Should adventure games have inbuilt hint systems?

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[quote=“Guga, post:7, topic:828, full:true”]
I’m not a fan of hints since… well, solving puzzles is the core of the game. You might as well watch someone else play. I know there are a lot of people who actually do that - I still don’t understand what’s the fun in it.[/quote]
SOLVING puzzles is at the core of the game. If one puzzle has somebody so stumped that they simply cannot figure it out, and that puzzle is a barrier to progress, then they’re not solving puzzles anymore–they’re just hitting a wall until they give up entirely. Having to accept a hint or outright solution for a puzzle or two isn’t as bad as just giving up on every other puzzle in the game, because of one seemingly impassable obstacle.

I absolutely disagree on this. Anyone who sincerely considers themselves to be a hardcore adventurer would not use it. I got stuck in a few sections of Thimbleweed Park. In one case, I was able to progress due to a bug that disabled the obstacle presented by the puzzle, and in another case the puzzle solution was entirely optional and could be easily bypassed. Having completed the game without properly solving those puzzles wasn’t good enough for me, so I replayed those sections so that I could figure out what I missed.

Then there was the second playthrough,. There were a couple of places where I got stuck due to misremembering where certain inventory items were. I know I found those items legitimately the first time, but even then I didn’t want to resort to hints. I ended up spending a bunch of time finding those items the hard way for the second time.

I think an actual hardcore adventurer would have the same mentality. If a player is willing to resort to hints or solutions for anything other than the most extreme cases (strong possibility of a bug, or a game of such bad design that puzzles still don’t make sense even after finding out their solutions), then they’re not a hardcore adventurer.

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Was it a sexy bug? :slight_smile:

Spoiled? But it’s your fault for being weak :stuck_out_tongue:

IMHO it’s important that hints in a game are displayed optionally (e.g. you have to actively press a button instead of someone automatically starting talking after some predefined time; or they can be deactivated completely).
But I wouldn’t make it unnecessary cumbersome to get hints. If you do get hints although you don’t like to be spoiled it’s your fault. It shouldn’t be harder to get the hints in-game, you just need to work harder on your will.

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I think, if the hint system is integrated into the game in a nice way, then that can be a really cool thing. (I remember I put an invisible hamster in one of my text adventures, which you can take out of his cage and place on your shoulder so he can give you hints, if you ask him! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )

But having just a button labelled “Hint” like it’s available in some puzzle games wouldn’t be very fitting.

(I haven’t tried the HintTron3000™ yet, but integrating it via the phone seems a very cool solution!)

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But then players are standing around the puddle, trying every item with every other item and every item with the puddle and still won’t be able to proceed…

Unless you move the indicator to Delores room so you pick up the trophy.
Then move the indicator to the radioactive waste. But should the indicator only appear when the character carrying the trophy is nearby or for every character?
And then the same with the actual puddle itself?

Beside such indication destroying the immersion it’s not easy to determine an what level to show something like this in a game like TWP.

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That’s a sweet idea!

In games with sidekicks hints are often implemented in such similar way, e.g. in Sam&Max from Telltale Games Max will give you hints if you are stuck for some time (it’s configurable via settings and luckily can be turned off).

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Thanks for the comment Nor! You make some important points:

Yes, but this is intended. :slight_smile: The “puzzle here” icon does not mean you have all the objects needed to solve the puzzle. It means that you have all the informations needed to solve the puzzle. (i.e., that you have seen the trophy, not that you’ve picked it up).

It may sound ad-hoc, but the rationale is this: I only want to spend mental effort to solve a puzzle when I am sure I have all the clues needed to solve the puzzle.

Do you still see a problem with this?

I see this problem, but it’s that I can’t think of a better solution.

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I think the phone system is good - I didn’t try it, but at least it’s still something you have to actively do to get hints, and it’s not just ONE button you click which is always visible on the screen.

It’s also perfect since the game is about “being in an adventure game”, so it makes PERFECT sense that someone knows the future and what you have to do. I hope it gets mentioned by Chuck and Delores in the end :stuck_out_tongue:

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Oh, noes! :fearful:

Did you file a bug report? :slight_smile:

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The problem is: what is the puzzle, what to indicate and what not?
The puddle is just one step of the puzzle of “attending the secret meeting” which is a puzzle needed for the puzzle “entering the factory” which is part of the puzzle “solving the whole game”. As picking up radioactive waste is just another step in this big chain of puzzles it’s not really easy to determine where and when to show such indicators.

Actually when you first start the game or at least when it opens up (e.g. getting the map) EVERY location would be full of such indicators. I think it’s quite hard to implement such thing in a sensible way.

