Messages

A few more that use it:

Post Mortem
Alone in the Dark 2
Mystery of Time and Space
Pharaoh's Curse

Nuh-uh! That puzzle is SO going to be a cliché in five years.

"Dude. ANOTHER game with the gummi fingerprint puzzle and the superglue and circuit board? Man, this is even worse than the 'catching the key' thing!"

Eeexcellent. This could be an incredible multi-stage puzzle. Could fill an entire chapter.

The player has to:

1) Get a photograph of the guy's fingerprints.

You have: Glass/CD/whatever with fingerprints. Mug. Digital microscopic camera. Superglue. Heat lamp used for lizard terrarium. Small aluminum/tin measuring cup. Cardboard box. Tape. A table near an electrical outlet.

You need to use the process of cyanoacrylate fuming, or "The Superglue Method," to make the prints clear enough to photograph.

[Source: http://onin.com/fp/cyanoho.html]

1. USE box on table. PC puts box on table, on its side, so that there's a work space.
2/3/4/5/6/7. USE lamp on box. Player positions lamp so that it is on the table, poking into the box, bulb facing upwards.
2/3/4/5/6/7. USE mug on sink to fill it with water.
2/3/4/5/6/7. USE mug in box. Player puts it in box. This is needed for humidity. (PC will not plug in the apparatus if this isn't done, and will say "I need a humidity source in there. It's too dry to fume well.")
2/3/4/5/6/7. USE cup on lamp. Player puts cup on lamp.
2/3/4/5/6/7. USE tape on CD, then USE CD on box to hang it in the chamber. Just using the CD directly gives the message: "I shouldn't just toss it in haphazardly. I need it to be better exposed."
2/3/4/5/6/7. USE superglue on cup. Note that we'll assume it doesn't dry, or, alternatively, set a time limit that forces to player to add more superglue if this takes too long.
8. HAND icon on box to close it around the lamp neck.
9. USE tape on box to seal it.
10. HAND on plug to plug in lamp. Time passes.
11. HAND on box to open it.
12. USE camera on now-fixed-and-easily-visible prints. Bingo.

I can't help it... that source page looks so much like an adventure game walkthrough...

How does the player figure all this out?

One possibility would be to have the player watch a forensic detective use a fume chamber earlier, and note down the steps in a handy pocket notebook. The fume chamber wouldn't run on over-the-counter superglue, but the principles would be explained. Also, there would be ample tips as to when the player was on the right track. Another possibility is that the player character is a detective, and says things like, "Okay, I need to build a fume chamber myself, then. Need cyanoacrylate, a humidity source, a fume container, and a heat source."

2) Make a mold.

You have: Computer with camera interface. Inkjet printer. Photo-etchable circuit board. UV light.

(Why would the player have photo-etchable circuit board? Well, you can get it from an electronics store, along with a strong UV source, and the electronics shop guy might actually be a good hint source here. "Is there anyway to print a solid object? I mean, to print something out in 3D?" the PC might ask. And the shop guy would tell you what you needed.

1. USE digital camera on computer. Player character uploads picture. Go to Photo Manipulation interface.
2. USE mirror flip option.
3. USE increase contrast option.
4. USE scale option.
5. USE print to Tray 2: Transparencies.
6. GET transparency.
7. USE transparency on circuit board.
8. USE circuit board on UV light.
9. Use tape on circuit board to make a little wall around the print.

Source: http://cryptome.org/gummy.htm

3) Make the fake finger:

1. Get the mug.
2. Use gummi bears on mug. The PC will remark that it's got white powder on it from the superglue, and automatically dump it out, put in the bears, and add a bit of water.
3. Use mug on microwave. "It takes you a few tries and a few more gummi bears, but you think you've got it to the right consistency now."
4. Use mug of goo on board.

Bingo!

Floskfinger: There are two items that can show you the way across the ice with relative ease. One requires that you have the Liber Ex Doctrina that came in the game box (copy protection), and that you listened to somebody carefully earlier, and put two and two together. The other requires that you visit Glastonbury Tor before the ice scene.

