The Tales, a little too easy?
Please explain your reasoning if possible.
In my opinion the tales were a little too easy.
The first chapter was very nice with it non-Euclidean maze based on sounds so I think it was OK about difficulty (nice also the cheese puzzle to fix the idol).
I found a little unfair that
The second chapter was really easy, for me the only difficulty was finding the ocean at the end... Doh.
The third chapter was also fairly easy, but with few intriguing puzzle there and there like the voodoo course and the locket.
The fourth chapter had only one really difficult puzzle:
Maybe it is the experience from the first chapters, but the last is extremely easy (there is nothing hard at all! The final puzzle might be the most interesting, but you simply cannot go wrong).
TellTale! Go harder next time!
So, a part of the past. I was wondering: in this kind of games, what is challenging yet fair?
Putting illogical solutions is of course hard, but surely not fair.
On the other hand if the solution is obvious from the players experience the game becomes too easy.
In my opinion the tales were a little too easy.
The first chapter was very nice with it non-Euclidean maze based on sounds so I think it was OK about difficulty (nice also the cheese puzzle to fix the idol).
I found a little unfair that
you cannot see easily all the faces of the voodoo wind device to solve the DeSinge idol, but it is not a big deal however
.The second chapter was really easy, for me the only difficulty was finding the ocean at the end... Doh.
The third chapter was also fairly easy, but with few intriguing puzzle there and there like the voodoo course and the locket.
The fourth chapter had only one really difficult puzzle:
walking on the carpet few times to charge the shock
. The maze was easier than the first episode, but funnier. And the bugs attracted by light and sugar water put some challenge. I think it was the hardest chapter, yet nothing compared to the classic games.Maybe it is the experience from the first chapters, but the last is extremely easy (there is nothing hard at all! The final puzzle might be the most interesting, but you simply cannot go wrong).
TellTale! Go harder next time!
So, a part of the past. I was wondering: in this kind of games, what is challenging yet fair?
Putting illogical solutions is of course hard, but surely not fair.
On the other hand if the solution is obvious from the players experience the game becomes too easy.
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In some old adventure games I usually got stuck because:
A) Puzzles were badly designed and I had to try to use everything to everything to solve those puzzles. Even after solving them the puzzles didn't make sense.
C) Deadend. I had done something wrong two hours ago and couldn't go past certain point because of that.
... Use the Weather vane on the idol (top?) and it will spin to show you the face... I missed it too on the first idol.
personally, I liked the difficulty. I had trouble with a few puzzles (mainly 1-per-eppisode, though several in the finale) likely ecause I simply think in different circles than the designers.
I liked the way it worked. I enjoy games that make me think, but in the end have a fairly obvious answer that only requires a few minutes of scratching your head. S+M S1/S2 was another story entirely! I had several puzzles in EVERY epp that I couldnt solve!
Although it would be cool if season 2 (when/if it gets greenlitted) gets the classic "Mega Monkey Mode" from Curse Of Monkey Island (I think MI2 also had a higher difficulty mode).
They meant the one with the Marquis de Singe. That you solve with sounds, not a visual.
I found the game easy, too. I played Tales and Sam & Max Season 2 at the same time, and Tales was definitely easier.
I got stuck a few times, but never for long. The last episode I just did in one go without getting stuck, same with episode 2. Episode 4 I was stuck only once at the part you mentioned. 1 and 3 I think took a bit longer, but 1 was monstly due to the time it took me just to go from one place to the next (I hadn't figured out you could run yet).
I'm not usually great at adventure games. I get stuck for days and days. I can't think of any game I haven't been stuck in several place. So I don't think it's that I'm "too good" or whatever. I do think it was simpler. However, it might be due to it being the first MI game Tales did.
It's also possible that it's due to different people thinking of different things. My husband is playing Sam&Max 2 right now, and he's figuring out stuff that took me ages in no time, but is stuck on stuff I never even realised were supposed to be puzzles since they were so obvious to me. So it definitely varies some for one person to the next.
(This being said, what changes there is /where/ we get stuck, not /whether/ we get stuck).
THAT~ may be caused by the bizarre-ness of Sam and Max, and not the other way around.
I’d usually get stuck on some things and look for walkthroughs on the older games. But in Tales, the only place where I really got stuck and needed to check a walkthrough was for some of the Feast of the Senses items in Chapter 4.
I wouldn’t have minded if it was a little bit harder but I thought the difficulty level was okay. It was nice to be able to make it through most of the game without looking for hints.
Well, you complicated your life.
I think it may just be an alternate way to solve hte puzzle. Though I agree it should have been based on the Doc's pain/pleasure only (of cocurse some of us likely would never have figured it out --- or atleast taken a LOT longer if that was the only method)
That's not true:
to really have a fair percentage of people who found it difficult you have to do:
[(total number of people who ask help / total number of people who bought the game)*100]
If even 100 people asked help but they sold 100,000 copies, it would be only 0.1% of people who found the game difficult.
But given that TT never gave the numbers of sold copies, we'll never know.
BTW I found the chapters 2, 3 & 5 easy too. Stemmle was a genious in chapter 1 & 4, he found the perfect difficulty to me.
It's hard to say whether the difficulty was moderate or not, seeing there are adventure veterans in here as well as newbies.
I think what really "helped" making the puzzles look easier was the fact that there was little items in the scenes that you could interact with but had otherwise no use to the solution to a puzzle itself.
Thinking of Monkey Island 2, which, I think most will agree, had one of the most complex puzzle styles ever, Tales hardly ever misled you or had you standing in a new place spending the first 30 minutes or so to find out what you could actually pick up or combine as there would be a) so many clickable things around you and b) so many stuff in your inventory (just think of the Antique Shop in MI 2 as a comparison!)
