The adventure game genre post 2000’s - question

[Danvzare]

I agree that this would be a bad way to stop you from solving the problem in that way. But I think it's almost worse if the game repeats the exact same problem and expects you to use the exact same solution

And that's why you don't use the exact same solution.

Perhaps you'll see the problem that somethings high up, remember you solved it last time by throwing something, but the only rock you can find is locked behind a glass case in a museum. Suddenly the puzzle is about getting the rock. Which is something you wouldn't have even tried to get if you didn't have the similar puzzle from before.

Alternatively, you could already have a rock, so you try the solution as before, but it knocks the high up item somewhere else where you can't reach. Like behind a metal fence with a vicious dog.

Or perhaps you could just have the high up item clearly too heavy to be easily pushed off by throwing a rock, and have the player character explain as such.

In other words, you setup it up as before, but add another step. It'll make it feel like the player is building up knowledge of how to solve these puzzles (aka a feeling of getting better at the game), while keeping the difficulty the same (if not outright increasing it, if we're to assume that some players might not realize the obvious solution that they did last time).

Also, having puzzles that callback to previous puzzles, is just good story writing. It's what the final puzzles of the Monkey Island games did.

[Snarky]

I don't think any of those examples qualify as a "system" @Danvzare. Whether or not they are good puzzle design depends, I think, on whether the basic element is fundamentally interesting enough. Sure, if it is some novel piece of equipment or device (like Trilby's "grolly" or the AI mind shards in Technobabylon), a special power or spell, or some distinctive mechanic (such as decoding a foreign language or remixing music tracks or whatever), then it makes sense to build a whole set of puzzles around it. But if it's literally just "throw things to knock stuff over," that had better be really well motivated by the characters and story if you're going to base so much of your gameplay on it rather than have it as a one-off. Like, your main character is a baseball pitcher: fine.

Also, having puzzles that callback to previous puzzles, is just good story writing. It's what the final puzzles of the Monkey Island games did.

Yeah, but always with a twist. And also it was just the one puzzle callback to bring things back full circle, it wasn't a whole series of puzzles based on the same setup over and over again. (Like if MI1 had a bunch of ghosts you had to dispel, and every time you had to find some new magic root source/substitute. ... Besides, I happen to think that MI goes to the "find a quirky substitute for the ingredient in the recipe" well a bit too often.)

[Crimson Wizard]

Well, I never suggested that an adventure game should repeat exactly same puzzle, that's a weird way to interpret my posts.

I've been speaking of learning what you can do in game and being able to use sum of learnt experience later, and having consistency in rules. Is not that a "system", or am I using wrong terms?

I know that you cannot make this "using past experience" take place every time - in each single scene or puzzle, and probably should not, but my thought was that if you do with certain regularity, that might make game more interesting, rather than if it had a set of puzzles each of which is a thing in itself.

There are other related concerns here too, such as non-logical use of items, or non-logical game's refusal to let use an item. Or game not featuring choices that might seem natural in the given environment (random example from my memory of playing some games: suspecting an imminent danger, and not being able to pick up anything that would serve as a weapon), and so forth. IMHO these problems also stem from a lack of "rule set" in a game. These may not be serious problems in terms of gameplay, but are often immersion breaking.


What defines as a "adventure puzzle", and how "repetition" is affecting this definition, are curious questions. I was not developing adventure games (besides few failed tries), and haven't played much in the recent years, thus it's hard for me to have a good insight.
What I gather from the past memories though is: every game has base mechanics anyway. In case of adventure games it may be: walking around, gathering items and using them on something, learning information or forwarding a story on through dialog options.
Then, on the next level, there are "puzzle types". I recall there was a thread around these forums where you gathered those. If there are "puzzle types", that means repetition in a sense.
Where is the line at which a puzzle stops being "adventure puzzle", or a game stops being "adventure game"?

There was a very short game called "Awakener", and IIRC the whole gameplay may be described as "find out what each character needs and give them that". Is this an adventure game or not at all?

Then there's a "Blackwell" game series, where the repetition is on the "mission level" (if i might say so): as you are requested to put the ghosts to rest by making them remember that they are dead. This is IIRC done by searching for clues about them, so that you could mention something in a dialog. Is this making this game worse, or is irrelevant?

[Crimson Wizard]

On another hand, I am probably talking nonsense. I would delete my older posts, but they are already in the conversation. In retrospect, I should not have posted here.

[Snarky]

In retrospect, I should not have posted here.

This kind of thinking makes me sad. We had an interesting discussion, didn't we?

[heltenjon]

In retrospect, I should not have posted here.

This kind of thinking makes me sad. We had an interesting discussion, didn't we?

I 100% agree with Snarky. Your contribution means something, Crimson Wizard, and it is nice to see you posting outside the tech threads once in a while. Besides, something you wrote gave me an idea for a puzzle I think would be rather good.  (Which I currently don't have the chops to implement, but perhaps some time when I cooperate with someone.)