I just unflagged Cressup’s original post.
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Thanks David!
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Which is why I think the best puzzles are those ones. Location and time based puzzles work with every interface (verbs or no verbs, hover or release, whatever) because it’s not what you’re using, rather when and where you’re using it.
I mean, I still love me some inventory puzzles, but there’s a lot more you can do in adventure games.
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Really nice puzzle, but the most important question is… have you started making a game? 
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Then some genius comes, mixes the two categories and uses melting mugs in the inventory to gift us with one of the most original adventure puzzles ever conceived.
I like timed puzzles, but I prefer to play adventures where they are used as a nice exception rather than the norm.
Many classic adventure games were quite “static”; nothing changes unless the player advances the game status by doing something. For a static environment, timed events really contribute to make the world feel more lively and realistic, but I don’t think I would like a game where they were pushed to the extreme of turning the game into something that requires frequent quick actions or dexterity.
No, but I am making an adventure game engine, so I need guinea-pig puzzles to test the features.
The initial intent was to make a “simple” adventure game and simple Python scripts to handle the world, but I became quickly bored by how much “plumbing” you have to do and how much time you have to spend to implement the creative choices that you already made.
So my interest shifted to “I want to build an engine that just lets me focus on the creative side and does the dirty, annoying work itself.”
And this is the current status:
Of course, the editor also has normal manual panels to edit everything, but instead of starting from scratch at every new puzzle or scene, you just ask the LLM to create what you want and then use the normal interface to add the real content (e.g. dialogues).
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I think they’re good as a little spice on top of the core group of ordinary-but-satisfying puzzles… but yeah, I wouldn’t really want to eat a whole meal of spice.
Sierra gave timed puzzles a bad rep, as they did them a lot and they were almost always a pain (partly due to clunky character movement as well).
It often introduces a level of stress/anxiety into an otherwise relaxing experience.
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Oh well, I agree with you on that one. I consider “timing” puzzle also those where the window is pretty wide, or there’s enough repetition that you can just wait for the event to happen - see Wally’s monocle.
Like, the mug puzzle can be considered solved once you pour grog from a melting mug to another one. Nowadays a similar puzzle could probably be solved with just three mugs giving you seven to work with, so you have a lot of room for error but still “prove” to the game that you understood what you have to do.
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That was a great interview, thoroughly enjoy it. Thanks for sharing!
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I also don’t like games where all NPCs have precise schedules dictating their locations based on a clock or routine, forcing me to learn in which room I can find a character depending on the time. The Last Express was developed in this way, and I never finished it for this precise reason.
I think that Cruise for a Corpse (which I really liked from the graphic POV) also adopted some similar mechanics, but I played it decades ago and I’m not sure.
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Re: streamlining the interface to discourage brute forcing and avoiding the “that doesn’t seem to work”.
Just like with solutions: people will look up the solution (online or otherwise), so having an in-game hint system that can use all the information available and known by the game to keep you immersed in the game is the best. It is safe to say that players who resort to brute forcing and are trying everything on everything are not enjoying the game/ at least the puzzle they’re stuck at. No matter how you try to discourage that (through annoyingly repeating “that doesn’t seem to work”) or helping to speed up that process (through the 
cursor) will stop them. The latter actually is helpful for the OCD players looking for Easter Eggs. (And honestly I never noticed it playing RTMI, but then again I never brute-forced or even used the hint book)
So maybe the most elegant one is (instead of adding variations like “are you really just going to try everything on everything?” breaking the 4th wall and *beep*ing off the 20% of gamers who hate that) is to stay in-game and have (for example) Guybrush say “I feel I should really look at this book the Voodoo Lady gave me. It might help me right now.” (And an option to completely turn of such very soft nudge to use the in-game hint system - then EVERYONE is happy.)
That and great puzzle design (which involves multiple solutions to the same puzzle - Zak style- and optional puzzles - MM style) of course!
This works very well when the authors want to put the player on track or even let them understand what’s the focus in a certain moment by limiting the player’s actions.
The very beginning of TWP is an example of this, when the player asks Boris to do something that doesn’t match his checklist.
A new blog post, this time by David! 
(Aseprite is a great app)
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Like in your example, you don’t have to break the fourth wall. You just have to share the thoughts of the character(s). And this is what RtMI is doing with its two-button-interface (partially).
The camera is a peculiar item: you can take photos of everything. So you can’t just drag it onto everything to brute-force your way through. That’s cool, but it’s a special case.
Also, I’m starting to wonder: could TWP2 largely reuse the same backgrounds from the first one? Or will they redraw them, just like they did for RtMI?
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My understanding is that they will reuse locations (e.g. the mansion, the town), but perhaps changed in some way by applying the same TWP1 pixel art style. Plus, they will add new rooms, which is consistent with the fact that they are paying Octavi and Mark for about two years of work.
That’s cool, but I’d like to know if it’s pretty standard in terms of UI / mechanics—what does it resemble? Does it use verbs or not? Are they context-sensitive like in Cruise for a Corpse or not?
[Edit: You DM’d me and now I know what’s cooking ]
I’m also wondering if you built the interface around specific puzzles, or if it’s general-purpose and you still have to design all the puzzles from scratch (I’m guessing the latter, meaning you put puzzle design on hold to work on the engine). The risk with this approach is that you might come up with a puzzle later and realize it doesn’t work with that UI—like it gets solved by accident—and then you have to completely rethink the interface.
The forum just lured me into a 2018 “Do you want a Thimbleweed Park 2?” poll, and these were the votes. Your votes:
- 69% Yes!
- 31% No.
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31% did not even dare to dream that such a thing might one day happen, and preferred to think of it as an impossibility, to preserve their own sanity.
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In such a cynical world, this is a refreshing, positive interpretation of that 31% that I can only applaud. In no way does it reduce my hope of seeing those 31% never getting TWP2, as punishment.
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Uh oh, I looked up the thread… lots of regulars voted “no”, including me, Someone, Zak, Guga…
You yourself were on the fence arguing it “depends”…
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