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What is the Mystery of Scoggins?

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Question for those who know: what in the world is Grickle?

If I remember, I'll post it when I get home. There's something about it in the introduction of The Book of Grickle.

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Yeah, it is. Haven't finished it yet, but wanted to mention it has the best line in Telltale history: "Erasers, sir? The foundation of all democracy?"

Clever, snappy writing.

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I'm playing this a little bit at a time. I'm somewhat torn on it. In general I really like the way it looks and sounds, but the actual GAME in it is really inconsistent. A lot of the puzzles aren't fully explained properly in the kind of crystal-clear way they should be, and sometimes there are properties of the puzzle that aren't even explained in the description -- for example,

when you have to set up bumpers to bounce your thoughts into an NPC's mind, there's no indication that you have to actually place a bumper in every open space until you lose the puzzle, even though there are still lots of empty places on the board.

I've had numerous other examples as well.

It's also very frustrating that there's no way to take notes in the game. It's fine that they don't give you a really complete interface for this; I've just been keeping a pad of paper nearby. But to not even be able to just scrawl basic notes on the puzzle field with the cursor is painful--ie, to be able to mark off pieces I've already counted or assembled or used or whatever, because many of the puzzles have absolutely no interactive elements even though the premise of the puzzle relies on you "moving" those pieces around in your head.

Then, there's the weird Telltale quirk of not being able to save your game for long periods of time for no apparent reason. I was stuck

in the lodge

last night, not in the middle of a cutscene or anything, just hanging out with a bunch of NPCs, and there was a particular onerous puzzle that I knew I didn't want to deal with at that time of night, so I figured I've save and quit. Nothing doing. I had to complete every single puzzle in the room before I could get back to a place where I could save. I started just trying random answers out of frustration, and by the time I finished two of the puzzles I was so irritated that I still wasn't done that I just alt-F4ed.

Anyway that's more griping than this game probably deserves, but just coming up against all these frustrations back to back made last night's attempt to play this game very combative. Plus, there was one very early puzzle I couldn't even physically solve because the shades of red and green they used aren't very discernible to red/green colorblind people. :(

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I agree with every single one of your complaints, Chris, but overall I still came away with a positive impression. In no small part due to the story/setting/art. (Though I am kind of sad it wasn't fully 2D, it didn't really bother me like 2D/3D mash-ups usually do.)

The Layton-style approach appeals to me, but I found many of the puzzles to be extremely easy (as you said) or not fully explained. I messed up on that exact same puzzle you spoiler-marked for the exact same reason.

It only took me two sittings to conquer, though, and didn't run into the save problem you had, heh.

But, like I said, overall: positive. Despite the ease with which I conquered most of the puzzles, a few stumped me enough to satisfy my logic puzzle itch.

I definitely want to see more - especially after S&M S3. If they can improve upon this type of puzzle game formula like they've been progressively doing with the more traditional point and click style, then oh boy.

Also: I found the UI to be pretty slick.

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Is this out on Steam yet? The TellTale web store won't accept Canadian Postal Codes for some reason.

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It is not. Jake said Valve asked to wait for the summer sale thing to end before making the game available on Steam.

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Wellp, that was a rather

abrupt

ending. :deranged:

I don't remember the exact puzzle you were referring to, Chris, but I do recall wondering why they wanted to trip up the colorblind.

Visually, while I dig the Grickly style, I didn't really like the way the outlines were baked into the background. It was inconsistent enough to notice. There were some objects that had these dinky outlines and were positioned against things with far fatter lines. And then some lines were obviously flattened into a wall, becoming thiner in the background and looking generally foreshortened. I wish the backgrounds were either fully 2D, or that the outlines were handled programmatically, with an outline shader or something along those lines.

The story was pretty engrossing and well written, but the puzzles were hit and miss. Some were super hard, some lacked info needed to solve, yet others were utterly banal. And then it felt like it was over too soon, even by Telltale standards.

On the whole a :tmeh:+ kind of game. It was fun, but not as hot as I hoped it would be.

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My final appraisal of Puzzle Agent is basically identical to Kingz's.

Edited by Chris

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Is this out on Steam yet? The TellTale web store won't accept Canadian Postal Codes for some reason.

That's weird. I've never had any problems at all. Maybe they just like Alberta?

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I've tried up and lower case, with a dash and without. It just doesn't like my M4..... Toronto postal code.

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I'll definetely pick it up as soon as it hits Steam. Love me some Layton, love me some TTG... What's not to love?

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Chris I really wish you hadn't spoiler tagged that mind bumper problem. That was infuriating, I couldn't figure out if it was complaining if I had used a tube twice, and ended up submitting it like 4 times.

Other than that I don't think there were any puzzles that didn't give you all the information needed, but there were a couple that needed a bit of assumption. Like the arm wrestling one.

I felt like the majority of the clues were red herrings and the real puzzle was determining that it was a single-elimination tournament.