Plus, the simplified"click to interact" interface really made things a little too easy for us. That's how I see it.
I wouldn't mind some more difficult puzzles - my favourite Tales episode was the fourth one partly because of this - but TTG seems to be more or less happy with their current design formula so I'm not sure it could happen. I'm staying a loyal fanboy either way.
I'd agree with this to, the Verb Coin style used for Curse and Full Throttle seems a nice balance between them both, plus you got funny comments when you tried to make Guybrush Talk to or lick objects.
"I won't put my lips on that" or "No!". After awhile it will get old and tired (plus that mechanic combined with point and drag... probably not good)
I'd like a "simple" (in my eyes at least) change: extend the "Examine" action to be available globally (not just for the inventory)
So you'd have "Interact" (Talk, use using the standard click) and "Examine"
I'll repeat myself from another post/thread just to give an example:
Examine Elaine->Guybrush: "My plunder bunny - tied up"
Examine Elaine->Guybrush: "She doesn't look happy tied up like that"
Examine Elaine->Guybrush: "I'd better untie her soon"
Action on Elaine (Click)->Guybrush talks to Elaine
Your strawman logic is flawed because you are assuming every single person who needed help / found it difficult would have posted in the help forum, which is clearly nonsense.
I don't know, having to open the inventory, select the looking glass, close the inventory, then click something seems a LOT more complicated (and unnecessary so) than having a pop-up "coin". Plus, it has a third option!
I can see it become extremely annoying too if you loose the glass each time you look at something forcing you to repeat it. No, then it's much MUCH better to click something, get coin, select option, go with it...
I normally really don't care too much for them, but I don't think it's too smart for TTG to just ignore them and make an ultra-annoying system.
That's the one thing I would love to see in TTG adventures. Before I click an object I would like to know if my character is going to use/take it or just look at it. In adventure games I usually like to examine everything on the screen before I set things in motion, because there is chance that if I start things too soon I might miss some joke, comment etc.
In Sam & Max you could inspect inventory items with right mouse button. It wouldn't be too complicated system for players, if in next Monkey game (if there will be one), you could examine with right mouse button and interact with left mouse button.
Maybe make them a little less unique (like having created a whole variety of small in-game games, Jeopardy with De Cava, pirate face-off with Bugeye), you know, maybe just stick a little bit more to just grabbing items and using them, but create a harder way to do so. I really liked the way puzzles were in SMI and LCR, plus with several difficulty levels it was perfect. Sure, when you play it the second, third, fourth time it gets hackneyed eventually, but it still gives you a positive kick in the butt if you replay the games like 5-10 years later.
So yeah, making them harder would do the trick, plus if they make a difficulty switch instead of hints I think both easygoers and hardcore questers would be satisfied.
Damn, I didn't even realize that I have played children's games. Tells something about my level of maturity. :eek:
But today, I look at them and they all look too cartoonish, a guy comes in and says: "You're playing that game? Again? Come on man, snap out of this Shrek stuff!" Is Shrek really just for children?
I also found the
Really? Those weren't as hard if you remember the feast of the senses spell. I bet you were looking for "A taste so stale" for a long time, thou
Feast was hard when you get to "shocking dessert". I spent the whole day finding it before realizing that it was literal. lol
The hardest puzzle in the game for me was with two manatees (laugh if you want), honestly, this tourist guide for answers wasn't helpful at all!
With sounds? What I did was EXAMINE (use the inventory's magnifying glass with) the Weather Vane. as Guybrush holds it up in the air over his head, you can see two idol faces on it, one of which you haven't used yet.
Also, I don't think it's too easy at all. I think you've just been playing so many adventure games over the years, your mind knows what to look for... so maybe it's easy for you, but I wouldn't say too easy in general.
I explain a few posts later how to do it with sounds.
t's the kind of things I did without even realising it was meant as a puzzle, but apparently a lot of people had trouble with it.
I haven't seen Shrek, so I don't know if it's for children or for adults. But when it comes to adventure games, I don't see that the main audience are children. Telltale's games like Tales and Sam & Max seem to have some humour which is IMO directed to adult audience, because I certainly wouldn't put sex jokes to children's game.
"You mean like grog?"
"The total opposite of grog!"
So I spend 30 minutes trying to get more grog from the grog machine, or finding ways to pick up the grog in club 41 thinking that was the sollution, they made it so OBVIOUS in the previous episode.
I was dissapointed by the real sollution
Item combining system in Tales was also horrible. It was so unpractical and slow compared to the item combining systems of MI 1, 2 and 3 for example. And besides, I remember that in the very beginning of ToMI chapter 1 you had to combine something and as I saw the new system I hoped that theres not much items to be combined in the next chapters. Luckily, there were only a few occasions in the whole series.
I hope that they change the backgrounds, inventory and examining controls so, that theres lot more details to be examined, more items to pick up and maybe combine. (but only if they change the system) These improvements would also add a little difficulty to the future Monkey Island games.
I did thoroughly enjoy ToMI (2 was definitely the loooow point but 4 and 5 were GREAT), I just hope they up the difficulty a bit for the second season.
Edit:
Don't get me wrong, I'm on your side. TMI is easy as hell, even if you turn off the hints. That's why I suggested returning the difficulty switch, but make it available in game and with three levels instead of two. So that you could, let's say, switch the puzzle's strength if you see that it's either too easy or too hard.
IF they had hinted at it before, THEN it would be cheap.
And lame.
And even easier.
As it is, it's a good puzzle. One of the better ones of ToMI.