What's your least favorite type of puzzle in adventure games?

We got some reviews and people tend to have minor complaints about all sorts of things, so I'm wandering what game boomers dislike in their adventure games

These are the puzzle types that come to mind, so you could have something to choose or add:

- Standard inventory puzzles - use item with object or person

- Conversation puzzles - you need to follow a certain branch of conversation. It usually means going to the whole conversation to find what you are missing

- Reflex puzzles - doing something while a character's head is turned the other way or while a character is ready to help you at a certain moment

- Hidden objects - when you need to locate a certain number or word or object in the playfield

- Math puzzles - can be found in any type of puzzle, but you need to do some counting, adding or something similar

- Puzzle puzzles - often in first person mode, you need to connect some wires or click some buttons or draw on some maps or something along those lines

If there is one thing I've learned here in my 13 years of moderating is that you will never, ever please everyone! One mans garbage is another's treasure! It's good to listen to feedback but you will never make a "perfect" game that everyone will enjoy.

For me, mazes are a nightmare and anything requiring action eg. stealth, speed, dexterity.

Ana

Timed puzzles of any sort for me...

I agree about anything requiring actions - that is not something you would expect in an adventure game, so it is better to avoid them altogether!

Still, I think it is not actions that Viktor describes as 'Reflex puzzles' - there could be quite some time to act while a character's head is turned the other way. For me, even the 'kill the roaches' or 'race' mini-games in 'Viktor' were acceptable because they did not require so much action

In general, it is very nice to see a variety of puzzles in adventure games! My least favorite are color puzzles though, as I am rather color-blind...

For me it's timed puzzles & slider puzzles.

i love sliders !

i would say timed puzzles ,and mazes to a certain degree - i'm

not so fast anymore , and i've never had a good sense of direction

I don't consider timed and reflex-dependent sequences to be adventure game puzzles at all, and they certainly have no place in one of the very, very few game genres that people with poor or nonexistent reflexes are able to play.

Peoples' reflexes are all over the map, and the same sequence can be trivial for some players while being impossible for others. Skips are a workaround but not a solution. Would you really want to play a game where you have to skip half of it? It would be better if the developers did not include anything that depends on reflexes in an adventure game.

Yes to what Jenny said! That's fine for my shooters and RPG's, but not for my adventures.

Music puzzles! The barrel organ puzzle in Goetia comes first to my mind. Even hours of tryin didn't help me to recreate the melody heard on gramophone with punched cards and barrel organ. Total nightmare for tone deaf people but I'm sure some people find them easy.

Timo

I, too, agree with what Jenny100 says !!

I am with Jenny100, too. So, barring action, the puzzles I don't like in Adventures are dialogue based ones and nonsensical inventory ones that leave you trying everything out on everyone and every item out of desperation. I can't do music ones since I am tone deaf, so I naturally don't like those either.

Sliders. At least in casual games they can usually be skipped.

Sliders - I've never been able to solve one.

Timed puzzles, unless they are VERY forgiving.

The ones I can't solve
More seriously, I hate puzzles where you play against the puzzle, and as far as one can tell it is completely up to the puzzle as to whether you win or not. I am happy to beat the puzzle through a strategy (the bridge puzzle in Schizm springs to mind) but not play one like the Shove Ha'penny game in The Slaughter.
Not a huge fan of mazes, as they generally feel like filler, although they can be well done (the one under the Tower of London in whatever that game was!)

Timed and music puzzle. The piano puzzle in Myst was very difficult!

I forgot about those. I call those the A.I. Puzzles where you usually play a game against a computer. No walkthrough can help you because the moves are random. Unless there is a skip, you are doomed to play forever. I am horrible at strategy games. I lose more often than not at tic-tac-toe

I hate puzzles where you have to move one thing and that in turn moves a few other things and you have to make them all line up, but every one you change alters several more... They really do my head in. As does, apparently, trying to explain the sort of puzzle I really don't like, which I'm sure I have done a terrible job of!

Also, mazes. Ugh.

I see that most of the people here would hate at least one thing in Viktor. It is true, you can't please everyone

You could probably say that about any game mate! Even the beloved classics.

Not at all surprising and in all honesty, unavoidable!

I enjoy several of the puzzles mentioned in this thread -- puzzles that others either dislike or can't do at all. In general I like music puzzles and sliders. However there was a music puzzle in Journey to the Moon that involved matching chords -- a lot of them -- rather than single notes and that was extremely difficult.