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Chris I really wish you hadn't spoiler tagged that mind bumper problem. That was infuriating, I couldn't figure out if it was complaining if I had used a tube twice, and ended up submitting it like 4 times.

Other than that I don't think there were any puzzles that didn't give you all the information needed, but there were a couple that needed a bit of assumption. Like the arm wrestling one.

I felt like the majority of the clues were red herrings and the real puzzle was determining that it was a single-elimination tournament.

There were definitely others that absolutely don't give you all the necessary information, including the one of the last puzzles,

when you have to create the bridge with the moving platforms. For the life of me I couldn't figure out whether it was implying that the platforms moved square by square, or in a given direction until they stopped (after all, it says they'll stop moving when they hit an obstacle, when it should have said they won't even START moving, because to stop moving you have to have started), and if they executed the orders sequentially (after all, they're numbered sequentially, which turns out to be misleading and meaningless) or if they executed them simultaneously (which turns out to be the case, and which I had to waste a submission determining).

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It took me a couple dozen tries to get the answer for the room key puzzle, because even after using all three hints, the "first part" of the answer it gave me didn't look like anything. I had to guess. Apparently it was the letter N, but that's not what an N looks like.

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There were definitely others that absolutely don't give you all the necessary information, including the one of the last puzzles,

when you have to create the bridge with the moving platforms. For the life of me I couldn't figure out whether it was implying that the platforms moved square by square, or in a given direction until they stopped (after all, it says they'll stop moving when they hit an obstacle, when it should have said they won't even START moving, because to stop moving you have to have started), and if they executed the orders sequentially (after all, they're numbered sequentially, which turns out to be misleading and meaningless) or if they executed them simultaneously (which turns out to be the case, and which I had to waste a submission determining).

That one in particular I had no problem with, but I'd say that's mostly because the mechanic was very similar to a game I made the other weekend for a game jam. But if the lifts did move more than one block at a time they would go directly into bear traps. It may have been a case of over explanation.

It's interesting though, the game is to challenge players with a puzzle or riddle, and if they gave you too much information it wouldn't be fun at all. But everyone has their own stumbling blocks. Maybe the source of frustration is the rating system they use, as players are hesitant to use hint gum on puzzles they're stuck on and get frustrated when they submit an incorrect answer. I felt I was missing something for the

Arm Wrestling

and the

Guards

but after finishing the game I wish there were more of those type of puzzles and less line tracing throw away puzzles. People on the TellTale forums seem to feel the

diner dishes

puzzle was too ambiguous missing that

people sitting in the corner of a booth are beside each other while others on the ends aren't

.

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That one in particular I had no problem with, but I'd say that's mostly because the mechanic was very similar to a game I made the other weekend for a game jam. But if the lifts did move more than one block at a time they would go directly into bear traps. It may have been a case of over explanation.

It's interesting though, the game is to challenge players with a puzzle or riddle, and if they gave you too much information it wouldn't be fun at all.

Well, in that instance, I was thinking you'd have to

block the bear traps with another platform, which is a very common tactic for this kind of puzzle, and possible to do as long as the sides of the board count as non-lethal barriers (which they do).

As far as I'm concerned, ambiguity of the ruleset when it comes to puzzles where you're penalized for wrong guesses is NOT an acceptable replacement for difficulty of the puzzle itself. That's not "challenge."

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What I'm saying is that the meta-game "punishment" might be the real problem. I think the majority of these problems aren't ambiguity but misunderstanding. Solving the puzzle is it's own reward, a nice sound and animation is icing on the cake, but do we need to be kicked in the balls when we slip up? If they were a little more sparing in the gum economy it could provide a non-negative limiter. As it stands I finished with close to 30 gum pieces.

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What I'm saying is that the meta-game "punishment" might be the real problem. I think the majority of these problems aren't ambiguity but misunderstanding. Solving the puzzle is it's own reward, a nice sound and animation is icing on the cake, but do we need to be kicked in the balls when we slip up? If they were a little more sparing in the gum economy it could provide a non-negative limiter. As it stands I finished with close to 30 gum pieces.

Well, misunderstanding is just a result of ambiguity. There are some puzzles I messed up on in my first guess simply because I got it wrong. That's different to messing up because the rules weren't clear.

But yeah, the punishment was infuriating at times, particularly for the puzzles where they show you getting it wrong (for example, when you trace a route), but then they still make you sit through the numbers scrolling up and then giving you a big REJECTED stamp. Yes, yes, I know I got it wrong, let me skip this fucking nonsense so I can try again, hurry up!

