I see what you're saying regarding the Marquis. There is potential there for him to contract the pox and become incredibly interesting. Perhaps Napoleonic? I think it would be a nice addition to have him want to stop Guybrush at all costs, perhaps going so far as to explore his past and look up any past enemies he has had. Cue the scene where he finds a drunk, washed up LaGrande and gets him onboard with his nefarious plot. Could be fun!
The Steve Martin stuff is great. He's one of my favorites.
There's not else much I can add to this excellent discussion, aside from the fact that I wish there were a way to bring this thread to the attention of the developers. Not because I think they're doing anything wrong, but just to provide some thoughtful insight from the core fans -- the intelligent ones, not the "TTG totally ruined the [insert something shallow here]" ones who can never be pleased anyway.
If I had to nominate anyone to be my spokesman it would be sladerlmc77, since he seems to be able to articulate my hopes for the MI series even better than I could. Slader, TTG should hire you on as Monkey Island Tone Consultant.
Hehe... agreed. I think that the MI series is in competent hands, and I've got faith that it will improve as the series progresses.
I think the core fans are unanimous on this one; as long as they start darkening the tone and making it feel more epic and less "cutsey-pie", it has the potential to feel less like a disposable 4-hour diversion and more like an experience that can rival the best MI games in the series.
I think the reason why the first two games were funnier was because there were no recorded voices. Every line was played back in ones' head according to ones' own comic sensibility.
I think it was also because the sprites were just so cute (Guybrush, the Shopkeeper, Herman, Stan....hehehe)
Yup. The writing is also more concise, and that's part of the humor. Also, it utilizes what I think of as the Far Side brand of humor, where the joke is not explained or even commented on 90% of the time, you just have to see it on your own. As such, none of the jokes are run into the ground or overly silly.
I felt Marquis was an awesome character, and going farther with him would have made for a very dark and awesome story. It felt kind of like they stayed in the safe zone with him.
It's not the menace of LeChuck Telltale needs to redo. Honestly I could go through the whole game without being menaced by LeChuck like I was in Monkey Island 2. What made that great was we didn't expect such a dark and serious turn of events out of a light-hearted comedy game. If that part of the game had been removed ultimately Lechuck's Revenge would not have been as good, because the shock of the pure evil behind the motives and the build-up to the "final" showdown would have been non-existent. I think Telltale really needs to work on telling a story with this game, along with working on the build-up. In Lechuck's Revenge Big Whoop was built up by every pirate you met, telling their own story about it, along with many other references to it. The menace of LeChuck was made greater because we had not seen him for the whole game and thus, did not know what to expect from him. What we got was terrifying.
We need to see La Esponja Grande given the same build up in the story; make it like the new Ark of the Covenant of the series so to speak. It's obvious they're trying to make it and the Pox of Lechuck the new Big Whoop so give it the treatment it deserves. As far as Lechuck, if they're playing their cards right, they will use his human form to create a false sense of security, so that in the final showdown something truly shocking and terrifying takes place with our favorite Once-Zombie Pirate. Something we do not expect. But does he need to terrify us as the ZP LeChuck again? No. Move on and do new things.
We need to see La Esponja Grande given the same build up in the story; make it like the new Ark of the Covenant of the series so to speak.
I actually uttered these very words to my friend at lunch today. What's important is that the MacGuffin actually be important, and not necessarily fully explained (which is where I think the last game got into trouble - overexplanation)
As a climax, Raiders nailed how the MacGuffin should be handled. Everybody knew the Ark was supposed to be powerful, and Marcus directly referenced the biblical accounts of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions.
That said, none of the main characters knew what to actually expect when the Ark was opened. Only Belloq seemed to have an idea that a Jewish Ritual would be necessary to approach the Ark.
On an emotional level, the fact that the nazis are destroyed for daring to lay eyes upon the work of God makes sense. Logically, the mind says "So, you open the box and faces melt off?"
Fortunately, the sheer spectacle hits every botton that gets your emotional core firing, and it's kept brief enough that you dont' have time to analyze it, you only wish you could see more Wrath of God (and that's the way it SHOULD be!)
If this kind of weight can be leant to the sponge, we'll be in great shape.
But does he need to terrify us as the ZP LeChuck again? No. Move on and do new things.
Still not sure I agree with this statement. That's not to say that LeChuck can have no humor associated with him...only that he does need to show that he's a threat to Guybrush. An earlier poster was correct - Guybrush shouldn't be able to stand next to LeChuck casually, just assuming that he'll vanquish him again.
Still not sure I agree with this statement. That's not to say that LeChuck can have no humor associated with him...only that he does need to show that he's a threat to Guybrush. An earlier poster was correct - Guybrush shouldn't be able to stand next to LeChuck casually, just assuming that he'll vanquish him again.
But it needs to suit the story. As I said before, the terrifying qualities of MI2 LeChuck came from the build-up and suspense. Right now I would guess that Guybrush has more to worry about from the Pox and the Poxed Pirates than from LeChuck. Honestly this isn't something I can fully comment on until after Episode 5 though, without arguing for complete speculations on my part.
By the way, some people might say that a sponge can't have the same sort of power that say the Ark had. Wrong. We're talking about a Sponge that can remove Voodoo power from any living being. That's some powerful stuff. However, we don't know what effect this sponge could have or what could happen if it were put into the hands of someone like say, Guybrush. Or even if it went into the hands of LeChuck.
By the way, there's another MacGuffin that was introduced briefly in the intro that we haven't heard anymore about. Namely the secrets of the Monkeys of Montevideo and the Thirteenth Monkey; which was obviously supposed to be the new "secret of Monkey Island". And the fact that LeChuck said it could make him a Demon Pirate King/ "Pirate God" - my guess is we haven't seen the last of this MacGuffin and that things could take a MUCH darker turn of events if we ever came across it.
I agreed with most of the review except the part about the Puzzles 2/2? i dont think so.
Puzzles are suppose to leave you puzzled! Each puzzle i solved i thought "i hope the next one is more difficult" thats the very essence of the game and it doesnt hold a candle against COMI which had in my opinion a perfect level of difficulty as well as being very fun to solve.
Please stop addapting the puzzles to general decrease in the worlds IQ.
I agreed with most of the review except the part about the Puzzles 2/2? i dont think so.
Puzzles are suppose to leave you puzzled! Each puzzle i solved i thought "i hope the next one is more difficult" thats the very essence of the game and it doesnt hold a candle against COMI which had in my opinion a perfect level of difficulty as well as being very fun to solve.
Please stop addapting the puzzles to general decrease in the worlds IQ.
By the way, there's another MacGuffin that was introduced briefly in the intro that we haven't heard anymore about. Namely the secrets of the Monkeys of Montevideo and the Thirteenth Monkey; which was obviously supposed to be the new "secret of Monkey Island". And the fact that LeChuck said it could make him a Demon Pirate King/ "Pirate God" - my guess is we haven't seen the last of this MacGuffin and that things could take a MUCH darker turn of events if we ever came across it.
Some people think the monkey that's in De Singe's lab is the same one.
