1 00:00:01,430 --> 00:00:07,549 Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design. 2 00:00:07,549 --> 00:00:12,590 A few months back I played Broken Age - the point and click adventure from Double Fine 3 00:00:12,590 --> 00:00:17,340 that raised 3 million bucks on Kickstarter, and became so bloated that it was released 4 00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:20,240 in two halves, almost a year apart. 5 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:25,420 I generally enjoyed Broken Age's first half. It's funny and charming, and I liked both 6 00:00:25,420 --> 00:00:30,160 of the main characters. There's Vella, who is an unwilling sacrificial offering to a 7 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:34,530 monster. And Shay, who wants to break free of his mollycoddling parents. 8 00:00:34,530 --> 00:00:38,899 But when the second half came out earlier this year, I started to find puzzles that 9 00:00:38,899 --> 00:00:41,570 had some seriously troubling design. 10 00:00:41,570 --> 00:00:45,390 Like the puzzle where this grabby hand is obsessed with boots: 11 00:00:46,180 --> 00:00:50,620 VELLA: Wow! It really seems to like boots. 12 00:00:50,620 --> 00:00:53,120 But doesn't seem to care about Vella's shoes: 13 00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:57,120 VELLA: It doesn't seem interested in me, or my clothing. 14 00:00:57,120 --> 00:01:02,190 Or the one where these girls say they need food, but Vella just won't give them this 15 00:01:02,190 --> 00:01:03,250 taco pill: 16 00:01:03,250 --> 00:01:07,900 VELLA: I don't wanna touch that pill until I know what it is. Could be space poison. 17 00:01:07,900 --> 00:01:12,900 Or the puzzle that you solve by doing absolutely nothing, or this baffling knot puzzle that's 18 00:01:12,900 --> 00:01:14,450 more like a Rorschach test. 19 00:01:14,450 --> 00:01:18,000 And then there's the puzzle that almost made me quit me the game for good. 20 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,220 There's this bit where Vella needs to figure out the right pattern to sew into this space 21 00:01:22,220 --> 00:01:26,380 scarf. But the correct solution is not somewhere else on the spaceship. 22 00:01:26,380 --> 00:01:29,180 It's not in Vella's story at all - it's actually hidden 23 00:01:29,189 --> 00:01:32,150 deep within Shay's story. 24 00:01:32,159 --> 00:01:36,280 That's despite the fact that in act one, there are zero puzzles that rely on information 25 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:40,549 gleaned from the other kid's story. And despite the fact that you're never told to expect 26 00:01:40,549 --> 00:01:44,520 such puzzles in act two. And despite the fact that these two kids don't know each other 27 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:47,270 and can't communicate with one another in any way. 28 00:01:47,270 --> 00:01:51,590 Its unfair, unreasonable, and - I say - poorly designed. 29 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:57,320 Which is par for the course with point and click adventures, right? These games are filled 30 00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:00,890 with pixel hunting and moon logic and impossible conundrums. 31 00:02:00,890 --> 00:02:05,470 Like the notorious puzzle in Gabriel Knight 3 where you have to use masking tape and maple 32 00:02:05,470 --> 00:02:10,349 syrup to turn cat hair into a fake moustache, so you can impersonate a guy who doesn't even 33 00:02:10,349 --> 00:02:15,659 have a moustache. You have to draw some facial hair on his stolen passport with a marker pen. 34 00:02:15,659 --> 00:02:20,279 Yes, point and click adventures had stuff like. Stuff that was indefensibly dumb. But 35 00:02:20,279 --> 00:02:23,620 I don't think a few bad apples should doom an entire genre. 