The HintTron implementation sounds like a good solution to me as it’s based on an incremental help system. But it’s also complex to implement because you have to determine the current state and decide what the player could/should do next…

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Another good point. (why do I like so much to talk about this stuff? it’s scary :))

However, I think the problem is only apparent. Let me explain.

True, we have puzzle chains, so it is not clear if each step of a chain should be considered a puzzle, or only the last step should be considered a puzzle.

for example: taking the wrench is a puzzle in itself, but it is also a means to solve another puzzle (turning the lever). So it is not clear if taking the wrench should be considered a puzzle or not.

But… this is not a problem: you just need to ask yourself: could the user have anticipated what the wrench would be needed for? If the answer is yes, then the wrench must not be considered a puzzle in itself. If the answer is no, then the wrench should be considered a puzzle.

when I took the wrench, I had no way to know what it would be useful for. So for me that puzzle is an end, not a means. So the “puzzle here” icon should show for the wrench. (where, it is a different question)

With this rule of thumb, it seems to me clear what should be considered a puzzle and what not.

when I understood what to do with the puddle, I did not know why I needed to follow people in the forest, or what this would be useful for. So for me that puzzle is an end, not a means. So the “puzzle here” icon should appear near the puddle. (if I’ve seen the trophy and the radioactive liq)

It is not obvious to me that in the beginning every location would be full of such indicators. In the beginnin, you don’t have informations to solve any puzzle, it seems to me. Only after walking, looking, and talking, you gradually get enough info to solve puzzles.

I still haven’t had time to see the HintTron and how it works. So far I can’t imagine how it would solve the problem. (I think it has different purpose than to make sure the user does not reason about puzzles he can’t yet solve).

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The problem is that everyone thinks differently.

For me for instance it was completely different:
I have already visited factory grounds and I knew I needed a wrench to get to the battery which I needed to get into the factory.
I remember the Pigeons Brothers having a wrench from the hydrant puzzle. So I knew needed to meet up with them somehow, getting their wrench.

I disagree in the case when talking about a wrench:
A wrench is very obviously a tool and is very likely needed to be used somewhere (in any adventure game!).
Therefore an indicator wouldn’t really makes sense here I’d say. (Wherever that ‘here’ is since you first have to find the hotel guest to know the room, so should the indicator just be put on the hotel? Or the reception/monitor? Door on the floor?).
Especially in TWP puzzles are widely distributed, making such decisions hard.

Regarding out puddle puzzle example: When do we have the information to solve it?
You called it a puzzle end since there is no obvious information telling us to do anything with the puddle (than out of curiosity).

So I guess this would be an example which would need to show the indicator since the beginning?
Or maybe in someplace during the game the secret meeting needs to be more obviously announced to be in the forest?

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I see. If the puzzle is a means or an end depends on when you find it.

good point. But it’s not a problem: the logic to show the “puzzle here” is context-sensitive, so it can do this:

if you walk near the wrench: 

     if you have already seen the factory and the lever, then 
          do not show the "puzzle here" icon. 
     else
           show it.

(because if you have seen the lever, you can guess what the wrench is for, so it is not an end in itself, but a means to another puzzle).

(However, in this case I am being imprecise: the puzzle is not to pick up the wrench, but to have the pigeon brothers come to the hotel. So the “puzzle here” icon should not appear when you are close to the wrench, but when you are close to the reception. You know what I mean.)

I guess, as soon as you’ve seen someone walk on the puddle, you have all the informations to solve it. ---- Edit: no, wait. Until you’ve seen the trophy and the green liquid, you don’t have all the informations to solve it. :slight_smile:

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OK, in this case we wouldn’t have such indicator until late in the game when we have access to the factory grounds. So if you get stuck beforehand you wouldn’t try to play around with the puddle because there is no indicator. Good, this is the reason we thought about this in the first place.

But if you decide to not have them in some place or just forget it somewhere the player may get very frustrated because he started relying to much on those.
I think proper hints fitting the game world (like people walking through the puddle) should always be preferred than making such artificial indicators.

I’m also not a fan of “arrows” on top of RPG NPCs who are questgivers etc.

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[quote=“Cerator, post:28, topic:828, full:true”]Oh, noes! :fearful:

Did you file a bug report? :slight_smile:
[/quote]
I didn’t file a bug report. It’s a known issue that was mentioned by others months ago in the blog, so I decided not to submit a redundant bug report. And at the time, I wasn’t sure it was a bug, since it was possible I just solved the puzzle without understanding it somehow. It was only on the second attempt at that puzzle that I confirmed I had experienced a bug the first time, and by then others had mentioned it.