Puzzle skips or alternative puzzle solves are valid for people who are tone deaf or colorblind or who don't have a mind for sliders. If it gets to the point where you're skipping everything, you're playing the wrong game.

What you called "Reflex puzzles" in your original post
doesn't necessarily require fast reflexes. For example, it could depend more on clicking the correct items in order rather than clicking fast.

Even mazes can be fun as long as they're not the usual sort of maze. For example the open maze with the pink electricity in Sanitarium and the maze in the China world in Atlantis 2 where you walk on the ceiling.

One thing I don't like is where you have to play a game against an AI. There are at least 3 of these in 11th Hour. Unless you are already an expert, each of these games would take several weeks of study to develop any real understanding of the strategy involved in winning -- assuming you could ever understand.
Pente is an example of a game I could never get my head around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pente
Reversi is another one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi
I don't think games like that have any place inside larger adventure games, where they bring the rest of the game to a screeching halt unless there is a way to skip them. They are fine on their own, but not within a larger game. If I feel like studying Pente or Reversi, I want an individual game app, not something inside another game.

"the maze in the China world in Atlantis 2 where you walk on the ceiling"

Agggghhhhh !!!!!!!!!!

Who could ever forget THAT ??

I agree with Jenny 100%.

I like most puzzles, as long as they're designed well and not too tightly timed. I like mazes as long as they have some distinctive features and sliders as long as I know what image I have to complete. If a dialogue puzzle has several choices, I don't want to be penalized if I choose incorrectly but neither do I want to hear the same dialogue again and again unless I ask for it. I don't mind silliness with inventory items, but I do get annoyed when I have a perfectly good tool to complete a task (a claw hammer) but have to find a different one (a nail puller) instead.

My least favorite is a timed mechanical puzzle.

Apparently I have Mad -the head banging must be to blame

I hate mazes.

I actually brute-forced the monkey island 2 maze with skeleton rooms D:

Did you not like that one?

It's the closed mazes, like sewer mazes that look the same everywhere, that are the worst IMO.

Timed and slider puzzles make me want to cry!!

Back in the Day ... I loved the Adventure games ... nobody got killed. They were more mysteries.. I have no idea what has happened ... LIFE perhaps. I doubt that the new Syberia will do it, sadly,

Jenny100 (and flotsam)

That Atlantis 2 China ceiling maze drove me mad and it took me an absolute age to get through it. I found it really frustrating

My favourite mazes are the type I can map out. I especially like the ancient style of those in the King's Quest games

I don't like slider puzzles - me and slider puzzles do not get along.

Slider puzzles seem to depend a lot on peoples' childhoods. If you played with slide puzzles, you can solve them in no time. If you didn't, they become worse than reflex puzzles

I love sliders! And yes, Viktor, I had lots of plastic pocket sliders. Am I dating myself?

Ana

I do remember those pocket ones although the only one I remember playing was one with just the numbers and you had to put them in order. It had not dawned on me until now that it may be why I like them in adventure games if they fit the instance and not just something random. If I remember correctly there is only one slider puzzle that I didn't like and I think it was the Mona Lisa puzzle in the Secrets of DaVinci, I think thats where I saw it.

That's interesting - I too never thought of it, but I liked those little number pocket sliders too! Maybe that's why I sort of like sliders!

Those are them!

Now I want to find some. Anyone know if they are still sold or maybe a better name than Pocket Sliders?

I don't even know if anyone makes those anymore. I have a toy collector forum (in Croatian only) and people find tons of Yugoslavian '80s sliders on flea markets and similar.

If you truly hate yourself, there's a hard ore slider game from some years back. Cogs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZzWVkJ5fZk

Yes, they sure do still make them! Dollar stores and party stores still sell the plastic ones. They generally come in packs of 6 for goodie bags.

Here is an adult version that is really nice metal pocket slider.

You can get an assortment of plastic ones here.

And of course, the original here.

Ahhhh !! Youthful memories Enjoyed playing with those pocket sliders all through my school days

Oh Kewl...thanks for the suggestions. I am going to get one or two and see if my Grandson has a knack for it. He sure has a knack for figuring out so much other puzzles he may find this neat.

Meanwhile on Twitter, Viktor got a REALLY in-depth review in which the reviewer mentioned some REALLY obscure methods of solving some puzzles

http://i.imgur.com/ReWk2P7.jpg

I think that is a great idea Greyfuss! My grandson can sit and do puzzles all day.

Viktor!

I'm with Jenny100, 100%.

