Hint systems for adventure games.

[Forbin]

I was playing through Tales of Monkey Island, and I was thinking about in-game hint systems. In the days before the internet (or your knowledge of it), adventure games had this frustratingly beautiful puzzle aspect to them. When you were stuck, you were forced to figure it out on your own. I remember getting stuck for weeks on Grim Fandango (stupid wheelbarrow).

This was a blessing and a curse, because though sometimes the puzzles were unfair or poorly designed, when you solved them on your own it felt amazing. Internet walkthroughs can absolutely destroy a game. I don't look back with complete fondness to the time before GameFAQs, as I would never want to be stuck for that long ever again, but I do think that developers should do everything in their power to prevent the user from thinking they need a guide. Even if you're stuck for hours, and feel completely deadlocked, you can easily spoil the game by accidentally reading too much from a poorly written guide. Even page titles and table of contents sections can inadvertently ruin a game.

So what are the best in-game solutions you've ever seen in an adventure game, and what would you suggest could add to in-game hints?

I like the incidental dialogue that Monkey Island has weaved in to help the player, but it seems that whenever you need help the most the hint tells you something you already know.

Most of my problems stem from lack of inventory, and could help me out greatly if I had a command to check my pockets and tell me if I have everything I need to move forward. In a more hand holding extreme, I think it would help to have a Geiger-counter like system to notify me if the item(s) i need are in my area. Burying these types of features in a UI with possible action cooldowns could prevent a user from spamming them relentlessly.

Machinarium's instructions mini-game looked interesting (didn't actually play it), but it looked like it gave away the entire solution when the player just needed a hint.

Another possible solution I think would be interesting would be crowd sourcing the hints. Maybe create a simple GUI to integrate with a moderated adventure gaming IRC or forum community. Have a user submit a hint request ticket, volunteers or moderators choose to answer in a way that helps the user without giving away everything. If the game save files were structured in a simple way, users could even load up the stuck person's game and give them a response with appropriate hints or screenshots. In fact based on the persons save file state, you could determine if another person has already submitted a hint request and compound the response. Considering that most people get stuck in similar places, it would most likely lead to higher quality answers in the hardest puzzles. This would provide value to the developer as well, because they'd have discrete details about how their users are challenged by puzzles and know exactly where they messed up. You could create some sort of meta karma points system to encourage people to participate, or just rely on the kindness of strangers.

[brkl]

I seem to recall the Tex Murphy games having a pretty elaborate and functional hint system, though I can't really remember it well enough to describe it.

[Joflar]

I agree with you that subtle hints and incidental dialog are the best way to help with that stuff. I love Telltale games because when you get stuck the game will encourage you in the right direction.

I had this awful moment in Broken Sword DS that really ticked me off. You have to get a towel from a receptacle, but if you tap on the towel George will pull on it without explaining anything. I tried a few objects on the towel and thought maybe I needed to pick up something to rip the towel so I went back and forth through the previous screens.

I ended up using the hint system and the first hint was "You need the towel!" Useless. The second one was "Unlock the towel dispenser with the bathroom key!"

If George had just said "It's locked" I probably would have used the Bathroom key on it. Gah that was so unnecessary.

Machinarium was pretty good about hints. You could get the full puzzle solution if you did the minigame, but the robot dude would often pop up little thought bubbles that would point you in the right direction. A great example is you walk up to an air conditioning unit and he asks you logic questions. If you answer them correctly nothing happens. If you do "hint" your robot dude will have a little thought bubble though that shows an angry air conditioning guy.

The only time I used the complete solution was on this area where you needed to catch a dog. I had figured out pretty much everything. What I didn't realize was that one of the graphics on a panel was actually a switch, and flipping it would turn on the machine that I had activated. That was pretty frustrating. If they had put a little graphic of ON or OFF to the side I wouldn't have needed to use the solution system.