Which could hint at him having a bigger part in the story than we think indeed
I had been debating whether or not to bring this up, because I have mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, it feels "wrong" to me for the 13th Monkey to have any relevence in Tales of Monkey Island. Why? Well, we know that something happened between Escape and Tales - including what sounds like a really nifty Hades Hula....but the 13th Monkey seems to be the big MacGuffin that took place in the mythical "Monkey Island 5."
If that MacGuffin actually has any significance in this series, it will feel "off" to me...like following the Ark through TWO Indiana Jones movies.
On the other hand - the voodoo lady said that LeChuck had built up this "pox" of evil that surrounds him by drawing more and more voodoo power to himself, without making a sacrifice.
At the start of the episode, the monkey sacrifice was exactly what LeChuck was planning....imagine what power he could unlock by doing so?
So there is some story potential in here...I just worry about unbalancing macguffins, even if Monkey Island 5 is just a mysterious backstory that is never really explained.
somagh:
I agreed with most of the review except the part about the Puzzles 2/2? i dont think so.
I really regret putting scores in the review, as that seems to have misdirected a lot of attention from my intent, which was to foster debate.
Remember that in the scoring system I devised, I was trying to score each area based on two factors - the first was whether the developer accomplished what they intended (one point) and the second was whether the puzzles themselves worked for me, personally (one point).
While it's true that the puzzles in this episode surely weren't as difficult as Monkey at their worst, I did feel that a couple of them were pretty clever. (My two favorites in this episode were using the cheese wheel with the "eyes" on the jail to get the imprint, and forging a Dark Ninja Dave doll for D'oro.)
Sure, they're not particularly difficult...but I did think they were *clever*, which to my mind is much more important. Also, they worked within the framework of the story, and with the characters that we interacted with. Because of that, I felt the puzzles blended in, which they should.
Contrast that with the "Prostehtics manequin" that you had to construct in EMI, and I hope you can see where I was trying to come from.
Please stop addapting the puzzles to general decrease in the worlds IQ.
I don't think they're trying to "dumb down" the puzzles, per se. On the other hand, there were a few puzzles in the original games that, charitably, were verging on unfair.
I suspect the puzzles are going to get more difficult the further into the series we get, but for new gamers who have never experienced this type of game, you have to gradually ramp up that difficulty so they start to see how they will need to stretch their minds to match the games cartoon logic. More fans will translate into more games of this type in the future, so I think this is a smart strategy.
SANAFABICH:
speak for yourself. I was LOLing the whole time!
I was speaking for myself...(the thread is called MY review for a reason, after all.)
And remember, I'm not saying that the episode wasn't funny. There certainly were lines that made me smile or laugh.
Nothing that really felt to me like they had tapped into the core potential that's in the franchise, though. Contrast any line in TOMI, with the Barbery Coast Pirates explanations for their various reasons for leaving the sea and taking up barbery. Which seems funnier?
Heck...Cuttthroat Bills line when you first enter is one of my favorites out of any game in the series:
Edward Van Helgin: "Welcome to the Barbery Coast..."
Cutthroat Bill: "....where every haircut is an adventure!"
On the one hand, it feels "wrong" to me for the 13th Monkey to have any relevence in Tales of Monkey Island. Why? Well, we know that something happened between Escape and Tales - including what sounds like a really nifty Hades Hula....but the 13th Monkey seems to be the big MacGuffin that took place in the mythical "Monkey Island 5."
If that MacGuffin actually has any significance in this series, it will feel "off" to me...like following the Ark through TWO Indiana Jones movies.
I see your point, but since the actual "MI5" story remains untold, i guess it wouldn't bother me. IF they do give the monkey a big part tho, i guess i'd rather have it happen unexpected... Couple of hints here and there and suddenly the monkey becomes some major plot element in one of the final twists...
But hell, i don't like plots speculation so much anyway. I'd rather wait and let em surprise me
I felt Marquis was an awesome character, and going farther with him would have made for a very dark and awesome story. It felt kind of like they stayed in the safe zone with him.
+1, it's very important that they bring new characters to this series, we don't want to just see just the old characters - would be a little boring - I'm cool with some cameos. Personally I felt the Marquis de Singe was as good as any of the classic characters and was really well implemented.
I think it's worth reiterating that the central standard that should be applied to nearly all of the game, yet seems to have been forgotten, is "is this like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean?" (the ride). Remember the whole premise of the first two (or what I am convinced is the premise) is that the whole thing is (or is meant to possibly be) the imagination of a young boy who got off the POTC ride and explored.
Dark swamps with fire flies and creepy banjo music, caves with piles of gold and skeletons and cobwebs, ship battles with loud cannons and pirates yelling, and then of course the town centers with rowdy, grog swilling, dirty pirates chasing after wenches and singing, with fires and general piracy going around everywhere. Of course with the little humorous touches everywhere. Every scene is just dripping with that dark, rich, piratey, storybook atmosphere, and every scene looks like it has a great story behind it. Those wonderful scenes are supposed to be what Guybrush is exploring and interacting with. I feel like developers have lost sight of that original core vision after the first two.
I think just going back to the ride, and directly using those kinds of scenes and that kind of vibe is the overarching answer to so many of these issues we're discussing.
Okay, maybe this is old news to some of you, but i just read a (french) interview with dave grossman, in which he said the following about the overall plot (it was not a very good translation to start from, and my getting it back to english might be awkward, so sorry in advance if it is) :
There's a lot of stuff based on trust : you'll have to work with people you don't like all along the series. Each main character receives his dose of pox and then its remedy. The boundary between good and evil isn't clearly delimited.
So the whole theory about the pox reverting the the people to "real pirates" doens't quite work anymore, since it seems we'll see several of them being cured along the way.
But this whole "gotta trust the baddies" seems pretty interesting...
Moment by moment the series is quite funny, but the overarching stories are generally pretty serious. The Secret of Monkey Island is about a young man trying to achieve his life's dream and find love on the way. There's nothing inherently funny about that. And I think those two things - serious broad-stories and moment-by-moment humour - combined to make something really quite special.
And the original quote mentionned by Astro Gnocci :
There are lots of developments of trust: you have to work with people you don't like sometimes across the series. Everybody's got a take on this Pox and the cure. The line between good-side and evil-side is not so strikingly sharp.
I enjoyed those quotes because it suggests a subtelty that has not been seen so far in TMI, as it's early days. Some of the potential problem with 'tone' is not necessarily that it may not be 'dark' or 'dangerous' enough, but rather that it may not be subtle enough. MI has always had its share of archetypal goodies and baddies, but there was still a feeling that not everything was laid out in primary colours - there were shades in there.
If that quote is anything to go by, that's what they are going for again.
I'm not sure that quote actually SAYS anything. In fact, what it suggests to me is a backwards evolution. Consider that he says they are going in a new direction and looking for those "single moment" scenes. Single moment puzzles can be great (Doctor's chair) or really really bad (those map quests). I think a part of the greatness of MI2 was that it really did feel like an epic adventure. Having to change entire islands to solve puzzles felt like something Guybrush might ACTUALLY have to do.
