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?
Oh, in Detective Grimoire’s Tangle Tower, I loved their hint system. I’ve heard some people did not like the hint system as it held their hands through out the game, but as I only used it when I felt really lost, the hint system helped me steer towards places I needed to go without advancing / progressing the story plot ahead of me.
A hint system is an interesting one. I think the most effective ones are ones that don’t feel like just looking up the solution. I’m playing Beyond A Steel Sky at the moment and I do like Joey acting as a very gentle reminder “what am I meant to be doing” alongside there being an overarching goal when load even if its quite open ended.