Ideas for recent games (since 2006) with serious puzzles (including pattern and and/or mechanical puzzles) that you might not know contain serious puzzles (and not yet mentioned already in this thread):

Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis
Keepsake
Yoomurjak's Ring
Agon 4: Lost Sword of Toledo
Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy
Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder
Cleopatra: A Queen's Destiny
Destination: Treasure Island (a bit easier than others mentioned)
The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy

It's a casual game, but I think that if you liked Myst and 7th Guest, you'd probably like Return to Ravenhearst, which has lots of puzzles in addition to the Hidden Objects gameplay.

Also, if any of you puzzle experts haven't played Magicama yet -- well, you should!

Mordack -- let Knut take his time to get it right! As a distraction from the upcoming RHEM 4, I hereby challenge you to complete Gobliiins 4 without a walkthrough.

When I first got started on PC games, Nancy Drew were the first ones I played. They had a lot of puzzles in them and at that time I enjoyed them. Now I don't really care for her games too much any more. They're too many mundane puzzles, plus timed puzzles which I really hate.(After all I'm getting slower the older I get).
I do like puzzle that require some amount of thinking. etc. Sherlock holmes, Barrow hill, outcry, deakness within, just to name a few. And most of all I must not forget Overclocked and Dracula Origin.
I like games that have puzzle and a good story line.
That's my story and I sticking to it
'

I think GREAT puzzles that are part of the story, help me to be in the story more, I just finished GK 2 and 3, I loved the puzzles in these, and also like the Shivers, I would love to see more of them, not just puzzles set out in a door to get through, but, as part of the story, like in GK... they made the path so interesting to play...
But I also love the just puzzle games also, like sudoku and safecracker, I love PUZZLES, and wish there were more in games also..
Marcia

For me too, the puzzles are what I enjoy most in AG's, but it seems very hard to get the balance right between puzzles and story.
Most Myst style games don't have enough story for my taste, and most story focused games use inventory management to move the story forward (and I don't consider that puzzles).
For me it works to just alternate between both types. I just finished Alida and am now with Perry Rhodan.
But I can't recommend the Tex Murphy games enough. Those games are the perfect mix of real puzzles and story.

I’m only one of the many game developers, and happen to be a smaller one at that. But since Becky mentioned two of my games on her list of productions with „serious puzzles” (thanks Becky, that’s really nice of you! ), I also feel being addressed by Orchgamer.

This has been a very interesting topic! Even so because the question or suggestion is rather unexpected. I’m not sure if I could admit this on behalf of other developers but I do think that „market feedback” had shown all of us that today there was no demand for real puzzles; admittedly or not, this has made most of us look at simplification. If I were to be a bit shrewd I’d say gamers seemed to be getting more and more dull. Of course this is not literally true – I don’t think anyone’s comprehension would deteriorate by time. No. Instead, this is the current picture of an ever-changing, constantly expanding-narrowing society: a society which seems a lot more limited minded than in the preceding years and decades.

I don’t want to be too long but I do think that this was by no means accidental and adventure gaming is not the only area where the same trend could be observed. In my opinion the media can be blamed in the first place for the process that makes our stimulus threshold keep rising, and this means we constantly need bigger and bigger fireworks and fanfarade to be attracted and to find something to be real „fun”. Also, with the extensive supply we’ve got used to taking it easy. We no more want to DO SOMETHING to be happy, but rather EXPECT someone else to do it for us. That seems to make us grow soft from top to toe: not just our muscles, but our thinking and even our sensory organs as well. It never comes to our mind to fight the Unknown in a game as abstract as Myst or Sentinel while we can actually get satisfaction in a HOG, finding an umbrella or a cell phone in a messy room. This is also excitement of course. But there's a whole world of difference.

There could be a lot more about analyzing this phenomena – and why not? - but I think it’s time to get back to the original question.

In theory, a game developer’s (or rather a game publisher’s) task is to meet the demand of their actual audience. Therefore if you want your production to make you money then you have to create (adventure) games that today’s average gamers like. Provided that this is not a casual game, your game will be: third-person (this is cheaper and more trendy), featuring a female protagonist, an American central location, some exotic excursions, a slightly mystical and/or crime-style plot, a heavily story-oriented gameplay – and no serious puzzles if possible (no need to challenge the gamer’s mind because it may cause frustration), but forcing the use of inventory and dialogues instead. This way 'point'n' click' adventures are gradually replaced by 'click'n'watch' games. And the emergence of this trend is even more outstanding on the causal game market. But again, this is another discussion I wouldn’t not like to address in this post.

