Difficult Adventures [where?]

[tobacos]

An adventure were everything counts,were every word holds a few clues,were every puzzle is just a part of another,and all places is related to one another.
or you would just say a "Smashing brain:pan:Adventure game".

I realize(not so soon!)that adventure gaming intends to be easier more and more.
Bummer!!!
Easy adventures abviously mean less hours of playing,and more,less enjoyment.

i just got my hands lately on a punch of titles,that left really disapointed:Overclocked,broken Sword 2.5,Chronicles of Mystery.........It seems it is becoming a tradition making adventure easier,for some reason!!?:crazy:

It also gives hope to see some classic challenging puzzles in new releases like Vampyre story(getting the bone powder of a murdered virgin was the most)and Lost Crown taking quiet a place.
but i cant stop wondering where did games like Riven,Woodruff and the Shnibble GO??! .....and about the future of adventures with more easy games (like Memento Mori) in the horizon!?

Maybe its just me craving for some real challenge,
but let us post and talk here about difficult adventures we(recomend)had experinced ....;)
and lets share ideas about how certain difficulties (puzzles) intend to make some adventures much more worthy!!
and most of all lets keep expectations always high.

[Fien]

Yeah, easy adventures is the trend. Has been for some time too. If you're looking for hard puzzles, try Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon.

[dekaneas297]

I prefer easy but logical puzzles than irrational ones which don't derive from any logical thought on this earth

[AndreaDraco83]

I just got my hands lately on a punch of titles,that left really disappointed: Overclocked, Broken Sword 2.5, Chronicles of Mystery... It seems it is becoming a tradition making adventure easier,for some reason!!?:crazy:

I prefer easy but logical puzzles than irrational ones which don't derive from any logical thought on this earth

Well, I'm playing Chronicles of Mystery and it seems to me that this adventure falls perfectly in the category you two describe: easy but sometimes irrational. While the story is quite good, and the characters entertaining, the puzzles sometimes are pretty laughable.

I'll give just an example, between spoiler tags of course:

There's a fireplace with a string of buttons over it. One of the button is dirty and Sophie want to clean it. She is in a room full of sheet-covered furniture, so I think: "OK. Grab one of those sheet, put it on the broom you're carrying and clean the button". But no: instead she made a broken column rolling to smash open a gate (with the risk of the bad guys hearing her), exited the street, decided not to flee the dangerous place, approached a closed café, took a napkin, broke a bough from a nearby tree, combined the bough with the napkin, tied them with a wire and only then cleaned the button... D'oh! :crazy:

[colpet]

I love to be challenged by a game, and also have been dismayed at the trend of easier games. The puzzles are what got me interested in adventures in the first place.
So, to get my fix, I've become interested in casual puzzle games. Actually the review of Return to Ravenhurst here at AG piqued my interest and I took the plunge at Bigfish. I purchased Azada, a game very similar to Pandora's Box (IMHO). It satisfied my cravings. They have free 1 hour demos, certainly enough to see if the game is for you.

[Mohlin]

AndreaDraco83 : Oh my God!! sigh...

All of Tunguska is like that by the way. You never know what to to and why. Bu you are suposed to do it the most complicated, ilogical way.

[PolloDiablo]

Try Darkness Within. :)

[tobacos]

I love to be challenged by a game, and also have been dismayed at the trend of easier games. The puzzles are what got me interested in adventures in the first place.

yeah and adventures will always remain on puzzles cuz thats what this is all about,
i dont really care much for the characters as long as they have voice acting,and story as long as it serves the puzzles,and for the graphics,i wouldnt mind playing a game represented simliar to Woodruff(1995).
whats importent for me is trying to figure out what to do when i m stuck at one point ,and at then, i feel like living the adventure.

[Fien]

I love to be challenged by a game, and also have been dismayed at the trend of easier games. The puzzles are what got me interested in adventures in the first place.
So, to get my fix, I've become interested in casual puzzle games. Actually the review of Return to Ravenhurst here at AG piqued my interest and I took the plunge at Bigfish. I purchased Azada, a game very similar to Pandora's Box (IMHO). It satisfied my cravings. They have free 1 hour demos, certainly enough to see if the game is for you.

