Worst. Puzzle. Ever.

[MoodyBlues]

Another worst puzzle. The friggin' desert maze in KQ5.... argh!

The only puzzle worse than that in KQ5 was the castle maze.  DOUBLE ARGH.

[LUniqueDan]

The 'giving the plush snowman to hubby in order to revive some human feeling' - Phantasmagoria I

That's was so stupid. Why a  snowman? Was that the best gift he gave her? And they bough a house together after that?!?

(Sorry Roberta)

[onthebrink]

purgatorio number pad. It's so obvious but it took me hours to figure it out. It's not the worst but probably one of the best.

[DutchMarco]

One puzzle that ticked me off (a bit), was crssoing the Lava in Atlantis. So many times it proved easy, but one time, any tile Indy stood on would collapse. I could find no reason for that particular tile to go. And I could therefore not continue the game.

[qptain Nemo]

Well, let me share my delightful experience of recently discovered wonderful puzzles. Actually, the ones I collected here are quite hilarious so they're indeed more of a nice experience than of horrible annoying skullcrashing but they are still quite random and nonsensical and therefore probably belong to 'badly designed' kind anyway.  So I hope you enjoy my bit.
There're spoilers ahead, lol.

In Touche: the adventures of the fifth musketeer the moment when you need to... uh, build a rope system in the cathedral to swap grave lids. Actually, it's not even a puzzle but a mock-up of a one. Because who possibly can think about doing that and consider it possible to pull out such trick? Well, obviously no one, no one even out of his mind will ever aim to do that. Not knowing he can, that is. Although I should say it worked just awesome as a joke: when you randomly use rope on a candle holding thingie and see THIS to happen all of a sudden it's just makes another happy "dude, what the hell?!" moment in your life.

The George's imprisonment episode in Broken Sword 4 (the one in the priests' club bath). Well, I'm not even trying to describe what the hell is going on in this episode because I didn't quite get it myself. Except for the very basic idea that George is tied up in a very strange room and by triggering some sort of chain of no less weird events he must free himself. This total randomness didn't stop to amaze me and make me laugh not to mention how unexpected it was in the middle of humorous and fantastic yet quite rational good old Broken Sword.

By the way in the fan-made Broken Sword 2.5 you're poisoning a innocent passenger on a plane just to get a few seats past him... I mean, George was acting cynical in the name of justice and saving of all that is good before but poisoning a man just to distract a stewartess who is blocking the way to the seats where're more people to chat with just because of boredom? Now that's the way of a real bastard. Well, coresponding puzzles to achieve that weren't hard but the whole idea is unlikely to come to one's even rather dark mind.

And finally the puzzle about using a cat for ovehearing some secret conversations in Secret Files: Tunguska... I don't know is it bad or good, but I won't forget it for a looong time for its unhealthy creativeness. When I was putting old rotting pizza in that dish I wasn't all that serious, when I was trying to add some salt to it while cat was eating it I was just downright kidding. But not the developers, it was not only possible but obligatory to proceed. So, once again, this puzzle (sequence of puzzles?) was just wonderful, charming and memorable in its craziness but will you really come up with such solution to the situation on your own? Anyway, it's so funny I would put this one in the golden book of adventure game puzzles or something.

Sorry for the long ramblings, I hope it wasn't too boring.

[Trihan]

Those are indeed all gems in their own right but it's a fair point that no player in their right mind would -logically- consider trying most of these things.

I think an important part of puzzle design is that you should never rely on something that the player is never in a million years going to consider as a possibility in a puzzle that's vital to progressing in the game. They should always have some kind of logical progression, even if it's extremely lateral and obscure. Otherwise, all your puzzle really is is a "try using every inventory item you have on everything else that's clickable!" and those are never fun.

[Mr_Frisby]

Fossilised turtle creature that you bring back to life after many painfilled tries only for it to be eaten by giant sea snake thingy puzzle - in the DIG.

Damn you Lucas!

[Trihan]

I have to say also that the Pieroglyphics puzzle in Nelly Cootalot is possibly one of the greatest ever. from the concept to the sheer name of it to the head-slappingly simple solution that's disguised as something not even related to the puzzle.

[Revonx]

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The game by 7th level. Several noticeably stupid puzzles but especially that totem pole one. You got no help or advice, no indication of what you were supposed to do, apparently you were supposed to make it of a woman...... Everytime you failed you got zapped by lightning with non-skippable animation that lasted about 4 minuites! I think it took me several days and hours of vented anger to accomplish it by trial and error.
Did anyone figure that one out right away?

If you did, I think you can safetly say you're a genius.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Yeah, I have to agree with Frisby that The fossil puzzle was just damn ridiculous.  Parts will lock into place that seem to fit, but you still don't get a finished puzzle out of it, and there's no guide in the game to show you what these things look like inside.  It's all guesswork, and a few of the puzzles in the game are like this.  It took me awhile to work through this game for that reason, and while I felt a sense of accomplishment I was also annoyed that I was expected to understand the logic of designers trying to create alien puzzles.

[Nickydude]

Can't remember what adventure it was but you had to MAKE A PITSTOP... in order to use a toilet! Who on earth is going to know that? Just USE THE damn TOILET!

[Sektor 13]

Yeah, I have to agree with Frisby that The fossil puzzle was just damn ridiculous.  Parts will lock into place that seem to fit, but you still don't get a finished puzzle out of it, and there's no guide in the game to show you what these things look like inside.  It's all guesswork, and a few of the puzzles in the game are like this.  It took me awhile to work through this game for that reason, and while I felt a sense of accomplishment I was also annoyed that I was expected to understand the logic of designers trying to create alien puzzles.

As i can remember, there is a hotspot near by that shows you have the bones are correctly positioned.

