfy in places

Infocom games were designed to have a few moments of "WTF" in them like that. So that you would buy the Invisiclues and all that. The more recent wave of text adventures aren't quite so blatantly arbitrary, usually.

etc

I think you could die in Maniac Mansion by blowing the house up, couldn't you?

You could blow up the house by leaving the pool drained too long.

Getting the bauble from under the bridge in KQ4 really fucked with my 7 (if that) year old mind. Like I'm gonna see a orange (Hercules Monochrome, bitches!) pixel blob and be all "ooh, that's a nice bauble!" So Sierra taught me TRY SYNONYMS. And SAVE EVERY 90 SECONDS which is a hassle in say Grand Theft Auto.

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Near the end of the sequence in the Nazi occupied castle, you are captured by guards and given the option of handing over Dr Jones's Grail Diary or being shot. The "correct" thing to do at this point is to bluff them by handing over Indy's copy of the diary he made as a kid. If you hand over the actual grail diary, the game proceeds as it normally would except you have take a diversion to Berlin to nab the diary back again. After retrieving your diary from the treacherous Elsa, as per the film you find yourself face-to-face with Hitler. You give him the diary to autograph and he lets you go. HOWEVER: Instead of giving him the diary to sign, you give him the travel pass you found earlier on in the castle. You now have a fuhrer-signed travel pass which gets you through any barricade without hindrance.

I was never that into Leisure Suit Larry but if you're looking for a bawdy adventure game, it's good. I remember Police Quest pretty fondly. I hear good things about Quest for Glory but never played that series.

The snake keeps biting me in Castle, and I can't get past the ogres either.

Jesus. Anyone here play Return to Zork? That game was KING of punishing you for completly obscure shit.

(I have spoilers, avert your eyes!)

On the first screen you have a plant next to you. You have the options of Pull, Cut and Dig Up. Anything but dig-up makes the plant look a little limp, but you don't think much of it.

After playing the game for various MONTHS getting past their obtuse puzzles (FEED A COW CARROTS AND DRINK HIS MILK SO YOU CAN SEE IN A DARK FOREST. WHAT. THE. FUCK.) you arrive at something like the second-last screen and you're required to have a LIVE plant. They didn't mention anything about the dead plant was a bad thing.

Play whole game again.

SCREW YOU, ZORK.

(What's worse is the entire game was like this. One screw-up, and you wouldn't even KNOW until days later)

The two sequels (Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquistor) were a huge improvement by virtue of pretending RTZ never happened, thankfully.

If you’re looking for a classic point-and-click adventure game then I’d recommend Gumshoe Online (www.gumshoe-online.com).

In response to discussion of QFG above, I must put out an alert on anyone considering QFG4 as their entry into the genre, as it is a NOTORIOUSLY buggy release. Not sure if all the glitches were fully worked out; most of them are blatant ("ERROR 517 GAME OVER") but there was one that simply caused an important plot point to...not happen. Like I spent weeks wandering around the world trying every item with everything but this important meeting with this person at twilight WOULD NOT TAKE PLACE and it turns out it's nothing you can do, you have a buggy copy. NICE.

Oh yeah, it was horrifically buggy, but eventually beatable with enough saving, reloading and trial and error. The story was pretty good, if I remember though, especially with the Lovecraft nods. I like how each game represented a different fantasy world (1 was generic wizards/hobbits, 2 was Arabian Nights, 3 was Africa, 4 was Dracula/Lovecraft, 5 was ?).

But why would you start with #4, anyway? They had the same basic mechanics since the QFG1 remake, and you'd want to experience the whole series in order for story reasons, as you take the same characters (with loading previous games' save files!) through each title. I had saves for each class and took them all through part four.

Agreed on all counts, really - I just noted 4 being upped somewhere upthread and wanted to forestall any broken hearts.

I really do think the first one is the best, with #2 a close second (would win if not for the gratuitous "town is a maze" stuff and all the wandering around in the desert). The original is just a really tightly worked out game - there's a WHOLE lot to do but the world feels very contained and well-developed, compared to all the empty space in the later ones.

Kudos to Zombie Cow, they got the two Ben and Dan games up on Steam, and only $5:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/37400/

I really liked the first one, and it's still free. Totally worth playing if you liked the old Lucasarts/Sierra games. I've got a lot on my game queue right now but I'm definitely gonna get this when some space clears.

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/09/the_shivah_free_to_download_fo.html

(fwiw I have finished Varicella since I started this thread!)

good looking out, just got shivah.

Really dug this game ten years ago, just came out on GOG:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sanitarium

Sanitarium was an amazing game.

looks great; wish i had a whole other life to play games.

I have bought around 10 adventure games from GOG and have played only 2 of them (the Simons).

Did anyone actually play Jane Jenson's Grey Matter? It's on sale at Amazon for a mere $5. In my days of old (err, last year) I would've immediately picked it up but my backlog guilt is eating at me. (Also I haven't booted into Windows in months)

http://www.amazon.com/Viva-Media-40588Gray-Matter3-Download/dp/B004NNVE8M/

Came across the article about The Way on HG101:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/theway/theway.htm
Sounds like a really interesting if flawed homage to Another World and Flashback. Anyone played this?

I haven't even played Flashback :/

shooting down a small animal from a tree so that a carnivorous plant eats it instead of you is a cool puzzle at first but if you have to do it a dozen times, always waiting until the animal aligns itself just right, it stops being fun.

This is a direct steal from another world though, except you don't have to do it a dozen times to get it right. Plenty of other puzzles in AW you do though - that's just how games were in them there days, short, so hard. If this has twelve hours of gameplay there's no excuse.