Adventure Gamers - Forums

Let me start be offering my sincere apologies for luring you into this thread under false pretence.
Sorry I promise I will never do it again


Today’s screenshot is unfortunately NOT from an Adventure Game, not even from a Hybrid AG, an Interactive Story, Visual Novel, Casual Game, Puzzler or anything else that can in anyway be considered a subgenre or associated genre of adventure games - Instead it is from a pureblood MMORPG!

But it is a puzzle .. and an excellent puzzle no less.

Now wait a minute, some of you are probably thinking, aren’t the puzzles what makes adventure games unique and separate them from all the other genres?
Perhaps, but just like action occasionally finds it way into adventure games, it is not uncommon that RPG’s and other genres also include some puzzles or riddles to add some cerebral challenge to what is otherwise more action oriented. And because they aren’t bound by the conventions and tradition of AG, they often have some fresh new perspective on how a puzzle should work.

Today’s puzzle is from an early investigation mission know as The Kingsmouth Code in The Secret World.

In this mission we are following some clues scattered around the town of Kingsmouth, the first clues leading us to the place in the screenshot, where we now have to find the correct painting to get a new clue. Simple enough and nothing out of the ordinary, right?
Well here is the catch .. the place is filled with red herrings!

There are several paintings, and all of them contain some kind of clue to a new location, but only one of them is the correct clue, whereas the rest will just lead you on a wild goose chase.

When I played this the first time, I actually accidentally clicked on the wrong painting, not because I thought it was the correct one, but simply because I wanted to get a closer look and see what happened. Much to my surprise it then locked in my choice, and I couldn’t click on any of the other paintings and get the other clues, before I had solve the first clue and investigated the place, only to conclude that there is absolutely nothing there

I’m not a big fan of locking in your choice this way, but the whole idea of adding red herrings in the form of false clues, and sending players on a wild goose chase if they fail to deduce which is the right painting, is imo a brilliant idea which I would love to see in adventure games. It also kind of embodies the old proverb of “What you haven’t got in your head, you must have in your legs!”, meaning that even if you can’t deduce the right solution to the last clue, then you can still solve the puzzle, it just requires a hell of a lot of running .. and fighting, lets not forget the fighting, as the town is overrun by zombies.

Also, it is actually a very difficult puzzle, much more difficult than what you see in most adventure games. The clue you get if you pick the right painting is:

Time is the province of Kings and Gods. The hands of time point to truths written by kings in the words of God. The path is open to the enlightened.

But what the h.. heck is that suppose to mean???


P.S.: You won’t be able to solve the puzzle purely based on my description, but feel free to speculate on how that last clue should be interpreted.

P.P.S.: Despite the investigation missions and many other qualities, I was never a big fan of this MMO, and dumped it somewhere in Egypt.

Sounds like a great puzzle. I admit I haven’t played an RPG in, at least, ten years. And am unlikely to start again just so I can experience the puzzle first hand. I agree that there should be consequences for making the wrong choice in a puzzle. But this seems quite severe. While it seems possible to “brute force” the solution, the amount of wasted time you spend doing so sounds horrible.

I would certainly like to see more “out of the box” ideas like this one, the puzzles where you need to stop and think, and which cannot be brute forced (or at least, not easily). Sherlock Holmes Nemesis had these kind of puzzles (they also included paintings), and Still Life 2 had couple of similar problems (though they were buried under the dreadful inventory interface and boring running back&forth; through the house).

rtrooney - 09 December 2015 04:35 PM

... I agree that there should be consequences for making the wrong choice in a puzzle. But this seems quite severe. While it seems possible to “brute force” the solution, the amount of wasted time you spend doing so sounds horrible.

It isn’t quite as bad as it might sound. Being an RPG it also means that you have several different quest or missions at any given time, and you would most likely be working on them in parallel instead of sequentially, so even if if the destination was a wild goose chase for this mission, then odds are you would make progress on some other mission at or on the way to the destination - or even failing that, you would explore some area and kill zombies which is also a big part of the game.

I don’t think you could directly transfer this puzzle into an AG, if for no other reason, simply because the size of TSW is hundred of times larger than any AG, and you need space for this puzzle to work. But the idea of adding red herrings and even wild goose chases is something that I really like.

diego - 09 December 2015 05:07 PM

Sherlock Holmes Nemesis had these kind of puzzles (they also included paintings)

Yeah I remember those painting puzzles, quite brutal but also brilliant - something I might feature in a future Midweek Puzzles perhaps.

giom - 09 December 2015 06:08 PM

I’ve never played a MMORPG. I bought The Secret World but I’m way too scared of becoming addicted so I haven’t started playing it.

LOL - Well I have actually played quite a few, starting with WoW and ending with Guild Wars 2 - In fact you could probably say that for a time I was almost addicted to them.

@Phlebas

In the seat of power, the navigator immortalized, illuminating the path, to the sleeping priest and fletcher. In memory of Frans Hals, who perished in the light.

I will leave it up to your own interpretation whether or not the above clue is sufficient or not (but it is much clearer and easier than the next clue).

The investigation missions only constitute a small percentage of the total of missions in the game, and only a small percentage of the investigation missions are what you could call puzzles. It would imo take much more before it could be considered a hybrid.