[gcrussell1]

Can't remember what adventure it was but you had to MAKE A PITSTOP... in order to use a toilet! Who on earth is going to know that? Just USE THE damn TOILET!

If I'm not mistaken, that was in the original Sam and Max.

I know the Myst games are anathema to a great deal of adventure gamers, but I love them. However, at the beginning of Myst IV, you have to turn a bunch of knobs to change the pitch and speed (I think) of a couple sine waves, and make them collectively tweak into an irregular wave that matches up exactly with a guide. I got distracted halfway through that game a couple times, so I had to do that puzzle at least 3 times, and each time I kept tweaking knobs, trying to follow the apparently worthless hints the NPC gave me ("There, perfect, now the other one...Great, perfect, now back to that first one I told you was perfect..."). The one good thing about the puzzle is that they give it to you after 10-15 minutes of helplessness. I think the last time I played it, I made a sandwich and came back and it had been done for me.

[m0ds]

Thought I'd posted in this but obviously not. I completely agree that the Fossil puzzle in The Dig is one of the suckiest. The surveyors equipment puzzle in FoA had me stumped for several months & LBA "use ball to rescue lighthouse keeper" made me send off a letter to EA for help.

Also there's a puzzle surrounding the observatory in Noctropolis, and the only walkthrough I had was really unclear about what I had to do there. This frustrated me, and even to this day it does too - because I replayed Noctrop so many frigging times and each time progressed a bit further, and then eventually just got stuck at this point. So if anyone has any clues, do let me know

I remember the very first puzzle in Operation Stealth sucking because it took me a year to find out how to exit the airport terminal. Never did finish that game though.

Interesting to read everyone elses most dissapointing puzzles ever part 2 with Sheriff John Bunnell

[Jack Hare]

I finally got to play Grim Fandango for the first time a few days ago, and while I really enjoyed the story, setting and characters, I found a lot of the puzzles just frustrating and ended up using the UHS hints for most of it.

I don't think the problem was in the puzzles per se, though; rather, there just wasn't enough information in the dialogue and descriptions.

The worst puzzle in the game (IMHO) requires you to give two separate items to a carrier pigeon, but when you give the bird one item, the ONLY feedback that you get is that the bird takes it; Manny doesn't say anything and the bird doesn't do anything until the bird has both items.

Just a couple of extra lines, something like "It looks like he needs something to deliver" or "Looks like he needs to know who this is for", would have brought the puzzle down from bloody impossible to merely tricky.

True, additional hints would make the game easier, which probably isn't what the designers wanted, but withholding information seems like an artificial way to raise the difficulty.

[Ozzie]

Oh, I loved the fossil puzzle in The Dig, I had fun with it. The Dig went more in the Myst direction with the puzzles, they were more trial and error, but the experimentation added to the fun.
Otherwise, the planetarium puzzle had me totally stumped and I still don't understand where and how you recieve the neceassary clues to complete it.

Okay, the worst puzzle.....oh damn, there are many terrible ones, but I think you have to differentiate. Some puzzles are great as an idea but poor in execution.
For example, a friend of mine was really aggravated by some of the puzzles in The Feeble Files. Towards the end you had to give a guard a toy (or some kind of box with toys, I can't remember exactly) so you could pass. There wasn't any clue that he would want it and that he would love you so much for it or would be so distracted that he would let you go ahead.
Maybe if the game had suggested that the guard is rather childish and is mentally stuck at the stage of an 8 year old than it would have made sense.
There are probably better examples to make this clear but this just came to mind because I discussed it before.

I also read that Starship Titanic had some great puzzle ideas, but that they were all poorly executed.

I encountered many terrible puzzles, I spent much time of my adventure gaming time frustrated, annoyed and humiliated (I only exaggarate a little).
For me, the most aggravating design error is when I can't do something that I should be logically able to do and the game gives me reason to but that's not possible because my avatar didn't make the connection that this would be the right thing to do. Sometimes you have the feeling that you're not only playing through a character, but that you also need to connect his thoughts and push him towards certain conclusions.

[Jack Hare]

Ooh, I just thought of another hair-puller -- In Myst, there's a point where you can't progress until you've found a certain door, which is HIDDEN IN THE DARK behind the ONLY DOOR IN THE GAME that doesn't automatically close behind you.

Myst and monkey-related puzzles collide in disaster in the fourth Myst game: there's a puzzle in which you have to decipher the cries of a bunch of monkeys and use a device to replicate their danger call, but you have to do it in the proper cadence -- and the controls just aren't that easy to use.  I found out later that there's a patch to slow the damn thing down, but all the sites referring to it mention that you've still got to be ridiculously fast to get it right; I just couldn't be bothered.  Never finished that game.

Oh, and as long as we're on the topic, how about roughly 87% of The 7th Guest?

[pick yer poison]

Myst and monkey-related puzzles collide in disaster in the fourth Myst game: there's a puzzle in which you have to decipher the cries of a bunch of monkeys and use a device to replicate their danger call, but you have to do it in the proper cadence -- and the controls just aren't that easy to use.

That one had me stuck for 3 days before I finally got it.

As for worst puzzle (and this may have been said), four words:
"Go find the key."

Most unoriginal idea ever.

[Babar]

As for worst puzzle (and this may have been said), four words:
"Go find the key."

Most unoriginal idea ever.

I'd have thought that a puzzle just as bad (or perhaps even worse) would be "I wonder which door this key unlocks?"

[Ghost]

Oh, and as long as we're on the topic, how about roughly 87% of The 7th Guest?

7th Guest was not that bad, actually. Most puzzles were logical, and even based on known rulesets/newspaper puzzles.
There's just no exuse for the last "light-me-up" puzzle in the attic though. That was trial and error at its best.


11th Hour, now...