Adventure Gamers - Forums

I love note-keeping, though there are rarely games that need that anymore. I especially love games that somehow encourage you to take notes.

Anyways, it’s almost always older games. All kinds of maze puzzles, especially, but also puzzles regarding different symbols or stuff. Still, I’d like to - and on a rare occasion have - take notes on also other types of things, maybe more general things that are happening, not just one individual puzzle.

Most recently, I think when I was playing Myst, there was (as usual) the maze. Good thing I made those notes, too - as I remember you had to pass through it a few times. Another thing was, I believe, on my replay of The Longest Journey.

There are two “mazes” in Myst: Channelwood and that spider thing area. Neither are really mazes.
For Channelwood: There’s a book in the library on the main island with a map of it.
For Spider: It’s a maze of sounds, the device tells you which way to go each time. You correlate sounds with directions using one of the gadgets found earlier in the castle thingie.

Antrax - 27 May 2015 03:55 AM

There are two “mazes” in Myst: Channelwood and that spider thing area. Neither are really mazes.
For Channelwood: There’s a book in the library on the main island with a map of it.
For Spider: It’s a maze of sounds, the device tells you which way to go each time. You correlate sounds with directions using one of the gadgets found earlier in the castle thingie.

But that’s not what I was talking about. I meant the underground train. As far as I could see that was very much a maze.

Karlok - 27 May 2015 05:05 AM

Antrax - 27 May 2015 03:55 AM

There are two “mazes” in Myst: Channelwood and that spider thing area. Neither are really mazes.

Does a maze stop being a maze because you found a map? Does a maze stop being a maze because it’s easy once you figure the meaning of the sounds out? Lots of gamers traversed it the traditional way. Lots of adventures have mazes with a twist.

What about the the Melee Island forest in MI1? It doesn’t have a spatial structure, the only way to get through it by is finding the directions.

I would have thought a maze is something you have to find your way through by trial and error.

I come from the Text adventure era where maps/notes were a necessity if you wanted to complete the games. Even today, I always use them, though not as much as then.

A “maze” is a section where the challenge is to get through, and the way to do so is trial and error. Otherwise, every non-single-room game “has a maze” being the game world itself.

“Having a maze” is a bad thing for games, since it’s padding. So, those games where what looks like a maze is actually clever in some fashion, i.e. the “puzzle” isn’t “waste some minutes mapping this place out”, shouldn’t count as mazes.

That’s why I’m insisting on the trial and error part. If the maze is “classic” in the sense the way to navigate through it is keep trying until you find a way out, then it’s not challenging, it’s just tedious. People sometimes like tedious things, but it doesn’t make them any less padding (for instance, I like slider puzzles but I agree when reviews dock points for using them).
You can consider anything a puzzle, but the question is what your semantics contribute. Mine differentiate between busy-work and something you can expect players to enjoy. What do yours do?