Worst puzzle:

Hands down, it's the gems and the bowls in The Legend of Kyrandia. There is no logic at all. None. None. Half of the puzzle is RANDOMIZED, for crying out loud, which basically proves that the designers were going out of their way to make me suffer for no good reason. Just horrible trial and error. And you have to collect objects with an inventory limit, and traipse back and forth over the game map, and use save-and-restore if you want to solve it without wasting hours of your life, and there's no obvious REASON to be doing any of this except that you CAN, and... argh.

I've seen puzzles that have frustrated me, have made me say "What on earth were the designers smoking?", and have wasted my time. But this was the worst. That game was a waste of thirty dollars.

Best puzzle:

Trinity is a brilliant text adventure with a few truly unfair and nasty puzzles, and a few really incredible ones. The Klein bottle puzzle falls into the second category. You walk through this strange topological space, and then the entire game map is mirror-reversed. Or are you mirror-reversed? In any case, the result is the same, and you need to exploit it to solve that puzzle and set up ANOTHER really cool puzzle involving a strange sundial...

A really neat way to fool some fingerprint readers:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116573,pg,5,00.asp

Now, the trick would be cluing this. The print lifting wouldn't be too difficult to pull off - a discarded CD or something would do it. But getting the player to realize that melting candy will make a readable finger? That's tough.

Possibly a few decoy substances could be included, and attempts to use them would result in failure and a message suggesting that the player experiment with different materials...

Three paths to the handprint/fingerprint puzzle?

I'm thinking of the most common one, which involves a dead guard, but there was one clever usage of a copied, fake handprint/fingerprint in a game I know of, and I suppose you could always go the Half-Life route and have somebody actually volunteer to open the door. But the common option is the cliché, and I probably should have been clearer about what I meant.

As for the ways to get past a guard? Sleeping gas in the vents hasn't been used too much, and it was handled nicely in a Star Trek game. Calling in on a guard's walkie-talkie or headset and pretending to be a superior is a nice one, though it might count as disguise. Turning yourself in, getting arrested and taken into the fortified location, and then escaping using a hidden gadget/trick/inside contact is my favorite, though.

Then there's something to be said for using stealth to avoid the guard altogether, in which case the guard becomes sort of a looming presence whom you don't deal with directly. And really, if I wanted to get into a building secretly, I would probably want to try every possible method that didn't show my face to the security personnel before approaching the guard. But no vents. Vents are overused. Wall-scaling and stealth are nicer, and King's Quest VI has a particularly neat variation on this in one of the two paths through its endgame.

I don't have anything against bribes, disguise, or distraction in general, but they're rarely pulled off really convincingly in games. The thrown rock style of distraction is incredibly risky and bribes are even riskier than rock throwing. Disguises are only good when the player isn't conveniently given a full uniform in his or her PC's clothing size by knocking out ANOTHER guard.

* The sad thing about the door puzzle is that it was once a good one. Zork 2 used it well. In a fantasy environment where you might conceivably run into a door with that security weakness, it was actually a very nice puzzle. But I've spent YEARS looking for doors with that security hole, and I've only found a few, in very old buildings.

I believe that puzzle is like a secret handshake between game designers and adventure gamers. It's often underclued, as it was in Dark Fall, so you have to know it in advance to solve it in some cases.

* Another super-cliché puzzle involves a door with a handprint/fingerprint scanner.

I don't need to say anymore, do I? Is this even a puzzle anymore?

* Yet another is the "I don't have a flathead screwdriver. All I have is what's in my wallet" puzzle. I'm guilty of this one in the one full-length adventure game I've written. It's a filler puzzle. Nobody has to think about it - not the player, not the designer.

* Chandeliers exist to be swung upon and/or dropped.

* A person with no experience in these matters can quickly open a supposedly secure lock or set of handcuffs with a hairpin or a credit card. It's EASY! This is why the police always remove a woman's hairpins when they arrest her, just in case!