36 00:02:23,620 --> 00:02:27,680 Especially a genre that has given us some of the best stories in gaming history, 37 00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:32,090 and definitely some of the best jokes. A genre that moves at a different pace to many others, 38 00:02:32,090 --> 00:02:36,749 and offers more grounded, Macgyver-style puzzles than the sort of abstract fare you find in 39 00:02:36,749 --> 00:02:38,459 a game like Portal or Antichamber. 40 00:02:38,459 --> 00:02:42,620 So, instead of always beating on stupid point and click puzzles - which would be easy, because 41 00:02:42,620 --> 00:02:47,609 there are a LOT of them - let's look at some golden rules that can be used to make a good, 42 00:02:47,609 --> 00:02:52,509 responsibly-designed puzzle. Maybe we can help save this genre from the scrap heap. 43 00:02:54,900 --> 00:02:58,209 Rule one is to provide clear goals. 44 00:02:58,209 --> 00:03:01,760 Before you even get to the puzzles, players need to know what they're doing. They should 45 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:06,699 always know what their short and long term goals are, so they know which puzzles to solve, 46 00:03:06,699 --> 00:03:08,999 and have the motivation to do so. 47 00:03:08,999 --> 00:03:13,639 In bonkers comedy Day of the Tentacle, for example, we know that our long term goal is 48 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:18,549 to get stranded time travelers Laverne and Hoagie back to Bernard's time in the present. 49 00:03:18,549 --> 00:03:20,689 BERNARD: Well, hurry up and bring them back. 50 00:03:20,689 --> 00:03:28,129 DR. FRED: I will, as soon as I get a new diamond. Then all your buddies have to do is plug in their 51 00:03:28,129 --> 00:03:30,369 respective chrono-johns and... 52 00:03:30,369 --> 00:03:32,540 BERNARD: Plug them in?! 53 00:03:32,549 --> 00:03:34,889 Which means Laverne needs to get into the basement 54 00:03:34,889 --> 00:03:42,519 LAVERNE: I can see Doctor Fred's old lab, and his generator is still there. Gee I could really use that 55 00:03:42,519 --> 00:03:43,989 power. 56 00:03:43,989 --> 00:03:48,510 And we know this means getting into that grandfather clock and past that purple tentacle, which 57 00:03:48,510 --> 00:03:50,489 is our new short term goal. 58 00:03:50,489 --> 00:03:54,619 This might seem obvious, but you'd be surprised how many adventure games mess this up and 59 00:03:54,619 --> 00:03:58,949 leave players directionless, trying to solve puzzles for no good reason. 60 00:03:58,949 --> 00:04:03,359 LucasArts would often give multiple goals at the same time, so players can go work on 61 00:04:03,359 --> 00:04:05,629 something else if they get stuck on one of the puzzles. 62 00:04:05,629 --> 00:04:09,809 MAUREEN: The front forks are wasted so you'll have to get some new ones. And someone stole my 63 00:04:09,809 --> 00:04:15,290 welding torch. And last but not least, I patched up your ruptured gas tank but you're out of 64 00:04:15,290 --> 00:04:16,750 fuel and I don't have any. 65 00:04:16,750 --> 00:04:24,150 BLUE TENTACLE: Entrants will be judged in three categories: best smile, best hair, and best laugh. 66 00:04:24,150 --> 00:04:27,970 SOPHIA: You'll need all three stones if you want to find Atlantis. 67 00:04:27,970 --> 00:04:32,510 BEN: Where am I supposed to find all this stuff? MAUREEN: You can hack it, tough guy. 68 00:04:33,629 --> 00:04:36,129 Rule two is signposting. 69 00:04:36,129 --> 00:04:39,729 Once a player starts working on a puzzle, the single most important thing an adventure 70 00:04:39,729 --> 00:04:42,090 can do is provide clear signposting. 71 00:04:42,090 --> 00:04:47,060 Anybody who says that adventure games are about trying to guess what's in the designer's brain, 72 00:04:47,060 --> 00:04:51,060 obviously isn't paying attention. The best point and clicks are littered with clues that 73 00:04:51,060 --> 00:04:55,490 tell you what to do, often by looking at objects or talking to characters. 