I'm not sure that quote actually SAYS anything. In fact, what it suggests to me is a backwards evolution. Consider that he says they are going in a new direction and looking for those "single moment" scenes. Single moment puzzles can be great (Doctor's chair) or really really bad (those map quests). I think a part of the greatness of MI2 was that it really did feel like an epic adventure. Having to change entire islands to solve puzzles felt like something Guybrush might ACTUALLY have to do.
And yet MI2 is the only game in which he has had to do a significant amount of that. As great as that island hopping stuff in MI2 IS, it was part of ONE monkey island game and not as integral to the series as people like to think. In fact, it's more accurate to say that a typical MI game features a series of chapters each taking place in one major location/island at a time - exactly what TMI seems to be doing.
I was too lazy to read all the posts, but here's the only things I didn't like -
The island. I think you guys know what I mean (The jungle concept was a nice idea, but having one or two more locations would have been great).
The difficulty. Too easy, in my opinion... I think that SMI and CMI had the difficulty at absolutely the right level, even EMI to some extent, was hard enough. And MI2 had one two difficulty settings - 1 being VERY hard, and the other being just a little below normal.
Other than that, just fine.
EDIT - I meant one or two more locations OUTSIDE the jungle.
The differences between the translated quote and the actual quote are important, I think.
In the translated quote, it would be easy to believe that each of the main characters gets infected and ultimately cured.
In the actual quote, what he actually says is that everybody has a different take on the cause and cure of the pox.
This doesn't guaruntee a cure (except for, supposedly, the sponge)...only that lots of folks have theories.
This is likely what leads to the trial and execution of Guybrush - infected pirates believe that he is the source. Who would whip up such speculation? Why...the Marquis De Singe, of course. He's the local medical expert, and foremost authority on unusual diseases (and obviously, their cures.)
Hmm true.
I went and re read the french translation and they clearly said "dose" there (same word in french, which doesn't leave any doubt concerning the sense), but as i said, the overall translation felt a bit off.
I actually don't really know if "Everybody's got a take on this Pox and the cure" could mean the same thing, i assumed it would when i saw it without really thinking much about it. Now that you mention it, it does have a different meaning... Does it clearly invalidates the other interpetation, tho ? Just asking, as i said, i don't really know, so feel free to correct me
But you're right, it doesn't make the above theories invalid after all. Which makes it all the more interesting actually
Tradutorre Traditorre, never trust a translation :eek: !
I was too lazy to read all the posts, but here's the only things I didn't like -
The island. I think you guys know what I mean (The jungle concept was a nice idea, but having one or two more locations would have been great).
The difficulty. Too easy, in my opinion... I think that SMI and CMI had the difficulty at absolutely the right level, even EMI to some extent, was hard enough. And MI2 had one two difficulty settings - 1 being VERY hard, and the other being just a little below normal.
Other than that, just fine.
Hopefully it is only a strategy to bring new players into the concept of puzzle solving games...that i can understand..im all for supporting the expansion of adventuregames. I did however hear in the discussion that they no longer wish to defeat the player and for the life of me i cannot understand why they would change their attitude about that? If the previous games were such big hits because of 2 things: humor and puzzles....then why cut down on one of them? I guess the next episode will hopefully answer this question but id really like to hear more peoples opinion on this point..
Hopefully it is only a strategy to bring new players into the concept of puzzle solving games...that i can understand..im all for supporting the expansion of adventuregames. I did however hear in the discussion that they no longer wish to defeat the player and for the life of me i cannot understand why they would change their attitude about that? If the previous games were such big hits because of 2 things: humor and puzzles....then why cut down on one of them? I guess the next episode will hopefully answer this question but id really like to hear more peoples opinion on this point..
Why do you think not wanting to defeat the player equals cutting down puzzles? All it means is not making them unfair. Let me give you an example...
In Monkey Island 2, at one point Largo gets a bucket on his head and takes his shirt to the laundry, and there's a small cutscene. After that, with no guidance whatsoever you are supposed to realise that the laundry claim ticket is on the back of his door. You have to close the door to see it (which you have no reason to do, since there's no reason to suspect there is even a laundry claim ticket in his room, let alone there).
A player might spend hours wandering around clicking on things before stumbling accidentally onto what they want to do, in that case. Does it make it a hard puzzle? No, in fact it's barely even a puzzle at all, it's just a player-defeating stumbling block which artificially lengthens the game.
That's exactly the sort of thing that Telltale are trying to cut down on - puzzles that you can't solve because there's no reason to think that's what you should be doing. Therefore they are trying to make all the puzzles make sense, given a little logical thought on the part of the player.
Why do you think not wanting to defeat the player equals cutting down puzzles? All it means is not making them unfair. Let me give you an example...
In Monkey Island 2, at one point Largo gets a bucket on his head and takes his shirt to the laundry, and there's a small cutscene. After that, with no guidance whatsoever you are supposed to realise that the laundry claim ticket is on the back of his door. You have to close the door to see it (which you have no reason to do, since there's no reason to suspect there is even a laundry claim ticket in his room, let alone there).
A player might spend hours wandering around clicking on things before stumbling accidentally onto what they want to do, in that case. Does it make it a hard puzzle? No, in fact it's barely even a puzzle at all, it's just a player-defeating stumbling block which artificially lengthens the game.
That's exactly the sort of thing that Telltale are trying to cut down on - puzzles that you can't solve because there's no reason to think that's what you should be doing. Therefore they are trying to make all the puzzles make sense, given a little logical thought on the part of the player.
Let's not forget you need to bloody click on the 2x2 pixels wide piece of string at the Voodoo Lady's beforehand. I came late to the first Gabriel Knight game. Now I like this one. But hell, this game's full of crap like that.
That said, great post. If you think about it, adventure game design is a very egoistic kind of thing: you're asked to find this one solution for a problem the designer deems workable. Therefore those puzzles were and still are at their best if you feel the designer teasing you, steering you into the right direction without giving it all away at once. It's a tricky thing, but it can be immensely satisfying when done right. Of course, it isn't often. Not everything was Golden even in the LucasArts classics of old. See above - I think the piece of string is an even worse example of this than the ticket. After all, Largo has got to keep it in his room SOMEWHERE. Safe for the beginning you never get to meet him anywhere, so it's got to be there. But yeah, it's a devilish one.
Overall, I think the whole voodoo puppet business is a great example of LA puzzling at its best though. Your goal is clear from the get-go: There is barely a single character that doesn't remind you of it at any step you make: "OH if I could only make that one thing this island needs to get rid of Largo LaGrande..." And second, the hints given are enough to make you think about it without giving it all way. Something of the dead? Well, there's this cemetary... Something of the body? Oh, didn't Largo spit on that wall fifteen minutes before? I wonder... Something from the head and thread? Let's take a look around at his shack!And so on. I thought Dead Cousin Ted was a brilliant character in Dott: if you think he merely acts as a mute supporting character, go ahead, fire up the game again and "talk" to him. You'll see what I mean.
At its worst its all guesswork though. Your goal is never really clear, the hinting and teasing is absent and only after you're finished doing what you were supposed to be doing you get the picture. There are games in which you're basically backtracking through a dozen of screens, exhausting all the dialogue options in the vague hope of hitting onto something new. And every once in a while such a dialogue option actually triggers another one someplace else or makes an item suddenly become interactive for no apparent reason. That's no joke - these games exist.