[Scrobbs]

Although not in game, some folk MUST remember the invisiclues you could get with the old Infocom games. I really liked them - 3 levels of clue, with the third level being the answer.

Edited May 15, 2010 by Scrobbs

[Noyb]

Although not in game, some folk MUST remember the invisiclues you could get with the old Infocom games. I really liked them - 3 levels of clue, with the third level being the answer.

Along the same lines, I really liked the Universal Hint System, which gives a FAQ-writer as many hint levels as they need to hint at the solution.

Not a fan of the hint system in the current Telltale games. More often than not when I get stuck and want a hint I can only bump up the hint level and wander aimlessly until it randomly decides to help me.

[Forbin]

Wow UHS is actually really good.

[syntheticgerbil]

I seem to recall the Tex Murphy games having a pretty elaborate and functional hint system, though I can't really remember it well enough to describe it.

The in game hint system in the Tex Murphy games was very much like UHS, having the player spend points each time they wanted a bigger clue to what they needed to accomplish. This seemed to be the only reason the last three games had points, besides being able to skip certain puzzles withim them.

But while I like Tex Murphy games, I'm not a fan of points in adventure games (for the most part) or in game hint systems.

As someone who grew up playing adventure games before the internet, it was ridiculously hard to find someone else with the same PC game my age who could give me tips or clues. Kids who played games on PCs seemed to be rare where I grew up. I eventually ended up being the kid on the playground who had all the answers to Day of the Tentacle or Sam and Max, which seemed to be the only two games anyone had by LucasArts (considering they had a PC in the first place). This is Texas though, so that probably had a lot to do with it.

So what usually happened was I had to end up begging my Dad to buy hint books to various games. Hint books were not cheap. They were almost a scam. I think it was forty bucks to get the hint books to both Loom and Monkey Island directly from LucasArts, plus shipping I'm sure. I do remember walkthroughs or hint books eventually started becoming an awesome bonus to buying the adventure game, usually the CD upgrade version, and of course, hint books for adventures became a moot point shortly after.

So what I'm getting at is, the internet is a blessing for those that like adventure games in my opinion. It's no fun being stuck for months or a year or so. I've been through that before. It just sort of destroys the game, whether the puzzle you've figured out was logical or not. I do understand the epic great feeling of having solved a game all by yourself, but it really didn't seem to come often to me, having LucasArts games being the only real fair adventures between '89-'94 "golden years." Sierra games were brutal, almost everything else was just as brutal as Sierra even still.

It felt good figuring Day of the Tentacle all by myself over the course of months (the only major trouble being OCD enough to close every door in the game and finding those damned keys) but it did not feel good to sit around for a year and try to figure out what the fuck King's Quest 5 wanted me to do for instance. That game just depended on you getting to each junction in the game and realizing you fucked yourself over by not doing something way earlier and that it was time to start over. It wasn't tremendously hard to figure out, just tedious as all hell.

So, anyways, I agree with your original comment about incidental dialogue, Forbin. To me, that's the best way to design an adventure. Just simple feedback. Games where you can badger a NPC for clues or your character says something when you are halfway to the solution to the puzzle but are missing an object or something are the best way. Telltale seems to have been really good at this. I imagine it's from a lot of carryover from Grossman at Humongous games where the amount of dialogue for a kids game is copious in each sequel, giving the player sufficient hints on what to do. Not that Freddi Fish is hard or anything.

[HPopper]

I've heard people talk about the "good old days" of adventure gaming, where you wouldn't have any solutions at your fingertips like you do today. Often times, they'd say, you'd spend hours or even days thinking about a solution to a puzzle, and when it finally came to you, you couldn't wait to rush home and try it out to try it out.

Well, those people are liars.

I'm an adventure game junkie, and not once in all my years have I ever been stuck at a puzzle because I couldn't "think of a solution". Nope, 9 times out of 10, I missed something I could pick up or interact with. That isn't something you just "figure out" by thinking about it long enough.