74 00:04:55,490 --> 00:05:00,009 So in Day of the Tentacle, if we talk to this purple tentacle we get a nice clue that tells 75 00:05:00,009 --> 00:05:01,370 us how to bypass him. 76 00:05:01,370 --> 00:05:06,910 'TACHE TENTACLE: But no one gets to this clock while I'm here. And unless I have to go chase down some 77 00:05:06,910 --> 00:05:10,780 escaped humans, I'm glued to this spot. 78 00:05:10,789 --> 00:05:14,900 And if we chat to the guard looking after the human prisoners, he says: 79 00:05:14,900 --> 00:05:21,240 GUARD TENTACLE: What are you doing for dinner? How about Club Tentacle? Ah, what am I saying, I can't afford 80 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:25,419 to take out the trash let alone a classy babe like you. 81 00:05:25,419 --> 00:05:28,979 So, maybe we should try to win the human contest, then. 82 00:05:28,980 --> 00:05:33,380 'TACHE TENTACLE: Why, the grand prize is dinner for two at Club Tentacle. 83 00:05:33,380 --> 00:05:38,000 Signposting is like providing lots of little, subtle goals for those who are listening and 84 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:39,479 looking carefully. 85 00:05:39,479 --> 00:05:43,979 Too subtle and the clue can be missed, of course. Too obvious and the player feels cheated. 86 00:05:43,979 --> 00:05:48,780 But get it just right, and the player is set up for that all-important 'a-ha!' moment. 87 00:05:48,780 --> 00:05:52,540 That rush of blood to the brain when you have a lead, and can start figuring stuff out. 88 00:05:52,919 --> 00:05:57,259 Poor signposting leaves players not understanding the point of the puzzle. When Manny looks 89 00:05:57,259 --> 00:05:59,639 at this pneumatic message tube, he just says: 90 00:05:59,640 --> 00:06:01,300 MANNY: It's locked. 91 00:06:01,310 --> 00:06:05,030 Which might make you think you need a key or to break the lock, when actually the solution 92 00:06:05,030 --> 00:06:07,849 is to slide a card into this slot. 93 00:06:07,849 --> 00:06:11,659 Trust me, even the most stupid puzzles, like one about how it always rains whenever you 94 00:06:11,659 --> 00:06:14,999 wash a car, can be saved with good signposting. 95 00:06:14,999 --> 00:06:18,789 BERNARD: Some people think that washing one's vehicle will make it rain. 96 00:06:18,789 --> 00:06:20,590 THIEF: Oh? BERNARD: Uh huh. 97 00:06:20,590 --> 00:06:22,860 THIEF: How about that? 98 00:06:22,860 --> 00:06:24,550 Rule three is feedback. 99 00:06:24,550 --> 00:06:27,919 A puzzle should help solve itself, letting you know if you're on the right track and 100 00:06:27,919 --> 00:06:30,120 rebuffing you if you're not. 101 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:34,139 If you try to do something that makes some logical sense, it's utterly infuriating to 102 00:06:34,139 --> 00:06:35,699 hear some generic line like 103 00:06:35,699 --> 00:06:38,659 GABRIEL KNIGHT: Nope, those don't work together. 104 00:06:38,660 --> 00:06:40,280 MANNY: I don't really wanna do that 105 00:06:40,289 --> 00:06:45,249 So, instead, the player should get a explanation of why that specific combination is flawed, 106 00:06:45,249 --> 00:06:48,209 and hopefully a small nudge towards the real solution. 107 00:06:48,209 --> 00:06:50,840 LAVERNE: Stop chattering mummy. 108 00:06:50,840 --> 00:06:55,740 LAVERNE: The judges will think you're chewing gum. Oh this will never work. 109 00:06:58,249 --> 00:07:02,770 Follow those three golden rules and you should end up with good puzzles. Puzzles where the 110 00:07:02,770 --> 00:07:06,889 player knows what they need to do, and has a good idea of how to solve it, and is helped 111 00:07:06,889 --> 00:07:08,259 to come to the right answer. 