I’ve been playing some of the more recent adventure games and feel like the quality of the puzzles has gone down. It often seems a bit like use multitool on object to solve every puzzle. Equally, I can think many older games where the puzzle was so illogical it broke the gameplay and felt jarring to me.
So what makes a good puzzle? What are you most satisfying puzzles ever? What about your least favourite?
A good puzzle, at its essence, is a puzzle that makes you feel like you had just the right tools to solve it. It brings a feeling of accomplishment once overcome. There is a third parameter that is brought up by your post; if there is a high frequency of puzzles, they need to be varied in their solutions. Together, these parameters make for great puzzles when designers follow them. I find myself bored and unwilling when a game uses its same gimmick for every puzzle. But I also understand it can be challenging, as a GM I make a lot of puzzles for my players. The hardest part is always making sure they aren’t similar to previous ones AND ensuring my target solver (which can be the entire party and is a lot) feels like the puzzle cannot be solved by anyone but them. This is easier to achieve in TTRPGs than video games. In videogames, when I design a puzzle, I try to design an open solution. (i.e. get x to location y) This way, the players are not limited on how they solve it. Freedom on how to solve instead of many solutions is a great way to implement puzzles in a game thag allows the player the freedom to think like themselves.