If I got really stuck in a Telltale game - say, Sam and Max - I would crank the hint slider from 0 to 5, wait around, and eventually, Max would say, "I'm bored, let's go to Bosco's" or whatever. Then I'd turn the hint slider back to 0, go to Bosco's and walk around until I stumbled upon the spatula or whatever. It's actually just the kind of hint I'm looking for, but I wish you could just leave auto-hints off completely, but hit a button in the menus to get a hint when you got stuck.

[Forbin]

I agree, most of the time it can be boiled down to a missing item.

[miffy495]

I wouldn't mind a "have Max say something helpful now" button instead of a slider, actually. That's a pretty good idea. I liked in the first season how you could just talk to him and ask "So, what should we do now?" and he would do just that. If I could just have that again and keep the hint slider at 0, I'd be very happy. As it turns out though, the hint slider seems to have replaced the "ask Max for help" thing. Oh well.

[lobotomy42]

I've heard people talk about the "good old days" of adventure gaming, where you wouldn't have any solutions at your fingertips like you do today. Often times, they'd say, you'd spend hours or even days thinking about a solution to a puzzle, and when it finally came to you, you couldn't wait to rush home and try it out to try it out.

Well, those people are liars.

Seriously. I was an adventure gamer back when those games were cool. You know how I solved puzzles? Sometimes, yeah, we would struggle and stumble for weeks or months before eventually finding a solution. But most of the time, I coughed up the additional $5.95 for the damn hint book that Sierra* sold for their games. Or called the pay-for-hints line. Etc.

I started "Willy Beamish" when I was in 2nd grade. I finished it in 5th grade. I started Space Quest IV when I was 12, and finished when I was 16. Do I have fond memories of these games? Yes, but not because of how "satisfying" blindly stumbling onto the puzzle solutions was. Mostly, it's a function of how much bloody time I had invested in those games. Sheer presence and toil led me to love those games, the way the partners in a poorly-arranged-marriage might eventually grow to grudgingly appreciate each other.

Basically, what I'm getting at here, is that the "Golden Age of Adventure Games" was shit. I'm perfectly content to have Sam or Max randomly blurt out suggestions.

*(I didn't discover LucasArts games until years later. These were better designed in some ways, but still brutally difficult compared to Telltale, for example. I have no idea if they sold hint books.)

*(Those hint books, by the way, are what the UHS format is based on. The hint books would do the same thing, giving you four or five vague hints before finally describing the solution.)

[Ben X]

Hello!

I'm just going to copy and paste a (probably drunken) rant I had on the Zombie Cow forums a long time ago:

Basically, I only did a hint-through for Ben There, Dan That! because I thought of a funny idea for it, and because I wanted people to have that option before giving into a walkthrough (an unofficial one had been posted online). If you do the right search, you can probably see this thought process happening in a thread on here somewhere!

The trouble with Time Gentlemen, Please! was that it's not as linear, so writing a hint-through in the same style wouldn't have worked so well. When it was close to going gold, we talked through a few different ideas of how to do one in an interesting and useful way: it would have to be a more UHS style set-up, where you could scan for the bit you were stuck on, without ruining the puzzles running concurrently. One interesting but unworkable idea was to have a couple of googlemail accounts set up, one for each character. The player could then 'hack in' and listen in their conversations about how they solved the puzzles, using the subject lines as guides for which thread to go to.

But yeah, nothing presented itself and it's nicer having the communal thread. Also, we already had the Talk To Dan option within the game. I really like the way that turned out, because the Dan character is analogous to the role of someone who's already finished the game and is trying to give you hints without just spelling it out. He tries to get you thinking in the right direction, saying "maybe you should think about distracting him" rather than "hey, I bet he'd hate a loud, carnival-based noise!"

