I was way more prepared to waste time being confused by a game back in the day. You occasionally would try stuff for hours. Now if I get stuck 10 mins I start thinking they didn’t play test or design the game well enough haha.
And that’s why Boy never shuts the fuck up in GoW Ragnarok.
Player stuck for 30 seconds? Better tell them the answer to keep our completion metrics up…
Yep. And coloured ledges you can grab, sparkling items to collect… I remember in old Monkey Island games there being no way to visually discern what you could or couldn’t interact with, you’d spend so long just trying things to see what worked.
This particular thing kinda sucks, though. I also hate when there’s a puzzle that goes “you know that interaction that normally doesn’t work? We’ve enabled it here and it’s how you’re supposed to solve this puzzle! Surprise!”
Moon logic. Puzzles that are hard because they make no damn sense.
“Oh yes, of course I need to combine a fish with a phone book to create a sailboat.”
ALL THE UPVOTES, GET THEM IN HERE NOW
FF8 was infuriating about that shit, iirc shit did somewhat glimmer but they had a habit of jamming junk under overhangs you can’t see under and can’t really tell exist unless you try to walk there. You end up spending a significant part of the game walking around all the walls like a psychopath.
Yeah, having stuff being obvious is actually incredibly freeing. Without that I waste so much time checking every part of every room, trying to work out which corridor leads to the objective vs which one might have collectibles.
Knowing I can just play a game, find most stuff, get on with it, and not regret not using a guide is a real gift.
That’s what’s wrong with your generation. You want all of the reward, and none of the work.
In MY day, we had to LOOK for shit goddamit.
I don’t think I’d dislike it if they gave me like 5 to 10 minutes depending on the size of the puzzle and what I’ve done. I definitely hate how fast it is. It’s like, Jesus, give me a minute or being told what do do after it’s already blatantly obvious and you’re trying to figure it out.
Your comment has a vibe of complaining about that, but I like it for the exact reason you’re replying to. It’s a little overtuned (I’d like a couple of minutes before being given a hint), but I don’t have the patience for getting stuck for long periods of time, especially if it’s because of game limitations (ie, I can think of alternatives, but the game doesn’t let me use the alternatives because that’s not how video games work).
I also really like when games make it clear that I can’t do something right now. Horizon has been great about that, with Aloy remarking that she probably needs some tool or should come back later. I always hated spending 10 minutes trying to get to some obvious treasure, googling it, and being spoiled because the Google result will tell me (in too much detail) that it’s a late game thing.
Yeah, that’s sometimes really immersion breaking, but it does save time.
One of the recent Tomb Raider games (“Shadow of the” probably, which was otherwise unremarkable) had separate settings for puzzles, combat and exploration, so you could turn puzzle hints off completely. I still kept the exploration setting though, because it’s a nightmare to find the puzzle parts among all the clutter that modern games throw in. Like a wall full of cogwheels, but only two of them are part of the puzzle and the rest is just scenery.
Yeah, that setting was great. I wish more games would have granular difficulty settings.
Sometimes it’s like they expect us to take notes while playing the game.
Like I’ve got paper just lying there. What am I, a high schooler?
I feel like Outer Wilds is a good modern-day Myst, sort of anyway.
These games, although I was utterly fascinated by them, I had no clue what I was doing or where I was supposed to go. I couldnt even tell if I was progressing or what. I think I was just too young for it.
Rest assured, you weren’t. These games were made back in the day before the internet got huge. When games could have legitimately hard puzzles for their own sake. There was no handholding back in the day.
Yes and no. A lot of games had hint books you could buy, either from the company or third party. Infocom used to put out hint books which could reveal things to you one clue at a time with a special marker that came with it. But then Infocom was always a very innovative company.
The thinking man’s dark souls.
That game left my brain absolutely riven.
It will be myst
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I realized the moment I fell into the fissure that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned. It continued falling into that starry expanse of which I had only a fleeting glimpse. I have tried to speculate where it might have landed but I must admit however such conjecture is futile. Still, the question of whose hands might someday hold my Myst book are unsettling to me. I know that my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written.
And yes, that was from memory.
I can hear the music.
Wow… I remember playing this for MONTHS, trying to figure out what buttons, levers, everything does. I dedicated an entire paper notebook to writing down clues, hints, and failed attempts. And then the same for Riven.
Now I simply don’t have the free time to dedicate to those games… #adulting
I remember getting stuck on Myst trying to light a fire. I kept sticking the match in and it kept not working. Got very frustrated. Took way too long to realize I had never actually struck the damn thing.
Was this the part to get the tree elevator running?!
Yarr
this is actually me when i was a kid.