* Reflective objects always reflect spells.

* Any trap found in a tomb will be operational after thousands of years, even if it requires continual resetting or perpetual motion. Gabriel Knight 3 has an INCREDIBLY bad case of this when it suddenly goes brain-dead in the endgame. To quote the comic Absurd Notions, the ancients were very clever with counterweights.

* Also, the ancients were very clever with chessboards.

* If there's a conversation menu in the "Choose an attitude" format, choose very carefully, since you can make bad mistakes. If it's in the "Choose a sentence" format, this is less likely. If it's in the "Choose a subject to ask about" format, you are required by adventure game law not only to be reckless, but to ask about every single topic. It's practically noninteractive.

* By the way, the ancients were ALSO very clever with levers and runes and wheels.

* But they never invented the safety deposit box.

* Either you can't die, or death is frequent and maybe a bit unfair.

* Prison cells contain straw beds and whatever else you need to set a distracting fire.

* Secret passages are frequently connected to not-so-secret triggers, like a candle or a book. You know, things that anybody dusting the room might stumble on. That's what makes them SUPER SECRET.

* If it's guarding a door and can't be bribed, fooled by disguise, distracted, or killed, it will have a riddle for you.

* People always tear off the top sheet of a memo pad after writing something on it. However, in order to be fair to you, the player, they press really hard with the pencil, so you know what to do.

* Vines exist to be swung from, fashioned into crude ropes, or both.

* You're wandering around the big city, and you need a screwdriver. The man who could loan you a screwdriver says he wants a squid-and-pickle sandwich. You must therefore find a squid and a pickle and bread. You cannot go to the hardware store and buy a screwdriver, because there is no hardware store you can visit in the entire big city. Anyway, you don't have money, even though you know people you could conceivably borrow from.

But even if you did have money, and could go to the hardware store, you wouldn't.

Because that man wants a squid-and-pickle sandwich, gosh darn it, and you're gonna get it to him come fire or flood or killer squid that resent being made into sandwich filling.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the most annoying adventure game cliché puzzle ever.

I'll present it in step-by-step format. After I give each clue, try to guess the puzzle's resolution. Score yourself at the end.

Spoiler

1. There is a locked door in front of you.

[close]

Spoiler

2. It has the kind of keyhole you can look through normally...

[close]

Spoiler

3. But the keyhole is blocked by something on the other side.

[close]

Spoiler

4. There is a gap under the door.

[close]

Spoiler

5. You have a sheet of paper.

[close]

Spoiler

6. You have a thin, bladed instrument.

[close]

SOLUTION:

Spoiler

7. Slide the paper under the door. Poke the keyhole with the instrument, knocking the key onto the paper. Pull the paper and key back under the door. Use the key to open the door.

[close]

If you guessed:

Before clue 1: You are an experienced adventure gamer who apparently shares my opinion as to what the world's most overused puzzle is, and you don't need clues to guess it. Let us sulk in quiet bitterness together.

On the first clue: You saw the puzzle and the solution as soon as you saw the barest outline of the setup. There are only so many overused puzzles, after all.

On the second or third clue: Either you've seen this one before, and you know what that clue automatically means, or you're very good at working out puzzles.

On the fourth clue: You either have seen this puzzle, but the other clues didn't jog your memory, or else you are quite resourceful.

On the fifth or sixth clue: You're solving this for the first time. Prepare to solve it many more times if you play adventure games much.

Didn't solve it: Oh, come on. It wasn't that hard.

-

A few games that use this puzzle, named as I remember them:

Zork 2 (I believe it was 2)
Lost in Time (Clever but needlessly baroque variation on the theme)
Anchorhead
Zork: Grand Inquisitor
Broken Sword 3
Sherlock Holmes: Case of the Rose Tattoo (I found this by Googling some key phrases, so to speak, and getting the walkthrough)
Dark Fall
Midnight Nowhere (Found by Googling another phrase)
Hugo 2: Whodunnit
And SO MANY MORE.

