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Apparently the golden needle can be interchanged with the gold coin, but only in certain versions of the game.
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Sep 20, 2017 22:39
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Snake Maze posted:Wait, really? It's been ages since I played KQV, but I could have sworn that the gold coin and needle were interchangeable - you use one of them to talk to Madame Mushka, and one to get the cloak. Am I going crazy? Is that a false memory? That may very well be the lone exception to the rule. I can't think of any other cases where you could swap two items in the trading sequence like that.
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Sep 20, 2017 22:39
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YggiDee posted:Apparently the golden needle can be interchanged with the gold coin, but only in certain versions of the game.  Why? Just, whyyyy?
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Sep 20, 2017 22:57
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Poil posted:
Roberta Williams is some form of demon that draws sustenance from player's tears and rage.
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Sep 21, 2017 02:06
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Poil posted:
Phew, SIERRA! (stolen from Incredible Machine 3)
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Sep 21, 2017 02:51
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I dont know posted:Roberta Williams is some form of demon that draws sustenance from player's tears and rage. I've seen worse but not from a developer more than 3 games under their belt.
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Sep 21, 2017 13:19
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And the thing is, it takes more effort to turn the player into a dead man walking than not. You have to deliberately plan out the two dozen ways people can gently caress themselves over and learn almost nothing from the experience.
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Sep 22, 2017 01:21
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Glazius posted:And the thing is, it takes more effort to turn the player into a dead man walking than not. You have to deliberately plan out the two dozen ways people can gently caress themselves over and learn almost nothing from the experience. It does, sort of. DMW depends on not having [item] or doing [action] before a screen/part of the story. So you set up the failure conditions for the player to find. That's just normal problem solving (for the time) and in itself isn't terrible. The problem is many of the items are able to be used for other actions. That's where you really get screwed over, and where the extra dev effort goes. Sure, the fortune teller and the stores will accept all kinds of gold things, but using the wrong one fails your game (eventually). I can see where they wanted to be flexible and creative with item usage, but their ridiculous inflexibility elsewhere (or an ability to mitigate the 'nonstandard' usage) is what sinks that. We haven't even seen peak "multiple options, but pick the wrong one and die" yet. This game is really the nadir of Sierra game design.
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Sep 22, 2017 01:34
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Not in the slightest. Dead Man Walking scenarious are extremely easy to create by accident. There are two basic approaches to designing a game. The first is designing each puzzle in isolation, and then try working them into a cohesive whole. The other is to mimic the player's path, and design outward. In the first method, all it takes to create a dead man walking scenario is to add extra logic to one puzzle without thinking. If you're going back and revising puzzles, it can make perfect sense to think that item B is just as logical as item A to solve Puzzle A, but not remember to update Puzzle B with an alternative solution. In the second method, you can easily forget that Puzzle A could use Item A or Item B, and make a Puzzle H that requires Item B.
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Sep 22, 2017 01:37
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I wouldn't fault anyone for giggling at this, but I was searching my brain for an adventure game in the KQ style that has decent puzzle logic, and I would actually say Beavis & Butthead: Virtual Stupidity. I won't spoil anything for anyone, but it's worth trying out whether you were or were not a fan of the show. I can only recall one part that I was stuck on for a while that might be a tipping point for people who weren't familiar with the show. As silly as the subject matter is, it's a well-made adventure game in terms of graphics, audio, and making a drop of loving sense.
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Sep 22, 2017 01:55
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JustJeff88 posted:As silly as the subject matter is, it's a well-made adventure game in terms of graphics, audio, and making a drop of loving sense. I think a significant portion of the puzzles in Virtual Stupidity make all the things people complain about in this series seem like finding the ground with a guide to push you out the window.
