I said “it’s not true that Ron’s UI makes brute forcing easier (if enough wrong combinations are handled)”.
And your reply is: “Yes, but even if it did make brute forcing easier, (that is, even if you didn’t handle the wrong combinations), this would not matter at all. You should not worry about players who brute force, because they are already punishing themselves enough”.
Is this your argument?
If it is… well, it’s contradictory. Because you just assumed that brute forcing has become easier. But then, it’s no more true that those players are punishing themselves enough!
It’s important that brute force keeps being costly to players. Otherwise it’s not true that they are punishing themselves enough when doing it. And more people will do it. They might not even perceive it as brute-forcing anymore. They might believe they are supposed to play like that. And then it would be total disaster.
Punishment doesn’t come from the process of bruteforcing, but the fact that you resorted to it.
That’s like having a hint button. It’s easy… but if you press it, you feel ashamed. At least, if you are the kind of player that likes solving puzzles.
I wrote a blog post long time ago about why I didn’t include hints in KY.
Well, the difference is that with scumm you can’t completely avoid the generic error message (it doesn’t work, or similar).
because you can’t handle all combinations with custom messages. (some combinations don’t make sense, some do but there are no good jokes about them that you can invent)
Now you will probably ask what’s wrong with the generic error message. But that’s a different question… one which is very hard to answer. I myself , until yesterday, thought there’s nothing wrong with the custom error message. I thought: “it’s just punishment for trying something that doesn’t make sense.” But it turns out this way of reasoning is problematic for several reasons… (is anybody interested in discussing that? )
Oh, ok. But if you stop perceiving what you are doing as brute force, you don’t have this kind of punishment either…
And I believe they would stop perceiving it as brute force. They would think that’s the way they are supposed to play. Imagine to apply Ron’s UI to Kill Yourself. What would happen? I believe the player would start playing in a totally different way. He would start trying everything on everything “just to see what happens”, “just to see if that makes sense”. And if you try to object, he would tell you “how am I supposed to know if that makes sense if I don’t try?”
That’s true. In fact, I would just throw in a big set of bogus interactions/reactions to avoid the problem we all found, that is, dragging around an object on the screen to see if a sentences comes up.
Think of the microwave. You can put almost everything in the microwave, if it fits. With an interface like Delores, I’d probably add even more, because now it’s not just “put inside”. If I drag the wrench, I can have “hit” or “disassemble” and have the guy say the doesn’t want to ruin the microwave because it’s the only thing he cares about.
I’m adding new interactions thanks to the extended verb spectrum, but I’m not changing any puzzle. I have room for more jokes while also reducing the chance of an accidental, bruteforce solution.
A flaw I see in the interface is that inventory is only meant to be dragged. I like when inventory objects have more uses - one with another, and one by itself. If you could right-click inventory, you could add even more (but I think this feature can be added via script, I’m not sure).
Think of food (as I personally do all the time). Right click shows “eat”. But drag it to the microwave to reheat it. Maybe a cup of tea, which you can drink or blow on it to make it colder. Drag a pack of sugar onto the cup of tea to sweeten it. And now you also have “stir” as an option. But if you drag it to a character, you offer it.
Not if we focus on the inventory puzzles: If you have, let’s say, 3 objects in your inventory then you can combine each of the objects with each of the other two - regardless if you are in SCUMM or in Delores. The designer has to find reactions to all of them.
Yes, you can. Have a look at “Edna and Harvey”. Beside that you don’t have that many combinations as it seems, because in most adventure games you have round about 10 objects in your inventory. And Ron wrote somewhere that he would like to keep the amount of objects in the inventory low (if I remember correctly).
And we have another drawback: In a drag and drop engine like the Delores engine, I can’t interact with the objects in the inventory in different ways. For example I can’t “open” a tool box or “squeeze” a plushy to make a noise. (edit: Ah, @Guga has mentioned that already )
It’s a punishment for people who don’t think. If the puzzles are well-designed, the player will rarely see those generic messages.
This is exactly how I feel Above, I wrote “it’s a just punishment for trying things that don’t make sense”.
But this line of reasoning has assumptions that are problematic. It contains the assumption that “the player is not supposed to try things that don’t make sense”. And people deny that assumption: they say things like “I don’t want to be punished for being curious about the world” or “I tried that just to SEE if it made sense, and you punished me” or “how am I supposed to know if something makes sense before I try”. Here we have uncovered a serious problem of assumptions about what an adventure game is…
Well, I’m curious… I don’t see how it’s possible, unless 1) the game has few rooms or very few inv objects, or 2) most of the jokes/reactions suck.
Yes, that’s what I called “handling wrong combinations”.
it’s what you already did with the microwave oven.
So we’re saying the same thing… 1) Ron’s UI requires this kind of work, in order to make a game not brute-forceable. And 2) a good game should have this anyway.
I just wanted to point out that brute forcing is always possible and that the ways to prevent it (if the game designer would be worried about that) are sometimes less enjoyable to players who do not brute-force their way to a solution. Or not purposely at least. There’s always going to be some collateral damage.
Why? There’s also readers who’ll flip to the last page of a book first. Their loss.
Implementing a quiz you have to mail in and pass with at least 90% to prove you were paying attention before you are allowed to see that last page - via return mail- would be the equivalent of trying to prevent brute forcing.
