By using icons which have many uses you increase the level of lateral thinking needed to solve puzzles, but at the same time if you only have 3 of them (as Whispered World has) then it’s very easy to exhaust options and simply stumble into some solutions. WW gets its depth in puzzle solving from the whole Spot sidekick dynamic.
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interesting… but you say you are supposed to press “other” when you don’t know what’s going to happen, just to be amazed… to me, it seems more interesting if you are supposed to press it when you are sure you need to do something that is not listed above…
I meant more that it will always be an option just that you won’t know what the result would be and funny stuff that doesn’t progress the game might even sometimes happen but sometimes it would click for the player that none of the usual options could produce an implicated desired effect, so hopefully it would click for the player that “other” will somehow be the solution and the action might even correspond exactly with what the player predicted. It’s a way of including lots of extra things in a game (say a solution is to jump over a fence) without having to use the word “jump” when you look at the fence. For a while, it might be confusing for the player as they need to get to this place and this annoying fence is in the way and they could think “if only I could jump over this fe… wait a second…” — clicks other and jumps over fence. Perhaps there’s a better application but that’s what was in my mind.
Also, other icons can produce a lot of tasks… possible scheme:
-A mouth icon which might usually be needed to talk to others but will sometimes be needed to drink something, blow something (say a balloon), or whatever.
-A hand might pick up and punch/kick something.
-The ear could listen, adding depth to dialogue based puzzles and NPCs.
-The eye would just look, I suppose.
-Other does crazy things and provides some solutions to puzzles also
Essentially portions of “use” would be contained within the hand and the mouth (because the mouth can produce some use actions). Even the ear might be incorporated in that sense.
So those are some ideas and I haven’t really thought about how the UI would specifically look and how many clicks would be needed.
Ok, but the moment the user realizes that “other” can be used to solve puzzles, he will start clicking it mechanically without thinking. (just like he does with the “hand” in sierra games) And the purpose would be defeated…
Yes, that’s the problem. It’s too easy to just brute-force such few options. It would be too easy to just use “other” without thought.
What if you make it artificially difficult to press “other” ? Say, you need to press and hold for 10 seconds?
Reminds me of a puzzle I got stuck on in The Dig…
I don’t really like the idea of making the option artificially difficult to execute but right now I cannot think of any obvious elegant solutions.
I remember The Dig basically plays by itself 
but it’s time to replay it. I’ve forgotten everything.
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It’s a well-balanced game in terms of difficulty and I enjoyed some of the intricate tasks but they certainly didn’t please everyone. I’d say it’s an underrated game with a great atmosphere and ambience.
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Yep. For me it looks like that they have a great story. Then they are trying to put some puzzles in it and decorate the result with some mini games. I had this feeling …
… especially when I played Deponia. It looked like they began with the development not knowing how to end the whole thing.
Are you playing with the developer comments?
AFAIR Sierra used this in some of the later adventures. The problem is, that most times the mouth is used to talk to a person. So the player assumes at some stage of the game that he could only talk with the mouth. If you use your icons, you have to state clear that the player can lick, drink, etc. with the mouth too (at least once).
Spot from WW is a little bit different, because he turns into an usable object. I.e. a burning ball.
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Just for reference… Other cases where my technique can’t be applied:
TWP: push trampoline. You cannot easily add more trampolines to the game, so that, when you click that trampoline and see “push”, seeing push is not a giweaway.
Day of the tentacle: “open grandfather clock”. You can’t add 4-5 grandfather clocks in the house. (so that, when you click the clock, seeing “open” is not a giveaway).
However, what I wonder is: are these puzzles that are worth preserving? I mean, they are rather easy anyway. Let’s take one that is not easy then:
Monkey Island 2: pickup dog. this is difficult because it is not only an unusual action for a dog that size; but also because the purpose (throw the dog in the heap of maps) does not make sense (to me). Now, if you click the dog and see “pickup”, the puzzle is spoiled. Can you solve this problem? I guess you could put other dogs in the game before that one. So that to see “pickup” is no more a givewaway. But here, the question is again: is this a puzzle to preserve?
In other words, I’ve got a feeling that a good puzzle has got to be logical, and the difficulty must come from “multitude”. You know that you can do X with objects of class C, but the puzzle is to understand you must do X on THAT one object of class C.
Now that I think of it, isn’t “use” in scumm exactly the same as the “other” verb? (e.g.: indy4: use totem = climb totem)
Where? And why?
Again: Where and why? 
Can you give an example?
“Use” is a “serious” verb. Let’s take your totem as an example: If someone tells you to “use” a totem, what would you do? I assume you wouldn’t climb it up. No, you would try to use the totem with an object. Or push it. Or something similar. So the “other” verb is needed.
But let’s assume we have an adventure where we can climb the totem with the “use” verb. If you have another “other” verb, our hero could do something funny, like chop the totem in two parts.
Is it possible you misread? I said “cannot”, not “can”…
Argh. Yes. Sorry. (It’s too hot here in germany at the moment ;))
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And this is the part where I think you go wrong in your reasoning. If the player is invested in your game (because he bought it, he admires your work, he love adventure games, he is excited to play it, etc.), then you must trust that the player will do the right thing because it is more fun to do so.
Why do you think a lot of people don’t like spoilers? Think about that for a second. With the Internet full of walk-throughs, guides, and other people with all the answers… why doesn’t EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the Internet find the answers and cheats to all games and puzzles, or the endings to all movies, instead of experiencing them?
This is the same argument you are making: the moment people realize that the ending to the movie can be found on the Internet, they will just read it mechanically without thinking and spoil the movie.
Yet, this doesn’t happen. Why? Because people are more complex than what you suggest.