Frankly, I personally hate the idea of hint modes within a game, and it's one of the concessions a concession [EDIT - I phrased this incorrectly at the time of original rant] to modern gamers that I'm really sad Telltale has made [i wrote this having only played the Bone demo at the time]. The way I see it, if something is in the game itself, and not a bug, the developers are saying it's fine for the player to use it. (For example, bunny-hopping: id never took it out of Quake 3 because it's part of the system's rules; it's a quirk, but it's not cheating, and it doesn't destroy the balance of the game.) So, if you've got a hint system, you're telling the player that it's a valid method of playing to just click through every hint and finish the game like an automaton without ever having a thought of your own. Like you're leveling up by killing rats in an MMORPG or something.

Furthermore, if an adventure game has been written properly, and is being played properly, hint-guides should not be necessary. All the hints should be in the surrounding dialogue, and the player should be looking for them. The thing that this generation of players either don't realise or have simply migrated away from, is that when playing an adventure you're supposed to get stuck. It's not a failing on your part. You're supposed to wander around locations to see what you've missed, read 'examine' dialogue again and think about it from a different angle, turn the game off and ponder the puzzles in the shower. I stepped away from Day Of the Tentacle for a month because I couldn't get Dr Fred to sign the contract. When I came back, I did it in five minutes and I was ectastic.

Of course, the other factor, that the game should be written properly, is equally as important. I see in-built hint-systems as a sign of no confidence in the product or in the audience. Why does Secret Of Monkey Island need one now, but not 20 years ago? Are people more stupid? More lazy? Does Lucasarts think that, actually, despite being a classic it's just not a fair game? Dan and I really sweated over getting the balance of clues right so that we didn't need a hint system. We debated over every puzzle about whether the player could be expected to understand certain details, the rules of the universe, if we were giving away too much or too little. And not just in the dialogue: it was a lot of effort to make it possible for the player to

put the mouse on the hula doll without the dress

, but it was necessary to show the player that this was possible but not the complete solution. We could have just got that across in dialogue, but it wouldn't have been helpful enough to the player.

This is all personal opinion, and I don't know exactly where Dan stands on it. I do know that during development, I leant more towards giving the player the bare minimum of need-to-know, while Dan wanted to make sure it was fun for the player, even if that meant a little hand-holding. I think the two extremes worked out at a very happy medium in the end, without the need for an extra-diegetic spoiler-machine.

Edited May 25, 2010 by bbX1138
bad phrasing

[brkl]

MI and MI2 need hint systems now because the only reason people were able to play them back in the day was that they knew how the genre worked, and knew they had to use goddamn crazy problem solving methods to get ahead. People aren't more stupid now, they simply try to solve problems like they solve problems in the real world, that is, not at all like in an adventure game.

Adventure games demand you to pick up everything, not because you have a use for any particular item, but because you know there will be a problem later on that requires one particular item for it's arbitrary singular solution. In the real world, any given problem always has many solutions, and objects tend to have many uses. When you encounter a problem, you look for solutions afterwards, and everybody has different strategies for solving problems they encounter.

Adventure game logic is not real world logic, and the strategies that work in adventure games are not strategies that work in the real world. So unless your players know to "read" the game and work out the inner logic, and know the adventure game problem solving method (which is in no way natural for most people), they will have enormous problems progressing in the game. So, yes, adventure games need to be played "properly", but they all presume their players know how to do that already. They don't have tutorials. How would they sound anyway? "See that used toothpick? Pick it up. You'll need it later, because it's the only object in the whole world that is able to pop a balloon, and you will need to pop a balloon."

People aren't dumber now for not understanding to use a monkey for a wrench. You use a wrench for that. Get one at the hardware store.

[Forbin]

People aren't dumber now, they just have a lower tolerance for bad design. It's easy for creators to be blind to the difficulty of a problem they're presenting to a user.

Most people seem to agree that the majority of problems stem from missed items, or interactive objects. To the artist those items may appear obvious, especially if the scene was created without it to begin with. But to the end user it could be blended it in like camouflage.