There’s always going to be delusional idiots out there. Some even become president of the US of A.
Again… as long as they don’t go on Twitter to diss your game as “stupid… no action… involves puzzles with all kinds of logic…walking simulator”, who cares?
Well, because the easier it is to brute force, the more people will do it.
Otherwise, we could just make a game with this interface: all puzzles are solved automatically by just pressing the Enter key. But, before solving a puzzle, the character warns you: “When you press Enter, I’m going to give the solution to the puzzle. Don’t press Enter until you’ve figured it out yourself. You have all the informations you need to give the solution”.
Now, what’s wrong with this interface? With your reasoning, we should conclude there’s nothing wrong with it. After all, who wants to brute force will still brute force (=press the enter key without thinking). Who wants to play fairly will still play fairly and stop to think before pressing the key.
At this point, I am honestly not sure if there’s something wrong with this interface But then, if there’s nothing wrong with it, why have a UI where you combine objects at all? (maybe combining is just a means to interact? But there are better ways to interact than combining two objects. Context menus for examples)
Basically, with this UI, the game has become like a (nonlinear) Agatha Christie book where Poirot warns you before he gives the solution, to give you a chance to give the solution yourself before turning the page. Who wants to brute force will still turn the page; who does not want will think before turning the page…
There is one. Experimenting is part of the adventure. Not only in adventure games, but in life too. You try things before you learn how to do them. Very seldom do you succeed at first. So, with the “self-playing interface”, you might think you have a solution, then press Enter, and get a different one. This ruins it.
“A person doing a dangerous job”. You think it’s the Sheriff. Then press Enter, and Delores goes to take a picture of you know who. So, was my taking a pic of the Sheriff “trying to brute force”? No, it was not. It was trial and error, which is integral part of these games.
you’re telling me that, even when you have the solution, you might not be sure it’s the correct one? but then it’s a crappy puzzle…
I mean, a good puzzle is one where , if they tell you the solution, you think “of course! It couldn’t be anything else”. “All the pieces fall into place perfectly - there can’t be any other solution”
If they tell you the solution and even then you think “this may or may not be right”, what kind of crappy puzzle is it?
A person doing a dangerous job: there are so many dangerous jobs, and that’s exactly why it is not a great puzzle… where are the “little pieces that fall into place”?
This is not to say there’no place for experimentation. You still need to experiment to understand how things work. To learn what happens when I push a lever, for example. Otherwise you don’t have enough information to give the solution. That’s the proper role of experimentation. To collect information. But after you have all the elements and have the solution, if you still need to experiment to see if the solution is correct, it’s a bad puzzle.
But if you know the solution, you don’t have to experiment anymore. Otherwise you don’t know the solution. For me a bad puzzle is a puzzle that I can’t solve due to the lack of information. I would try to combine everything with everything if I haven’t enough information about what to do next.
Right … what I mean is: if you have the correct solution but you are not sure it’s the correct one, and you need to experiment to see if it’s correct, then it’s not a good puzzle.
Does this sound so crazy ? Think about it this way: how can you have the “aha moment” if you are thinking “this may or may not work”? Having the “aha moment” means that you are thinking “aha, this must be it”.
It is our responsibility to design puzzles in such a way that, once you have the solution, you also know you have it. Many little pieces must fall into place at once, so that you know it can’t be anything else than that.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call that one a great puzzle, but while I suppose it could theoretically be anyone I don’t see how just taking a picture of the sheriff could ever do it within the context of the game. It’s just something you might try to cover your bases. Madame Morena is also doing a dangerous job for example; she could be assaulted by evil spirits or revived mummies at any moment. But you’d have to be taking a picture of the evil spirits attacking her. The sheriff is doing a dangerous job? Really?
There’s only one person doing a job that has an actively dangerous element to it. Even if you didn’t realize it and you thought it could be anyone, that pretty much describes exactly what you’re saying about all the pieces falling into place.
Well… the problem is… once you are in front of that person doing that thing, it’s immediately clear that it satisfies the definition of “dangerous job”. There is no intuition to be had. You just observe it’s a dangerous job you are seeing. There are no “pieces that fall into place” to suddenly reveal “that’s a dangerous job after all”. So I’m not sure if that can be called “a puzzle”.
To turn that into a real puzzle, it needs a redesign: 1) it should not be obvious that that one is a dangerous job. The player should have to make a stretch of imagination to realize it’s a dangerous job. He needs to suddenly think “aha - this can be considered a dangerous job after all! So this must be it.” 2) and of course there should be no other job in the world that could be remotely considered “dangerous”.
(Note: turning the valve to make “that thing” happen is not part of the puzzle, because you don’t deduce you need to turn it. You simply observe what it does. Otherwise it would become a real puzzle: the puzzle would become “understand how to turn a normal job into a dangerous job”. A perfectly good puzzle. And the sheriff’s job would no longer be a candidate, if that is the puzzle.)
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Have a look at “Edna and Harvey”. Beside that you don’t have that many combinations as it seems, because in most adventure games you have round about 10 objects in your inventory. And Ron wrote somewhere that he would like to keep the amount of objects in the inventory low (if I remember correctly).
For me a bad puzzle is a puzzle that I can’t solve due to the lack of information. I would try to combine everything with everything if I haven’t enough information about what to do next.