Of course not everybody feels like serving a certain popular taste. (This is the point where the picture gets confusing for some who try looking at the genre as a single unit.) Our team (Private Moon Studios) is one of these exceptions. We just want to tell our story in a way we like it, we think it right and what’s more: we find valuable – and we do so even risking payback, success and survival. However, this is not the attitude of the good manufacturer, but of the „obstinate” artist in general; for our team at Private Moon Studios (musicians, writers, graphics, etc.), as genuine artists, it’s very hard to move away from this attitude. For us, the desire to „create” is far stronger than the desire to „comply”. Now, probably this is why Agon and Yoomurjak’s Ring mainly follow classical traditions and intend to tell a tale and challenge your mind at the same time - and hence the painful idea that the next Agon episode might have to be a compromise to please the market – simply for financial reasons. Surely, we would have to simplify it considerably, migrating to third-person perspective that requires less involvement of the player and decimating the puzzles to create a more easily consumable product.

PIERROT
Game Designer - Sound Designer - Composer - CEO
Private Moon Studios

Bravo, Pierrot! Well spoken. Hold on to your beliefs and keep those classic adventures coming. There are a variety of preferences out there within the polarity of adventure to action games and all those that are falling in-between. Staying consistent with your commitment can only bring us more great games.

PIERROT -- you've given me something to think about! Thanks for giving us a glimpse of the designer's perspective on this.

Pierrot, thanks so much for commenting on this thread. I'm glad to here that there are still game designers that value some thought provoking puzzles in their games. It is apparent that the trend is towards easier games, and I agree with your hypothesis of the need for quick gratification being media driven. Taking the time to work something through slowly and methodically seems almost archaic in this day and age of instant everything.
My one hope is that fads come and go, and given enough time, gamers will get oversaturated with "click and watch" type games and start to revist the classic thinking games.

Surely the answer to the thread is to look at "The List" If overall it comprises of old games the answer is Yes there is a falling off of classic adventure games. If our lists mainly have new games then the answer is No all is not lost. Having said that I think there is always room for the inovative like Ghost in the Sheet.

PIERROT

I am sorry to say "very well put". You hit the nail on the head on several points. I am confused about one thing though...I thought it was much cheaper to make a game in first person as there was no need and bother for putting an actual controlled character in the scenes.

And although I understand this it is a shame that the Adventure game genre, as we once knew it, is slowly slipping away to what you call (and I agree) "Point & Watch"

***The List 2008***
It's certainly not restricted to older games, but almost all of the top rated ones do not shirk on the puzzles. And The List tends to be biased towards newer games because most of the oldest games have the problem of not playing on newer systems without first learning to use an emulator or locating a fan-made XP installer -- something most new adventure gamers are not going to do. Older graphics also put some people off before they're even willing to give a game a try and see if they enjoy the gameplay.

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But we're starting to get a little off topic, which isn't just about the difficulty of puzzles but the scarcity of puzzlers like Schizm, Myst, or Shivers.

From Orchgamer's original post


I wouldn't put games like...

Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis
Keepsake
Yoomurjak's Ring
Agon 4: Lost Sword of Toledo
Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy
Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder
Cleopatra: A Queen's Destiny
The Secrets of Atlantis: The Sacred Legacy
Destination: Treasure Island
Nancy Drews
AGON 4

...in the same category with games like Myst or RHEM because they have too much dialogue and/or have inventory-based puzzles. And with the exception of Keepsake (which had too much unnecessary chatter), they have nowhere near the puzzle variety of Shivers. Not that they're bad games, but they're not really puzzler-type games in the way Myst, Riven, or Sentinel are. They may contain a few good puzzles, but it's like having to buy a package of 10 mixed color pens when the only one you want is the green one -- you'd rather just be able to buy a package of green pens.

Destination: Treasure Island was inventory-based and lacked the number of combinations you could make with Return to Mysterious Island. I was very disappointed in Destination: Treasure Island. People actually referred to it as "Mysterious Island Lite." If anything, it helps prove the trend towards easier and easier games.

And no matter how easy you make your games, someone's going to get stuck, even if the only "puzzle" is moving between locations and talking to people. Even in games where another character tells you exactly what to do, the gamer will forget, or not realize what you're referring to. Include a list of objectives that can be accessed by a hotkey, and they'll forget it's there or not understand what it's referring to. That's why we have Hint forums to help people out despite the presence of walkthroughs and hint websites.

