What are your favorite/most hated Adventure Game Puzzles

[Radiant]

FoA was the fourth Indy game, actually. Look:
So assuming you count both Last Crusade games as one game rather than two, there you have it, FoA was the fourth Indy game created...

<grin> of course the Alabama Smith games don't count as they're nowhere near official.
However, I do seem to recall an old console game called Raiders of the Lost Ark, (out of the age of the colecovision and stuff) which would qualify.


Oh yeah. Fave puzzle? The gnomes in KQVI, and/or the time loop puzzle from Sorceror.
Worst puzzle ever? I dunno, several I suppose; the one that comes to mind right now is the Hell Gate from QfG5, since I figured I should stab myself to get blood (just like you do for the Ring of Truth) and that doesn't even give you a response.

[Bartimaeus]

How about that puzzle in "Apprentice II" where you had to use the potion on yourself to make yourself inanimate and get into the book? Who comes up with this stuff?!?!

[BMF-Inc]

Alright, the greatest puzzles that I have experiences had to definatly be!!!!
1. Space Quest 5's The banana in the tailpipe, which always reminded me of Beverly Hills Cop
2.Full Throttle- Tackling the cave fish puzzle in order to get the ramp....It required you to remember and be observant, as well as not being completely obscure
3.Gabriel Knight 3-All of the research puzzles done by Grace....they have the most in depth information that was well researched and very informative (and very accurate).

The worst experiences I have had in puzzles were
1.Full throttle-the first being the hitting the wall near the end...I never understood it
2.Full Throttle-the annoying plot hole where the reporter was beaten at a gas stop...emerged in a dumpster far from that stop....had the film she carried that was undeveloped...now developed and asked you to bring them to her editor...which you never had to do! I spent hours searching for that editor...but there never was one!
3.Longest Journey-Getting that stupid enflatable Duck from outside your window..it wasn't hard...but man was it obscure!
and finally 4. The Endless hours spent in MI4 with the prosthetic shop puzzle. Call me daft but I found no specific corralation within that conundrum

[Floskfinger]

Best puzzle: in "amozon qeen" when you make the monkey disapear by telling him that he doesen't exist. It really made me laugh

Whorst puzzle: "Nine men's morris" game in "conquest of the longbow". It's not really the whorst puzzle, but at least the most enoying!

[Snarky]

Hey, I loved playing Nine Men's Morris in Longbow!

[ziffle]

I don't like:
I don't know if you would call it a puzzle, but in King's Quest IV where you are going through the cave and fall in the hole.Ã,  You can't see anything, so if it wasn't for a cheat I would not have made it.Ã,  Stair climbing and cliff climbing in any game.Ã,  I would always fall.Ã,  Save early and save often!!!>

I like:
Monkey Island 1 and the insult contest.Ã,  Probably the best game I've played.
Monkey Island 2 and the spitting contest.
Most of the puzzles in the 7th Guest.

[Sam.]

Whorst puzzle: "Nine men's morris" game in "conquest of the longbow". It's not really the whorst puzzle, but at least the most enoying!

not only is it a bad puzzle, but it sells sex as well.

[stuh505]

My favorite puzzle:

aligning the chess pieces in Broken Sword 1

Most hated puzzle:

It's hard to have a single most hated puzzle...but I really didn't like all the jumping onto stones puzzles in KQ: Mask of Eternity, because there werent any clues...so you just have to die thousands of times trying to figure out what pattern they are looking for.  I mean any puzzle that is impossible to solve without dying at least a few times is just not a well designed puzzle.

[Bartimaeus]

Well, now for general hates:
Escape puzzles: "You are stuck in room. Escape."

Oh my word Zor... I never knew!
Hang on... I've just thought of something...

[Barbarian]

Annoying / Frustrating / Hated type of puzzles that stick out in my Adventure Gaming memory:

The Legend of Kyrandia - The Dark Caves "maze" with the occasional "FireBerries" you needed to collect for light and which would only give off light (when carrying) for up to something like 3 screens away from where you picked them before the light burned-out and then you get eaten by the "eyes" in the darkness.Ã,  Ã, Most times, in order to try and progress at all through this dark-cave-maze puzzle, you had to just take a chance, walk through a dark hole in hopes that it might lead to another cave with some fireberries, but 9 times out of 10 it seemed that you ended up dieing yet again, and agian, and again... And, the "death scene", perhaps "cute" the first dozen times or so, after a while gets extremely frustrating, and with no apperant way to skip-over the "death scene" as well, so had to just sit through it.. again, and yet again... In fact, in my experience, most "lost in a maze" puzzles in Adventure Games tend to be completely annoying and most likely unneccesary to the actual plot of the game, rather they tend to be thrown in seemingly as a way to "lengthen the play time".Ã,  If a "maze" is done in a way as to make it interesting, not "impossible" to solve, or as an important part of the plot, then sure it can be somewhat fun, but usually most times "lost in a maze" puzzles are usually an exercise in frustration.Ã, 

Fate of Atlantis: Overall, I loved the game and it's one of my favorite Advenure Games of all time.. but, my big gripe was with the "Sunstones" (?) disks things you had to collect and line up in a specific way to continue farthur into the game. Man, I must have tried every possible combination for hours on end, and even with reading various "hints" the game gives you. and even in frustration resorting to a walkthrough, I still was not able to ever get those disks to line up the right way.. I needed to end up resorting to getting a saved-game point from another source that was past that point in order to complete the game.