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Sep 22, 2017 02:41
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Andrew Plotkin wrote a plot thread analyzer as part of the automatic puzzle learning in Hadean Lands, and it has a field day on KQ5. (Even with only 2/3 of the game coded into it, it found 872 Dead Man Walking routes.) The problem is that there's a whole bunch of one-way gates in the plot, and if you miss anything from behind one of those gates, you're guaranteed to die or get stuck later on. But it's difficult to remove those gates from the plot because, well, it makes sense that they're gates.
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Sep 22, 2017 19:06
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hyphz posted:Andrew Plotkin wrote a plot thread analyzer as part of the automatic puzzle learning in Hadean Lands, and it has a field day on KQ5. (Even with only 2/3 of the game coded into it, it found 872 Dead Man Walking routes.) The problem is that there's a whole bunch of one-way gates in the plot, and if you miss anything from behind one of those gates, you're guaranteed to die or get stuck later on. But it's difficult to remove those gates from the plot because, well, it makes sense that they're gates. This is why you adapt the plot to the puzzles, instead of the other way around. To make an analogy, a lot of 2D platformer games (Super Mario Bros. and the like) don't cope well when the player gets into a small, confined space, where there's no room to stand up. It's a simple fact of implementing the physics for such games that it's impossible to cope well. So the solution generally is to avoid having the situation come up in the first place: the games don't create small, confined spaces that the player can wedge themselves into. Similarly, if the only way you can think of including a game mechanic in your game requires it to allow the possibility of dead-man-walking scenarios, you should just not include that mechanic in the game. (SMB1 and 3 did still allow the player to get wedged into terrain, which they handled by ejecting the player through the terrain, to the right. But these are notable, and weird, exceptions to the rule.)
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Sep 22, 2017 19:18
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While there are a lot of "NEED to pick up this thing NOW" events that characterize that sort of "gate" issue that speak to issues putting the game together, it's the self-inflicted issues that really exacerbate the problem. For every item that can be used incorrectly, they have to code the interaction and enable the player to do so (as opposed to a generic "that doesn't go with this" or "I can't accept that" blurb). So while it's great that they allow this sort of experimentation--a lot of the items could logically be substituted--they don't follow through and allow a remediation for the intended path. So to take the Mario story as a metaphor, they didn't address the small enclosed space issue by avoiding them or creating the "ejection" behavior. They instead made the entire game small enclosed spaces and turned awkwardly navigating them into a part of the game. Edit: VVVV Oh yeah, definitely those are the majority of the DMW issues, but they're basically puzzles put together in the game that weren't properly meshed together by the devs--a lack of effort to communicate to the player, essentially. You don't know if you have everything essential from one area at any given time. My point was more about the times when the devs actually expended effort at creating situations that screw you over--enabling item interaction to put you in a failed state (and again, generally not warning you). The player not getting an item is one thing; creating a puzzle that can use a second/third item as a solution within the bounds of logic/reason and then going the extra mile and allowing that to happen and gameplay to continue while DMW is quite another. Passive vs Active screwing over the player. OAquinas fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Sep 22, 2017 |
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Sep 22, 2017 19:57
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OAquinas posted:While there are a lot of "NEED to pick up this thing NOW" events that characterize that sort of "gate" issue that speak to issues putting the game together, it's the self-inflicted issues that really exacerbate the problem. For every item that can be used incorrectly, they have to code the interaction and enable the player to do so (as opposed to a generic "that doesn't go with this" or "I can't accept that" blurb). So while it's great that they allow this sort of experimentation--a lot of the items could logically be substituted--they don't follow through and allow a remediation for the intended path. The vast majority of DMWs in KQ5 are not using a substitutable object, though. I mean, look at a few: - Entering the witch's forest with the amulet but without the honeycomb (DMW by the end of that section) - Entering the ice area with the rope, sled, and harp but without the leg of lamb (DMW by the end of that section) or the hammer (DMW at Mordack's loving castle, thanks a bunch) They're mostly just crossing gates, but in really non-obvious contexts that don't give any idea that the gate is dangerous or the item is relevant to it.
