Have Modern Gamers Lost the Patience For Puzzles?

Brainy Gamer has an interesting reflection on old puzzle games and why their style of gameplay seems to be a dying art. According to the author modern gamers seem more interested in combat and seem to have lost the patience for difficult puzzles. "Despite my fondness for the adventure games of yore, it appears the days of puzzles in narrative games have come and gone. Puzzles - especially the serial unlocking variety found in the old LucasArts games - seem to have become a relic of a bygone era. Where they once provided a necessary ludic element to a—clever and often complex narrative - designed to add challenge and force the player to earn his progress through the story - few modern players have the patience for such challenges anymore."

Comments

I don't buy that

[The End Of Days]

Plenty of modern games are based around puzzles, they're simply more organic to the game environment and therefore not as noticeable. I don't think it's a matter of modern games not having enough patience, I think it's a matter of gaming evolving into a more immersive and holistic experience.

Re:I don't buy that

[Walking The Walk]

I agree with you - the puzzles are simply better integrated with the game, and are offered as a challenge to get more of the story/points/powers, rather than being roadblocks that must be passed. Think KOTOR, where the puzzles enhance the gameplay, vs something like Myst, where solving the puzzles enable futher gameplay.

I think it's also a reflection of the fact that most puzzles don't benefit from improved graphics or processor power, while fighting/shooting/action games see measurable benefits. So the puzzles still look and play very much the same way ("very well", in my opinion), but each year the action elements improve visually and kinetically.

Re:I don't buy that

[hellwig]

You mean like all the wonderful Jumping Puzzles in the original Half-Life?

I remember games like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Full Throttle" where if you didn't catch something 2 levels back you couldn't proceed. Some modern games have a nice mix (the Chrono-XX and Final Fantasy series for example) where you have to decipher clues and do things in the right order, but other games (pick any modern FPS like Prey, Half-Life 2, Metroid Prime, etc..) and the puzzles are just there to increase game-play time.

The point of the article isn't that puzzle games don't exist, they just aren't mainstream anymore. So many "gamers" of today need $4000 computers and 10 graphics cards to play their modern games. They don't care how fun or interesting or challenging the game is, as long as they get over 100f.p.s. and that it has online play.

Look at all these "professional" gamers coming out now. Are they challenging themselves with puzzle games? Do they try to finish Myst in the fastest time? No. They see who gets the most Frags in UT3.

Video games are just becoming another sport, in that sports aren't too mentally stimulating but are fun to watch/play. Nerds are now being split into two categories, high hand-eye coordination nerds cabaple of playing these FPS games online, and thinking nerds who are capable of playing and actually solving these Puzzle games. The jocks already have football, baseball, basketball, etc., etc.), now some of the jockier nerds are staking out their own claim.

Re:I don't buy that

[badboy_tw2002]

A well designed game will offer BOTH. In GTA IV there were a lot of missions that you could do complete a lot easier if you went through a certain way, and you were often clued into it by the mission description (i.e. you sneak in the back door, trigger the cops, and slip out while the baddies are fighting the cops vs. fighting through and killing everyone, then evading the cops). Of course, not every mission was like that so it often lead to disapointment if you wanted to play them all like that.

Re:I don't buy that

[cmburns69]

Puzzle games are less replayable. While not impossible, it's extremely difficult to come up with a system for dynamically generating puzzles so they're fresh each time.

And multi-player also suffers in puzzle games.

So in all, it takes a LOT more effort for a game company to make a puzzle game that has both multiplayer modes and is replayable, and those are large segments of the market. In short, it is easier to make an action game that will appeal to more people. Puzzle games are still great for once-through single-player, though (take Zelda games, for example).

Re:I don't buy that

[EdIII]

Lemmings was the single most sadistic twisted game to EVER be developed. I am certain that a pit into the fiery depths of hell was opened the day that code was written.

The dark world's magnum opus? Lemmings 2: Tribes

Re:I don't buy that

[smidget2k4]

You're right. I absolutely would. :-)

Ever heard of a little game called Bioshock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps one called Portal? I hear some people played them in 2007.

Re:Ever heard of a little game called Bioshock?

[mblase]

Amen. "Boom Blox" for Wii probably counts as a puzzle game, too. They're all over, if you know what to look for.

Re:Ever heard of a little game called Bioshock?

[ivan256]

Exactly.

Gamers still love puzzles.

Game studios, hardware manufacturers, and especially game reviewers hate puzzles.

How do you compete with low-budget studios if the gameplay is king instead of the graphics and high-budget art and voice assets?