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Huh, that's weird. Looking at your spoilers now after finishing the game, I didn't have any of the problems that you guys did. The only puzzle that I didn't get relatively easily was the

pictures of the birds on a line

. Everything else I got just fine, though I did occasionally have to go back and re-read the instructions mid-puzzle to work things out. Overall, I really loved the game. I found it funny in all the right places, and only really have two complaints. The first was the abruptness of the ending, especially

never finding out what happens to the man who was locked in the factory

. I only hope that because this was a pilot, they're going to go back and answer some of that stuff later if they decide to make a full season. The second was the over-reliance on puzzles of the "rotate these blocks" and "assemble these pieces" variety. More logic and less spatial reasoning, please. Or at least a better balance of the two. The ones where I grabbed a pen and paper and started scribbling out things to myself in a mad frenzy to solve a logic problem were the best, and it was a shame there weren't more puzzles of that nature.

Anyways, I'm really impressed by this game. I hope they decide to make more. It's so damn good to see an original IP from Telltale, and I can see this one doing really well for them if they nurture it.

PS: One more, very minor, complaint. Mixing 2D and 3D is dumb. If there is another one, I really hope it's full 2D. When

the shack was sinking into the lake

it was really obvious that the building was rendered 3D while everything else looked 2D. It was really distracting.

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Urrrgh I hadn't realized this was out!

...Really, really tempted to pull the trigger on it as it's not very expensive.

Some of the comments here are a little negative, but it seems to be a somewhat decent experience regardless of some shortcomings?

Advice?

The core of my interest lies in the fact that I like adventure games and puzzles, but I usually skip over the Telltale ones because most of them follow in the "arbitrary-inventory-combinotron" tradition as opposed to my preferred Mystian "solve-the-environment" style. (Not that there's anything wrong with the former from a design perspective, I just prefer the latter.) I just finished Time Gentlemen, Please so I'm not immune to the style when there's enough comedy to fit the ridiculousness of the model. The Layton games surprised me by somewhat divorcing the puzzles themselves from the environment, and that proved to be another way to kick my brain into not balking at immersion issues while satisfying it's desire to be challenged.

Would you guys say that despite some graphical interpretation of Grickle style and puzzle clarity issues, this is worth the ten bucks or whatever?

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The comments here are all somewhat minor niggles about the puzzles. The setting, characters, music, etc. are all lovely. You should definitely get it if you're on the cusp.

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The core of my interest lies in the fact that I like adventure games and puzzles, but I usually skip over the Telltale ones because most of them follow in the "arbitrary-inventory-combinotron" tradition as opposed to my preferred Mystian "solve-the-environment" style.

You are out of your mind, since none of the TellTale games (save for the Tales of Monkey Island) even allowed you to combine things in the inventory. Also, Myst?! Wtf are you doing here, go back to Just Adventure + where you belong, Judas! Apostate! Heretic!

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You are out of your mind, since none of the TellTale games (save for the Tales of Monkey Island) even allowed you to combine things in the inventory. Also, Myst?! Wtf are you doing here, go back to Just Adventure + where you belong, Judas! Apostate! Heretic!

I could easily be dead wrong about the usual telltale roster, I was under the impression from some light exposure to Sam & Max that they were fairly heavy on collecting inventory items and arbitrary solutions. Not necessarily combining items per-se, but wacky trial-and-error prone solutions. Maybe I'd like them more than I'd expect.

I don't know what "Adventure +" even is! Adventure games make up a very small percentage of the genres I play, it's true. Most of my experience is with hybrids- Other genres that have adventure elements or puzzles integrated into action or platforming stuff.

As I originally stated, there's nothing wrong with the wacky inventory style in and of itself, I just don't personally find it as entertaining... The puzzle-solving mood often coincides with a more serious or somber "me vs. a video game" challenge-centric mood for me. I'm not entirely sure why. As a result, mysterious environmental puzzles that sorta take themselves seriously like the ones in Myst and Riven appeal to how I feel when I'm in the mood to tackle a puzzle. Unfortunately, as evidenced in later Myst games and the endless Dreamcatcher Interactive knockoffs, the problem with designing your atmosphere like this is that when your barriers and solutions aren't REALLY well integrated into the world, the spell is shattered immediately. Comedy is a much easier tone to maintain.

The breakthroughs into more lighthearted adventures for me have been:

  • Ben There, Dan That & Time Gentlemen, Please - They poke so much fun at that specific contingent of the genre that I couldn't help but get sucked in... You probably hate me, but I was laughing AT these games instead of WITH them, and they seemed to want me to, so I enjoyed them.
  • Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village/Diabolical Box - There's a sort of clean break between the puzzles and the exploration environment that allows me to get all scowly and serious when tackling a brain bender, then lighthearted while poking around the whimsical environment. (It helps that there's some mild creepy in with the whimsy too)
  • Puzzle Agent - Gotta add it to the list, as so far I'm enjoying it quite a bit. More impressions forthcoming probably, but I suspect reasoning is similar to Layton in that the puzzles are disconnected and there's some creepy in with the whimsy.

My childhood was defined by console games and platformers, so it should come as no surprise that I'm an adventure game heretic. I'm ALMOST too young (and didn't own a computer until 1998) to relate to I'd expect.

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