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combine puzzles broken?

adhuinadhuin
edited July 2010 in Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent
Anyone else had problems with the 'put stuff next to each other to build something' puzzles.

Or more accurately how they practically do themselves.

For example the diner-plate puzzle:

I'm looking which piece fits next to fish. Not this piece (put it out of way next to other pieces)
not this piece either, and not this one.

Soon I notice I have 3 parts stuck together on my put away pile, start to move it, drop it and suddenly have 4th piece stuck on it!

Same problem with the big gear puzzle, where gear pieces warp half-piece away to join another piece I wasn't even considering.

All and all these puzzles aren't very brain teasing, as monkey (me) moving pieces back and worth solves the puzzle easier!


Secondly on the similar puzzle with the furnace:
Same problems as above, but I had one extra thing that could use improvement. The play area is literally cluttered. its hard to get grip on wanted object on pile.
It would be better if in addition of puzzle area, there would be 1/3 of the area dedicated to offside, so people have easier time to move objects.

Comments

  • alexonfyrealexonfyre
    edited July 2010
    adhuin wrote: »
    Anyone else had problems with the 'put stuff next to each other to build something' puzzles.

    Or more accurately how they practically do themselves.

    For example the diner-plate puzzle:

    I'm looking which piece fits next to fish. Not this piece (put it out of way next to other pieces)
    not this piece either, and not this one.

    Soon I notice I have 3 parts stuck together on my put away pile, start to move it, drop it and suddenly have 4th piece stuck on it!

    Same problem with the big gear puzzle, where gear pieces warp half-piece away to join another piece I wasn't even considering.

    All and all these puzzles aren't very brain teasing, as monkey (me) moving pieces back and worth solves the puzzle easier!


    Secondly on the similar puzzle with the furnace:
    Same problems as above, but I had one extra thing that could use improvement. The play area is literally cluttered. its hard to get grip on wanted object on pile.
    It would be better if in addition of puzzle area, there would be 1/3 of the area dedicated to offside, so people have easier time to move objects.

    Yeah, I think reducing the number of pieces and getting rid of the snap-together pieces would make those puzzles more challenging without being infuriating and impossible.
  • Hassat HunterHassat Hunter
    edited July 2010
    I vote for just cutting them all-together...
  • henke37henke37
    edited July 2010
    Snapping makes sense for assembling things. Not so much for just aligning.
  • MirkoMirko
    edited July 2010
    Having to rotate the pieces would also make these Puzzles a lot harder. In the game "Black Mirror" there are puzzles like that (a letter and a black and white photo).
  • thom-22thom-22
    edited July 2010
    Hassat Hunter wrote: »
    I vote for just cutting them all-together...

    If they cut out all the puzzles that have generated complaints, there wouldn't be any puzzles left! :p

    I kinda like having the jigsaws in the puzzle mix. They just need to improve the interface for solving them and make them less automatic.
  • Hassat HunterHassat Hunter
    edited July 2010
    thom-22 wrote: »
    If they cut out all the puzzles that have generated complaints, there wouldn't be any puzzles left! :p
    Nah, just the jigsaws.
    The boxes swapping one are overdone, but atleast they aren't 100% pointless like the jigsaws...
  • [TTG] Yare[TTG] Yare Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2010
    Hassat Hunter wrote: »
    Nah, just the jigsaws.
    The boxes swapping one are overdone, but atleast they aren't 100% pointless like the jigsaws...

    Would the assembly puzzles feel more satisfying if there were a timed component to scoring them?
  • ElvenmonkElvenmonk
    edited July 2010
    All puzzles would feel more satisfying if there was a timed scoring system. I assume you mean like the quicker you do it the higher to score. Not like 5 minutes to do a puzzle.
  • thom-22thom-22
    edited July 2010
    [TTG] Yare wrote: »
    Would the assembly puzzles feel more satisfying if there were a timed component to scoring them?

    Oh god, please, no timed puzzles in Puzzle Agent. :eek: There are better suggestions, here and in other threads, to make them more challenging.
  • adhuinadhuin
    edited July 2010
    Yeah,no for time restrictions.

    Maybe changing sticking together a bit.

    Instead of sticking next to each other, they would stick to the puzzle floor.

    Like in diner plate puzzle, you have 10 distinct objects you have to move.
    Instead of dropping them where ever, you could have 20-30 (or even 40) distinct points they would stay until moved again.
  • WarpSpeedWarpSpeed
    edited July 2010
    If you do put a timed element on puzzles (which I don't think you should), there should be some sort of Pause feature, maybe one that blanks the screen, because I frequently got up to do other things in the middle of puzzles (it was time to switch the laundry, or whatever).

    Interestingly, if a puzzle seemed urgent ("Fix this pipe before the hotel fills up with smoke!"), I tried to solve it extra fast, even if there wasn't really a reason to.
  • [TTG] Yare[TTG] Yare Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2010
    I wasn't thinking of a hard time restriction, but more like "for every 30 seconds you take, you lose a star from your score" or something.

    And only for puzzles like rotation and assembly where you can be sure you get the right answer before submitting.
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited July 2010
    I like that idea, but only for those kinds of puzzles.
  • Hassat HunterHassat Hunter
    edited July 2010
    Since the solution is randomly stumping about till they click (especially those like the furnace or the dish, less so with the big wheel where you actually know what to make) adding a time element only seems to indicate how lucky one is, not how smart one is in solving them.

    As I said, they seem entirely useless :(.
  • MirkoMirko
    edited July 2010
    I don't think the time should affect the score, but maybe it could be recorded as an additional statistic.
  • LuigiHannLuigiHann
    edited July 2010
    I think Professor Layton had the right idea for assembly puzzles, where everything snaps to an invisible grid, rather than to each other... so the right answer is still unique and unambiguous, but it doesn't give itself away like the "right answer snap" in Puzzle Agent
  • StickmanStickman
    edited July 2010
    Timed puzzles would generally detract from the suspenseful atmosphere the game is trying to create (with the exception, perhaps, of puzzles during the climax). As far as the jigsaw puzzles go, I think that the removal of snap would make them much more interesting. In order to be viable without snap, the player would need to have a much larger area outside the primary assembly area in which to place pieces that are not currently be worked with, and the player would also need some way to lock pieces in formation themselves, so several pieces can be moved together without having to move them individually. Adding the ability to rotate pieces would add to the challenge significantly. Unfortunately, if solutions were then checked by making sure that no pixels overlap, the usual submission -> "you FAILED" -> start over process would be far to frustrating. Instead, having some sort of "check" button that highlights overlaps (and perhaps removes a little bit from score after the third of fourth use?) might be better.
  • SoultakerSoultaker
    edited July 2010
    [TTG] Yare wrote: »
    Would the assembly puzzles feel more satisfying if there were a timed component to scoring them?
    Then you'd better make the game run a whole lot more smoothly! I felt that half of the time my solving speed was severely limited by how fast I could move the mouse without completely losing track of it because of the low framerate. I imagine that having to fight a timer with a game that just doesn't run smoothly would be incredibly frustrating. As is, it's only midly annoying.
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