Colpet, I'm flabbergasted. You, a confirmed Rhem lover, finds casual puzzle games challenging? I've played Return to Ravenhearst and liked it. Yes, three or four puzzles actually required some thinking. But Azada...? I still have about ten minutes left of the one hour trial and I managed to finish 15 or 16 minigames, that's how hard those puzzles are! Watered-down versions of old classics. Swapping tiles, a couple of jigsaws, simon says, mastermind, matching objects, tangram, even good old hanoi is there. All of them dead easy. And as far as I'm concerned, Azada has absolutely nothing in common with Pandora's Box.

[mgeorge]

Well, I'm playing Chronicles of Mystery and it seems to me that this adventure falls perfectly in the category you two describe: easy but sometimes irrational. While the story is quite good, and the characters entertaining, the puzzles sometimes are pretty laughable.

I'll give just an example, between spoiler tags of course:

There's a fireplace with a string of buttons over it. One of the button is dirty and Sophie want to clean it. She is in a room full of sheet-covered furniture, so I think: "OK. Grab one of those sheet, put it on the broom you're carrying and clean the button". But no: instead she made a broken column rolling to smash open a gate (with the risk of the bad guys hearing her), exited the street, decided not to flee the dangerous place, approached a closed café, took a napkin, broke a bough from a nearby tree, combined the bough with the napkin, tied them with a wire and only then cleaned the button... D'oh! :crazy:

You're spoiler section above is the reason I don't play many AG's. It seems like way to many of them have puzzles of this type. And then we have the type that has me stumped right now in Post Mortem. I'm at the alchemy puzzle right now, and there is no way I can figure this out on my own. No way. I've stopped playing the game for the time being because even with a walkthrough, I'd have to go online, find the solution, write it down, then return to the game to complete it. And to be honest I've been to lazy to do it as much as the story intrigues me.

So I started the Lost Crown in the meantime and the same thing happened with theMonolith puzzle. I immediately went to a walkthrough for this one and completed it, but even with the walkthrough it took me 3 tries. So yes, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I admit that, but I often wonder why more games don't include some type of hint system similar to Keepsake. It gave you a good nudge and would even complete it for you if you really needed it. I never finished it because the story didn't grab me, but I did appreciate that the option was there.

People good at puzzles wouldn't have to use it, and dummies like myself could still enjoy the ambience and story of a game without having to break immersion by leaving the game and looking at a walkthrough.

BTW; I'm finding Lost Crown tough, but it's the most fun I've has with an AG since Amber Journeys Beyond, which was the first PC game I ever played. I like LC because with the exception of a few things, even I've been able to get through a lot of it so far which is quite rare!

[AndreaDraco83]

You're spoiler section above is the reason I don't play many AG's. It seems like way to many of them have puzzles of this type.

Well, there are also plenty of adventures with tough but perfectly-integrated challenges, like Gabriel Knight or Tex Murphy. Even nowadays, aside from rare cases of illogical combination, a game like Chronicles of Mystery itself offers a lot of logical, consequential tasks to overcome.

[tobacos]

a game like Chronicles of Mystery itself offers a lot of logical, consequential tasks to overcome.
Sorry but i have to disagree,games like Chronicles and how easy they are,might be a good reason to quit adventure oneday (if that ever happens!).
Its not only about being logical or not,its about how good puzzles are carved.
Like the bone powder puzzle in vampyre story for Example,
First you have to create arbon based (organic) acid which is bet trickey to prepare,then you have figure out where to use it,then eventually use it on the wooden column of the stuck platform,and there after all this The Banshee stops you from getting the bones,and you have to give her the morning,which requires fixing the control panel behind the theatre seats then Use the levers to get a nice back drop of the sun,cut it with a dull knife and then you ll have to use froderick twice,once to stick the theatre flat on the dungeon window and another with animal noise toy to hear the rooster crow,and at last when you get the bones you gotta grind them to get skeleton dust..
which makes an ideal puzzle,its challening 1st of all,and logical(as you would say)and most of all FULFILLING.