How do you sell a fancy new video card if the latest game doesn't require ripping through a fast changing scene at 100 FPS using the most realistic techniques currently available?

How do you review a steady stream of games if you can't experience 90% of it in two or three encounters with an enemy?

We've had game series after game series be wildly successful based on interactive puzzle style game play only to be ruined in sequels as more focus is put on the combat. Yet reviewer pan games based on the combat system without giving the puzzles any thought; even if the puzzles are the vast majority of the game!

If Portal weren't bundled as part of Orange Box, it probably would have received little critical attention.

perhaps they realize..

[pickyouupatnine]

I'd say that Portal by Valve pretty much dispels this argument. Gamers aren't tired of puzzles. They've simply gotten smarter and like being challenged rather than bored over mindless running around and pressing buttons to make doors open.

Re:perhaps they realize..

[ArsonSmith]

I think the puzzle ideas and note takers of WoW have switched from the old mapping the world and figureing out where every little corner is, to the theory crafting of figuring out the exact game mechanics of each item to figure out things like DPS, threat, ability to tank or heal etc... While the basics are quite simple, to tune a character to top the charts will be quite complicated and are constantly disputed.

You can't be serious...

[jessecurry]

Did you just totally miss Professor Layton and the Curious Village?!?!?!?!

What's old is new

[Tragedy4u]

Give it enough time and things will eventually come full circle, people will get tired of the same old shooter with amazing graphics and frankly thats what it's been for the last 7 years its been mostly about shooters with big guns and dazzling graphics. Today thats not good people want great gameplay mechanics, just look at the Wii, which reminds me of the good olde days of when my family and friends would crowd around ye olde Atari 2600. The good puzzle adventure games had their day after the Atari's sunset, give it some time and they'll be back.

Of course!

[B Nesson]

That's why Portal was so wildly unpopular, right?

Re:Of course!

[pla]

That's why Portal was so wildly unpopular, right?

And as the fifth (at least) person to bring up that single game, I'd say you've all done more to support the FP's point than refute it.

A good, popular puzzle-oriented game stands out enough that many of you thought to try using it as a counterexample.

A good, popular puzzle-oriented game.

Yeah, you can probably name a few more obscure ones, but that kinda demonstrates exactly the complaint expressed... For every puzzle game, you have a handful of MMOs and a few dozen fluffy eye-candy shooters. Not really a ratio that makes me say "wow, look at the thriving puzzle-oriented game market!"

Puzzles of Old

[king-manic]

I think it might be a reaction to the highly arbitrary puzzles in past adventure games. Remember FFX and the arbitrary puzzles it forced you into every once in a while, they were maddenly arbitrary and added nothing to the game. Many of the Sierra games had random arbitrary puzzles as well. This is par for the video game puzzles. They add nothing and simply provide a barrier for people. There were a few interesting puzzles but largely they were senseless and distracting. I don't really want to play the towers of Hanoi every 20 minutes so I can open a locker with ammo. I'd prefer not to have to figure out that I need to insert a spatula into a anti-matter reactor so I can power a jar opener to access a gob of acid to eat through a door. If you left it optional, then maybe; but stopping the story and game to play some ridiculous puzzle or some arbitrary item combination is not fun.

The internet killed the puzzler

[Dobeln]

Having non-randomized puzzle elements in games made sense before the easy availability of Internet boards and hint sites.

Today, any such content is rapidly bypassed by most. To some degree that is a pity - games like Cruise for a Corpse were great experiences. But alas, the genre just requires too much self-command to be viable.

Of course, randomly-generated puzzlers are still with us - perhaps with increasing computer power, and more sophisticated AI, we will see a revival of randomized puzzle-like adventures?

I have always thought that the old Sid Meier title Covert Action is the best blueprint to follow to revive the puzzle-based action-adventure genre.

Re:Yes.

[gad_zuki!]

That fine, but a lot of puzzle elements in games are just incredibly badly done. Having grown up on King's quest and before that text-based games, I have to say there's no excuse for:

1. Get key from wizard's corpse
2. Have level 12 enchantress bless it with swamp water from a Super Troll
3. Carry it in magical satchel for 4 hours, constantly typing "USE KEY" at every opportunity.
4. Give it to talking vulture who swallows it and poops out the real magic key, thus going back to the beginning of the game.

Its just arbitrary absurdist trial and error. People rebelled against this and moved to shooters for a reason. Typing in "USE KEY" 100x doesnt really compare to Doom. Now the shooters have become stale and we're going back to puzzles.

