What Puzzles Do You Think Haven't Played Fair?

I nominate................

All Of MYST V: End of Ages

I absolutely loved all of the other MYST games, but with this one, Rand and the crew ran out of good ideas. It's wise to end it now, because this turkey is a stinker.

And.............Who is Escher, and why do we care?
And.............Why were those preying mantises (pl, sic?) put in to muddy up the plot?

There was a puzzle in Necronomicon where you don't get the clue on how to open the puzzle lock on a door until after you've gone through the door. That was pretty stupid.

Beyond Time had a mandala puzzle with more than one correct solution, but only one of the solutions worked.

Any slider that is able to start in a non-solvable configuration.

Actually, Missing since January has to have the most unfair puzzles I've seen in a game, imo. They were so annoying that I didn't finish the game. I thought they did not belong in an adventure game, especially a mystery, and we should have been warned that most of the game consisted of getting through one pinball type game after another.

I'm in the middle of the Riddle of Master Lu and for the most part liking it very much but one of the puzzles from that game also stands out in my mind as being unfair. The secret lab in Danzig puzzle. It's super long and complicated to figure out how to get in and what to do once there but fun. What's unfair about it is that after all that, just when you're congratulating yourself for doing it correctly and without a walkthrough, you realize that it's just as complicated to get out of the lab.

Melanie

The timed puzzle at the end of NDs Stayed Tuned for Danger where you have to press a random sequence of symbols to get out of the TV studio. It seemed to be random each time so you couldn't learn the sequence - I lost count of how many times I blew up the studio and just uninstalled the game in a fit of frustration!

I agree with BaldBob. Still feeling bad that I did not finish a Myst game. Never thought I would be THAT bored with Myst.

I's been a while...but I think it was in MJ2. In this puzzle you had to walk above the fog and underneath you had to arrange the walkway tiles by sound and by counting from above using the lamps as a visual!!!!It was the worst puzzle ever! I actually had to get a saved game to continue on in the game! I messed with that for 3 months! They should never be that hard, I think that spoils the games!

Hello Ozzy -- and welcome to GameBoomers!

I like your Winston Churchill quote.

Thanks Becky! Happy New Year!

Hi, chrissie!

I was also having problems with the timed sequence at the end of "Stay Tuned for Danger", so I downloaded a patch that eliminated the time limit and was able to take my time. Here's a link to the Adventure Company's website if you'd like to download it and finish the game.

http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/support/pc/patches/stfd.php

Susan

Any puzzle that necessitates ploughing through encyclopaedias or reference books in order to find the solution. I'm thinking in particular of the solar system puzzle in The Black Mirror. There is no way I could have tinkered around by guesswork alone and solved that. Well, maybe I could have done, but it would've taken an eon! So instead, I squinted over a reference book with a perplexed expression for an hour or so. (Should have paid more attention in school, I guess.)

I'm with Melanie on the plethora of arcade puzzles in Missing.The ones I objected to were the timed ones,or the stupid mazes with the multiple levels -one right after the other,no way to progress without trying again and again and again. There needed to be some better mixture in that game (non-arcade types)

For me, the puzzles? in Crystal Key just didn't make any sense. Crystal Key was the first game I played after completing Exile, and I put it aside the first time I played it because I couldn't figure out what were the puzzles. The next time I played was some time later and I did get through with the help from a WT, and still those puzzles didn't make sense.

The others are in Schizm, take you pick. It's another one where you had to figure out what the puzzle was and then try and solve it. Some puzzles I accidently discovered and did solve them, others went over my head and caused me to stop playing. Schizm is still archived, unfinished.

Hi Susan

Many thanks for the link!

That's funny--I loved Crystal Key and thought the puzzles were really clever. I agree with you about Schizm, tho'

I would have to add Frankenstein TTEOAM to this list. The over-abundance of secret passageways and other maze-like areas made this less than enjoyable. There was also a room with a combination lock whose combination was hidden in a place you couldn't get to until you'd already been through there, a couple of puzzles that were just meaningless and a plot that didn't actually start until some brand new character showed up halfway through the game... the whole thing was unfair, IMHO.

WW

chrissie I remember that timed puzzle at the end of ND Stay Tuned For Danger. I finally went back and played the game in the junior level so I could see the ending! Never was able to do the timed puzzle in the senior level.

I've played harder games like the Tomb Raider series and had less trouble with timed puzzles in those games!

Jenny100 has already mentioned a couple of my pet peeves. I worked like a dog to figure out the mandela or snake puzzle in Beyond Time, and then discovered that I had one of the "right" solutions that wouldn't work!

And I hate any slider, but that one in Timelapse, where you had about a 25% chance of getting a conformation that couldn't be solved was the worst.

Not to mention the puzzle where you had to move the white squares at the end of Reah--even with a printed solution in front of me, it took about ten tries; there were so many steps that I kept losing my place.

Judging by the number of saved game requests we get on Hints, I would add the laser/robot puzzle in Still Life to that list too...

The Mandala problem in "Beyond Time" (which I wrote a computer program to solve) is well worth mentioning in this thread.

There's going to be some individual differences here. If one is colour-blind to some extent problems involving colours are difficult. Others (and I count myself here) have issues with musical or aural puzzles.

Puzzles I feel are unfair in Adventure games are those which are still difficult even when you know the answer. A case in point is the Spaceship music puzzle in "Myst" - the solution was easy, applying it was pain pain pain. Or for me the last puzzle in Obsidian - I knew what one had to do but there was no way I could see and remember how all the pieces moved.