There's a hint system built into Melon Head. If you press the 'meditation' button on the right side UI Melon Head will receive a colorful vision and a hint on how to proceed next. It's there to lessen frustration if you get stuck. The hint displayed will differ according to your progress (obviously) by taking into account what you have in your inventory, what dialog options you've chosen in conversations and sometimes which room you are in.
While I feel that putting a hint system into your game is sort of supplying the player with an easy way out and decreasing difficulty a lot, I've appreciated some of the hint systems found in point and click games that I've played. After all it's a decision of the players whether to use it or not. Solving a puzzle with a hint instead of a walkthrough also saves some self-esteem in my opinion.
One of my favorite hint systems have been the telephone in Strangeland, because it's so well woven into the game world. Another was in Black Sect Remake, because it was very much needed (at least for me) due to the game's old school design. Also I remember Machinarium, which has a sealed book that contains a drawn walkthrough. You'd have to beat a minigame everytime to open it, which challenged you to still try a puzzle on your own if you couldn't be bothered with the minigame.
Good stuff.
But I'm definitely not unhappy about the connotation!
I'll have to check this article asap.
Anyway...