Puzzle complexity is cool, and I think a lot of people would agree that there's a place for more complex tasks in Monkey Island, but: it's tricky business.
Why do you think not wanting to defeat the player equals cutting down puzzles? All it means is not making them unfair. Let me give you an example...
In Monkey Island 2, at one point Largo gets a bucket on his head and takes his shirt to the laundry, and there's a small cutscene. After that, with no guidance whatsoever you are supposed to realise that the laundry claim ticket is on the back of his door. You have to close the door to see it (which you have no reason to do, since there's no reason to suspect there is even a laundry claim ticket in his room, let alone there).
A player might spend hours wandering around clicking on things before stumbling accidentally onto what they want to do, in that case. Does it make it a hard puzzle? No, in fact it's barely even a puzzle at all, it's just a player-defeating stumbling block which artificially lengthens the game.
That's exactly the sort of thing that Telltale are trying to cut down on - puzzles that you can't solve because there's no reason to think that's what you should be doing. Therefore they are trying to make all the puzzles make sense, given a little logical thought on the part of the player.
WRONG. Why would Largo NOT have a laundry ticket in his room after he JUST took his clothes to be cleaned? Of course it was in his room. This is by far not the hardest puzzle in MI2, nor the most illogical.
And by the way, why do the puzzles all have to be 'logical'?
WRONG. Why would Largo NOT have a laundry ticket in his room after he JUST took his clothes to be cleaned? Of course it was in his room. This is by far not the hardest puzzle in MI2, nor the most illogical.
And by the way, why do the puzzles all have to be 'logical'?
Agreed!
The whole point of monkey island as i see it.. is that your not following any other logic but monkey logic.
Regarding the difficulty level i can only say that i never got stuck at any point during the game and that has never happened before in any of the previous MI's, the reason can only be that the puzzles have a more quickfix approach and an overall decrease in level of difficulty. Which was for me a bit dissapointing. Do you really not think that COMI had puzzles that were more clever, hard and fun?
Fair puzzle design? Really? Define fair, if you will.. and while you're at it, define "dumbing down"..
I guess it's safe to say you're suggesting 'fairer puzzle' equals 'easier puzzle' and I'm guessing its even safer to say that you don't want to brand it 'easy' because that would belittle the point you're not able to make, but you see, if the puzzle is designed in a way so you'll solve it quicker, or hell, EASIER, then it is indeed 'dumbed down' for YOUR pleasure.
And by the way, why do the puzzles all have to be 'logical'?
The whole point of monkey island as i see it.. is that your not following any other logic but monkey logic.
Somebody please frame these.
It's only if you've suffered through one endless stream of adventure game design mediocrity too much that you're starting to talk like this. The idea of being "stuck" is fine, as long as you're given something to "work" with. Figuring out a puzzle is fun! Pondering about some clues is awesome. Trying to read a designer's mind is not. It's like combining the cat syrup moustache with a piece from the longest ball of twine in order to get a makeshift rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle which will get you by the bridge over the chasm rather than letting your character die a hundred of Roberta Williams-approved deaths and then realizing that is what the heck you were trying to do all along. As is the case with point&click interfaces, VGA graphics and text parsers, a lot of self-proclaimed hardcore adventure gamers have brainwashed themselves into believing that the latter isn't merely a worthwile past time, but the friggin' main course. Who can blame them, being on a healthy diet of games like this?
Fair puzzle design? Really? Define fair, if you will.. and while you're at it, define "dumbing down"..
I guess it's safe to say you're suggesting 'fairer puzzle' equals 'easier puzzle' and I'm guessing its even safer to say that you don't want to brand it 'easy' because that would belittle the point you're not able to make, but you see, if the puzzle is designed in a way so you'll solve it quicker, or hell, EASIER, then it is indeed 'dumbed down' for YOUR pleasure.
I wouldn't say so. For example, what if there was a puzzle where you had to find a key, and the solution was to open a nearby orange?
Sure, it would be HARD. But that's because it's nonsensical, why would there be a key in an orange? Why would you have to open the orange in the first place?
A puzzle should be designed logically. An illogical puzzle is difficult, but only in the "goddammit, now I have to try every verb on everything" way and not the "Wow, I have to really watch what's going on and think through this." way.
I wouldn't say so. For example, what if there was a puzzle where you had to find a key, and the solution was to open a nearby orange?
Sure, it would be HARD. But that's because it's nonsensical, why would there be a key in an orange? Why would you have to open the orange in the first place?
A puzzle should be designed logically. An illogical puzzle is difficult, but only in the "goddammit, now I have to try every verb on everything" way and not the "Wow, I have to really watch what's going on and think through this." way.
That reminds me of a puzzle in the first Discworld game : you had to open a mouse (sic) to get an imp. I'm a huge Pratchett fan, but still puzzled by this one ^^
It's only if you've suffered through one endless stream of adventure game design mediocrity too much that you're starting to talk like this. The idea of being "stuck" is fine, as long as you're given something to "work" with. Figuring out a puzzle is fun! Pondering about some clues is awesome. Trying to read a designer's mind is not. It's like combining the cat syrup moustache with a piece from the longest ball of twine in order to get a makeshift rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle which will get you by the bridge over the chasm rather than letting your character die a hundred of Roberta Williams-approved deaths and then realizing that is what the heck you were trying to do all along. As is the case with point&click interfaces, VGA graphics and text parsers, a lot of self-proclaimed hardcore adventure gamers have brainwashed themselves into believing that the latter isn't merely a worthwile past time, but the friggin' main course. Who can blame them, being on a healthy diet of games like this?
I am rubber you are glue....but whats your point?
In any case the secrets of MI is out...and its time to play it oldschool...you know back in the days when the makers didnt give a monkeyball about you being able to solve the puzzle or not! aah yes, the good ol glorious days of thinking for yourself instead of having it spelled out for you!
I wouldn't say so. For example, what if there was a puzzle where you had to find a key, and the solution was to open a nearby orange?
Sure, it would be HARD. But that's because it's nonsensical, why would there be a key in an orange? Why would you have to open the orange in the first place?
A puzzle should be designed logically. An illogical puzzle is difficult, but only in the "goddammit, now I have to try every verb on everything" way and not the "Wow, I have to really watch what's going on and think through this." way.
Any other day, what you're saying would be valid... However, we're talking Monkey Island here. One puzzle from this first episode played out like this;
-Mild spoiler-
In order to get the horn that breaks unbreakable glass, you had to get on the Screaming Narhwal, fire the cannon for no reason at all, and have the wind steer that canonnball to hit the glassblowers unicorns, so that he'd leave the glassbreaker and go into his house to make new unicorns... so you could go and get the horn.
In no way was that a difficult puzzle, but you'd have to agree that it falls in the category "unfair" by Insos terms... or even 'read the game-designers' mind...Now i'm not saying its unfair, i say that's the way the MI-cookie crumbles... Now for instance, i'd rather they up:ed the difficulty in simple ways like... Perhaps you could get one of three vowels from the glassblower.. An 'I', an 'O' and a 'U'... so by the time you get to the Marque De Singe
-SPOILER-
...and you have the O, guybrush would say "now's not a good time for that.." or something, then if you tried the I, you'd still get shot to hell, and then you figure "Hey, the U would blow him away".........right? That too, isn't difficult REALLY, but it's still better than having a wind-rifle pointed at you, and you having a U-shaped glass in your inventory that hasn't had a function up to that point.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love MI, and i enjoyed this episode, but I agree with somagh. I wish they'd make it more puzzling, and widen the options and ways to error.
