I posted this over at the Tex Murphy BFG forums as food for thought (and discussion) while they work on the next TM game... What do Goggers think?
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I'm playing through the Tex Murphy games now (first time) and while they are quite amazing, they also have some of those good ole fashion adventure game frustrations as well. I thought folks might like to weigh in on some of these, or add your own ;)

Do you like these in games, hate them, or have your own ideas on how content should be approached?

1.) Timed puzzles that require a mastery of the movement controls (Not only do you have to jump correctly, land perfectly, move precisely, etc... but you are on the clock as well) Example: Fire Room - Pandoras Directive.

2.) Timed puzzles in general. To me this is often Brain vs. Brawn. Sometimes its interesting in small doses, but most often, it rips me out of the atmosphere.

3.) Dialogue options that aren't clear. You get asked if you want the chicken or the fish and without any context clues you pick one only to find that you picked wrong. Game over.

4.) Cinematic that drop you right into the action or timed puzzle (causing you to send popcorn flying as you flail for the mouse)... I'm not really showing my bias am I? :p

5.) Items that only appear AFTER you do something completely unrelated. I remember a scene in Scratches that fits this really well. Inside the house I looked inside a vase. Empty. Went out to the garage and picked up an item. Got stuck. Did some backtracking, the item in the vase only appeared AFTER I picked up the item in the garage. no story or reason why, I was just supposed to magically know to go back and search everything, every location, every time I did anything... or should the story help you progress somehow?

6.) Odd uses for the inventory items you carry. You have matches, a lighter, some gasoline, and a blowtorch, but if you want to start a fire, you need to find dry leaves, a stick, some string, and a couple of rocks.

7.) Letting death warn you of traps. I'm a big fan of clues. A little blood on the floor, a plank that is a different color, a map that shows a specific path, etc. What I have a hard time with is dying first, then letting that serve as my warning that the area is trapped.

Mmmaybe. Quick-thinking: yes.
Action sequences: yes.
Interface manipulation: hell no. Depends on the situation (whether it reveals more of the plot / serves as a hint for future puzzles). And the game better have a merciful save mechanic. NO NO NO NO and NO. Unless the game autosaves after the cinematic, then yes. KILL MAIM BURN. Unless there's an in-world explanation and a hint that I should check the spot again, I won't even play such a game. One instance of things like this means you can't depend on logic to solve puzzles and ruins the whole game. Fine if not limited to traps alone but puzzles in general and backed by a good save mechanic. I'm writing a game that's all about learning from death.

I hate that. It's probably one of the most common reasons why I have to use a walkthrough, and I always think WTF?! if I read about such solutions. I examine every room very thoroughly and unless there is a logical reason to go back and look again, I don't bother. If there are objects you can pick up but can't at this stage of game yet (which is a questionable design decision in itself most of the time), then the game should give a small hint that doesn't make you dismiss this object yet, but keep it in mind. If the game doesn't do that, players are bound forget about it. Especially if the first comment is something like "I'm not interested in that / that thing is useless / nothing to see here" or whatever. Big Faux Pas.

Some games try to counteract it by making the hero say "I have no reason to take this / to go there", which gets the job done but comes across rather clumsy, IMO.

IIRC the event you used for this example is not unrelated at all.

You look in the vase and you don't see anything but at that point you weren't actively looking for anything specific, you just peeked inside a random vase. Later on, in the maid's room, you find a picture of a key hanging on the wall directly above the same vase so when you go back to the vase you aren't just peeking inside a random vase anymore, you're now actively looking for that key and by virtue of something you learned meanwhile you now know that there's a very good chance the key dropped inside the vase at some point.

I think this works alot better than being able to pick yp every item in sight without knowing why or what for because then advancement basically becomes a matter of trial and error, just try everything on everything and eventually you will advance even if you have absolutely no idea of what you just did or why.

I can appreciate your explanation, but I don't think the "logic" is that sound. Since I had already viewed that area, what the picture told me was that there USED to be a key there but it is not there any longer since I have already looked there. If the author's intent was to inform me to GO BACK, then they needed a stronger hint. I can't read their minds when it comes to intention and its equally, if not more so, acceptable to conclude that the picture means there WAS a key, it has been moved, lets find out where.

This ties into a very similar issue... backtracking. To the gamer it feels like busy work. It doesn't progress the story to traverse the whole house (which was most of the game) only to be "told" to go back through just for an item, so you can then travel back to use the item. The way to avoid this is to actually spread out the items into logical fashion across the game space. IMHO this is only a challenge for the devs if they didn't make the game big enough and use this as a "trick" to make the gameplay longer.

I mentioned it above, it wasn't obvious to everyone. I remember this and mentioned it as an example because I had to look online for a solution and the forums I found were full of people wanting to know how they were supposed to know to go back to a place they had already visited. Your second explanation didn't fix this... its still a place I already went and a "clue" that doesn't justify a change in that location. No matter how you spin it.