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Sep 22, 2017 20:13
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hyphz posted:
I would be very interested to know how you propose to manage that.
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Sep 22, 2017 23:23
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 Hello everyone and welcome back to King's Quest V. We've got quite a bit to do today, so let's not waste any time.  : The amulet is attached to a soft leather thong.We've already seen what happens when you get caught in the forest without this item. So let's take some precautions against the witch's magic.   : The magic amulet begins to glow softly as Graham slips it over his head. He then carefully tucks the amulet into the front of his tunic, hiding it from sight.And now we're safe from all but the most powerful of magic. Handy!  north : Ooooh, no! Ooooh I'M not going in there! Can't you read the sign?: Come on, Cedric. There might be something important in here.: Goooo if you want to. I'll wait HERE! east If you're not protected, the witch will descend upon you immediately. But here we have to wander around a bit before she deigns to show up. north This looks important. south : To Graham's great relief, it appears that the witch's magic has been stopped by the amulet he is wearing, just as Madame Mushka claimed it would. After ripping at her hair and screaming at us, she just stares holes in us until we talk to her.  : What are you doing in my forest, young man?! *chuckles* Don't you know you're trespassing? *chuckles*: Oh, I didn't know this was a PRIVATE forest. Do you OWN it?: Of COURSE I own it! *chuckles* It's mine! And what did you do to my magic?! *cackle*: I don't think you need to know. Now tell me something... how do I leave this terrible forest?: I'LL never tell. *chuckles* I'm afraid you're stuck, dearie. *chuckles* Now you're my prisoner.: We'll see about that!: Yes, won't we. *cackles*This witch seriously can't go two sentences without cackling or chuckling like an imbecile. Also now everywhere we walk is interrupted by the witch disappearing and reappearing before we get control. It's rather annoying. west The entrance screen of the forst also no longer exists. So it's just a giant loop of these four screens, plus two other optional ones. The creepy tower in the distance is the last screen, and it's where the witch lives. If we walk to the west from here, there's another two screens that offer a more roundabout way to get to the witch's hut. There's also at least two ways to die in here, but for all my trying, I was unable to trigger it. Do you see those freaky maw plants in the foreground? It's somehow possible to irritate them, causing them to grab Graham with their roots and chew on him for a while. The previous screen where we talked to the witch, it's also apparently possible to have a giant spider just drop on your head completely randomly. Again, for all my trying, I was unable to trigger that death either. If you're interested in seeing either, you can click here. Nidoking offers an explanation: Nidoking posted:Triggering the random deaths in the forest requires being trapped there. If you enter without the honeycomb or throw all three emeralds without using it, then walk around after dispatching the witch, one of them will trigger. (It was always the plant for me.) You might also hit one if you enter while wearing the amulet but not carrying the bottle. (That might be what triggers the spider.) As far as I know, you'll never see either if you have a means to escape. That would be cave troll levels of unfair. west north east That's all the major screens of the forest. So let's just take care of this witch so I can have some peace of mind. This is what I would generally consider to be the first real bullshit puzzle of the game. So far you could more or less intuit what to do by context clues. This puzzle relies on metagame knowledge. The only things in our inventory are the silver coin, the brass bottle, the old boot, the honeycomb, the magic amulet, and Crispin's wand. One of these items, unlike the others is a dedicated suicide button. Yeah, the game is relying on the fact that you almost certainly rubbed the bottle as soon as you got it, and therefore know that it's a trapped item. This puzzle, pardon the pun, rubs me the wrong way. There's no internal logic that causes this to make any amount of sense. Other King's Quest games would be done with just this one instance of moon logic, but 5 had to be an overachiever. This isn't even the only case of moon logic in this update.  : What's this?   : Ah! Freedom at last! Now YOU spend the next five hundred years in a bottle! : Good! That old witch won't be seen here for a LONG time! But now, how to get out of this dreadful forest?Now that we can walk around in peace, let's start by raiding the witch's house. north There's 3 things to find in this screen. Try to guess where. By the way, the hint for one of the items is active in this particular screengrab.  lamp: An interesting incense burner hangs from a protruding tree branch. Occasionally, from within it, a tiny glint winks. lamp : What's this? Why, it's a little key. : It is a tiny brass key. drawer: Graham spies a crude drawer built into the trunk of a tree which is poking awkwardly through the house. drawer: A small pouch is tucked away in the drawer. pouch: Graham reaches into the drawer and removes the leather pouch. : The small leather pouch is drawn tightly closed. : Upon opening the leather pouch, Graham discovers three sparkling emeralds : The trio of sparkling emeralds dazzle the eyes. chest: A small, intricate spinning wheel is put away in the trunk. spinning wheel: Reaching a hand into the trunk, Graham retrieves the small spinning wheel. : This appears to be a small, intricately-constructed spinning wheel.And that's all we'll ever need to come in here for.  east door: A crude little door built into the trunk of a large, twisted tree catches Graham's attention. door: Graham tugs firmly at the door in the tree but finds it securely locked. door: Graham finds that the little key fits perfectly in this lock. Graham is charmed to find a little golden heart inside the door of the twisted old tree. heart: Reaching a hand into the open door of the tree, Graham extracts the little golden heart. : The small heart is made of pure gold. All the way back over to this screen with those freaky maws. Now there are eyes staring at us. eyes: Peering curiously at him through the heavy foliage of the dark forest, Graham notices several pairs of bright, blinking eyes. eyes: Hello? Who's there? I say... who's there? Please help me. Please... oh, never mind.Now time for more dumb poo poo. When you have small beady eyes staring at you from the shadows, the proper thing is to bribe them, right? ground groundWell, each time we throw an emerald down, the little elf runs out and nabs it. We also lose an emerald each time we do it. Yes, this is a DMW waiting to happen. Throw that last emerald down, and you're hosed. So naturally we need to...  ground : Squeezing the honeycomb as hard as he can, Graham causes the honey to drip out of it onto the ground creating a little "puddle" of honey at his feet. Now all that's left of the honeycomb is a piece of beeswax, which Graham pockets.Yes, this means that there's an EXTENDED DMW layered here as well. If you don't find the fish in the barrel, then you'll never get out of the dark forest. Are you starting to see why I call these things trading sequences? By the way, that fish in the barrel is also part of yet another layered DMW, the one I discussed last time. The one that terminates at the end of the second part of the game, more than an hour from now. honey There is absolutely no reason to believe that this should work. I can somewhat see the logic, but honey isn't superglue. Even for gnome sized elves. King's Quest V - The Elves  : Please! Let me go... I beg of you!: Why should I do that? What will you do for me?: I'll show you the way out of the forest... if you let me go!: How do I know I can trust you?: I give you my word. An elf NEVER breaks his word!: Well... it's against my better judgement, but... okay. : Move over, Rocky. You're in our way! west : Follow me! In here!Going to cut the update there. We'll pick up next time immediately with a cutscene. NEXT TIME: The goddamned rat List of Points +2 - Actually entering the dark forest +4 - Gave the witch a genie +2 - Saw a single pixel key +2 - Leather pouch +2 - A town with money +3 - Unlocked the tree +2 - Heart taker +4 - Honey trap +6 - Elf kidnapper Total 68/260 DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Sep 23, 2017 |
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Sep 22, 2017 23:47
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How the hell were you supposed to figure THAT out without a hint line??!?
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Sep 23, 2017 01:44
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I'm surprised we didn't need special gloves to handle that wheel, or else prick ourselves and sleep forever.
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Sep 23, 2017 01:54
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Graham's kind of a dick knowingly trespassing, killing the property owner, and then raiding her house for valuables afterward.