It's interesting that the puzzle discussion has progressed this way.
I'm an old-school adventure gamer. My first adventure game was Space Quest III, after which I played all of the Space Quest games (out of order), the Monkey Island games, and every other game that Lucasarts ever put out.
I LOVE the deviousness of some of the puzzles, particularly in LeChucks Revenge.
As someone directly above noted, youre using "Monkey" logic - it may not be logical in the strictest sense, but it certainly does fit cartoon logic.
That said, we seem to have divided into two camps here:
1. Those who don't mind hard puzzles, so long as they serve the story and fit a warped logic that works in hindsight.
2. Those who don't care so much for the story side of it, but get their fix from the solving of extremely difficult (and possibly poorly designed) puzzles.
What's interesting to me about this is that the stimulus for the positive emotion comes from two entirely different centers.
The first is satisfaction at a well-crafted whole - puzzle AND story.
The other seems to be the feeling of cleverness the player feels for solving something very difficult.
somagh> Because you are advocating for much more difficult puzzles, can I ask whether the story matters to you in relation to the solving of that puzzle? I guess what I'm asking is, would you say that you get the lions share of your entertainment from the solving of the puzzles, or the experience of the story?
Likewise, for those who focus on plot before puzzles> Would you be satisified with extremely difficult puzzles (regardless of whether they were logical or not) so long as there was a good story purpose for their inclusion?
For my own part - I agree with somagh that the puzzles do need to be ramped up in difficulty a bit. I thought the "Dark Ninja Dave" puzzle and "Cheese Wheel" puzzles were very clever...and would like to see more of that type. However, they didn't even approach the "Monkey Wrench" puzzle in terms of difficulty, and many people in Europe would label that puzzle blatantly unfair.
On another note - I replayed COMI after the first episode of TOMI came out. I wanted to replay it because I had only completed it once before, many years ago, and I wanted to re-experience it.
When I first played COMI, I completed it relatively easily. I still remembered most of the puzzles and solutions, but got absolutely stumped in two places while replaying the game:
The first was in trying to remove the cork from the Capn' Nicks Shaving Soap bottle. I recalleed that I needed the cork to make the compass, but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to get it out. I kept looking for a corkscrew, or anything that I could MAKE into a corkscrew to pull the cork out.
The second place I got stuck was at the very end, on the roller coaster of the damned. While trying to construct the makeshift bomb, I couldn't get the flame blown out of the lantern. I kept looking for something to douse the flame.
In BOTH cases, you needed to use the "mouth" verb icon off of the coin. Because in all other areas of the game, this had been used to "talk", it hadn't occurred to me that I could use my teeth to pull the cork out of the bottle, or to blow the lantern out.
I had to use a walkthrough to figure this out both times, and I had *not* needed to do so when I originally played the game.
I suppose you could chalk this up to being rusty - it's not like these kinds of games are common anymore. On the other hand, you could also argue that changing the nature of the action that you had come to associate with the verb were poor puzzle design in both cases.
What do you guys think? Were these puzzles well-designed, or needlessly frustrating? After all, I knew the effect that needed to take place - I simply wasn't putting together that one of the actions on the coin could be dual-use.
I think this thread is going a bit off topic...
I don't mind discussions about the puzzles themselves, but it seems like it suddenly switched to something completely unrelated to the cool stuff that was said on here before...
That being said,
In any case the secrets of MI is out...and its time to play it oldschool...you know back in the days when the makers didnt give a monkeyball about you being able to solve the puzzle or not! aah yes, the good ol glorious days of thinking for yourself instead of having it spelled out for you!
That's kinda funny, because when you read what R. Gilbert has to say about adventure games in general, it seems like he DOES care about the player being able to figure out his puzzles solutions indeed
From what i read, he and a bunch of other old school adventure developpers, while not saying the player should be taken by the hand and gently guided through the game, seem to be in favor of "more logical, and LESS FRUSTRATING puzzles".
Add to this two facts : The need (which you'll agree on or not, that's up to you) to attract other people if one wants to see the genre get some success again (and don't forget that more success for the genre equals more developpers willing to get back on it), AND the episodic nature of Telltales' games (which, again, you can argue for or against if you want, but it ain't the point here) : Due to that, there's obviously less contents (locations, objects to pick up, etc), which means less interaction possible, which means "easier puzzles".
I do think that overall the balance is well done (remember, it's the first chapter here. Sam and Max HAS increased in difficulty along the way), and i do think the overall APPROACH to puzzles is the way to go.
I'm more interested in the story and writing than the actual puzzles myself anyway.
I think this thread is going a bit off topic...
I don't mind discussions about the puzzles themselves, but it seems like it suddenly switched to something completely unrelated to the cool stuff that was said on here before...
I tended to agree, at first - but then again, I think we pretty well nailed most of the stuff related to story-based "tone."
The more I got to thinking about what somagh said, the more I can see that there's a need to discuss puzzle "tone" as well. The puzzles DO relate back to story, and difficulty is something that's certainly valid to discuss.
I think the key area of dispute here is judging where to rank "puzzles" in the entertainment-delivery scale.
For my part, I love a good, devious puzzle - but the reason I want to solve that puzzle is to get more story.
I'm *guessing* that somagh gets his entertainment from the solving of the puzzle itself, not necessarily the story first. (Sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth, somagh - please correct me if I' wrong.)
Comments
I see what you're saying regarding the Marquis. There is potential there for him to contract the pox and become incredibly interesting. Perhaps Napoleonic? I think it would be a nice addition to have him want to stop Guybrush at all costs, perhaps going so far as to explore his past and look up any past enemies he has had. Cue the scene where he finds a drunk, washed up LaGrande and gets him onboard with his nefarious plot. Could be fun!
The Steve Martin stuff is great. He's one of my favorites.
If I had to nominate anyone to be my spokesman it would be sladerlmc77, since he seems to be able to articulate my hopes for the MI series even better than I could. Slader, TTG should hire you on as Monkey Island Tone Consultant.
Lorn
I think the core fans are unanimous on this one; as long as they start darkening the tone and making it feel more epic and less "cutsey-pie", it has the potential to feel less like a disposable 4-hour diversion and more like an experience that can rival the best MI games in the series.
Yup. The writing is also more concise, and that's part of the humor. Also, it utilizes what I think of as the Far Side brand of humor, where the joke is not explained or even commented on 90% of the time, you just have to see it on your own. As such, none of the jokes are run into the ground or overly silly.
We need to see La Esponja Grande given the same build up in the story; make it like the new Ark of the Covenant of the series so to speak. It's obvious they're trying to make it and the Pox of Lechuck the new Big Whoop so give it the treatment it deserves. As far as Lechuck, if they're playing their cards right, they will use his human form to create a false sense of security, so that in the final showdown something truly shocking and terrifying takes place with our favorite Once-Zombie Pirate. Something we do not expect. But does he need to terrify us as the ZP LeChuck again? No. Move on and do new things.