[colpet]

Colpet, I'm flabbergasted. You, a confirmed Rhem lover, finds casual puzzle games challenging? I've played Return to Ravenhearst and liked it. Yes, three or four puzzles actually required some thinking. But Azada...? I still have about ten minutes left of the one hour trial and I managed to finish 15 or 16 minigames, that's how hard those puzzles are! Watered-down versions of old classics. Swapping tiles, a couple of jigsaws, simon says, mastermind, matching objects, tangram, even good old hanoi is there. All of them dead easy. And as far as I'm concerned, Azada has absolutely nothing in common with Pandora's Box.
Azada did get a bit harder as you went on. I would say that Azada was easier than Pandora's Box, but I wasn't stumped with either game (unlike the Jewels games). I just like doing puzzles, and if I can't find them in adventures, I need to go looking elsewhere. I'm sure there are more difficult games out there, but I still had fun with the variety of puzzles that Azada had.

[cwapitm]

I'm one of those people who actually sucks at playing adventure games, so I prefer it when they're easier.:P So, I don't have any issues with the easiness of recent adventure games. I think they are just the right difficulty. You should try Sherlock Holmes Nemesis if you haven't already. It mostly consists of the sort of puzzles you speak of.

[Jelena]

I definitely want some challenge in an adventure game, but I want the puzzles to be fair: there has be sufficient clues and no irrational stupidity. I even had a hard time with the way I had to get hold of the map in The Curse of Monkey Island. :frusty:
Recently I've mostly played older games with high quality both story and puzzle wise like Zork Nemesis and I've picked the recent releases carefully. I think Perry Rhodan offered me a couple of nice challenges and had a pleasant flow in the gameplay.

[tobacos]

I definitely want some challenge in an adventure game, but I want the puzzles to be fair: I think Perry Rhodan offered me a couple of nice challenges and had a pleasant flow in the gameplay.
Perry Rhodan is quiet fair,with some moderate difficulty puzzles that reach the top at the Illochim script puzzle.
and with the Multifunction wristband touch that gives clues on how to proceed with the game(just to track on your progress,with absolutely no spoilers just facts)was very helpfull and original.
i recomend both fans of hard or easy adventures to try it.

[AndreaDraco83]

I definitely want some challenge in an adventure game, but I want the puzzles to be fair: there has be sufficient clues and no irrational stupidity.

Totally agree. The most important thing, to me, is the story. And the characters. Puzzles are a necessity, and I want them to be clever and well-thought, perfectly integrated and never breaking the pacing of the game, its natural flow. I especially want them to be thought-provoking, I want them to challenge me to think creatively to solve them...

... But sometimes average puzzles with mediocre difficulty, even a bit illogical but foreseeable, can do :) as well as, sometimes, I feel the urge for a more light adventure to fill the blanks! :)

[Puzzler]

What made Vamprye Story so challenging for me was the illogicalness of some of the puzzles. Okay, maybe it was cartoon logic and I didn't catch onto it very well. Finally, near the end I had to use a walkthrough because I was sent into a spiral of frustration at one part. Turns out there was a mistake in the game that led to my frustration. I was even more pissed after finding that out.

I had no idea what to do when I got the prostitute to distract the band leader for me. Turns out I didn't have all the material I needed to even be at that part yet, but that game let's you do it anyway without obtaining all the appropriate items, which will cause you to be stuck there without a way out.

My main problem with Vampyre Story is that it was almost entirely inventory puzzle work... I like some mechanical puzzles to be thrown in there somewhere. It can make the game more challenging, and fun, and it gives the player a break from all the other work.

[Ascovel]

I'm surprised that people find A Vampyre Story challenging at all. To me most of the time it was as easy and straight-forward as Chronicles of Mystery (they even share one very cliched puzzle). I was actually disappointed by the game's easiness. I expected puzzles more on the level of classic LucasArts.

