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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."
Ummm... actually the main levels in Portal didn't have really tough puzzles. The bonus levels and most map-packs however, definitely keep your brain working *hard*.
Anyways, you have to remember that gaming is so pervasive that unlike years ago, when perhaps nerdier types were a greater percentage of the gamer population, a mainstream audience doesn't want difficulty in gaming. They don't want to think.
Perhaps with the leaps in technology and what they allow designers to do lends itself to story and such becoming more and more important and puzzle mini-games becoming unnecessary to lead a user along and make them want to play the game.
You still can't beat the "Ocarina of Time" when it comes to puzzles though. I remember that game having the best puzzles ever. Every labyrinth had a different system you had to figure out and it really was fun and advanced the story.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Portal is a hugely popular game with original puzzle solving gameplay and a humourous narritive.
Puzzle solving isn't dying, it's just changing form what you're used to.
See Portal.
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