Be honest: did you use a walkthrough (or any "external help")?

[DZ-Jay]

@LowLevel

@Matt

but it seems like there could be a way for the game to know when you are stuck

The game has a way to understand in which point of the story (or puzzle chart) the player is, but there is no way for the game to know why the player is stuck.

Maybe he’s stuck because he missed something, maybe it’s because he has not understood a connection between two facts. Even for humans is difficult sometimes to understand what kind of problem the player has and I don’t think that this helping process can be automatized by the game to the point of giving correct hints via dialogue.

The current solution (the hint line) works because it gives to the player hints about all the puzzles of that section of the game, leaving to the player the task of understanding which hint solves his problem.

Although that is very true, the game knows the state of every puzzle that is required in order to advance and progress the story. Therefore, it should be able to tell which puzzles you are currently stuck on and give you a hint, or at the very least remind you that that is the part of that you must complete now.

This is especially true in places where the user is stuck in a single puzzle which happens to be the bottleneck for everything else to proceed. This happened to me twice while playing the game.

In such moments any hint or guidance towards the goal may help.

It doesn’t have to be perfect 100% of the time. It just has to cause no problems in the normal case, and provide some help in the exceptional one.

[LowLevel]

@DZ-Jay

This is especially true in places where the user is stuck in a single puzzle which happens to be the bottleneck for everything else to proceed.

I agree in this case, but is the system also applicable when the player has multiple concurrent puzzles to solve, like it’s usual in Thimbleweed Park? How can the game understand which puzzle is giving troubles to the player?

[DZ-Jay]

@LowLevel

@DZ-Jay

This is especially true in places where the user is stuck in a single puzzle which happens to be the bottleneck for everything else to proceed.

I agree in this case, but is the system also applicable when the player has multiple concurrent puzzles to solve, like it’s usual in Thimbleweed Park? How can the game understand which puzzle is giving troubles to the player?

Well, here’s the thing: as long as there are multiple concurrent puzzles to solve, the player can switch to a different task. Most of the rather grave “stuck” situations occur when the player has exhausted all other puzzles that could be completed at a given time and everything else is hinging on this one critical step he has not taken.

Even if that bottleneck is composed of more than one puzzle, it will probably be no more than a handful; and the game is still in a position to offer guidance.

In my opinion, covering that case takes care of the worst problems.

[Caven]

@Caven

I managed to get through Thimbleweed Park without any external help…

I realize now that this statement is not true. I did need to look up a video guide for one puzzle.

And now that I think about it, anyone who claims they didn’t do the same (or rely on equivalent external information) is almost certainly a liar.

[seguso]

@LowLevel

.How can the game understand which puzzle is giving troubles to the player … when the player has multiple concurrent puzzles to solve?

can’t we assume that the player is stuck in all of them? (Otherwise, why would he ask for help)

(This is also why I read walkthroughs from the start. The first thing I haven’t done is very likely to unblock me, even if it is in a place different from the place where I believe I must act.)