I actually uttered these very words to my friend at lunch today. What's important is that the MacGuffin actually be important, and not necessarily fully explained (which is where I think the last game got into trouble - overexplanation)
As a climax, Raiders nailed how the MacGuffin should be handled. Everybody knew the Ark was supposed to be powerful, and Marcus directly referenced the biblical accounts of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions.
That said, none of the main characters knew what to actually expect when the Ark was opened. Only Belloq seemed to have an idea that a Jewish Ritual would be necessary to approach the Ark.
On an emotional level, the fact that the nazis are destroyed for daring to lay eyes upon the work of God makes sense. Logically, the mind says "So, you open the box and faces melt off?"
Fortunately, the sheer spectacle hits every botton that gets your emotional core firing, and it's kept brief enough that you dont' have time to analyze it, you only wish you could see more Wrath of God (and that's the way it SHOULD be!)
If this kind of weight can be leant to the sponge, we'll be in great shape.
Still not sure I agree with this statement. That's not to say that LeChuck can have no humor associated with him...only that he does need to show that he's a threat to Guybrush. An earlier poster was correct - Guybrush shouldn't be able to stand next to LeChuck casually, just assuming that he'll vanquish him again.
But it needs to suit the story. As I said before, the terrifying qualities of MI2 LeChuck came from the build-up and suspense. Right now I would guess that Guybrush has more to worry about from the Pox and the Poxed Pirates than from LeChuck. Honestly this isn't something I can fully comment on until after Episode 5 though, without arguing for complete speculations on my part.
By the way, some people might say that a sponge can't have the same sort of power that say the Ark had. Wrong. We're talking about a Sponge that can remove Voodoo power from any living being. That's some powerful stuff. However, we don't know what effect this sponge could have or what could happen if it were put into the hands of someone like say, Guybrush. Or even if it went into the hands of LeChuck.
By the way, there's another MacGuffin that was introduced briefly in the intro that we haven't heard anymore about. Namely the secrets of the Monkeys of Montevideo and the Thirteenth Monkey; which was obviously supposed to be the new "secret of Monkey Island". And the fact that LeChuck said it could make him a Demon Pirate King/ "Pirate God" - my guess is we haven't seen the last of this MacGuffin and that things could take a MUCH darker turn of events if we ever came across it.
Some people think the monkey that's in De Singe's lab is the same one.
Which could hint at him having a bigger part in the story than we think indeed
Puzzles are suppose to leave you puzzled! Each puzzle i solved i thought "i hope the next one is more difficult" thats the very essence of the game and it doesnt hold a candle against COMI which had in my opinion a perfect level of difficulty as well as being very fun to solve.
Please stop addapting the puzzles to general decrease in the worlds IQ.
Please stop attributing fairer puzzle design to 'dumbing down.' It's boring.
I had been debating whether or not to bring this up, because I have mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, it feels "wrong" to me for the 13th Monkey to have any relevence in Tales of Monkey Island. Why? Well, we know that something happened between Escape and Tales - including what sounds like a really nifty Hades Hula....but the 13th Monkey seems to be the big MacGuffin that took place in the mythical "Monkey Island 5."
If that MacGuffin actually has any significance in this series, it will feel "off" to me...like following the Ark through TWO Indiana Jones movies.
On the other hand - the voodoo lady said that LeChuck had built up this "pox" of evil that surrounds him by drawing more and more voodoo power to himself, without making a sacrifice.
At the start of the episode, the monkey sacrifice was exactly what LeChuck was planning....imagine what power he could unlock by doing so?
So there is some story potential in here...I just worry about unbalancing macguffins, even if Monkey Island 5 is just a mysterious backstory that is never really explained.
somagh:
I really regret putting scores in the review, as that seems to have misdirected a lot of attention from my intent, which was to foster debate.
Remember that in the scoring system I devised, I was trying to score each area based on two factors - the first was whether the developer accomplished what they intended (one point) and the second was whether the puzzles themselves worked for me, personally (one point).
While it's true that the puzzles in this episode surely weren't as difficult as Monkey at their worst, I did feel that a couple of them were pretty clever. (My two favorites in this episode were using the cheese wheel with the "eyes" on the jail to get the imprint, and forging a Dark Ninja Dave doll for D'oro.)
Sure, they're not particularly difficult...but I did think they were *clever*, which to my mind is much more important. Also, they worked within the framework of the story, and with the characters that we interacted with. Because of that, I felt the puzzles blended in, which they should.
Contrast that with the "Prostehtics manequin" that you had to construct in EMI, and I hope you can see where I was trying to come from.
I don't think they're trying to "dumb down" the puzzles, per se. On the other hand, there were a few puzzles in the original games that, charitably, were verging on unfair.
I suspect the puzzles are going to get more difficult the further into the series we get, but for new gamers who have never experienced this type of game, you have to gradually ramp up that difficulty so they start to see how they will need to stretch their minds to match the games cartoon logic. More fans will translate into more games of this type in the future, so I think this is a smart strategy.
SANAFABICH:
I was speaking for myself...(the thread is called MY review for a reason, after all.)
And remember, I'm not saying that the episode wasn't funny. There certainly were lines that made me smile or laugh.
Nothing that really felt to me like they had tapped into the core potential that's in the franchise, though. Contrast any line in TOMI, with the Barbery Coast Pirates explanations for their various reasons for leaving the sea and taking up barbery. Which seems funnier?
Heck...Cuttthroat Bills line when you first enter is one of my favorites out of any game in the series:
Edward Van Helgin: "Welcome to the Barbery Coast..."
Cutthroat Bill: "....where every haircut is an adventure!"
Lorn
I see your point, but since the actual "MI5" story remains untold, i guess it wouldn't bother me. IF they do give the monkey a big part tho, i guess i'd rather have it happen unexpected... Couple of hints here and there and suddenly the monkey becomes some major plot element in one of the final twists...
But hell, i don't like plots speculation so much anyway. I'd rather wait and let em surprise me
+1, it's very important that they bring new characters to this series, we don't want to just see just the old characters - would be a little boring - I'm cool with some cameos. Personally I felt the Marquis de Singe was as good as any of the classic characters and was really well implemented.
Dark swamps with fire flies and creepy banjo music, caves with piles of gold and skeletons and cobwebs, ship battles with loud cannons and pirates yelling, and then of course the town centers with rowdy, grog swilling, dirty pirates chasing after wenches and singing, with fires and general piracy going around everywhere. Of course with the little humorous touches everywhere. Every scene is just dripping with that dark, rich, piratey, storybook atmosphere, and every scene looks like it has a great story behind it. Those wonderful scenes are supposed to be what Guybrush is exploring and interacting with. I feel like developers have lost sight of that original core vision after the first two.
I think just going back to the ride, and directly using those kinds of scenes and that kind of vibe is the overarching answer to so many of these issues we're discussing.
So the whole theory about the pox reverting the the people to "real pirates" doens't quite work anymore, since it seems we'll see several of them being cured along the way.
But this whole "gotta trust the baddies" seems pretty interesting...
