I can do it myself, thank you very much.
February 3rd, 2006I’ve just noticed that I only posted in this blog three times in January, meaning that yes, I’ve been keeping myself busy.
I have realised that I hate adventure game walkthroughs with a passion. I get dependent on them WAY too easily. It doesn’t matter how easy or hard the game I’m playing is, as long as I know that a walkthrough exists, I’ll always peek at it at the first sign of impatience. It’s not good.
Case in point: about three years ago, I beta-tested Out of Order. Obviously, no walkthrough was written for it yet, so, given my determination to play all that the game had to offer, I ended up being able to finish it all by myself. Sometime this month, I decided I’d replay this gem of a game. Much to my surprise, I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do in a particular situation. So, you know what I did? I looked at the walkthrough.
I like UHS-type hints somewhat better, because they don’t spoil the whole game for you, but I tend to get dependent on those as well. Personally, I think the best hint systems are the ones that only give you hints, and not solutions. Something like what Captain Mostly did for RLBAT. I think that’s what I might end up doing for TGTTPOACS.
I should probably also mention that the puzzles that usually cause me to look up walkthroughs in the first place are the pixel hunts, mostly present in 320×200 AGS games where you can’t distinguish individual items from the background. In those cases, I get righteously indignant and somewhat feel justified in consulting the walkthrough. Still, in those cases, I do end up getting dependent on the walkthrough for less-irritating forthcoming puzzles.
Conclusion: walkthroughs shouldn’t exist, and neither should pixel hunts.
By the by, in case you’re wondering what I’ve been up to these days, I’ve now finished the third TGTTPOACS ending, so there’s just one more to go. I’ve also joined a gospel choir, despite the fact that I usually prefer playing instruments to singing. That is all.
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:37 pm
This could have been an entry in my own diary!
If I had a diary at all, that is.
And without the part about beta testing Out Of Order. And the RLBAT thing (what??). And the TGTTPOACS bit too, since I’m not working on that game. Oh, I also didn’t join a gospel choir. But I DO prefer instruments as well!
(And I’ll probably put voices in my game!)
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Choir singing can be great! (But I’m currently not a member in one.)
RLBAT = Richard Longhurst and the Box that Ate Time, one of the first AGS games, from the time of the SCRAMM forum. I remember a very groovy “walk animation”.
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:58 pm
I feel this pain. I pretty much ruined my experience of Grim Fandango (a game I’d waited around two years to play) because I knew the UHS hints were just a few clicks away.
Compare that to playing Monkey Island way back in the day before intertrons and the like. I must have spent months on one specific puzzle. Frustrating, yes. But finally cracking it through nothing but my own steam was one of the most rewarding moments I’ve ever had with an adventure game. It’s hard to imagine spending that long on something similar ever again. The answers are just too easy to find.
I think the problem with walkthroughs is at its most prominent in adventure games. With Mario 64, I used a walkthrough a few times to figure out how to get to a couple of stars, but Mario’s gameplay is only partly in the puzzling out. Most of it comes in getting from point A to point B yourself, which a walkthrough can’t do. Even if you know exactly what to do, there’s still a lot of (fun) legwork to go through.
With traditional adventure games the walkthrough pretty much -is- the gameplay. The point A to B’ing is a purely mental thing. All it takes is to read a little bit more than you’d promised yourself, and somebody else has effectively played the game for you.
February 4th, 2006 at 4:05 am
oh yes, me too, i’m tented by those walkthroughs… for the last games i played i found a solution for not using them too much: i’m only looking for walkthroughs in other languages than the ones i know well
(this makes me having to guess more as all the objects are named differently and makes consulting a walkthrough not “that” helpful and tenting…). that system works even better with languages i don’t speak at all (like spanish or dutch) - if you then are successful with the game, it gives you that extra satisfaction concerning the good guessing for the language!
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:50 am
well, ok, but i need a walkthrough for thesa game!!!
( Game that takes place on a crouseship )
zo pleaze send me one to dannyvanderveldt@hotmail.com
will ya?
October 20th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
[...] Don’t get me wrong; I love a good puzzle, otherwise why would I study computer science, or spend so much time playing Sudoku on my Nintendo DS? It’s just that, unlike a lot of adventure gamers, I don’t find the idea of “getting stuck” to be very much fun. In fact, I find that the more I get engrossed in a game’s story, the more frustrated I get when I’m stuck, usually leading me to use a walkthrough and hate myself in the morning. Maybe I’m just not all that great at “thinking outside the box”, so to speak, but sometimes I wonder whether “thinking outside the box” is actually a code word for “becoming a Psychonaut and reading the game designer’s mind”. [...]
January 21st, 2007 at 6:24 am
I think for some games we require walkthroughs cos some games can be really confusing!
September 13th, 2007 at 3:00 am
I am guilty of this sin as well, especially when a game’s plot has me gripped (”Damn stupid puzzle, I want to see what happens next dammit!!”). I registered my copy of UHS long ago. Holy crap it was Dos based then. Man, now I feel old AND inadequate.