I’m hopelessly stuck in episode 2…
Which puzzle? I remember having troubles with the labyrinth in the forest. (mild spoiler)
It’s cool to be stuck sometimes but only a moment…not too long @__@
None in particular! I can go in several islands but no idea what to do in any of them
I haven’t seen any labyrinth yet…
Have you talked to everyone? To me it was clear what to do next in all episodes…
Hmmm… I need to try that! Thanks
Neither of those. The game does it automatically for you. Say you needed to build a fishing rod, all you had to do was collect a pole, a piece of string and a worm, and the game then simply indicated that these 3 items would apply to a hotspot. So essentially, a whole puzzle category (build whacky tools from random bits of trash) is gone from Trüberbrook. You still need to collect all the trash, but from there on the game did the thinking for you.
Oh. Ok.
But (to digress) don’t you think these puzzles are almost always “arbitrary roadblocks”, not “things that carry the story forward”, to use your term?
Don’t remember many of the puzzles, but I don’t recall it being overly difficult. I think I managed without consulting a walkthrough, though occasionally I was stuck for a bit and had to come back a day or two later with fresh ideas.
The humour and most of the story resonated quite well with me, though, and at the time I played it (after all episodes were available in a boxed copy) I liked the graphics and animations. Shortly afterwards I played the remaster of MI 1 & 2 , and was actually a little shocked how static everything felt in those games. (The rather unfortunate choice of graphic style and controls of the remasters certainly didn’t help.)
I guess it depends on how these kinds of puzzles are set up. Enabling progress with some impromptu tinkering can be quite rewarding; and if the game ensures you have everything needed by the time it’s needed, the story can progress quite naturally. But it will mean you’ll have to apply some additional thought to the problem, instead of carrying out a more straight-forward action with a ready-made item.
Of course, if the item combination is intuitive, one might argue that cutting out the actual inventory puzzle does not really change matters much. But the same reasoning has probably been made about the verbs at some point, that’s why they’ve been replaced with a single “do it” action nowadays.
Each of those (and other) changes made to streamline adventure games over time might be quite minor in themselves, but in sum they lead to simpler, and thereby less rewarding and meaningful gameplay.
It makes sense, but I need examples to be convinced
I will see if something comes to mind and post it later.
I was actually trying to remember the inventory puzzles present in Monkey Island. I’m not quite sure there were any in MI1 (what with the inventory still text-based), but MI2 had a bunch. I mean just imagine showing up to the spitting contest with a blue and yellow drink at hand, and the game doing everything automatically for you at that point. Where’d be the fun in that?
they had “use grog cup with another grog cup”, now that I recall. What a great exception to the rule
right, right. But this could be redesigned to avoid object-object combination. Like, you put several colors on the shelf.
Flower with meat was another one that comes to mind.
The advantage of obtject-object over object-world combinations is that former are independent of the location. Means less restrictions on the room where the result of the combination is needed. And allows combinations that are non-intuitive except when faced with a specific problem. (Like the example above. It starts making some sense once faced with the poodles)
Again, I’m currently hard pressed to come up with concrete examples. Might have to watch a couple McGyver episodes for inspiration .
Unless it’s something highly specific like mixing chemicals (e.g., developing photographs in MM), that feels like a highly artificial restriction.
Finished Whispers of a Machine, but not without consulting a walkthrough. Some of its puzzles were quite demanding.
I’m not quite sure what to make of the story. I don’t think it reaches the class of Technobabylon or State of Mind, even though it broaches similar themes. The overinflationary use of the term A.I. these days certainly doesn’t help its cause. (I have to admit that A.I. has turned into somewhat of a red flag for me, personally, and I’d rather not hear it mentioned before achieving true singularity)
I am playing Guard Duty and I’m enjoying it. From the start, when the protagonist starts talking in the muffled voice (for reasons I won’t say), you understand this is a good one.
It’s not easy, though I haven’t been stuck for more than 20 minutes so far. The puzzles are interesting. It is very funny sometimes. The voice acting is very good and funny (I turned it off anyway, but that is because I am crazy. I just can’t wait for people to finish talking). The characters move fast enough. It has a LOT of animation, so everything feels alive. The pixel art is well done. It has a notebook of current objectives (very important!). Clearly a big one overall.
If I have to find a few quirks: some dialogs are a bit uninteresting, it’s like the author felt compelled to have some characters say something at all costs. Also, there are some characters telling long stories, which personally I think is something that doesn’t work in general (except maybe in Indy4). The music is sometimes very repetitive so I turned it off.
I’m currently hoping that this will still make it to GOG1 (though I hear it’s basically DRM free on Steam as well, and runs without the Steam client once installed). The reviews I read are mixed concerning puzzles and story, but they unanimously highlight how funny it is, and that seems reason enough to try it out eventually.
1 From what I read, it mostly seems GOG is rejecting games these days, not a disinterest of developers to release their game on the platform. Same thing with Heaven’s Vault, actually.
I finished Day of the Tentacle Remastered, amazing point&click with the concept of 3 characters and past, present and future, fun last part!
I needed the solution for 2 details, the mummy in the contest and the cat…feel bad when i have to do that, i could avoid but being stuck for hours for a little detail make me angry, have some other stuff to do beside…
Is it a bad thing if i use a walkthrough for 2 or 3 details? It happens for me sometimes (like 3-4 time, like the 2 nails to take in monkey island 3 but it was like 1 black pixel in the background, missed it
Or when we have to take the dog in our coat in Monkey Island 2 to find the map in the pile of paper on the tree…sometimes, puzzles can be really hard with the logic, specially in Point&Click who are very “cartoon” style.
I think you need to say at least 3 Hail Mary and 6 Holy Fathers.
Plus 16 pushups.