Where have all the puzzles gone?

[MrColossal]

Progz, he wrote Why Adventure Games Suck back in 1989 well before he was a has-been or disenchanted.

Also, I can agree with blueskirt that the puzzles in MI and on are better than Maniac Mansion by a long shot. If not better than at least the narrative and gameplay was nicer to the player to try to keep you moving on. I can't agree that MM was logical in much of it's puzzle design.

I also need to learn how to write so I can finish this thing on adventure games and puzzle design that I've been working on in my head for a while. Thanks for the articles!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well, Monkey Island certainly held your hand more when it came to what you needed to do, so it was always pretty clear where the story was going.  The puzzles themselves weren't really more logical, though (although they were typically more straightforward).  I actually prefer the more subtle approach to gameplay Maniac Mansion provided, with a more open-ended presentation that leaves a lot of possibilities available to the player.  As I said before, I don't think the narrowed gameplay scope of their later games is superior, just different.

[Anian]

The main thing about puzzles
- they don't have to be easy but it must be clear what you have to do
- they musn't feel forced (although occasional locked door is ok I guess, sometimes there's no avoiding it)
- and last but not least they must be intergrated into the game but stand on that fine line where they must still be logical in our world and in that fictional one.
It's only 3 things, but if that is covered and balanced, the puzzles won't be called "bad".

[Khris]

If I may, I think blueskirt referred to the gameplay in general, not the puzzles.
It did take a relatively long time to establish the rules which are considered self-evident now, or even back in '91. (No walking deads, or the ability to skip dialog lines, to name the two that are most important to me.)

Kings Quest I was just considered difficult when it came out; if somebody created a similar game today, he'd probably alienate about 95% of its potential players.

[Andail]

This has been discussed so many times before, but I think one important aspect is the way we perceive and value time. With so many games available today, they must be rewarding and entertaining every single minute, right from the start, to get attention.
Back in the eighties people had fewer games to choose from, and wouldn't mind spending months and even years on solving just a few puzzles.

The early Sierra titles were groundbreaking in how they combined graphics, plot and puzzle-solving, and deserve a ton of credit for it, but the games were pretty short and in order to present a decent playing time they relied on plenty of trial-and-error, unexpected deaths and walking deads. Today we frown on that kind of game-play, but then again, today entire nations aren't involved in solving the Fifteen-puzzle as was the case back in the late 19th century.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Puzzles are intrinsic to the gameplay of adventure games, KhrisMUC, and this was established long ago.  If you talk about the gameplay of adventure games, you are also talking about the puzzles, their design and quality.

With so many games available today, they must be rewarding and entertaining every single minute, right from the start, to get attention.

I agree with this assessment, though I wish it didn't apply to so many people.  When AGS first came out, there were very few games and all of them of relatively low quality and development time but were praised and appreciated on an individual basis for what they were: free games made for fun.  Massive competition tends to make consumers very arrogant and ungrateful and increases their expectations in spite of the product being free.  But this is another topic for another time  .