Worst. Puzzle. Ever.

[Takyon]

The worst puzzle I think I've completed is probably the key puzzle near the end of Still Life.

[Stupot]

My worst puzzle recently has been trying to find a Demo of Still Life 2 that isn't corrupt!

[EdLoen]

in dragon sphere there's a "maze" you have to go though in order to talk to the fairy king where you need to talk to the right pixie as the right time.  there's eight pixies flying around the area and all of them change colors, and are paired as couples who's names start with the same letter.

The puzzle works like a "find the truth" game where depending on their gender, and color, it determines if they're lying or not.  The solution stems from talking to one pixie when she's a certain color (her "truth state"), who tells you to talk to her husband to remove the gardian, then when you talk to him when he's in his "truth state", he'll remove the obsticle. Kind of a straight forward logic puzzle... on paper.

the problem was that the pixies are just colored dots on screen that all flew and intermingled together (and pretty close to the guardian that kills you if you got to near). so actually FINDING which ones you need to talk to is pretty damned near impossible.  It was trial and error that took more then an hour, and some random luck, to get though.

[Michigami]

once upon a time, there was what was called "an action adventure rpg" based on the Vampire Hunter D movie, "Bloodlust".

it was bad.

it was ALL bad, even the "fetch the keycard from the room halfway across the castle past the 300 zombies to open the door in the first room on the OTHER side of the castle you were in a half hour ago" door puzzles were nothing compared to one thing...

the jump puzzle room.

NO game with a movement system THAT horrible should have a jump puzzle, especially when the camera changes automatically depending on where you are in the room, and when it does, magically the direction you were walking is a totally different direction! >_<!!

up becomes left, left becomes right, walking two pixels too far to the right triggers another camera angle change, and now you're walking backwards off the cliff instead of forwards onto the SAFE part of the ledge.

and if you fall off, ohh no, it's not simply start from the beginning, it's start from your last save outside the room, where you have to go find the smegging key to the puzzle room all over again BEFORE you can even try it again, unless you saved at noon on a full moon in may of 1983, or whenever the game randomly decided to save right, because it never did set the restore point right on the PS1 version, (and thank the creators that they never tried to make another version).

this was not merely a puzzle, this was a controller-throwing torture test that broke many a fantard back in the day, and continues to annoy anyone brave enough to attempt the game.

[Trent R]

Wow. Even if the game is that horrible, I must play it if it is starring D.

What console?

~Trent

[Michigami]

Wow. Even if the game is that horrible, I must play it if it is starring D.

What console?

~Trent

it was made for the original playstation, so it's all kinds of old school horrible too.  the game is pretty, and they did an amazing job on the backgrounds, but the gameplay sucks so bad it's painful.

[Mati256]

First, Sorry for bringing back to life an old post, but I think this it is a great post.

Regarding to this quote.

I, too, don't like puzzles you have to die for at least once.
The guys at Sierra made those puzzle on purpose!!!

In Broken Sword, when you have to get out of the Hotel with the pergamin, but the gangsters outside will kill you if you do it. The solution was pretty logic, but after you have being killed.

[MMMorshew]

I remember a very disturbing puzzle that appeared in an old Maniac Mansion Mania episode. You had to cut off the ear of a dog with a knife, fill it with dust out of an airvent and then give it to a hungry guy guarding a door, so that he would let you pass. 

[Radiant]

In Broken Sword, when you have to get out of the Hotel with the pergamin, but the gangsters outside will kill you if you do it. The solution was pretty logic, but after you have being killed.

Oh, there's worse examples, like the bobby pin in the meatloaf in Larry 2. You need the pin, and the only way to discover it's there is by eating the loaf, which kills you. And if you take the pin out, you get a remark like "you wonder if anyone was stupid enough to eat that"...

[Ryan Timothy B]

The solution was pretty logic, but after you have being killed.

That depends I guess on if you had left the hotel before you found the scroll, you'd notice that the thugs search you.

I immediately knew once I found the scroll, that this is what they were searching me for.  So I saved it before leaving the hotel to see what kind of cut scene would take place.  I also knew immediately what I had to do with the scroll to sneak it past the thugs.

[Crimson Wizard]

In Broken Sword, when you have to get out of the Hotel with the pergamin, but the gangsters outside will kill you if you do it. The solution was pretty logic, but after you have being killed.

Oh, there's worse examples, like the bobby pin in the meatloaf in Larry 2. You need the pin, and the only way to discover it's there is by eating the loaf, which kills you. And if you take the pin out, you get a remark like "you wonder if anyone was stupid enough to eat that"...

This reminds me Laura Bow 2 and a chest full of flesh-eating bugs. You had to put meat loaf (IIRC) there, but I don't see how you could guess that without first opening it and dying, then reloading.

[Mati256]

On the same line (bad puzzles) is this article:
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html