Puzzles and puzzle games! do you like them?

[Zeckt]

Honestly for me its a big NO! nothing stops my gaming enjoyment more then playing a game like say Uncharted 3 and have tons of fun with the action only to slam my head against the wall while running. I used to be a massive castlevania fan till the new one promised 1/3rd action, 1/3rd platforming and *gulp* 1/3rd puzzles. It gets to the point where I immediately youtube to learn what to do to get back into the action and if a game on steam even mentions the word "puzzle" in the summary I immediately ignore.

It's just my taste. I like to play games where I can play for hours and not worry about getting stuck completely and be reminded I'm not kind of a dummy. I myself stick to Action, stat heavy rpg and strategy. I remember playing King's Quest 6 as a kid only for the story with a big fat strategy guide in front of me to tell me what to do because I enjoyed the game but just did not want to get frustrated.

How does everybody else feel about puzzles and their place in gaming?

 

[Jackalb]

Puzzle Pirates is the tits. So yes.

 

[krazykidd]

I do . Especially in rpgs . Like wild arms has a good Number of puzzles in their game . But now that you mention it , i just realized most new rpgs don't have many puzzles in them . This is a sad realisation for me . I guess people don't like to think . I think activision should add some puzzles in the next CoD to troll people , imagine the rage .

I also liked Catherine ... A lot . Not onl for the puzzles but for the story . Sure it got frustrating at times , but i like me a challenge , and a challenge where i have to think isn't a bad thing .

Also , i'll add and Obligatory : gamers these days are lazy .

 

[Kordie]

I love my puzzle games. Games being key in that, puzzles put into otherwise non-puzzle games tend to just make things stupid. Or when a developer makes the only way to solve a puzzle some convoluted mess.

 

[Tazzy da Devil]

I don't mind puzzles. If I figure them out, I feel smart. If not, there's always Google.

 

[Tallim]

Riven is one of my favourite games Completed it without hints/walkthrough although I will not tell you the time period that that took........

Spacechem is brilliant too, many many hours lost to that.

 

[Zeckt]

I love my puzzle games. Games being key in that, puzzles put into otherwise non-puzzle games tend to just make things stupid. Or when a developer makes the only way to solve a puzzle some convoluted mess.

I know exactly how you feel, I can't even begin to tell you how dissapointed I was when I heard the new Castlevania game was going to be 33% puzzles. A game that always made me feel so bad ass for hunting dracula decided it wanted to make me feel stupid for putting in puzzles to confuse me. Why why why

But I will play something like Syberia or the Longest Journey for the interesting story, but I WILL use a strategy guide every time I even have to THINK about a puzzle. I know that is overkill, but I like to enjoy those games for the unique stories and not the confounding puzzles.


(Tetris like games don't count for me buy the way, so I omit them because they are all gameplay and not solving some obscure thingie by waving a cat around by its tail 20 minutes after midnight or something.)

 

[Garrett]

Given the fact that point'n'click adventures is my favourite genre, I say I love puzzles. Though even I realize that putting puzzles everywhere is a stupid idea.

 

[scorptatious]

Well I enjoy puzzle games like Portal 1 and 2. So I guess I enjoy them to an extent.

Besides, if I'm ever stuck on an annoying puzzle, I can always Google the answer.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I do like them quite a bit but only in small doses at a time, and no wackjob ones i.e. I fucking hate point and click puzzles.

 

[Razentsu]

If I were to answer this question two weeks ago, I would say puzzle games weren't for me. But after playing a bit of Ghost Trick and Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, I'll say I'm warming up to the genre.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

I don't mind but when I have a hard time doing one and there's someone I know can do it easy I get pissed off 'cause it makes me feel like I was dropped on the head when I was a baby.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I love puzzles games especially Professor Layton, just as long it isn't maths base puzzles used in the Professor Layton series. I generally prefer the moving shapes type of puzzle.

 

[lacktheknack]

My favorite game franchise is Myst... and my favorite MMO is Myst Online...

So yes. Yes, I adore them.

Favorite game puzzle EVAR: Myst Online's "How the Hell Does Ahnonay Work?" ultra-puzzle. That right there should be the benchmark in organic puzzle design. You have to deconstruct a complex "travel-through-time simulation" which actually consists of rotating biospheres, and involves controlling water currents, swimming through said waters, in-universe teleportation, getting into the inner workings of the whole area Portal-style, finding out there's an entire section of the age completely missing, mega-machine manipulation, and the most absolutely gorgeous and mind-melting ending sequence this side of Myst III.

One of my biggest "wat" moments in gaming happened in Ahnonay as well. When I first arrived, and was admiring the surroundings, I thought "Huh. Those distant islands look like they're painted on cardboard. I guess not all the graphics are consistent." Imagine my face when I finally got out there and found out that... well... they WERE.

Least favorite game puzzle: Scratches' "Find the Missing Body" pixel-hunt. It's literally a pixel hunt with a ten-second wait between clicks. What a terrible idea.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I was all set to come in here and talk about how awesome Columns was, and reminisce about how Puzznic was amazingly good for a PS1 game that was $10 on launch day, but now I'm disappointed that that's not what the thread is about.

OT: It depends on the game and the context. In an action adventure game (think Tomb Raider or Zelda) I expect there to be puzzles, and whether I enjoy them or not depends on the quality of said puzzles. In, say, a fighting game, they'd be a bit out of place.

I think my favorite videogame puzzle would have to be one that I ran into in Mazes of Fate, a first person dungeon crawler[footnote]It was a bit of a love letter to Eye of The Beholder, Dungeon Hack, and other similar games[/footnote] on the GBA. To get a door to open, you had to solve a logic puzzle. You know the kind -- the ones that will give you partial information about a situation, and leave you to deduce the rest? Stuff like "There are five people who each went to one of three events. Person 1 hates person 2, and they would never go to an event together. Person two went to event 3..."

Anyway, solving that puzzle was awesome.

 

[lacktheknack]

But I will play something like Syberia or the Longest Journey for the interesting story, but I WILL use a strategy guide every time I even have to THINK about a puzzle. I know that is overkill, but I like to enjoy those games for the unique stories and not the confounding puzzles.

One of my crowning moments of "gaming high" was when I completed Syberia without any hints whatsoever. There IS a buzz in them as well that you never feel with strategy guides and walkthroughs.

 

[everythingbeeps]

Honestly, I kind of don't. If only because they usually end up making me feel kind of stupid.

 

[Bad Jim]

I love puzzles. I got QUBE in the Steam sales and according to the cheevies I'm about halfway through already. I also made a few rather evil Portal 2 maps.

 

[purplecactus]

I like them. I do tend to get really frustrated and quite angry if I don't solve things quickly, but I do like them.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

I'm kind of the opposite to you, I don't really like action sequences all that much With a fair few exceptions, anyway.

I've always preferred more slow paced games, if they aren't heavy on puzzles then I at least like them to be "tactical" for lack of a better word. I prefer more investigation based and practical puzzles to logic puzzles, though. Wadjet Eye Games are great at making this sort of thing and Broken Sword is full of them, too. Amnesia is great for the latter; many of the solutions are what you'd really think to do.

I do like them quite a bit but only in small doses at a time, and no wackjob ones i.e. I fucking hate point and click puzzles.

Hey, not ALL point and click puzzles are wackjob I think just a few really bad ones have given the genre a bad name.