I suspect that if we ask the developers... ALL puzzles in ALL games make perfect sense to the ones that made them. But this isn't how fans receive them, is it?

This is a perfect example of the issue I am raising because they put something in a game that while it can be explained by some, doesn't follow logic to others (I would claim MOST in this example, but we obviously disagree). I'm not going to try and convince you that I am right or you are wrong, but BECAUSE we disagree, perhaps the devs could have found a more conclusive way to structure the game flow? One that either removed backtracking completely, or provided more story and reason for doing so?

Obviously, if you like the puzzle element, then that is the right answer, I just think you are hung up on the specifics of this puzzle or aren't seeing that others can interpret it in a different way.

Actually this is what made me lose interest in Scratches after a while, and I've noticed it with other adventures, too: I don't really like it, when you're constantly in the same environment but a few more or less random things in it change to progress the story (while everything else remains the same). In Scratches I played for one day and one night in-game time (or was it two?), but then I got the impression I'd have to search the whole house again on each new day, not really knowing what to do, what to look for and where, but feeling like I already knew the place inside out. It also got on my nerves after a while with Sam & Max Season One, although a little less so. But I think there's a certain risk in losing players if the adventure stays too long in one place and just repeats most of the descriptions etc. so that the players think they've already explored everything there is to see and don't feel like searching for the one thing that's new. There's also a high risk that players get inattentive in such an environment and overlook things, they'd have noticed during their first exploration.

As chance would have it, I'd recently been playing the updated Monkey Island 2 and listened to some of the audio commentary. At one point they discuss how they felt like they were being evil making sure any puzzle chain on one island couldn't be completed without something from the other islands causing backtracking. Tim's quote going something like "I promised 40 hours and they're going to get 40 hours!"

I don't feel so bad moving back and forth between previously visited locations if there's a way to skip the animation going one way and the other. I have the problem with dialogs though when games are designed to require you to ask the same question several times in a row. Add "unskippable dialog" and you don't really want to ask the same question several times if the answer might be semi-long and unskippable.

As for timed puzzles, they can be rather obnoxious, especially if they don't give a clear indication there's a timer and when it runs out.
A good example of good timed puzzles would be games like Gobliins2, In the sage/mage's house where you use one to wind up the clock and get ready to throw the rock with the other goblin. There's a bit of timing and precision, but it's really obvious it's something time limited happening.

I guess what I was complaining about is still a litle different, maybe it wasn't quite about backtracking but about re-using locations in different chapters or something like that. In Monkey Island 2 I had no issues with the backtracking. But then the areas were small and like you say it's easy to travel between them, and they're also beautiful to look at, so it's always a pleasure revisiting. ;)

I played MI2 a long time ago, so one could think my preferences changed, but when I played Time Gentlemen Please last year I had a blast, too, and I thought it was very similar to MI2 in design, including the puzzles that span several locations. I guess I don't have that much fun with less humorous adventures with bleaker or blander graphics, slow walking animation and long walkways between locations though.

A variation on this that really gets me angry - items that are not interactive until after you do something. You cant pick up the broom, you then find a hole that you need to stick something through - well the broom is useless, I can;t pick that up- oh but you can now! Grrr.

Another one that annoys me is the puzzle that is completely and utterly out of context - its just there to have a puzzle blocking your progress until you solve it especially if its a "moon-logic" puzzle.

1) Slow movement of the main character. This becomes very annoying when you're stuck and the current chapter offers a lot of ground to cover.

2) items that, once used, remain in your inventory even if you don't have any more use for them for the remainder of the game. This aggravates my "use everything on everything" strategy, as I always think the item has another use that will crop up later in the story.

3) Labyrinths. Silly and outdated, these puzzles have no place in modern adventure games.

4) Slider puzzles. You know them and you hate them.

and the worst one...

5) Failing to pick up a crucial item, then discovering several hours later that you can't progress without it, and can't go back to pick it up either. This one's inexcusable.

Yeah, I agree, but just out of curiosity, is that still common in modern adventures? And did it happen in a lot of the old ones? Can you name a few (or one) where you came across it? The ones by Sierra maybe?

A few rules that I try to apply to adventure games are:

Everything I know/knew before starting is moot.
The character is "me". "I" am the character.
If the character knows it, "I" know it. If I know it, the character might not! (Notice the lack of quotes in the second statement here.)
Examine everything, even inventory.

With those rules in mind, I'm ready for anything but the most vague, nonsense stuff.

That said, learning by clue-less deathtrap is bad. So is thrust-into-action by cinematic.

Check this out (click on "Adventure games" near the bottom of the screen):

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostForever

Developers avoid it nowadays, though.