If anyone is interested in the full interview, here it is (as i said, in fench).
http://www.eurogamer.fr/articles/tale-of-monkey-island-interview_7
An interesting quote from Dave concerning the tone of Monkey Island :
And the original quote mentionned by Astro Gnocci :
If that quote is anything to go by, that's what they are going for again.
Thanks for posting the actual quite
And yet MI2 is the only game in which he has had to do a significant amount of that. As great as that island hopping stuff in MI2 IS, it was part of ONE monkey island game and not as integral to the series as people like to think. In fact, it's more accurate to say that a typical MI game features a series of chapters each taking place in one major location/island at a time - exactly what TMI seems to be doing.
The island. I think you guys know what I mean (The jungle concept was a nice idea, but having one or two more locations would have been great).
The difficulty. Too easy, in my opinion... I think that SMI and CMI had the difficulty at absolutely the right level, even EMI to some extent, was hard enough. And MI2 had one two difficulty settings - 1 being VERY hard, and the other being just a little below normal.
Other than that, just fine.
EDIT - I meant one or two more locations OUTSIDE the jungle.
In the translated quote, it would be easy to believe that each of the main characters gets infected and ultimately cured.
In the actual quote, what he actually says is that everybody has a different take on the cause and cure of the pox.
This doesn't guaruntee a cure (except for, supposedly, the sponge)...only that lots of folks have theories.
This is likely what leads to the trial and execution of Guybrush - infected pirates believe that he is the source. Who would whip up such speculation? Why...the Marquis De Singe, of course. He's the local medical expert, and foremost authority on unusual diseases (and obviously, their cures.)
Lorn
I went and re read the french translation and they clearly said "dose" there (same word in french, which doesn't leave any doubt concerning the sense), but as i said, the overall translation felt a bit off.
I actually don't really know if "Everybody's got a take on this Pox and the cure" could mean the same thing, i assumed it would when i saw it without really thinking much about it. Now that you mention it, it does have a different meaning... Does it clearly invalidates the other interpetation, tho ? Just asking, as i said, i don't really know, so feel free to correct me
But you're right, it doesn't make the above theories invalid after all. Which makes it all the more interesting actually
Tradutorre Traditorre, never trust a translation :eek: !
Hopefully it is only a strategy to bring new players into the concept of puzzle solving games...that i can understand..im all for supporting the expansion of adventuregames. I did however hear in the discussion that they no longer wish to defeat the player and for the life of me i cannot understand why they would change their attitude about that? If the previous games were such big hits because of 2 things: humor and puzzles....then why cut down on one of them? I guess the next episode will hopefully answer this question but id really like to hear more peoples opinion on this point..
Why do you think not wanting to defeat the player equals cutting down puzzles? All it means is not making them unfair. Let me give you an example...
In Monkey Island 2, at one point Largo gets a bucket on his head and takes his shirt to the laundry, and there's a small cutscene. After that, with no guidance whatsoever you are supposed to realise that the laundry claim ticket is on the back of his door. You have to close the door to see it (which you have no reason to do, since there's no reason to suspect there is even a laundry claim ticket in his room, let alone there).
A player might spend hours wandering around clicking on things before stumbling accidentally onto what they want to do, in that case. Does it make it a hard puzzle? No, in fact it's barely even a puzzle at all, it's just a player-defeating stumbling block which artificially lengthens the game.
That's exactly the sort of thing that Telltale are trying to cut down on - puzzles that you can't solve because there's no reason to think that's what you should be doing. Therefore they are trying to make all the puzzles make sense, given a little logical thought on the part of the player.
Let's not forget you need to bloody click on the 2x2 pixels wide piece of string at the Voodoo Lady's beforehand. I came late to the first Gabriel Knight game. Now I like this one. But hell, this game's full of crap like that.
That said, great post. If you think about it, adventure game design is a very egoistic kind of thing: you're asked to find this one solution for a problem the designer deems workable. Therefore those puzzles were and still are at their best if you feel the designer teasing you, steering you into the right direction without giving it all away at once. It's a tricky thing, but it can be immensely satisfying when done right. Of course, it isn't often. Not everything was Golden even in the LucasArts classics of old. See above - I think the piece of string is an even worse example of this than the ticket. After all, Largo has got to keep it in his room SOMEWHERE. Safe for the beginning you never get to meet him anywhere, so it's got to be there. But yeah, it's a devilish one.
Overall, I think the whole voodoo puppet business is a great example of LA puzzling at its best though. Your goal is clear from the get-go: There is barely a single character that doesn't remind you of it at any step you make: "OH if I could only make that one thing this island needs to get rid of Largo LaGrande..." And second, the hints given are enough to make you think about it without giving it all way. Something of the dead? Well, there's this cemetary... Something of the body? Oh, didn't Largo spit on that wall fifteen minutes before? I wonder... Something from the head and thread? Let's take a look around at his shack!And so on. I thought Dead Cousin Ted was a brilliant character in Dott: if you think he merely acts as a mute supporting character, go ahead, fire up the game again and "talk" to him. You'll see what I mean.
At its worst its all guesswork though. Your goal is never really clear, the hinting and teasing is absent and only after you're finished doing what you were supposed to be doing you get the picture. There are games in which you're basically backtracking through a dozen of screens, exhausting all the dialogue options in the vague hope of hitting onto something new. And every once in a while such a dialogue option actually triggers another one someplace else or makes an item suddenly become interactive for no apparent reason. That's no joke - these games exist.
Puzzle complexity is cool, and I think a lot of people would agree that there's a place for more complex tasks in Monkey Island, but: it's tricky business.
WRONG. Why would Largo NOT have a laundry ticket in his room after he JUST took his clothes to be cleaned? Of course it was in his room. This is by far not the hardest puzzle in MI2, nor the most illogical.
And by the way, why do the puzzles all have to be 'logical'?
Agreed!
The whole point of monkey island as i see it.. is that your not following any other logic but monkey logic.
Regarding the difficulty level i can only say that i never got stuck at any point during the game and that has never happened before in any of the previous MI's, the reason can only be that the puzzles have a more quickfix approach and an overall decrease in level of difficulty. Which was for me a bit dissapointing. Do you really not think that COMI had puzzles that were more clever, hard and fun?
Fair puzzle design? Really? Define fair, if you will.. and while you're at it, define "dumbing down"..
I guess it's safe to say you're suggesting 'fairer puzzle' equals 'easier puzzle' and I'm guessing its even safer to say that you don't want to brand it 'easy' because that would belittle the point you're not able to make, but you see, if the puzzle is designed in a way so you'll solve it quicker, or hell, EASIER, then it is indeed 'dumbed down' for YOUR pleasure.
Somebody please frame these.
It's only if you've suffered through one endless stream of adventure game design mediocrity too much that you're starting to talk like this. The idea of being "stuck" is fine, as long as you're given something to "work" with. Figuring out a puzzle is fun! Pondering about some clues is awesome. Trying to read a designer's mind is not. It's like combining the cat syrup moustache with a piece from the longest ball of twine in order to get a makeshift rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle which will get you by the bridge over the chasm rather than letting your character die a hundred of Roberta Williams-approved deaths and then realizing that is what the heck you were trying to do all along. As is the case with point&click interfaces, VGA graphics and text parsers, a lot of self-proclaimed hardcore adventure gamers have brainwashed themselves into believing that the latter isn't merely a worthwile past time, but the friggin' main course. Who can blame them, being on a healthy diet of games like this?