Bring me the blue pages
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Best selling? Yeah right! It’s a well-known fact that Myst cd-roms just kept appearing everywhere under their own volition whether you wanted them to or not. No sale or purchase ever took place.
Ok, but did you put the disc in your red cd rom drive or the blue one?
Grey, I think 🤔
The German word “Mist” translates to “Shit” btw
I never did figure out how to get past that damned piano puzzle. I should pick up the remastered version and have another go at it. I have such fond memories of it.
If you have an Xbox I think the game is on gold. I tried to replay it earlier this year and quit pretty quick.
Was it good? Never played it and I’m thinking about getting it from GOG.com. In fact, just recommend me the best old games. The original Dungeon Keeper is probably my favourite game of all time.
I enjoyed it back in the day but it’s a different era’s game. You have to enjoy throwing yourself against a brick wall for a very long time until you finally crash through the door, and possibly taking notes and making diagrams or maps as you go.
I remember it being lush graphically, for the time, and very satisfying for the puzzles I did crack but I gave up before finishing it. I think it was some kind of blind maze that finally did it.
Yeah, playing it as a kid was nightmare. I had no idea what I was getting into, so it was just sitting there alongside Need for Speed and Rollercoaster Tycoon. By the time I realized I needed a note page to keep track of obscure bits of information hidden across the map, I was already in too deep to just have a properly organized note sheet. Never wound up finishing, but I remember just scrawling numbers and words connected by branching lines like some kind of schizophrenic conspiracy theory.
Also you could not just google the puzzles
Play system shock 2!
I literally am, right now. It’s extremely difficult but definitely good, particularly towards the end as the pace picks up. I didn’t hoard enough anti-personnel rounds to get through the final room in the Body of the Many, so am having to replay. It’s quite unforgiving like that.
Should I play System Shock 1 to fully enjoy 2?
I didn’t play SS1 and fully enjoyed SS2.
Btw, Bioforge is also amasing!
Bioforge, similar premise?
Same same but very different.
Sort of resident evil 1 camera points, so a bit confusing to move around. But you wake up somewhere with body parts replaced and no memory of anything and you piece it together. Not no FPS.
I loved it and emailed the publishers for a sequel. They confirmed that it was not going to happen😅. I think this was in 1998 or something like that. I got it and played through it in 3 days straight. Loved it.
Oh not at all, that’s the best part!
Dungeon Keeper was the shit. So much fun.
I believe there is a modern spiritual successor called War for the Overworld, basically exact same game layout and mechanics with modern engine and graphics
I heard enough criticisms that I never committed to buy it. Basically Dungeon Keeper 2 was already a massive letdown in comparison, so I wasn’t sure I was ready to get hurt again.
Oh yes.
Make sure to get one of the modernized version of Myst, I think they’re up to about 27 or so revisions/redos. Don’t be afraid to try clues, but in all honesty the puzzles in Myst are pretty solvable by Adventure game standards.
Riven (II) and Exile (III) are both likewise excellent, with Brad Dourif as a bonus in the third. After that, different people took over and things got awful.
Definitely heard of Riven, some people say it’s the better game?
I’m a fanboy, I couldn’t pick one of the first three, they go together like one seamless game if you ask me. Again, just pretend the series ends there. :>
The collection is on humble bundle of you are looking to jump in.
What is Homble Bondle?
That’s quite the bundle, thank you.
Enjoy! 🙂
The Myst devs made a new gamr just a few years ago, called Obduction
And just this year released a new game called Firmament
Obduction was good. It had some issues, but it’s up there with the classic stuff. Firmament, unfortunately, was not good. Felt more like a walking simulator. There were few puzzles and they were not difficult at all. Not sure what happened. It’s pretty though.
Riven is by far my favorite of the classic series. They are working on a modern remake of that next and I’m pumped!
I found obduction looked amazing, but the puzzles were “follow wire, flip the switch”.
A modern game that really captures the Myst feeling for me was Quern: Undying Thought.
I think some of the original Cyan Games Devs started their own studio for it, and it really captures the Myst feeling.
Puzzles are hard but satisfying. I think there is 1 grindy puzzle that just takes a lot of work, but everything else is mental models of systems, hints and clues, using things in different ways.
And a nice story behind it as well.Also remade the game in VR. It was my first playthrough and it was awesome.
Looks like we need a c/sbubby
We already have one.
Excellent
I had this for Sega Saturn. Near the end of the game one puzzle would generate a screen with a bunch of numbers and letters and crash. I thought it was part of the game until a walkthrough showed I was doing it right but something was broken on my disc. I still loved the game even though I couldn’t progress passed that point.