[Nappi]

My friend had a collection of Leisure Suit Larry games and we played those quite a lot as kids because of all the

sex

and

boobies

. The only game we ever finished was the first one. We always got stuck in the other games and simply couldn't figure out what to do. Did we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the problems? Yes. Did it help? No; I already mentioned that we didn't finish those games. Would it have felt amazing to finally figure out the puzzle after a month of so of bashing our heads to the walls? Probably not, since I'm fairly sure that we were either missing some important pixel or that the puzzle was simply unfair. Would we have welcomed a walkthrough of some sort? YES.

So when I later started playing Lucasarts' adventure games on my own, I wasn't afraid of using the walkthroughs. Most of the time I was stuck because of some item or interaction I had missed. I don't think I ever thought "Well, that was completely fair" or "I should have thought of that" when I saw the solution. What really annoyed me, though, was that I often saw quite a bit more than I wanted. So yeah, having some kind of intelligent hint system in the games would be great.

In Machinarium, I liked that instead of searching for a walkthrough on the internet, I could use the illustrated beauty within the game. It even had a fairly tedious mini-game so that people wouldn't use it all the time. It was broken though, as it only showed you (everything) that you had to do in a certain area. Because of that, I used it probably five times before I found out the thing I was missing. By that time it had spoiled parts of the future puzzles for me quite effectively.

I, too, like the hint system in Telltale Games' games, especially in the new Sam & Max. I have the hint level set to 1 and Max seems to give me vague hints just infrequently enough. The future vision in the first episode of the latest season was an interesting addition in the hint arsenal and I was wondering if they dared to include it in the subsequent episodes as well. However, it had its problems: In order to complete some puzzles (or for them to make any sense, at least), you had to use the thing. Because you couldn't (I couldn't) figure out what were the things I needed to be looking through those goggles, I used it on a lot more things than necessary. It doesn't show you much but I had rather not seen anything at all.

I can't quite agree with bbX1138 that a properly written adventure game doesn't need a hint-guide. People are different and people think differently and unless you make the puzzles super easy someone will always get stuck at some point. Couldn't come up with a good example so here is a old and poor one: the monkey wrench puzzle in Monkey Island 2 was probably a lot harder for people who don't speak English as their first language. Furthermore, some people don't like getting stuck but would still like to finish an adventure game. Hell, a friend of mine played through Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade using the walkthough all the time and apparently still enjoyed it.

If the story permits you to have someone close to the main character giving him/her hints whenever necessary or if you think it doesn't bother players that the character he/she is controlling gives him/her tips on what he/she should make him/her do next, that's fine. But unless the character will start yelling things like "I think I need to PICK UP that STATUE TO get to THE SURFACE"* at some point, someone will still be needing a hint-guide.

By the way, did this thing really exist at some point? Did anyone use it?

*I'm pretty sure not that many people got stuck in that particular puzzle, though.

[syntheticgerbil]

Frankly, I personally hate the idea of hint modes within a game, and it's one of the concessions to modern gamers that I'm really sad Telltale has made [i wrote this having only played the Bone demo at the time]. The way I see it, if something is in the game itself, and not a bug, the developers are saying it's fine for the player to use it. (For example, bunny-hopping: id never took it out of Quake 3 because it's part of the system's rules; it's a quirk, but it's not cheating, and it doesn't destroy the balance of the game.) So, if you've got a hint system, you're telling the player that it's a valid method of playing to just click through every hint and finish the game like an automaton without ever having a thought of your own. Like you're leveling up by killing rats in an MMORPG or something.

Furthermore, if an adventure game has been written properly, and is being played properly, hint-guides should not be necessary. All the hints should be in the surrounding dialogue, and the player should be looking for them. The thing that this generation of players either don't realise or have simply migrated away from, is that when playing an adventure you're supposed to get stuck. It's not a failing on your part. You're supposed to wander around locations to see what you've missed, read 'examine' dialogue again and think about it from a different angle, turn the game off and ponder the puzzles in the shower. I stepped away from Day Of the Tentacle for a month because I couldn't get Dr Fred to sign the contract. When I came back, I did it in five minutes and I was ectastic.

