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Adventure games with side missions.

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Are there a number of modern adventure games where you are not required to solve every single puzzle? For example, you have the choice to solve an extra set of puzzles to flesh out side stories but don’t need to solve them in order to complete the game?
 
Modern games hide audiologs and notes to provide more information about the game’s world for players who value exploration. Gone Home made this the sole focus of its gameplay. Why not tie narrative bonuses to the core adventure game mechanic - figuring out the designer’s logic?

This could go a long way in improving Telltale games for people craving more than dialogue options. Hidden complexity!

     
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Why modern?

     
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That’s only a loose guideline to avoid mentioning Sierra and encourage a list of games that are easily available. I know many Sierra games used point systems to encourage players to exhaust every possible interaction programmed into the game.

     

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modern adventure game with side missions… LA Noire is the only one that comes to mind.

     
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And Then There Were None had some extra puzzles and extra story bits. Although they were so unexpected and well-hidden, I think many people didn’t even realise there was something.

Ether One that was recently released on Steam claims that ALL puzzles are optional, so that you can finish the game without solving a single one. Haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds just like the idea for modern adventure games.

     

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I recently played Darkstar, an FMV game from a couple of years back. It has quite a chunk of puzzles that are optional and are there to flesh out the plot of the game.

     
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The Darkness Within games have this, and I thought it worked very well. There’s the familiar score system (although maybe not that familiar in first person horror games) at the end showing how many of the “secrets” you’ve missed.

The “payoffs” were usually optional/hidden locations, documents, “deductions” etc. that indeed “fleshed out” the side stories, added flavour, insight etc.

One of them in the first game, In Pursuit of Loath Nolder, was particularly memorable for me, as the revelation tied up a loose end in a way that I really didn’t see coming. The fact that these optional things were quite meaningful in that way, made the experience that much more satisfying and definitely added some replay value to the game.

     
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Doom - 18 April 2014 10:22 AM

And Then There Were None had some extra puzzles and extra story bits. Although they were so unexpected and well-hidden, I think many people didn’t even realise there was something.

Exactly! I thought all those unused inventory items were red herrings instead of optional puzzles I had missed… Tongue



Anyway, Dreamfall and Lost Horizon both rewarded you at the end of the game for “doing the (optional) right thing” early/halfway in the game.

In Dreamfall, you got an amazingly tearjerking bonus scene near the end if you restored Wonkers’ brain early in the game.
Lost Horizon gave you an award for your honesty at the end if you returned the snake charmer’s flute (as you promised) halfway into the game.

But perhaps you’re looking for games with more optional puzzles/quests.


The DS game Another Code had the story of “D”, the amnesiac ghost you befriend early in the game. While most of the puzzles in the game were relating to the main character’s history, some of them were relating to “D”‘s history.
If you did all the (optional) puzzles for “D”, he got his memory back at the end of the game and finally found the closure he needed to move on in the afterlife. Not doing/finding all of them left his story unresolved and ended the game in a more bittersweet manner…

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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thejobloshow - 18 April 2014 12:46 AM

Are there a number of modern adventure games where you are not required to solve every single puzzle? For example, you have the choice to solve an extra set of puzzles to flesh out side stories but don’t need to solve them in order to complete the game?
 
Modern games hide audiologs and notes to provide more information about the game’s world for players who value exploration. Gone Home made this the sole focus of its gameplay. Why not tie narrative bonuses to the core adventure game mechanic - figuring out the designer’s logic?

This could go a long way in improving Telltale games for people craving more than dialogue options. Hidden complexity!

I’m not quite sure what you mean but I know Culpa Innata can be completed without discovering at all some kind of underground world (it’s so long ago I played it!)

     

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