Of course in D&D its a different but scripted computer puzzles have serious limitations. Its not the genre's fault. Its the people and technology's fault.

Re:Plug for the powder game

[cowscows]

That little toy is java, but it points us in the right direction. A lot of this stuff has moved to the web. There are approximately 8 trillion little flash puzzle games. Some of them are very clever and fun. There's a lot of variety, and various levels of quality and polish. But either way, there's plenty to choose from.

Re:Strange comment

[Eli Gottlieb]

I have a rule I use to distinguish good puzzles from bad puzzles: If the easiest method for solving the puzzle is a breadth-first search of the entire possible-solution space, it's a bad puzzle.

Yea, let us lement the loss of bad puzzles

[frovingslosh]

I loved some of the early puzzle games, particularly Adventure and the MIT version of Zork. Some of the puzzles were fantastic, and you really had to submerse yourself in the world and understand it to grasp how to solve the puzzle.

But unfortunately IMHO many of the later games (including some later offerings from Infocom) copped out and instead of eloquent puzzles they offered painful trial-and-error puzzles or puzzles so obscure and obtuse that you really had to buy the hint books, call the 900 number, or otherwise "cheat" or you were not going to solve the problems. Far from wonderful puzzles, these are just crude hacks disguised as puzzles from writers who either can't or will not take the time to design graceful puzzles. To come up with an absurd series of idiotic steps that a player must somehow recreate to accomplish the goal, with no logic behind doing these either in the real world or in the game world other than that's what the author has decided you must do, is hardly a valid puzzle. It's just an ego trip for the author and the reason for the decline in supposed puzzle games. And as at least one commenter here pointed out, there are still some good puzzle games, such as last year's Portal.

Uh....

[raehl]

I think you've confused PUZZLES with TEDIUM. Memorizing (or writing down) a map isn't puzzle solving. It's data storage.

Re:You are lost in a maze of twisty little threads

[conlaw]

I loved Myst, which really was a puzzle game (except that I'm so tone deaf, I had to have a friend come down and play the little tune). However, the really early puzzle games, where you had to give the characters written commands, drove me crazy. I'd manage to get the hero to the place where some sort of sharp object was lying on the ground. At that point, we would go through a dialogue that went something like this:

ME: Pick up knife

Computer: I don't understand "knife"

ME: Pick up sword

Computer: I don't understand "sword"

ME: Pick up saber

Computer: I don't understand "pick up"

That's when I tended to eject the floppy and try to see how far I could toss it.

Re:I don't think so.

[grumbel]

The fun in most adventure games comes from getting an understanding of the world that surrounds you in the game. The fun in a puzzle isn't getting stuck on it, but gaining an understanding of the underlying mechanic and finding the solution or just in interacting with the world. The hard part of course is the balance between frustrating the player and actually giving him something he has to think about, which however can be worked around quite well by always having alternative puzzles the player can solve and by having a world that is actually interesting enough to explore.

The problem with todays games is that most games don't even try to create a good puzzle, either they are so easy that they are hardly noticeable or they are so stupid and non-integrated into the game that they just annoy ("Here is a locked door, go find the key"). The classic LucasArts adventure almost never had any puzzle of such blunt stupidity, instead you had to figure out how to dress a mummy to win a competition and other crazy fun stuff that integrated seamlessly into the story. There was no "play the game" or "watch a cutscene" separation, it was pretty much all the same thing.

Also the thing to realize is that puzzles are not only there to stop you from making progress, but also a means to explore the world, to touch it if you will. In an adventure game you can grab things, smell them, eat them, open them, talk to people and a lot of other stuff. In most mainstream games today on the other side you have the choice between shooting people in the head or blowing them up with a grenade, you have no way to talk to them and no way to use items in a meaningful way. Its all just run and gun without ever stopping and looking around and getting an idea what really is happening.

Now of course not every action game needs to be riddled with puzzles, but most of them really could need some calmer moments that departure from the standard run&gun.

I have infinite patience for puzzles...

[Kintanon]

What I DON'T have patience for is WALKING. It's one thing to have to figure out how to unlock some complicated door puzzle, it's another thing to have to spend 20 hours walking back and forth gathering bits and pieces to "solve" a puzzle.
The problem with puzzles in games is that the nature of the puzzles deteriorated over time to be moe time consuming and tedious and less clever.
Get rid of the extraneous travel time associated with the puzzles and a lot of people will suddenly have a lot more patience for them.

Oh, and that will have the added bonus of stopping developers from artifically increasing the playtime of their games via incredibly long travel times.