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Agondev, thanks for posting. It's interesting to hear from your side of things. I do have a few comments, for whatever they're worth...

I think you've just described what's been referred to as a "cookie cutter game" on other adventure forums -- Adventure games made by a formula without any real inspiration.

• I do not care much about 1st or 3rd person, as long as the game doesn't give me motion sickness.
• I'm getting tired of generic female protagonists. Characters like Professor Hunt and Van Helsing were a relief from the monotony.
• I do not want an American location unless it is truly unusual.
• Exotic excursions are OK.
• "Slightly mystical" plots are OK, but I'm sick of crime style plots or horror for the sake of horror.
• If the game is story-oriented, it had better be an exceptionally good story -- something that is in short supply. And the characters had better be interesting enough that I care about them and what happens to them. And the voice acting needs to be stellar.
• I want puzzle variety, and prefer "fun puzzles" to puzzles where the main/only requirement is that they integrate with the story. I also don't want puzzles so easy that I know how to solve them in 2 seconds and the only time they take is to methodically click through the solution. The most boring, frustrating thing in a game is to have to methodically perform a series of actions over and over again, whether it's clicking through conversations, repeating a boring set of instructions over and over, or repeating a timed or arcade sequence over and over trying to get past it. Casual games often include a puzzle skip for the "minigame" puzzles, but this is rarely seen in adventure games.

Strange that nowhere on your list is a suggestion to avoid arcade or timed sequences. They are anathema to many adventure gamers, who have to request saved games as the only way to get past them. Myself, I can usually get past them after a while, but I still don't like them.


If you're referring to adventure games being released on casual game portals like Big Fish, it's not too surprising that casual gamers get lost with adventure games. Think of the first adventure game you ever played. You probably were a little lost at first. But I think the solution here is to add a hint feature or add better clues within the games rather than dumbing down the games. For example, clicking your character might cause him to comment on what he thinks he should do. Successively clicking him could either be more specific or could mention other things he could do.

And if you're thinking of hidden object games that are becoming more adventurelike (IHOG's -- interactive hidden object games), that seems to be a developing genre, though not a replacement for adventures. I found it interesting that Azada: Ancient Magic was criticized for being "too easy" compared to the first Azada, which wasn't too difficult to start with. But Azada was a collection of puzzles while Azada: Ancient Magic was a collection of mini-adventures.

Casual games have an additional problem that makes it even more necessary that no one gets stuck -- they don't allow the gamer to control saved games. If you're stuck in a casual hidden object game, you can't get a saved game to get past the problem spot. If the problem is an object you can't find, and no one else is able to help you from looking at a screenshot, about all you can do is replay the entire game and hope to get a different set of objects to find on your next playthrough. Otherwise you have to give up the game.

Thank you Pierrot (and all of you) for your comments. I share many feelings with you on the gamer/adventure game consumer side about many current games, but wanted to know if a professional felt the same way. (BTW, I know you wanted to keep your thoughts to the particular "puzzle" topic, but I would be interested to hear more, and I think it is all related.)

There is a survey for gamers up on JA+ to tell developers what we want in adventure games. In many of the questions are related to perspective and game design, they give a section for comments. I found myself writing all the time, "none of this matters, write a great game first and it will fit." (I do wish now I would have added bring back more puzzles! The more difficult the better!)

I have two comments I would like to share. I realize I will have to make some generalizations, and there will of course be different opinions on specific games, but I make this in regards to the general discussion (also I am not an industry professional so my use of some terms may be a little off):

1. All "great" games have great design whether in story (often this is the biggest component), entertainment (puzzles, etc), and/or technical aspects (graphics, programming etc). For example we often place Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight, and the Myst series on the great game list yet all of them have different gameplay. Grim Fandango used the keyboard for movement which some gamers dislike. Gabe Knight 2 was filmed (is that FMV?) and had a wonderful story. Myst had a great story but was told in an entirely different way than the others. The Monkey Island games used completely different interfaces. They ALL had great, and often very difficult puzzles as well. The puzzles were part of the adventure experience. More importantly they had a great story AND design.
Keep in mind the story didn't even have to be complex. Take Shivers for example: The story here isn't that involved, but add some interesting graphics, a huge museum to explore, and an important task to solve, and you had a great game.
My point is that I find myself disappointed when I see surveys ask me about specific minor aspects of game like how we move our character. I respect that other gamers may have a strong opinion about this, but when I look back at many of the favorites, the specifics of gameplay aren't consistent. Write a great game. Be committed to the story. Spend time with your graphics and how you want the game to look and feel. Challenge us. Give us great puzzles to challenge us so we have something to achieve and DO while we play.
I do understand, however, that for some people some of the issues less important to me are serious to them. Some people may not have the ability to perform fast actions found in timed event or action sequences. I imagine this become an issue that could hinder the creative aspects of game especially when they have to consider maximizing profit.