Note: (SPOILERS FOR LOTS OF GAMES!!!)



(REALLY! LOTS OF SPOILERS! NO KIDDING!)

(RANT ON.)

In some games, the player is forced to fail at some point, often as a key part of the protagonist's character development. This much is fine. It's a classic storytelling device.

But is it a good idea to have forced failures that cause the death of a likeable character? Is this genuinely involving, or just manipulative? If we wanted to hear a story where our best efforts had no effect, well, wouldn't we just _hear a story_, rather than play a game? When this device works, players try over and over to get around it, and fail, saving and restoring. This probably isn't good for the suspension of disbelief, really...

Often, the True Love or Best Friend is the one to go. I've seen scenes like this praised, but I have to wonder if they're good storytelling, or just apathetic. It's easy to write a Tragic Dead Love, but hard to write a convincing living one.

And the "Lover Girl's Going To Die At the Villain's Hands, RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU" device is overused for another reason.

It slaps the player across the face, because a game, being the least passive form of entertainment short of actually living an adventure, forces involvement in a character. Making a character you've developed happy might give a bit of brief joy, but killing them? Emotional chainsaw! This is great if the game does something with it, but it too often just becomes an opportunity to extract emotion without developing it, without getting the player to think about the implications of what's going on.

(Note that most action games have a lot of forced deaths, but we don't think about those. First-person shooters are filled with forced deaths, unless nonviolence is really a practical way to win.)


SPOILERS AHEAD!!!





That's not to say it always fails. Here are a few uses of the forced failure death that have actually worked to some degree, maybe:

Final Fantasy VII: Let's get this one out of the way. BIG, MANIPULATIVE FORCED DEATH HERE. Good thing or bad thing? You could argue that for some time.

Wing Commander III (or II? I forget which. Maybe both.): A character lives up to her name.

Baldur's Gate II: Best damned thief in the game. And he dies, a traitor all along!

Chrono Trigger: Crono. And the best use of the forced death ever, because it's a fake forced death.

Trinity: A text adventure where you have to be the instrument of an innocent creature's death, for reasons that are unclear at the time. You crush it in your bare hands.

Jigsaw: Another text adventure. You have to shoot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and start World War I, or else the game ends quickly. Whether this is better or worse than causing a world war is an open question, but you need to do this to win. Chrono Trigger's forced death may be more obviously heartwrenching; in this case, you don't SEE the consequences of your actions. FFVII's is a lot more famous. But this has got to the biggest player-caused forced death ever written, unless somebody's written a game where actually you destroy the world.

Oh, wait... I forgot:

Loom: Wow. What a downer. The innocent guy whose appearance you stole for your own purposes just got eaten by a dragon you released, and now his ghost is really angry, with good reason. And it just gets worse, and worse, even after you resurrect they guy, and you end up involved very closely with the destruction of civilization. But hey, there's hope. For you, anyway. Not for the people ravaged by the undead armies you released.


A few games where forced death fails:

Shannara: Wow. What a flat scene. Wow.

Any game where you run into the Big Bad, and he's TOO POWERFUL FOR YOU, RUN BOY RUN! And there goes your loyal mentor. This kinda worked in Star Wars, but I haven't seen it done well in a video game. I think Gabriel Knight stumbled on a scene like this, badly, though it delayed the death until after the obvious danger had passed.

Forced parental death usually doesn't work.

-

Is forced failure a design risk worth taking?

Something said earlier here really rung true for me:

"I keep thinking "Why does it always have to be the whole world, why not just save the suburb I live in or that sad kid in school nobody cared for?"

There are some good reasons to have the player quest to save the world, or avenge his family/lover/friend/dog, but there are also a whole LOT of bad ones. How many games have  heroes who fight to save a world that's so incredibly cardboard it would tip over in a strong wind? Or who seek to avenge family that we never really meet, and have no real reason to care about?