I do enjoy being challenged by a puzzle of any sort, as long as I can figure it out before I have to give up on a game, just because of one puzzle.

Mazes. Just dreadful

I am totally in agreement about "timed" puzzles and arcade stuff in general. I can't handle them. Too stressful. NOT what I play an Adventure game for at all. Keep them in Action or RPG games, for folks who enjoy shooting and jumping and beating a clock.

All the rest are fine with me, even mazes. If I have to pause the game and get out paper and pencil to solve something, I'm even happier.

And yes, I love sliders and played with those small, plastic, hand-held puzzles, too! They still are out there.

ditto for what you said Ana, timed and stealth, mazes.... Also not crazy about just inventory,
i love puzzles that you need to gather information, and figure stuff out, math, codes..mechanical and like that,

I LOVE really good puzzles that keep you thinking and gathering information as part of the story.

also dont like hidden objects, and while i have enjoyed some casual games, its hard to find
some that have puzzling without the hidden objects.. wish they offered that as a way to search through them.

I do not like hidden object games,
stealth moments,action moments
nore Timed puzzles.
I have no problems with slider puzzles.
I do not like games with endless diarie
entry's, endless drawers or doors to open.

I like to have a good story, I love
scary games, but the scary moments have to come
from subtle changes in the atmosphere not
from wanting to scare someone
with " the usual tricks".


The puzzles (what ever kind) can be as
difficult as the designers can come up with,
as long as there is logic to it (in the end,
when one has to check the walkthrough )

I hate solutions that make no sense at all.

I would say, along with many others, the timed puzzle. Some of the situations in the Tex Murphy games drove me wild, and I lost most of my hair with Atlantis 1, the Lost Tales.
I also dislike any kind of puzzle that is solved by a particular combination of many colors, settings, etc., when there are no clues given in the game for solving them. Can anyone forget some of the puzzles in Black Dahlia?? gad. I used the keyboard overrides through almost all of that game.

Puzzles - my favorite topic ;-)

Puzzle i don't like are

- big mazes (its just plain tedious to draw a map, simply work without any fun at all)

- puzzle that definitely make no sense from a logical point of view, even after
you have read the walkthrough and the explanation (see 'solution superiority' further down)

- puzzles that require a series of actions where the single steps have to be
done without any hint, where you have to do things without any reason to do them
(for example there is a handle you have to pull without any hint/symbol/cable to conclude what it does
and it has an effect somewhere else)

- timed/action puzzles (i am playing an adventure for god's sake, not a 3d shooter, dear game designers)



A really, really great puzzle for me has to fullfil ALL or at least MOST of the following criteria:

- It requires VERY difficult logical reasoning to find the solution (Rhem's, Schizm 1 and a little bit of Riven are
the masterpieces here)

- You must be VERY observant to find the clues needed and what they mean to start using your analytical
skills to solve it (RHEM, RHEM, RHEM!!!)

- I don't know a suitable english word so i call it 'solution superiority' (which probably doesn't make
sense to native speakers). By that i mean that if you have several theories how to solve
the puzzle, there is one solution which makes the most sense - after you solved it or looked at the walkthrough.
Where you say: 'Yes, this solution makes the best sense. Its superior to other possible solutions.
Every clue comes together and fits perfectly together (RHEM, SCHIZM 1, RIVEN)

- The puzzle is embedded in the environment. It has its purpose, its not just there for the sake
of having puzzles in the game (RIVEN is the best of all games i ever played regarding that)

- puzzle that are set up in a way that leads you in the wrong direction because
you apply standard logic from older games, puzzles that have a twist (RHEM!)

So obviously my absolutely favorite games are: RIVEN, RHEM-series and SCHIZM 1.

Its a close call, but i think Riven is and will forever be the best game ever for me, there will probably
never come a new game that matches it, its one for the ages and must never be forgotten.

I'm yearning for a game like those. Unfortunately Knut is working on the old Rhem games
instead of developing a new one as far as i know :-(

I just finished "Samorost 3" and spent half of my total play time trying to reproduce those 8 notes whistled by a rat using watering system 'keyboard'.

I - simply - hate - music - puzzles!

Timo

I am playing Return to Mysterious Island 2 right now which has some music puzzle also. Fortunately, after a few tries "easy mode" becomes available .

I still haven't played all of the Samorost games so I don't know how it might compare but thanks for the heads up on that.

I hate mazes. Ive said it so often, I expect there are people here who can remember me saying it.

