"I just finished playing Lost in Time again. There were any number of creative puzzles in that game. Remember having to build an electromagnet from spare parts? That was a puzzle."

Certainly do !!
So many absolutely "brain-withering" puzzle memories can be dredged up from past games when we make the effort !!

The first most memorable puzzle I came across in an AG was how to get past that goat in Broken Sword 1 - at the time I didn't have the internet & it took me at least a week trying everything before I sussed it all by myself!

I did love the Serpent Rouge puzzle in GK3 also but needed a few hints to work it out.

I'm not a great 'puzzle' puzzle person but appreciate there have been many good ones that I'd rather not have been confronted with but have given them a bash & sometime beaten them!

chrissie,

I thought many of the puzzles in GK3 were very hard. Broken Sword 1 is still on my recommendation list every year. It is frustrating when you get stuck on a puzzle but it sure does feel good when you work the solution out on your own.

Well, I've been thinking about this and I can't get it down to just three. There are so many good puzzles that I liked. So I'm indulging myself with a much long list, in categories.

Multi-stepped/exploration puzzles:

The Daedalus Club "funhouse" in Gray Matter
The Marble Puzzle in Riven
The 5 book riddles in Yoomurjak's Ring
The 7 chalices in 80 Days

Puzzle sequences that also helped define the characters

Getting the toilet bowl brush in Broken Sword 1
The midnight picnic prep and conversation in Everlight
Getting the pearl factory working in The Whispered World

Puzzles that tied in story elements

Hiring a lawyer (the cat track sequence) in Grim Fandango
The steering wheel flashback in Dark Fall: Lost Souls
The telescope puzzle in Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript
The screening room sequence in Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None

Puzzles I didn't want to solve because watching the characters fail was so much fun

Nancy's dance audition in Nancy Drew: Phantom of Venice
Assil keeping the customers happy in Ankh 2: Heart of Osiris
The Midtown Cowboys improv in Sam & Max Episode 102: Situation Comedy

becky - too funny !
i honestly couldn't think of three right off the bat , and you have yours categorized !

i liked the stealth sequence in da vinci , and most of the puzzles in echo would be right up there for me.

i'm a mutant along with bubba jake - sliders are some of my favorite puzzles , and i liked the laser puzzle in still life !

but solving the oscar puzzle was the one that hooked me on the games for as long as i can play 'em !

Great Topic

There were very many but these seem to stand out for me..

1) getting the coordinates and firing the canon in the Neverhood

2) The mechanical valve - boiler room puzzle in Tomb of Zojir

3) Raising the ship at the dock in Myst

It is a tough question - even while I was typing this up, I was thinking of some other very memorable ones. But these I remember well.

Sureshot is that the Rocket puzzle in Myst where you had to match the notes with the piano? That was a real tuff one for me!

I am a bit in jenny100s camp about visual payoffs. Getting the tram started in the desert scene in Outcry is not only intricate and multilayered, it is rewarded by a wonderful cutscene. A number of puzzles in the Myst games are similarly rewarded.
On a different tack, for diabolic simplicity the fingers puzzle in Monkey Islan 2 is a winner.

Puzzles in the first three Myst games stand out in my mind because I was able to figure out most of them. And because it was my introduction to this type of puzzle solving.

The rocket ship sound puzzle in the first Myst made me really listen. And the resonance rings for Exile because I actually reasoned out the solution. Something I don't usually possess.

There have been a few others since then but the first three Mysts are my favorites.

Homer,
I am really impressed. I thought Myst was one of the hardest games I have ever played and I never would of finished that game without a walkthrough.

The Rhem puzzles - just navagating at times was puzzlement. I do enjoy puzzle driven games but even the Rhem walkthroughs were difficult at times.
The darkside: Am playing God of War 3 and am warming up to the labrynth. This hould be a challenge.

Ahhh...yes, a walkthrough. One for each game was near by if needed. And sometimes they were needed.

There were some puzzles in the first three I did figure out myself. And then there were others I didn't have a clue. So I used a walkthrough to point me in the right direction. Sometimes this worked and sometimes I had to read the walkthrough for the puzzle to solve it.

Take, for example, getting all the papers--I think they were--in the first Myst. One was in the box by the dock. And had it not been for a walkthrough to this puzzle I'd have never found it.

When you talk about hard puzzles, the first Rhem jumps into my mind. Whoa, they indeed were to me.

Hi Kaki's Sister - That's the one - took me a while - but I remember feeling pretty good about solving it.

Kaki's Sister - oops no not that one -sorry - that puzzle was good too. I am talking about the puzzle early on in the game where the ship is sunk at the dock - you have to raise it - there's a linking book on it in the captain's cabin I believe.

The ahha!! came when I heard that distinctive sound that a said "something just happened" - thenn you see the ship afloat and can now go on it.

MYST kinda of stays with you especially if you solve its puzzles without a WT.

I have nothing but admiration for anyone who finished the first Myst without help
I spent most of MY time getting lost just navigating via the snap-shot system, never mind solving puzzles !!

I didn't have too much trouble navigating above ground, it was going underground that gave me fits. I don't remember which Myst it was, but you had to navigate a sub through an underground labyrinth. I don't know how many times I tried before checking a WT for a hint.

Again, I can't remember which Myst, but going through the jungle to free electric fish for power lower down. Talk about walking in circles.

Homer, it's myst 3

I remember that part Homer. Everything under water looked alike and I kept making the same wrong turn! I was very happy when I finally got it!

Homer, there is a underwater trip back from the Island you get to from the rocket ship. When you are finished with all the other puzzles, you have to open the big door back by the dock, then it takes you thru another tunnel of tricks to the underwater ship. That's how you get the Letter back.

Riven also has a great underwater trek, finding secrets of the language, and getting on the huge metal 'Cone' to be lifted up the stone houses on top.


O. K., now that you have succeeded in reminding me how wonderful Myst and Riven are, I have no choice but to drag them out AGAIN!! for a 5th and 6th time.

In one of the later Myst games there was an infernal contraption which I called, for lack of a better term, the "Spider Chair". As I recall it was a combination of sliders, tone recognition, dexterity and logic all in one puzzle. I still have nightmares...

I knew if I kept yammering on about sliders I'd find a kindred spirit, and we're mutants,too! Take that, you norms!!

I like sliders too! (and I also like mazes)

I, too, like sliders but have to admit defeat sometimes with them

Not all of the slider puzzles in the Myst games caused me problems. I understood what they were meant to do. It was the ones that didn't look like they did anything until you realized something did happen, just not where you could see.

Was it Riven where you had to figure out the weight of the orange ball so the track could be set to keep from breaking the rolling ball? I confess, WT helped me through this one.

macmac I believe that was Myst Revelation.