I love everything you said here. There's really not much stopping players to use hint systems in the adventures that have them either. As mentioned before, Tex Murphy had the UHS type system within the game. All it did was take away your points, which really had no bearing on the actual game itself. There is a bug in Under a Killing Moon that allows you to get unlimited points actually, so you could cheat through the whole game if needed.

I'm still all for the clues just being within the adventure games. I haven't seen this short coming in Telltale games or the old LucasArts ones, but there have been adventures which do give you a clue within the dialogue or a comment on examining something, the instance where the answers are in the game, but the comment is unrepeatable. This is another design failing that used to plague many games, if they even offered incidental dialogue clues at all, rendering them useful if you did not listen carefully the first time. Sometimes I discover these kind of design failings upon replaying certain older adventure games.

Most people seem to agree that the majority of problems stem from missed items, or interactive objects. To the artist those items may appear obvious, especially if the scene was created without it to begin with. But to the end user it could be blended it in like camouflage.

I'm not sure those two are majorly the problem. I think that depends more in what adventure games you are playing. The modern ones where you can't get stuck and have the hint systems probably don't have death situations or situations where you can get stuck. The latter two elements open up much more serious problems with successfully completing a game.

I think the best way to handle missing items is just to do what Simon the Sorcerer 2 did: you press a button to have all hotspots on the screen highlighted. The game laid everything you were working with out for you instantly. It wasn't a cheat because it was in the manual as part of your controls. It's too bad adventures sense StS2 have not taken this cue (not even in the Simon series), because while the game was still tough, you knew you weren't missing anything.

My friend had a collection of Leisure Suit Larry games and we played those quite a lot as kids because of all the

sex

and

boobies

. The only game we ever finished was the first one. We always got stuck in the other games and simply couldn't figure out what to do. Did we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the problems? Yes. Did it help? No; I already mentioned that we didn't finish those games. Would it have felt amazing to finally figure out the puzzle after a month of so of bashing our heads to the walls? Probably not, since I'm fairly sure that we were either missing some important pixel or that the puzzle was simply unfair. Would we have welcomed a walkthrough of some sort? YES.

Just curious, but did you play 5 then? That particular Larry was designed so that you could finish the game without really having to complete almost 75% of the puzzles. Not that I think that is a good way to design an adventure game or anything.

As a side note, I don't really like Monkey Island 2 coming up in topics like these because while it did have tough and obscure puzzles with really weird solutions, there was an easy mode (at least in original versions) for those that did not want to bother with all of that crap. The game did warn you in the beginning (although I know some did not like that it also made fun of you for choosing easy mode). I also think the MI2 easy mode is much more successful than CMI's, but both are good. I personally feel like at least two difficulty modes would solve most people's frustration with many adventures where incidental dialogue is not enough. It would have properly at least upped everyone's list of adventures actually completed.

By the way, did this thing really exist at some point? Did anyone use it?

That did exist, and I do remember a few instances of begging my dad to ask them something for me, but he did not want to be charged a lot of money to call a 1-900 number. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, he did give in and order me hintbooks from their 1-800 line instead, although on retrospect, it probably would have been cheaper for him to just call the hintline for me because I was really only stuck on one puzzle in Secret of Monkey Island and Loom each. I'm guessing his reasoning is that calling the hint line even once would mean he'd never hear the end of it on subsequent adventures.

Edited May 24, 2010 by syntheticgerbil

[Nappi]

Just curious, but did you play 5 then? That particular Larry was designed so that you could finish the game without really having to complete almost 75% of the puzzles. Not that I think that is a good way to design an adventure game or anything.