Also, Adventure Games in general in which the "cutscenes" in the game, the player probably is forced to watch time and again, and in which there is no appearant way to "skip" over the cut-scene, I find that extremely frustrating (such as the "death scene" in the dark-caves-maze as I described above for the Kyrandia game).Ã, 

I have lots more gripes about adventure games too, but I'll leave it at that for now.. heheh...

Despite some frustration caused by some poorly designed parts in some games,Ã,  Adventure Games still tend to be amoung my most favorite type of games to play.

[Bartimaeus]

Fate of Atlantis: "Sunstones"

AMEN!!! I agree!!! Damn Suntones!!!

[nihilyst]

Hi!

Mazes are the most senseless parts of any adventure. I mean: What for? Is it cool, or what?, to randomly click your way through tunnels you can't even see (The Last Crusade) and going here and there just to activate some machines? And The Perils of Rosella, especially those, on which you had to walk on pixels not to die, bear my grudge.
The bonedoor puzzle in Monkey Island 2 may be ignored; for years I had to guess the right combination, indeed, and I just wanted to jump out of my window, when I noticed these silly verses from the Bone Dance (which besides is a great joker on children's parties).

Great, storywoven puzzles are the ones in the Monkey Island series. I really appreciate them.

Oh, and I don't like puzzle puzzles as well. Don't know, how often I sat in front of Black Mirror and tried to reassemble photographs.

cheers
nihilyst

[Tom S. Fox]

I hate this puzzle in "The Moment of Silence" when you have to pull your tooth.
How can you guess this without a walkthrough?

[Crowley]

Worst puzzle I've ever encountered:

Simon the Sorcerer 2: 'Wear dog'

[Mr Flibble]

The most fiendish and difficult puzzle EVER in an adventure game is the cyphered maths equations from Nightlong : Union City Conspiracy.
For the uninitiated, there was a keypad that opened a door, but the sequence that you were given was a set of coded shapes.
They key to solving this was a blackboard covered in shapes set out into a sum.
You weren't given ANY hints as to which shape meant which number and there was no logical connection between them.

I checked out a walkthrough for this puzzle and it showed me how to work it out. About five pages of solution dedicated to this one puzzle.

Madness.

[Tuomas]

One thing you should never do is such as in Heimdall II, where the character was supposed to keep on walking against a wall which drains you r energy. NOw who would have thought that was the only way to get forward in the game. I mean, come on! You're not supposed to think of getting yourself killed!!!!! I got through it only by frustration. After a week in the same spot I ended up quitting myself with harmful aggression.

The best one I know is the legendary puzzle in Monkey Island I where Guybrush is thrown into the water with (was it an anchor ) tied onto him:D

[InCreator]

Favourite? The ones that trigger funny cutscenes, there's too many of them to name. Well, wearing a bigfoot costume in Sam&Max was one of the most funny ones.

Hated? All mazes. If they can be named as "puzzles". Also, all puzzles which can't be explained in walkthrough.
To name some, the chemistry puzzle in Shadow Of The Comet was really painful.

...And I also mention these effin' stone rings in Indy... 

[AFL]

its a puzzle in the black mirror game i think its in act 2 or 3 when you are visiting a relative or cousin. it involves moving tiles so its in the correct order i havent finished yet i hate tile moving puzzles.

[Snarky]

Annoying / Frustrating / Hated type of puzzles that stick out in my Adventure Gaming memory:

The Legend of Kyrandia - The Dark Caves "maze" with the occasional "FireBerries" you needed to collect for light and which would only give off light (when carrying) for up to something like 3 screens away from where you picked them before the light burned-out and then you get eaten by the "eyes" in the darkness.Ã,  Ã, Most times, in order to try and progress at all through this dark-cave-maze puzzle, you had to just take a chance, walk through a dark hole in hopes that it might lead to another cave with some fireberries, but 9 times out of 10 it seemed that you ended up dieing yet again, and agian, and again... And, the "death scene", perhaps "cute" the first dozen times or so, after a while gets extremely frustrating, and with no apperant way to skip-over the "death scene" as well, so had to just sit through it.. again, and yet again...

Didn't we discuss this not so long ago? Or was that a different forum? You never need to risk dying in the Kyrandia I maze. You always have enough fireberries to last you to the next bush. The only times you'll need to walk into a room without any fireberries, there's always a bush in that room. If you are careful and methodical, you shouldn't ever see the death scene.

If you kept dying, it just means you didn't work out the puzzle (how to get through the maze safely). The game kept punishing you for that. It's the same way you shouldn't have to try every possible combination of the sun stones in Indy:FOA, you should be able to reason out what the correct combination is, and use that.

You can complain that the puzzles were difficult because you couldn't figure them out, but it doesn't make much sense to complain that playing the games without solving the puzzles (just by trial and error or exhausting every possible combination) was tedious. Of course playing the game without solving the puzzles is going to be tedious!

[Babar]

but snarky... you DID die many times in the maze in Kyrandia. There wasn't a firebush EVERY 5 screens.  You could start at a bush, move 5 screens in a completely new direction, dropping 'em on the way, and the last screen would be without a bush. I still have the map I made out of it.
Not to say that I thought it was a bad puzzle. Solving mazes in adventure games is also fun and challenging for me. A chance to pull out a paper and pencil and start mapping. It gives a sense of accomplishment. For example King's Quest 6 had a maze, with no-sense "move to a new screen and die with no warning" screens, but it was still fun- you just have to develop a system to pass through them, looking for patterns

The entrance to atlantis stone disks puzzle in Indiana Jones were not random! You had to follow the instructions, and it worked.