I am musical, so the dreaded 'piano' puzzle in MYST wasn't even a puzzle. Just match the notes and move on. First try.

Sliders are OK, unless the picture is so obscure that it is impossible to decide what goes where.
Traditional sliders have the final blank spot in the lower right. If it belongs elsewhere (like the one in Mystery of the Mummy's wine cellar has it in the center) it can be confusing.

Mazes have no place in an adventure or casual game. I think they were a hang-over from text games, where the entire game amounts to a giant maze. "Go north." There is a mailbox to your left. "Open mailbox." The mailbox is empty. "Go East" You are eaten by a Grue . . .

See why I still hate mazes? Arrgh.

I dislike sliders. I am at the slider puzzle in Whispered World for 2 years now. Every once in a while I will try it again but, I am stuck and it is not fun. I wish that developers would have a skip option for those puzzles.

I also disliked Timed puzzles or puzzles that use dexterity. I am old and my brain doesn't work as fast as it used to and neither do my fingers. argh. I guess the biggest thing for me is that developers need to put in a skip button for some of the harder puzzles. I just played Anna's quest and what a joy that they had that skip button for the pigeon puzzle.

The developer has some saved games for the game, which can be downloaded from here. Maybe one of those would get you past the slider, although I don't know if they would work with your version of the game - you would have to check and see.

Hahaha !! What memories words like that evoke

There is one type of slider that was made into a game called "Traffic," or something similar. It involves shifting pieces around so that a blocked object may be moved across the screen to the exit. I enjoy those. I wouldn't mind a game that was nothing but a sequence of them.

The sliders that drive me nuts are the ones based on the old hand-held plastic toy made up of numbers that you had to assemble in the correct sequence. Yes, I played with them as a child during those interminable road trips, but now I only find them tedious. Encountered one in a recent Casual game where they made it worse by having FOUR fixed (blocked) points around the center of the puzzle that you had to work around. Jeez. As if a slider wasn't bad enough, they have to add roadblocks?

I dislike sliders, and used to struggle with them until I found a trick on the internet for solving them. Now they are not so bad, but I still don't like them. I used to have the plastic ones as a child, and could've for the life of me solve them. I pulled all the squares out of at least one, and put it back together again!

I don't love mazes, but if it has some distinguishing screens and can be mapped, I don't mind. If everything looks the same, and when I turn around I can't work out where I am, then I get really cross and run around randomly til I accidentally solve it.


I have terrible reflexes, so am not good with action and timed scenes. I can usually force my way through with enough attempts, as long as it's not too tricky.


I am tone deaf so struggle with music puzzles, and the coloured flashing light ones that you have to repeat like that Simon game are hard for me.

Hmmm... looks like I am pretty rubbish at most things!

Lots of us are rubbish at lots of things, skeeter93 !! So you are in good company

Since I'm a singer, I'm fine with music puzzles. Sliders also don't bother me anymore, as I know the trick to solving them now. As long as I know what the picture is supposed to look like in the end, I'm good.

Mazes and I, on the other hand, do not get along. I have a terrible sense of direction and get lost easily. I'm happy that I rarely encounter them in games anymore. The only time I enjoyed being lost was in Propast in Dreamfall Chapters, as I loved exploring that environment. Now I know my way around there really well. If a lot of the locations are the same in mazes, they aren't that interesting or enjoyable to me, and it's pretty much a guarantee that I will get lost.

I also agree with the dislike of timed/stealth/action "puzzles" in adventure games. Unfortunately, unlike mazes, those are not disappearing from adventure games. I'm fine with Telltale "action," as that's just quick typing, but anything more complicated gets frustrating. If I want to play a game badly enough, I'll persevere. For example, it looks as though the upcoming State of Mind will include action , but the game looks fantastic otherwise, so I'll get it and suffer through those sequences to get to the good parts in between. It's a shame that developers feel the need to add these elements, as I think most adventure gamers don't care for them, and that's not the reason we play games to begin with. Sure, some play other genres, but not everyone enjoys action in their games.

I also could do without hidden object puzzles/pixel hunting, as I'm apparently bad at finding hotspots. That's why the hotspot reveler is one of my best friends now.

Thanks Mad

I noticed a few people saying sliders are okay if you can see what the picture is supposed to be, and I agree. One game (I think it was Criminal Intent) I quit because the picture for the slider was not on the same screen, and it was so frustrating to constantly go in and out. Gone are the days of spending weeks persevering through a puzzle...