Blue Outlines Are the New Sparkles

In both Dead Reckoning: Lethal Knowledge and Dark Cities: London, there are places where the inventory object necessary is shown in the hotspot by a blue outline. What was the point of getting rid of sparkles if developers and publishers are going to diminish the game play like that? I'm pretty sure those blue outlines can't be turned off; I've turned off everything except icon changes. Why introduce a brand new shiny spoiler?

I haven't run across that yet - but will certainly notice it if I do.

That sounds awful! Turning off ALL "Sparkles" is my first move when starting a new game.

Why do you want to make the games harder?

I'm going to change the objects and setting in this example so that I don't include spoilers.

You have these inventory items: a metal finger from a gauntlet; a modern stirrup leather from an English saddle which is a long leather strap with holes and a buckle like a belt; a standard issue ruby eye; a kriss, which is one of those wavy bladed daggers, that has a curiously wrench shaped section on the handle; an elephant folio sized book that clearly and amusingly needs an elephant to open its lock; a brass turtle; and a brass partridge you have previously detached from a pear tree.

You are in the center of a topiary garden near a pond surrounded by statuary. At the base of the pond is a faucet or maybe a valve with a missing handle.

When you run the cursor across the close-up of the faucet area or click on it or if you experiment with the wrench end of your kriss or try your ornamental turtle, do you want a blue outline showing the shape of a partridge to appear?

I don't unless I have clicked on a hint which in the actual game I had not.

Edited to add: Dark Cities: London has potential as an immersive series. I want to be able to play and experiment with inventory items without blue outlines spoiling my fun, just as I want to be able to play without sparkles.

Apparently the elimination of the option of having objectives displayed on the map fails to communicate that in-game quest goal banners are also unwelcome as interruptions in immersion. In fact those banners are worse because in the game itself and not just on the map. Blue outlines on hotspots are much the same and a step too far for me.

Agreed. What makes all these games so widely appealing has been the increasing options to tailor the difficulty to suit a wide variety of playing styles. Some people prefer a walk-in-the-park experience while others are delighted with a devious head-scratcher of a game. If you accommodate both playing styles (and everything in between, since the choices often are a spectrum), that seems like a smart approach for any game developer. Why they would abandon that is incomprehensible.

I don't mind sparkles except when they appear all over the place when there's nothing to look at or interact with. I get kind of annoyed at games where there are sparkles all over the place because someone thought it "looked" cool. In general I don't care for visual effects like excessive glow or shimmering, etc., that bother my eyes and make it harder to tell what I'm looking at.

Although I don't mind sparkles signalling when a hidden object location has come available again, I would not like "blue outlines."

And if I say I don't want so-called "Tasks" in the game options, then I don't want to see pop-ups telling me where to go and what to do every few seconds. When these unwanted "Tasks" pop-ups or slide-ins appear, telling me where to go, I tell the game where to go -- and I'm dubious about buying another game from that developer since they obviously tell lies about their customization options and ignore user preference.

Agree with this, too. If we don't have the option to turn off all this "game candy," I don't buy the game. We're looking for a challenge, not a "Good Girl!" pat on the back every few seconds because ~ "Wow, you found a mouse in the pile of leaves. Yay!" We're not puppies. And we're not five years old anymore, either ~ keep your incessant Gold Stars. ha ha ha

I should not have limited the topic to blue outlines. Living Legends: Beasts of Bremen has purple outlines in quite rudimentary puzzles and a chalk drawing to show you where to put a bell. It's as bad as not being able to turn off the sparkles. If I wanted big hints, I could leave on sparkles or check the included strategy guide. I'm going to make myself finish this one, then review it on the theory that it is new enough for the review to matter to developers.

"What makes all these games so widely appealing has been the increasing options to tailor the difficulty to suit a wide variety of playing styles."

Definitely agree, Reenie

I play Adventures to tax my brain and RPGs to try and hone my reflexes.
But I mainly play Casuals to relax for a few hours.

Agreed, 8dog. The too-easy nature of the puzzles in that game ruined what otherwise was a game of good length and complexity.