Sure, it would be HARD. But that's because it's nonsensical, why would there be a key in an orange? Why would you have to open the orange in the first place?
A puzzle should be designed logically. An illogical puzzle is difficult, but only in the "goddammit, now I have to try every verb on everything" way and not the "Wow, I have to really watch what's going on and think through this." way.
That reminds me of a puzzle in the first Discworld game : you had to open a mouse (sic) to get an imp. I'm a huge Pratchett fan, but still puzzled by this one ^^
I am rubber you are glue....but whats your point?
In any case the secrets of MI is out...and its time to play it oldschool...you know back in the days when the makers didnt give a monkeyball about you being able to solve the puzzle or not! aah yes, the good ol glorious days of thinking for yourself instead of having it spelled out for you!
Any other day, what you're saying would be valid... However, we're talking Monkey Island here. One puzzle from this first episode played out like this;
-Mild spoiler-
In order to get the horn that breaks unbreakable glass, you had to get on the Screaming Narhwal, fire the cannon for no reason at all, and have the wind steer that canonnball to hit the glassblowers unicorns, so that he'd leave the glassbreaker and go into his house to make new unicorns... so you could go and get the horn.
In no way was that a difficult puzzle, but you'd have to agree that it falls in the category "unfair" by Insos terms... or even 'read the game-designers' mind...Now i'm not saying its unfair, i say that's the way the MI-cookie crumbles... Now for instance, i'd rather they up:ed the difficulty in simple ways like... Perhaps you could get one of three vowels from the glassblower.. An 'I', an 'O' and a 'U'... so by the time you get to the Marque De Singe
-SPOILER-
...and you have the O, guybrush would say "now's not a good time for that.." or something, then if you tried the I, you'd still get shot to hell, and then you figure "Hey, the U would blow him away".........right? That too, isn't difficult REALLY, but it's still better than having a wind-rifle pointed at you, and you having a U-shaped glass in your inventory that hasn't had a function up to that point.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love MI, and i enjoyed this episode, but I agree with somagh. I wish they'd make it more puzzling, and widen the options and ways to error.
I'm an old-school adventure gamer. My first adventure game was Space Quest III, after which I played all of the Space Quest games (out of order), the Monkey Island games, and every other game that Lucasarts ever put out.
I LOVE the deviousness of some of the puzzles, particularly in LeChucks Revenge.
As someone directly above noted, youre using "Monkey" logic - it may not be logical in the strictest sense, but it certainly does fit cartoon logic.
That said, we seem to have divided into two camps here:
1. Those who don't mind hard puzzles, so long as they serve the story and fit a warped logic that works in hindsight.
2. Those who don't care so much for the story side of it, but get their fix from the solving of extremely difficult (and possibly poorly designed) puzzles.
What's interesting to me about this is that the stimulus for the positive emotion comes from two entirely different centers.
The first is satisfaction at a well-crafted whole - puzzle AND story.
The other seems to be the feeling of cleverness the player feels for solving something very difficult.
somagh> Because you are advocating for much more difficult puzzles, can I ask whether the story matters to you in relation to the solving of that puzzle? I guess what I'm asking is, would you say that you get the lions share of your entertainment from the solving of the puzzles, or the experience of the story?
Likewise, for those who focus on plot before puzzles> Would you be satisified with extremely difficult puzzles (regardless of whether they were logical or not) so long as there was a good story purpose for their inclusion?
For my own part - I agree with somagh that the puzzles do need to be ramped up in difficulty a bit. I thought the "Dark Ninja Dave" puzzle and "Cheese Wheel" puzzles were very clever...and would like to see more of that type. However, they didn't even approach the "Monkey Wrench" puzzle in terms of difficulty, and many people in Europe would label that puzzle blatantly unfair.
On another note - I replayed COMI after the first episode of TOMI came out. I wanted to replay it because I had only completed it once before, many years ago, and I wanted to re-experience it.
When I first played COMI, I completed it relatively easily. I still remembered most of the puzzles and solutions, but got absolutely stumped in two places while replaying the game:
The first was in trying to remove the cork from the Capn' Nicks Shaving Soap bottle. I recalleed that I needed the cork to make the compass, but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to get it out. I kept looking for a corkscrew, or anything that I could MAKE into a corkscrew to pull the cork out.
The second place I got stuck was at the very end, on the roller coaster of the damned. While trying to construct the makeshift bomb, I couldn't get the flame blown out of the lantern. I kept looking for something to douse the flame.
In BOTH cases, you needed to use the "mouth" verb icon off of the coin. Because in all other areas of the game, this had been used to "talk", it hadn't occurred to me that I could use my teeth to pull the cork out of the bottle, or to blow the lantern out.
I had to use a walkthrough to figure this out both times, and I had *not* needed to do so when I originally played the game.
I suppose you could chalk this up to being rusty - it's not like these kinds of games are common anymore. On the other hand, you could also argue that changing the nature of the action that you had come to associate with the verb were poor puzzle design in both cases.
What do you guys think? Were these puzzles well-designed, or needlessly frustrating? After all, I knew the effect that needed to take place - I simply wasn't putting together that one of the actions on the coin could be dual-use.
Lorn
I don't mind discussions about the puzzles themselves, but it seems like it suddenly switched to something completely unrelated to the cool stuff that was said on here before...
That being said,
That's kinda funny, because when you read what R. Gilbert has to say about adventure games in general, it seems like he DOES care about the player being able to figure out his puzzles solutions indeed
From what i read, he and a bunch of other old school adventure developpers, while not saying the player should be taken by the hand and gently guided through the game, seem to be in favor of "more logical, and LESS FRUSTRATING puzzles".
Add to this two facts : The need (which you'll agree on or not, that's up to you) to attract other people if one wants to see the genre get some success again (and don't forget that more success for the genre equals more developpers willing to get back on it), AND the episodic nature of Telltales' games (which, again, you can argue for or against if you want, but it ain't the point here) : Due to that, there's obviously less contents (locations, objects to pick up, etc), which means less interaction possible, which means "easier puzzles".
I do think that overall the balance is well done (remember, it's the first chapter here. Sam and Max HAS increased in difficulty along the way), and i do think the overall APPROACH to puzzles is the way to go.
I'm more interested in the story and writing than the actual puzzles myself anyway.
I tended to agree, at first - but then again, I think we pretty well nailed most of the stuff related to story-based "tone."
The more I got to thinking about what somagh said, the more I can see that there's a need to discuss puzzle "tone" as well. The puzzles DO relate back to story, and difficulty is something that's certainly valid to discuss.
I think the key area of dispute here is judging where to rank "puzzles" in the entertainment-delivery scale.
For my part, I love a good, devious puzzle - but the reason I want to solve that puzzle is to get more story.
I'm *guessing* that somagh gets his entertainment from the solving of the puzzle itself, not necessarily the story first. (Sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth, somagh - please correct me if I' wrong.)
Lorn