I will submit something else: There are people who hate spoilers and there are people who don’t care about them. The first set will avoid them at all costs so as not to ruin their experience; the second set does not care because the experience is what’s important, not the answer, and they enjoy it just as well, whether they know the ending or not.
This is the same reason people would replay a game after finishing it or re-watch a movie, even though they know exactly what’s coming.
If people use the “Hand” icon in Sierra games mechanically to click on everything, I submit that this is because the game’s puzzles are crap and mostly unfair, and require a lot of random trial and error in order to solve. This is bad design by any definition.
I don’t recommend you use an “Other” button at all. That’s a cop-out that suggests you didn’t properly define the vocabulary of your game. However, if you have a “Do Action/Use/Hand” button, then it can be applied for anything. This is not a bad thing. Sure, you have narrowed down the vocabulary of your game, but that means that your puzzles have to be creative and interesting on their own right, rather than relying on the “difficulty” of forcing the player to guess the verb.
Another point I’d like to raise is that you in particular seem to be looking for “rules” to apply generally to puzzle and game design. I think this is misguided. This leads to “mechanical” design (or “programmer design”) instead of an interesting and good game. It would be much better to have a set of guidelines and patterns that suggest common ways of doing something, but apply them on a case-by-case basis.
As @Someone stated above, the mechanics to invent a specific puzzle depend on the puzzle and the game. Yet, you are looking for a “silver-bullet” where you can define a “rule” to create puzzles and re-use it like a cloning stamp all over your game. This, to me, is lazy.
-dZ.
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I trust him, but he does not realize that is not how he is supposed to play. He does not realize that clicking the hand mechanically is not the way you are supposed to play.
So he will still do it even if he is invested in the game, and even if I trust him.
Or maybe they do it because they believe this is how they are supposed to play.
I see what you are saying. However, both of those are symptoms of the same problem: bad design. Your game interface should be intuitive enough that it makes sense to the player to use naturally.
This doesn’t mean that you must expect the player to know everything. You could provide a simple instruction guide, but the rules of interaction must be simple and make sense to the player.
For example, suppose your game UI is merely four icons: Hand, Mouth, Eye, Bag. Your guide could say something simple like:
- Eye - used to look around and examine objects. E.g., “look at painting,” “examine coffee mug,” etc.
- Mouth - used to talk to people. E.g., “talk to Fred”
- Hand - used to interact physically with the environment and objects, as using your hands. E.g., “open door,” “grab flashlight,” “touch panel,” etc.
- Bag - used to view your inventory.
(This is just made up, so don’t try to analyse it too much…)
The player then can know that the “Hand” icon is for grabbing, touching, opening, and all hand interactions. This serves two purposes: first, it let’s the player know how to interact with his world in a sensible way; second, it limits the vocabulary of actions available so that the player does not try things unsupported.
Both of those purposes come naturally. By using a “Hand” and explaining that it is to manipulate things with your hands, the player automatically will not consider something like “Kicking” part of the mechanics of the game.
This is important and very powerful. If a ball stands in front of the player, the player knows he can’t kick the ball – but he knows he can grab it and throw it. If he even thinks of kicking the ball, he’ll come to realize that there is no way – no verb – to do so. This must be consistent for the world to make sense.
What you must try to avoid is have the hand grab one ball because it’s on the table, and kick another one because it’s on the field. This may make perfect sense to you, but it may seem random and capricious to the player. It is inconsistent.
This sort of natural and intuitive language is what we should be striving for. If the player still doesn’t know what the “Hand” icon is for then we’ve failed somehow to convey its purpose. What else can we do? Perhaps a tutorial, an example, a “First Room” with a door and a key and a simple puzzle that guides the player to grab the key and open the door to solidify the mechanics. There are many and varied ways.
You see, the player is on your side. He doesn’t want to break the game and he doesn’t want to “hack” or cheat. He wants to play and have a good time (he paid for the darn thing!). If you show him how to interact, and it makes sense, he will follow. If not, then he’ll have to figure it out on his own, which is where random interaction occurs.
That’s bad, because at that point the player thinks “there are no real rules, this world makes no sense to me, anything goes…” He doesn’t trust your design any more so he is not inclined to play by the rules. He will hack at it a bit, but eventually get bored and go away. Or never play your games again. We don’t want that, right?
-dZ.
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Yes. But let me be more precise: it is bad UI design. Not bad puzzle design. This is important. Because it reveals that the UI matters. And it’s silly to redesign the puzzle when in fact what you have is a UI problem. So this is why I feel the objections “redesign the puzzle instead” are misplaced. Here we are clearly in the presence of a flaw in the UI, not in the puzzle.
I totally agree that if the user knows that he is supposed to think first, instead of clicking mechanically, the problem does not exist.
But the question is: how can we make this information reach the user?
Now, you are suggesting: write this in the instruction manual. Well, if we could be sure the user has got the manual, and they read it, I agree there would be no problem. But sorry if I tell you this assumes too much.
As I have come to believe during this thread, a much better solution is the following: at the root of the problem is that we are trying to find a bunch of verbs (or icons like hand-mouth-ear) that are good for everything. But there can’t be a bunch of verbs that can express everything well. So the solution IMHO is: each class of objects must have their own set of verbs. Then, when the user plays, his thought process will be like this:
here is what we can do on trees: climb, look, shake, hide behind.
here is what we can do on windows: open, close, walk through, break;
and so on.
So there is an initial phase where you are communicating to the user the “rules of the game”, so to speak. And after he knows all this, he starts thinking and solving puzzles, within the clear boundaries you have set.
(Why does this solve the problem? Because now the user does not have a hand on which to click mechanically. The hand has been broken into 4-5 verbs. So, to play mechanically, he’d have to click 8-10 times for each object in the location)