My second comment is a request actually. Pierrot mentioned that he was more concerned with "creation" in his games and I would like to thank and encourage him to continue with this. I see many parallels between the adventure game industry and my line of work music especially non-profit Classical music (some day I want to write an article about this and how both areas seem to develop and survive opposite to the more mainstreamed/industrialized areas of the business).
I think of adventure games, at their best, works of art similar to great movies, books, comics, symphonies, etc. When designers focus on the creating of an adventure we get a great game, and usually great puzzles!

I can't help but thinking, that maybe Monkey Island - The Special Edition, could be a way into adventure games for a lot of people.

As for the "old" games not playing on newer systems, I'm hoping places like GOG.com will help in that aspect.
Making them easy to install with just one click.
Just look at their newest game Tex Murphy - there's much talk about how the DVD version is impossible to get to play, but the gog team is trying very hard to get it to work with "just one click"

That would be quite a feat if GOG could get the DVD version of Overseer working.

Personally, I don't consider the Puzzlers are "dying" at all

I think phases of what Puzzlers might consider popular come and go. So the trends shift from one type of puzzle being the "IT" thing of today to something different being the "IT" for tomorrow.

How difficult must it be to try and provide an overall balance of puzzles that will make "everyone" happy, anyway ?? .

We all look for different things from a game.
And what might bore me to death could be an exhilarating experience for someone else !!

Thanks Pierrot, for your insightful post, you have said and put into words *much better than I ever could*, things I have thought about the movies and games industry,
BROVO!!!!


Marcia

Whether a person likes a game or dislikes a game, does NOT depend on the game, it ALWAYS depends on the person playing the game! That's it in a nutshell. All brains are different, of course, they have to be. Consider the fact that all fingerprints are different. If something that simple is different, then it follows that something as complex as a brain will also be different.
I think the best any game developers can do is to be true to their own vision. That way, at the very least, they have a guarantee that there will be some who like the game!

It seems many of us agree on this issue. I am interested to know why you feel the "puzzlers" are not dying Mad? Do you feel this type of game is represented in the current market?

Hi orchgamer

I consider them to be only "sleeping"

I think it quite likely that in time someone will "discover" them all over again and then they will once again become the fashion.
[They are just not so, perhaps, at present. Which is why I wrote of "trends".]

Much like clothes !!
We have shops here in the UK where fantastic prices are charged for original clothes from bygone times.
Oh, how I wish I'd kept mine .... I could be selling them now and making my fortune

Cheers.

Mad

Mad, I have the highest hopes that you are correct and we will see the adventure puzzlers come back and soon. If not, I am afraid I will find myself playing new adventures less and less...

I do have a few new games to try (once I get through my current pile) thanks to this discussion so I am grateful.

If you are like me and like all of the puzzles in the games you play, please join me in speaking up to the developers. Thanks everyone!

I've written a message to Kheops Studios through their website form email. I don't know if it will do any good, but they made Safecracker 2006 and may be the best bet for a mid-size developer.

Maybe Streko Graphics would be another one to write to, since they made Aura. But I didn't care for what they did with Sacred Rings, and looking at their latest screenshots, they seem to be moving away from what made the first Aura so much fun for me.

In the meantime, I'm glad we have games like The Filmmaker and RHEM IV to look forward to.

Thanks Jenny100.

Does Gameboomers have a place where with links where we could send messages like this to adventure game studios? Would this be a good idea or perhaps cause unwanted problems for either the studio or gamer?

I agree with you, I will be looking into The Filmaker and RHEM IV when they are released.

No, we don't have anything like that.
I'm not even sure if it's possible.
I don't have any more connections with game studios than any other Gameboomers member.

>> Would this be a good idea or perhaps cause unwanted problems for either the studio or gamer?

I do think that developers are keeping an eye on the reactions of gamers even if these are not addressed directly to them. In my opinion Gameboomers, for example, is a perfect place to get feedback from. It only takes a little searching and there are a number of great functions to make it easy. Just keep writing down what you like or dislike - and you've done a lot:)

I received an answer from Kheops. They said they are working on a game much like Safecracker -- but they need to find a publisher.