Too easy
Hi,
first of all congratulations to Telltale for making such great games. It must be a really nice job to work on all this stuff.
Personally, I have been playing all Monkey Island games since my childhood. Now, I'm grown up and I think the new episodes are really nice. Still, I find them to easy to solve. It is often too obvious what needs to be done next. I already noticed that in TT's Sam'n'Max Season 1. MI is a little bit harder, but still not really a challenge. You can easily play one episode in one afternoon, which is not really that long.
I'm not sure if the old games were really harder to solve or if it is just me that is now a little bit more educated solving puzzles. What do other players think? When I think back of MI 2 + 3, I think I was not able to solve them at all without taking a look at a walkthrough.
first of all congratulations to Telltale for making such great games. It must be a really nice job to work on all this stuff.
Personally, I have been playing all Monkey Island games since my childhood. Now, I'm grown up and I think the new episodes are really nice. Still, I find them to easy to solve. It is often too obvious what needs to be done next. I already noticed that in TT's Sam'n'Max Season 1. MI is a little bit harder, but still not really a challenge. You can easily play one episode in one afternoon, which is not really that long.
I'm not sure if the old games were really harder to solve or if it is just me that is now a little bit more educated solving puzzles. What do other players think? When I think back of MI 2 + 3, I think I was not able to solve them at all without taking a look at a walkthrough.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
I think some of it is a little easy... mainly situations where the puzzle and the solution are pretty much in the same place... but I certainly don't want it to be frustrating just so that it lasts longer.
Personally, I would like to see more simultanious puzzles. You are mostly just solving one puzzle at a time before you get to the next one. The only exception in episode 2 was that you could choose in which order to get the 3 artefacts.
I think one of the most costly things while producing such a game are the graphical scenes. Instead of using them only once or twice, I would add more puzzles to each place. Also, what was the point of adding those 2 small islands in the south? I think they were not needed at all.
Having played Secret of Monkey Island recently I have to say I prefer the puzzles in Tales because some of the puzzles in previous games were just not as logical - e.g. finding something in a box of cereal on the ship. Why? The puzzles in Tales seem to make more sense, and if you have a common sense brain then it becomes easier to solve, e.g. put hot coals in what? A bucket.
I think they are good at starting off easy and then ramping it up as the series goes on. I like complicated puzzles too, but only if they make sense! I hope they keep thinking up new types of puzzles too - like conversation puzzles where you need to find info, quests like the treasure hunt, time-related puzzles like the gold turtle, puzzles where you need to learn and skill up like insult sword fighting, etc.
I wonder what people would think of action sequences too? I played Broken Sword 3 and thought the running through the collapsing cave was a nice break from puzzles. I kind of also like the end puzzles on Wallace and Gromit, where it seems tense and you need to find a solution urgently (even though you don't really need to hurry - you have loads of time, but the atmosphere makes you think you should).
Oh, I forgot to mention the time swamp in Monkey Island 4 - I loved that bit where you can see your past self and give the wrong information and a paradox sucks you up. That kind of random memory test where you have to remember what you said before is funny.
I don't really see this as a good example. It's quite common (even more so back when SoMI came out) to have toys in cereal boxes. Manufactures use it as a way to boost sales (the same advertising logic as toys in happy meals, and in cracker jack boxes). Didn't you ever buy cereal as a kid?
Besides talking about illogical, how about how those hot coals you cite just appeared out of nowhere?
No, don't. The Commissioner really makes good points. Most people playing this game are part of a world wide adventure gamers society of elites. They've been through the monkey island games several times each. I've played 3.4 a few times each. One a few times but two I've only played once. Each to their own.
Aside from that I've really played a lot more adventure games, listing them all is too much work. I'm feeling lazy.It's all on relative terms though, if you haven't solved many adventure game puzzles then you aren't going to be an adventure game genius. If you're job isn't solving puzzles etc etc. It really depends on who you are not what you are. You're not stupid.
Like most things it's all about relative terms.
It's ok to take time in an adventure game, in fact it makes it far more enjoyable because you get a stronger sense of atmosphere.
The other major factor in an adventure is figuring out where each inventory item will be useful to solve a particular puzzle - and a lot of that (the aha! moment) was taken out of the user's hands by putting the item (
I'm referring to ep 2 for most of this - I actually enjoyed Narwhal a lot more.
That's stupid people talk!
MI is easy, but the older ones difficulty turned a lot of people off.
Do I have to refer you to the Tic-Tac-Doom joke in SM106?!?
You're just horny and a bad boy...:mad:
I don't know about atmosphere, but I always enjoy solving puzzles on my own steam, even if that takes several hours, or even several sittings on the computer. But time is a very important element in any adventure series, and I don't think anyone can (or should) expect to solve the more difficult puzzles in the first 10-15 minutes (the easier puzzles are give-aways, so to speak).
You are now my hero.
...and you are creepy.
I think that one afternoon is what they're going for. Think of it this way: if it took you an entire afternoon to get off Woodstock (or even two afternoons), then they're doing a great job.
As for not having to use walkthroughs: that's a great thing, man. There is NOTHING more frustrating than having to open a walkthrough in an adventure game and then discovering you've been missing out on putting the monkey on the pump to turn off the waterfall. It just says that TMI's puzzles have been made with some excellent logic.
I do hope the games get a smidge harder as the series goes on. I think they're fine for early episodes, though.
Oh yeah I'm creepy and mysterious! *laughs out of control*