Yes, we did play that. Quite a lot too. That is the one we got the furthest, I think. I don't remember being able to skip certain puzzles, though. How did that work? Were these some sort of optional puzzles that rewarded you with something that wasn't necessary to complete the game or was there some kind of mechanism that could be used to skip the puzzles? I have no recollection whatsoever.

Admittedly, part of the reason why we sucked at those games was that we were so young and our English wasn't that great back then. Is Leisure Suit Larry 5 worth giving another try now?

[miffy495]

I think the best way to handle missing items is just to do what Simon the Sorcerer 2 did: you press a button to have all hotspots on the screen highlighted. The game laid everything you were working with out for you instantly. It wasn't a cheat because it was in the manual as part of your controls. It's too bad adventures sense StS2 have not taken this cue (not even in the Simon series), because while the game was still tough, you knew you weren't missing anything.

I swear I remember recent Telltale games actually doing this when you hit tab? I may be mistaken, as I don't really use the feature anyway, but give it a try next time you fire one up. Maybe even from Wallace and Gromit on? That may be too far back though.

[brkl]

Wallace & Gromit does that certainly. Sam & Max too, at least the newest series. That feature should be in every adventure game.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yes, we did play that. Quite a lot too. That is the one we got the furthest, I think. I don't remember being able to skip certain puzzles, though. How did that work? Were these some sort of optional puzzles that rewarded you with something that wasn't necessary to complete the game or was there some kind of mechanism that could be used to skip the puzzles? I have no recollection whatsoever.

Admittedly, part of the reason why we sucked at those games was that we were so young and our English wasn't that great back then. Is Leisure Suit Larry 5 worth giving another try now?

It was a weird setup for LSL 5. From what I remember, the major requirements for the game were getting in and out of the airport or limo to do whatever the game set you up to do at about five or six locations in the game. Larry was supposed to film all of these girls, but you could just drive to the locations where the girls were, then drive back, and leave from the airport. Same with Patti. You also weren't required to film anyone if you didn't feel like it. None of this really seemed to have any impact on the ending either, besides a few dialogue changes. The game of course wants you to do the tasks at hand, but you could get away with doing almost none of it. It was pretty much just being rewarded with scenes and points that weren't necessary to complete the game, since it seemed more situation based than inventory based in LSL5.

I know Al Lowe deliberately tried to make a Leisure Suit Larry game where you couldn't get stuck or die, but I think Leisure Suit Larry 6 and 7 are much more representative of that. I'd say 5 isn't really worth another try, but you may want to play 6 and 7 (especially 7) if you are up for revisiting the Larry games.

I swear I remember recent Telltale games actually doing this when you hit tab? I may be mistaken, as I don't really use the feature anyway, but give it a try next time you fire one up. Maybe even from Wallace and Gromit on? That may be too far back though.

I don't own that series in full yet, so I haven't really messed with any W&G episodes. If they put in hot spot indicators, that's great, though! I don't think pixel hunting or hidden objects on the screen really does anything but artificially inflate the difficulty of the adventure. Even then, I've always found it annoying to sweep the cursor up and down the screen.

I think there was also a cheat for the first two Kyrandia games that put red boxes around all of the hotspots, but I think it was both difficult to turn on and to turn off.

[Forbin]

This thread is starting to make me sad about how bad the recent LSL games have been.

[syntheticgerbil]

I've played a bit of Magna Cum Laude and it was just awful in design, graphics, story, characters, and dialogue. Also, everyone seems to take cheapshots at of Box Office Box Bust, and rightfully so. I really don't consider any of them proper Larry games either way. Al Lowe sure seems to hate them.

I think Larry 7 is probably the best it's going to get, and it's a damn good adventure game to boot. Maybe some will disagree but it's not often the "last" in a series of games is the best one.

Edited May 24, 2010 by syntheticgerbil

[Forbin]

7 is Love for Sail right? I liked that one.