112 00:07:08,259 --> 00:07:12,069 Puzzles that, if you look them up, make you say "oh, I should have figured that out" and 113 00:07:12,069 --> 00:07:16,249 not "are you kidding me?!" Puzzles that feel fair, and don't send the player rushing to 114 00:07:16,249 --> 00:07:18,719 GameFAQs or the LucasArts hint line. 115 00:07:18,719 --> 00:07:23,939 Of course, elevating a puzzle from good to great is where the real creativity comes in. 116 00:07:23,939 --> 00:07:28,449 Play Day of the Tentacle when that promised remastered version comes out, and solve the 117 00:07:28,449 --> 00:07:33,499 brilliant time-traveling puzzles that make use of the three characters being spread across 118 00:07:33,499 --> 00:07:36,819 400 years of history to see how it's done. 119 00:07:36,820 --> 00:07:42,840 Tentacle is not perfect, of course. It requires some real-world knowledge that not all players 120 00:07:42,849 --> 00:07:47,069 have, it's got a tiny bit of pixel hunting, and if you don't listen carefully you'll miss 121 00:07:47,069 --> 00:07:51,099 the signposting altogether and can't always hear it a second time. 122 00:07:51,099 --> 00:07:55,849 But if LucasArts was making it today (or, making any games today), there are lots of 123 00:07:55,849 --> 00:07:59,610 modern conveniences that it could use to make the experience even more palatable. 124 00:07:59,610 --> 00:08:04,710 Many games today let you highlight all interactive objects to avoid pixel hunting. Telltale's 125 00:08:04,710 --> 00:08:08,949 early games have characters spill hints if you fail to solve a puzzle in a certain amount 126 00:08:08,949 --> 00:08:14,469 of time. Sci-fi noir Gemini Rue has multiple solutions to some puzzles and robot odyssey 127 00:08:14,469 --> 00:08:21,590 Machinarium gives away the answer, but only if you can finish a mini game. 128 00:08:21,590 --> 00:08:25,479 While many blame the death of the adventure game on these harebrained puzzles, others 129 00:08:25,479 --> 00:08:30,490 have claimed that it was the genre's inability to evolve. 3D graphics only made the games 130 00:08:30,490 --> 00:08:35,300 more clunky, and the addition of extra mechanics was rarely successful. They just couldn't 131 00:08:35,300 --> 00:08:37,979 keep pace with other genres, critics say. 132 00:08:37,979 --> 00:08:42,860 But I think there's lots of room for innovation, and reason to return to this genre. Adventure 133 00:08:42,860 --> 00:08:47,720 game revivalist Wadjet Eye has games like Resonance that turn your memories into inventory 134 00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:51,699 objects, and Technobabylon which lets you talk to electrical objects while you're in 135 00:08:51,699 --> 00:08:53,310 a cyber trance. 136 00:08:53,310 --> 00:08:58,899 And even before the genre kicked the bucket, games like The Last Express toyed with real-time 137 00:08:58,899 --> 00:09:03,959 adventuring, and Blade Runner encouraged multiple playthroughs by randomly picking which characters 138 00:09:03,959 --> 00:09:05,540 would be a replicant. 139 00:09:05,540 --> 00:09:09,930 So there's plenty more for this genre to do, and I for one hope it lives on. But it does 140 00:09:09,930 --> 00:09:14,990 need smarter, more player-friendly design to shake off that stigma of being the genre 141 00:09:14,990 --> 00:09:20,000 of cat hair moustaches and nuisance goats. Until then, it might never come back in any 142 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,160 meaningful way. And I think that would be a shame. 143 00:09:24,399 --> 00:09:28,440 Thanks for watching! What's the worst puzzle you've ever come across in a game? Tell us 144 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:33,399 why it sucked so bad in the comments down below. Also, please like the episode, subscribe on 145 00:09:33,399 --> 00:09:37,379 YouTube, and consider supporting me and my ad-free videos, over on Patreon.