It was a sexy bug indeed. :wink:

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35

That’s really a nice solution, it’s integrated with the game itself and it should feel more natural. :slight_smile:

Do you remember any other adventure game that used a sidekick as a hint system?

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I like it, my only concern is that it could make the game a bit too easy, because independently realizing that there is a puzzle in the first place might be considered by some players an important part of the intuitive process and something that they wouldn’t like to avoid/bypass.

So, when the puzzle icon appears it means that the player has seen all the objects that he/she needs to make the deduction, right?

What do you mean by “seen”? Do you mean that the player has entered the room in which the object is openly displayed or when the player actually “Looks at” it?

I was wondering if this kind of hint system would require the game to be designed in a different way. For example, this hint system would show me the puzzle icon when I have all the information that I need to make a deduction/connection but maybe one of the objects involved in the puzzle solution was shown to the player many hours before and the player forgot about it.

While a TWP-style hint system could be used to remember the player where to find something, your hint system just assumes that the player has a perfect memory and I don’t know how much realistic this scenario is. The “solution” would be to design puzzles that require only object seen recently or, at least, not a long time before.

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Very true. It can be an important part of the puzzle.

(For similar reasons I am not sure that object highlighting on mouseover is a good idea)

I also have other concerns… suppose you don’t see the “puzzle here” icon, then you do something, and then you see the “puzzle-here” icon turns on. Then you understand that what you just did is a crucial clue… and this could be too much of a giveaway. so the dynamics could not work well.

yes.

in the specific case of the trophy, you need to actually look at it, otherwise you don’t know the material of the trophy, and therefore you don’t have enough clues.

but in general, I can’t answer your question…

true, but it’s not designed to solve that problem. It is only designed to solve the problem “if I need to rack my brain for one day trying to solve a puzzle, I want to be sure I have been given all the clues to solve it”. It is not meant to solve the problem “I don’t want to consume my brain”. That is a very different problem :slight_smile:

Edit: maybe you are making a distinction between “I have been given all the clues” and “I have been given but forgotten”. ok, but I don’t see how to know if you have forgotten something I told you.

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[quote=“seguso, post:37, topic:828, full:true”](For similar reasons I am not sure that object highlighting on mouseover is a good idea)
[/quote]
I think object highlighting on mouse-over is a pretty important feature, otherwise it would be necessary to constantly click all over the place just to figure out if an object can be interacted with. Considering how many seemingly useful items in games turn out to be nothing more than background art, I don’t think it’s a good idea to make it even harder to spot interactive objects. If it’s important to be able to hide items among other items in order to avoid telegraphing puzzles, it makes more sense to add additional interactive objects with funny or interesting descriptions, so that the mere presence of an interactive object isn’t an obvious indication that it’s part of a puzzle. The reason I prefer adding interactive objects is that they give the game more opportunity to say something about the character or environment, whereas not highlighting objects on mouse-over just results in a lot of silent “you can’t do that”.

Just for clarification, when I say “objects”, I’m not just talking about items that can be picked up. I’m also talking about items drawn into the background that may be limited to “look at” functionality. The poster and lava lamp in the radio station are examples of that.

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Well, sometimes I know already the solution to a puzzle but I can’t figure out what commands should I give to achieve it.

Example: in Day of the Tentacle, I knew I had to switch the red mummy with red-tape-coverd Dr. Fred. The solution was right there. But every time I tried to use the rope on Dr. Fred, I would instead PUSH Dr. Fred, triggering the sequence of the IRS agent putting Dr. Fred back on his bed. The mummy was right there and the agent didn’t even see it. I eventually gave up and looked up a walkthrough… I was supposed to “USE MUMMY ON DR. FRED”. This was not logic to me because previously Bernard had said the mummy was too heavy for him to carry.

Example: In TWP, the Rikers puzzle. I knew Franklin could zap open the door, but the door never opened. It never occured to me that Reyes had to PUSH the opened door, because when you use the card, the door opens itself without having to push it.

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Well, I think that it could work well, it’s just that the developer has to accept the fact that this kind of hint system could make the game a bit too easier. But we can’t exclude that for a specific audience (the more casual players, maybe?) this kind of help wouldn’t be welcome.

I have just thought of anther situation where this hint system would “help too much”. Let’s say that the player has a battery and that he believes that to charge it he needs to go to the sewers because there is a room with exposed wires, there.

The same moment the player reaches that location and the hint system does not show the puzzle icon (because the planned way to charge the battery has nothing to do with those wires), the player immediately understands that his intuition was wrong, even if he has not even tried to use the battery with the exposed wires.

Maybe this is an additional way in which this hint system helps the player a bit too much.