Articles

by Jeff Strand August 30, 2002

The Seriously Whacked Point of View "Good Puzzle/Bad Puzzle" by Jeff Strand

(WARNING: This column is actually devoted to discussing adventure game puzzles, rather than the usual nonsense I try to foist upon readers. Next time I'll try to return to my complete lack of informational content.)

As a novelist, I guess it's a bit ironic that I'm not one of those people who thinks an adventure game has to have a great (or even good) story to work. Give me puzzles. Lots of 'em. The more convoluted the better. I even like being stuck for extended rounds of gaming on a particularly nasty one, although I'm not big on wandering around aimlessly with no idea what I'm supposed to do next (I do enough of that in real life).

I particularly like games with puzzles based on cartoon logic, such as Toonstruck, Sam & Max Hit the Road, the Monkey Island series, etc. There are few things in this universe greater than the moment in Curse of Monkey Island when you get the map tattoo off the guy's back by...well, I won't reveal the solution, but it's a moment of disgusting glory that I will cherish for all time.

However, even though I'll happily play a game with no real story, the logic of the puzzles is important. If I need to open a wooden box, and I'm carrying an axe, there'd better be a reason why I have to find a key instead of just chopping it up, even if the game just says "Hey, dumbass, you're going to lop off a leg if you mess with that."

So, now I'm going to discuss some good puzzles and some bad puzzles in terms of logic. Note that this contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the puzzles discussed, so beware!

GOOD PUZZLE: Day of the Tentacle: The tentacle costume puzzle. This is the best puzzle in a game that features ingenious puzzle construction from beginning to end. You play characters in the past, present, and future. Your character in the future needs a tentacle costume, yet there's none to be found! Sure, there's an American flag flying outside the window, but what good will that do? Well, your character in the past has met none other than Betsy Ross, who's hard at work designing that very flag. By switching her sketch of a flag with a picture of a tentacle, you change the shape of the American Flag in the future, creating the necessary costume! Brilliant.

BAD PUZZLE: Amber: Journeys Beyond: The sliding tile puzzle. Sliding tiles are usually a total cop-out in the puzzle department, so you have to at least give the designers credit for a bit of creativity: You're a ghost trying to help a woman come to grips with the fact that her husband has died, so the sliding tile puzzle involves manipulating the torn pieces of a telegram informing her of his death until it has been reconstructed. In the logic department, though, this puzzle doesn't make any sense. Why do the pieces have to stay in the twelve-square block? Any ghost worth his lack of weight would know to just push a couple of pieces off to the side to give him room to manipulate the others!

Worse, though, is the fact that you only need the center four pieces in the right order for the message to get across! I got stuck because two blank pieces in the corners were on the wrong end! Many a rude word left my lips during this sliding tile experience.

GOOD PUZZLE: Full Throttle: You're trying to get through a sliding metal door. You can pull a long chain and raise the door...but if you let go of the chain, the door closes before you can get through. The obvious solution is to tie the chain to something, and I spent LOTS of time trying to figure out what! The answer, however, is a great example of lateral thinking: Use a padlock to keep the door down, which also holds the chain in place, and lets you use it to climb over the wall.

BAD PUZZLE: Monkey Island 2: The monkey wrench puzzle. On its own, this puzzle is actually pretty clever. You need something to turn off a pump, you're carrying a monkey...use the monkey as a wrench! However, even in a ridiculous game like this one, it doesn't fit the internal logic. Characters and objects may follow the rules of a Warner Bros. Cartoon, but until this point you haven't solved any puzzles by thinking in puns. This puzzle would've been right at home in the old Infocom game Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Heads or Tails of It, but it doesn't work here, even if the monkey in your inventory is kind of posed in the shape of a wrench.

GOOD PUZZLE: Grim Fandango: The spinning sign puzzle. You're in a clearing with numerous tunnels in every direction, and every time you walk through one you come out of another, with no apparent logic behind it. You have a directional sign that spins around and points to one of the doors, but that too doesn't seem to follow any logic. Which tunnel is the right one? None of 'em. They're red herrings. The sign is actually pointing to a spot in the clearing...another great example of lateral thinking.

BAD PUZZLE: The Longest Journey: Soda pop explosion. There's nothing wrong with the end result of this puzzle...you hand the guard a can of shaken soda, he opens it, it sprays all over him, and short-circuits his electrified suit. The problem is that you should be able to solve this puzzle by...well, shaking the can of soda. But instead you put the soda in a paint can shaker, and then take it on a subway ride across town before giving it to the guard. C'mon, I realize that this game takes place in the future, but where does it say that this is space soda?

If you've got a puzzle that you particularly like or dislike, I'd love to hear about it in hopes of perhaps padding out a future column. Send your letters to Jeff@justadventure.com.

Jeff Strand's novels include Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary), How to Rescue a Dead Princess, and Mandibles, all of which are available in various electronic formats at http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/JeffStrandeBooks.htm