[tobacos]

I'm surprised that people find A Vampyre Story challenging at all..I expected puzzles more on the level of classic LucasArts.
if you dont find Vampyre story challenging enuff,then i guess you wont find anything better these days,specially when you are expecting some level like in the classics from LucasArts or Sierra.
nowadays this is the most you can get.
so i guess games like vampyre,lost crown,dracula3,Rhodan.soBlonde will have to do good for now(2008).
and here we are again,waiting for more!!

[Lucien21]

Are Adventure Games really getting easier or do we just make them look easy due to years of practice and experience?

I certainly have been prone to accusing recent games of being too easy (Sam & Max etc), but is it just because of 25 years of experience? Posts in the hint sections and the popularity of walkthroughs would suggest that at least some people get stuck in recent games.

I think difficulty must be hard to judge for a developer.

You need to appeal to newbies who have never played an AG in their puff, but also satisfy the experienced player. (Now the easy answer is to do what most every other video game does and include difficulty levels, but this is extra expense for the developer)

You need to start of the game with easy puzzles and slowly ramp up the difficulty in a reasonable manner. Difficult due to differing skills of players.

You need to make sure that the player always knows what he's doing and is never stuck for what to do next. - That breeds frustration.

And no I don't mean you make easy puzzles so that they are never stuck. I mean that the player needs to KNOW what they should be doing, but hasn't quite figured out HOW to do it yet. Some games of old though difficulty was by not telling the player what they should be doing next. The hard part should never be identifying or finding the puzzles it should be the puzzles themselves.

You should also provide multiple puzzles at the same time. Part of the reason I think Lucasarts was so successful was the structure of the games which usually started out linear and then opened up. Usually you had 3 puzzles to solve and if you were stuck on one you could move to another until you got the Eureka moment on the first.

You should provide clues that are not too obscure, but not too obvious. Tricky again due to what is obvious to me might be obscure to others (Monkey Wrench puzzle for example)

There certainly has been some games that have sacrificed difficulty for story or user friendlyness and walkthroughs are more previlent in todays society, but difficulty is for the most part in the eye of the beholder.

[Lucien21]

The one area that has certainly contributed to the ongoing argument that AG's are getting easier is the interface.

1982

You are standing in front of a round green door.
>

Ok WTF do I do now. The possibilities are nearly endless as I can type in anything I want into here. Of course in reality hours of "I don't understand the word Fuck Off" later and you realise the reality doesn't match the imagination.

So these games were really hard. They were new to me. I had to draw weird maps on graph paper and write down all the clues. Nobody to help as internet not available and I ain't phoning the hint line.

1986

Oooh look at the graphics on that Manic Mansion, but WTF I can't type stuff anymore this is too easy. With only 15 verbs to play with this will be too easy.

1993

Brilliant a sequel to Manic Mansion. But WTF only 9 verbs that is getting ridiculous. The puzzles will be waaaaay too easy.

Whit's this Myst thingamabob...Hey weres my verbs, where's all my hotposts and now I can only click on a couple of things.

2002

Ok great graphics, robot sidekick and woolly mammoths. Ok now I've walked through 5 screens and there is nothing to click on no hotspots at all. Is there actually a game here. Now we are down to 2 mouse buttons.

Arrrrrrrggggghhhh

OK i'm exagerating a little, but from the days of text adventures where you imagination fuelled the idea that anything was possible , the interface has been streamlined (dumbed down) to the scumm verb system, to the action coin, to the left click use right click examine to the modern one-click does all interface that we now have (in some games).

The backgrounds have also shrunk from examining everthing, to lots of hotspots to very little hotspots to only the essential hotspots.

Of course you can still make a hard game with a streamlined interface if the puzzles are good enough, but I think it has simplified it too far at times and the interaction and background information is lacking at times.

Does the stramlined interface make it too easy??

[AndreaDraco83]

Lucien, thanks for your post. I'm still laughing at the robot (!) sidekick and wholly mammoths! :D

[Erwin_Br]

I think adventure games shifted along with their audience. Kids with plenty of time don't want to sit down and think for hours on a puzzle nowadays. Adults, who played adventures in their youth, simply don't have the time for it anymore.

I grossly oversimplified this explanation, but I do believe it boils down to this.

[tobacos]

but difficulty is for the most part in the eye of the beholder.
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