Tanukitsune

Toon logic in games: the nonsense that makes sense... sometimes.

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I can't remember if we ever discussed "moon logic" in adventure games, but I'm pretty sure we never discussed toon logic.

As far as I know, you only encounter toon logic in comedic adventure games, since sometimes the puzzle is a joke and the solution is the punchline, not the result of the solution, but the solution itself.

In case it isn't clear what toon logic is, it's when when a solution shouldn't work in a normal world, but would because it would in a nonsense cartoon world. If the item is a homonym or looks like the item you need, but isn't, that's toon logic. Or what you would do if you were Mr. Bean. Does that coffee need milk? Pour some white paint, it will be fine. Need to start a fire? Use the item that would upset your friend's the most as kindle! A cream that vanishes blemishes should make whole things vanish if I use enough, right?

I'm not sure if anybody has played the recently released Deponia games, but to me there were a pure joy and almost pure toon logic. The same goes for Daedelic other series: Edna & Harvey, but I noticed a lot of people claiming none of the puzzles made sense. And then I noticed how young the people who made these complaints.

I don't know the average age of the people here, but how many of you here have never seen a classic Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes? Do we have a generation that has never been exposed to these? If would make a lot of sense if people don't get "toon logic" puzzles if the oldest cartoon they've seen is Happy Tree Friends. Is it something only some of the 80's and 90's kids would get?

(Man, now I want a Mr. Bean adventure game.)

Anyway, I'm off to glue a cat to my face, I need to rent a moped. :deranged:

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I don't know about toon logic, but I am interested in playing the Deponia series. It looks pretty good!

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I guess one of the most "notorious" examples of this would be the monkey wrench puzzle of Monkey Island 2, although I'm not sure if anyone had real problems with that puzzle.

I find it hard to believe that there is a generation of viewers who have not been exposed to Tom & Jerry and the like. That stuff is always on TV. I think a bigger problem is that it may not be obvious that "toon logic" is valid in a given game (as was probably the case for some with the monkey wrench puzzle). Furthermore, the solutions may simply be too absurd and unpredictable for the puzzle solving to be enjoyable.

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Ha, I was going to give the monkey wrench puzzle as an example, but thought it was too "logical" to be valid.

I'm not sure I'm capable of explaining the difference between a puzzle that is simply absurd and one that falls in the toon logic area. There are puzzles that don't make sense, but someone in the game will tell us to do it "Put this blue leaf on the rotten stump to open the cave". Why would a leaf open a cave? It doesn't make sense, but at least someone told you it would work.

One of the more obvious examples of toon logic is the skunk puzzle in Day of the Tentacle, you practically have to do the same thing you see in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon. Frankly, the whole game is toon logic to me. A hammer for left handed people? Why not? Washing a car to make it rain? So obvious! People can't see you through your obvious tentacle disguise? But of course!

Now that you mention it, whenever I see people complaining about puzzles, they seem to be "toon logic" puzzles in serious games, like the infamous cat stache one. Some are really non-nonsensical, but sometimes there is a method to their madness.

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A ton of puzzles in Companions of Xanth are like that, based on a horribly sexist series of novels set in a magical world full of puns.

Example 1: There's a heavy door in front of you. Looking at the door, you get the description "The door is ajar." You can't open or close it. But picking it up results in you putting a jar into your inventory. Example 2: You need to access an item outside a window that you can't open. To get rid of the window, you use a bottle of painkillers labeled "Pane-B-Gone."

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I remember that game, guess what happens when you kick a bucket? :P

Oh, that reminds of a text adventure called Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It where every solution was a pun of some sort of wordplay.

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Steve Jackson Games had a pen and paper RPG called "Tooned" I think, or something similar. It had 'hammer space' inventory where you could pull anything from behind your back. And a 'cosmic shift' ability which enabled you to do the wackier cartoon things like run over thin air or walk into a painting or something. I had many books for it but no friends to play it with

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Pulling anything you want from behind your back would make adventure games too easy, come to think of it, so would the "Everything for a dollar" stores, which is probably why all adventurers are penniless. :P

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I completely forgot this Roger Rabbit adventure game existed. Most of the levels involve setting up Rube Goldberg machines to painfully shunt you to the next level, except the boring last one which just seems like a way to punish you for taking too much time.

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You know, when they talked about playing adventures with kids in the last podcasts I remembered this thread, I guess our "logic" is different from a kid's one or maybe their logic is more malleable?

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