Great puzzle design is that gate in Full Throttle. BEST PUZZLE

Good puzzle design would be things that are not easy to solve but when you find the actual solution you go “How didn’t I think of that before, it makes perfect sense!”.

Bad puzzles would be ones where the solution still doesn’t make much sense even after looking them up on a walkthrough or solving them by mere chance.

Of course, there are other things to be considered that may affect design quality, such as absurd pixel hunts or unexplained mechanics that do not apply elsewhere in the game.

I agree with the above. Good puzzle design should make sense but not be so trivial that no thought is required. Requiring moon logic is usually bad unless it clearly makes sense within the universe of the game, and easily missed hunt the pixel puzzles are always bad in my book.

Another example of bad design is the old classic goat puzzle in Broken Sword. This is bad because it requires you to do something that, while simple and making perfect sense, is never hinted at being possible. The game introduces a new mechanic for a single puzzle when you've already been trained in what you can and can't do. The Sonic 3 barrels puzzle is the same type of thing: the solution is obvious, but it didn't occur to a lot of people (especially ones that played the two previous games) because they'd already been taught what they could and couldn't do.

"Zombie" states, moon logic and pixel hunts cover most of the worst, really. Especially when it looks like you ought to be able to do things a certain way and it's not explicitly clear that the solution in fact lies somewhere else entirely.

So, good puzzle designs would be the opposite: puzzles where it's clear if you've made a mistake, where things function in a plausible, consistent manner, and where it's clear what you can or cannot interact with. The trick, of course, is not making things too easy.

leileilol wrote on 2020-12-04, 13:29:

Great puzzle design is that gate in Full Throttle. BEST PUZZLE

Was that the one where you had to kick the wall? I thought the final puzzle was the worst one, personally. Between that and the final level of Psychonauts, it is enough to make one question whether Tim Schafer has his priorities right.

One particular puzzle that is difficult for me to classify is the infamous "monkey wrench" in Monkey Island 2, where you have to use a literal monkey as a wrench in order to open a valve.

Back when I first played the game in the early '90s, I had no walkthrough and was stuck on that valve for WEEKS. I started trying to use every item in my inventory on the valve and when the monkey worked it left me scratching my head as I had no idea what a "monkey wrench" was at the time (my native language being Spanish, the term we use for that kind of tool has no relation to monkeys at all).

However, I can see some good design aspects about it, at least for a native English speaker:

• By that point in the game the player will likely have the monkey in their inventory, which may lead them to the solution if they realize that they need some kind of "wrench" to open the valve
• The icon in the inventory has the monkey in a pose that is somewhat reminiscent of a wrench, this may also be another clue for the player to do the "monkey wrench" association

So while I used to consider that one the worst puzzle by far in MI2, I've learned to appreciate it in later years.

I think a great starting point if you want to know more about good and bad puzzle design is Ron Gilbert's article "Why adventure games suck" , which he wrote back in 1989 when he was designing The Secret of Monkey Island.

As pointed out in the previous post, the Monkey Island games had a few cryptic puzzles, but at least in that respect they were still far ahead of most of adventure games at that time. Personally, I never had a problem with the "monkey wrench" puzzle in MI2 as a kid. I guess it was just luck though, because I wasn't familiar with the word "monkey wrench" either.

I did have a lot of issues with Sierra's games though. Even though I did enjoy playing them, I tended to get stuck after I while, and without a walk-through it was hard to tell whether it was a puzzle you couldn't figure out or whether you were stuck in a dead end. LucasArts' games (titles prior to MI1 not included) didn't have any dead ends and were a lot easier to beat.

TheMobRules wrote on 2020-12-04, 14:31:

Good puzzle design would be things that are not easy to solve but when you find the actual solution you go “How didn’t I think of that before, it makes perfect sense!”.

Bad puzzles would be ones where the solution still doesn’t make much sense even after looking them up on a walkthrough or solving them by mere chance.

Of course, there are other things to be considered that may affect design quality, such as absurd pixel hunts or unexplained mechanics that do not apply elsewhere in the game.

This. These answer the questions by the OP.

I would also add those puzzles that can only be completed with the official "Hint Books" as bad puzzles. Also those puzzles that require you to decipher what is on the designer's mind, instead of solving the puzzles as per logic.

TheMobRules wrote on 2020-12-04, 20:43:

One particular puzzle that is difficult for me to classify is the infamous "monkey wrench" in Monkey Island 2, where you have to […]
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One particular puzzle that is difficult for me to classify is the infamous "monkey wrench" in Monkey Island 2, where you have to use a literal monkey as a wrench in order to open a valve.

Back when I first played the game in the early '90s, I had no walkthrough and was stuck on that valve for WEEKS. I started trying to use every item in my inventory on the valve and when the monkey worked it left me scratching my head as I had no idea what a "monkey wrench" was at the time (my native language being Spanish, the term we use for that kind of tool has no relation to monkeys at all).

However, I can see some good design aspects about it, at least for a native English speaker:

• By that point in the game the player will likely have the monkey in their inventory, which may lead them to the solution if they realize that they need some kind of "wrench" to open the valve
• The icon in the inventory has the monkey in a pose that is somewhat reminiscent of a wrench, this may also be another clue for the player to do the "monkey wrench" association

So while I used to consider that one the worst puzzle by far in MI2, I've learned to appreciate it in later years.

The Monkey Wrench puzzle is not a logical one but a tongue-in-cheek sort of illogical puzzle. Yes, those who know about the "monkey wrench" tool (in English) might have got the clue, though.

Monkey Island as a whole has so many of these crazy ways to solve a problem to progress. (Like picking up the dog and put it into the jacket in MI2. Actually Guybrush seems to like picking up all sorts of animals into his jacket. Fish, dog, rubber chicken... <sigh>.) Coming to think of it, I still can't get it why Monkey Island 1 and 2 are two of my all time favorite adventure games.

Good example of a terrible puzzle is near the end of Police Quest 4, where