A game where you save one person whom you care about would be good. Not too many games have that, although the forced failure to save somebody that you care about is surprisingly common. Maybe computer game writers are worried that we'll get repulsed by sentimentality unless it's crushed at some point.

SPOILERS FOR CHRONO TRIGGER:

In the classic RPG Chrono Trigger, there's an overarching Save the World plot that manages to work. However, it's introduced well after the player has seen a bit of the world itself, and has gone on a few quests to help other characters. More importantly, the player sees what will happen to the world if it is not saved before even being told that the PC is going to save it.

In other words, there's emotional involvement here. But the overarching save the world plot is nonetheless the least interesting and entertaining thing in the game. Well, that, and Crono, the lead PC. More interesting is the sideplot where Crono dies, and the player can ressurect him, resulting in a blissful reunion with love-interest Marle and a sentimental music box theme song. It's heavy handed, but it WORKS. And it's not the death itself that makes the plot work. It's Marle's response. Without Marle, this wouldn't have been much of a plot twist. She isn't well-written, or deep, but she makes the emotional pull.

Likewise, without somebody who actually cares, and is worth caring about, the Save the World plot can't hold up. Computer and video game players are willing to invest a lot of imagination in the barest outlines of a character, but you have to give imagination if you want to get some back.

Just played through the intro, then replayed it so I could comment more carefully.

It's looking very promising.

What's good:

The background graphics are spot-on; I really feel like I'm playing a new Quest for Glory game.

Mouseover text on objects. MOUSEOVER TEXT ON OBJECTS! YES! YES! WE NEED MORE GAMES WITH THAT!

This game is generous with details. Little things like the way Tim's feet kick a little when he's casting spells from the carriage, the mother's tears in the goodbye scene, and the door sounds add a lot.

What could use improvement:

Tim the enchanter. There can be a Monty Python reference, and there can be a Lord of the Rings reference, but placing them in a plot-central position breaks immersion. When he enters, I'm not playing a game with its own story anymore. I'm playing a LOTR spoof, or a generic fantasy. It's probably too late to change Tim all that much, but he should probably be more clearly defined as either a parodic LOTR reference or an interesting character in his own right.

The dialogue is terribly wordy. Cutting down the Father/Tim dialogue by 50-75% would be wise; telling the player so much in the opening keeps the game from building momentum. At the very least, the exposition could be spread out into the wagon ride a little more. It's an old axiom of writing: Show, don't tell.

(Would the early scenes of Fellowship of the Ring have worked quite as well if, instead of flinging the ring into the fire, lighting up the runes, and riding away, Gandalf had said, "This ring is far more powerful than you imagine, and possesses great secrets! I will tell you this: in fire it was born, and in fire it must be destroyed.")

Like the dialogue, the object descriptions tend to be a bit wordy. But the problem isn't as severe here.

The line about having heard "no rumors" of "an encroaching undead army" is perhaps funnier than it was meant to be.

("Hey, Tim! I heard that zombies just ate the next town over!" "Pshaw! Gossip!")

The music for the forest ride grows repetitive quickly, though this could just be a result of my having to sit through it during the last few teaser screens. The ability to skip cutscenes would be welcome.

The splash screen of the heroine calls to mind the QFG3 splash screen, in a good way, but it would work better if we could see the heroine's eyes. See comments by others, above.

The dialogue pictures vary strongly in quality. Mother is sketchy, while Father is excellent and Keira is passable-to-good. The contrast of the figures on black backgrounds is also a bit jarring; father's hair looks a bit weird that way.

Other comments:

Just as we know ET is being referenced if we see somebody fly in front of a full moon in a movie, the amulet-on-woman's-chest shot in an adventure game is a nice wink to people who've played Fate of Atlantis. It's good to know that adventure games are, like movies, building up a vocabulary of famous scenes.

I am a big QFG fan, and am very happy to see people trying to carry on the series legacy. Good luck.