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Sep 23, 2017 01:57
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Is it possible to take the amulet off in the middle of the forest? I assume it's just the same blasted with magic we saw before? Also, did you trap the elf on the first emerald or did you let him steal two before kidnapping him? Does it matter? quote:This puzzle, pardon the pun, rubs me the wrong way. MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Sep 23, 2017 |
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Sep 23, 2017 02:01
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MagusofStars posted:Is it possible to take the amulet off in the middle of the forest? I assume it's just the same blasted with magic we saw before? You can only get him with the third one. I think you can use the honeycomb first, but Graham squeezes it on the floor where the third emerald would go. As for having the rope but not the hammer.. oops. missed a dependency. If you forget to go get the crystal it's a serious downer through
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Sep 23, 2017 02:05
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EorayMel posted:Graham's kind of a dick knowingly trespassing, killing the property owner, and then raiding her house for valuables afterward. It's called "adventuring" 
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Sep 23, 2017 02:07
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Comstar posted:How the hell were you supposed to figure THAT out without a hint line??!? Try to use every item in every location on every object. Most of them won't have interactions, though I'm sure there's some way to misuse and waste the honeycomb, given what I've seen of this game so far.
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Sep 23, 2017 02:09
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You've got the same GIF for the first and second emeralds. Not sure whether that's what you intended or not, which is saying something. Triggering the random deaths in the forest requires being trapped there. If you enter without the honeycomb or throw all three emeralds without using it, then walk around after dispatching the witch, one of them will trigger. (It was always the plant for me.) You might also hit one if you enter while wearing the amulet but not carrying the bottle. (That might be what triggers the spider.) As far as I know, you'll never see either if you have a means to escape. That would be cave troll levels of unfair.
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Sep 23, 2017 02:25
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Nidoking posted:You've got the same GIF for the first and second emeralds. Not sure whether that's what you intended or not, which is saying something. So those two traps are to keep stuck players from wandering around forever
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Sep 23, 2017 02:32
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Robindaybird posted:So those two traps are to keep stuck players from wandering around forever Or to be the nearest thing the game has to an indication that you're missing something. At least once the witch is gone, you can always fall into the chasm surrounding her house.
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Sep 23, 2017 02:57
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Nidoking posted:You've got the same GIF for the first and second emeralds. Not sure whether that's what you intended or not, which is saying something. Yep, I intended the same gif for both. The only change between the two would just be the cursor and the elfgnome being a tiny bit closer. I also edited your explanation into the update. That makes a lot more sense now, and is a weird form of kindness from Sierra.
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Sep 23, 2017 03:15
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Sep 23, 2017 04:17
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I love how Graham doesn't even trick the witch, really. He just plops the bottle down under her crooked nose and she opens it, even though she knows that it came from the seemingly bottomless pocket of a man who wants her out of the picture. He doesn't even say in a loud voice "Oh no! I just dropped my totally-not-magic bottle! I hope the witch doesn't grab it and pull out the stopper!"
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Sep 23, 2017 09:10
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Not sure if it's kinder to avoid a DMW by introducing a giant spider when it could have players scouting the town for anti-spider items.
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Sep 23, 2017 14:23
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A slightly clearer way of getting the point across might be to let Graham wander lost for a while, then take control of the character away from the player, have Graham sigh something about "Is there really no way out of here?" and sit down for a rest. Then have a plant eat him. Which still might let someone think that they need to get swallowed by a plant while carrying the right poison so that the plant will spit them back out again, but at least it would somewhat suggest that the problem might have something to do with finding a way out of the forest.
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Sep 23, 2017 14:35
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It's odd because even the worst Sierra games find some way of telling you when something bad is inevitable.
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Sep 23, 2017 15:37
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gegi posted:A slightly clearer way of getting the point across might be to let Graham wander lost for a while, then take control of the character away from the player, have Graham sigh something about "Is there really no way out of here?" and sit down for a rest. Then have a plant eat him. Or just have a "welp you're stuck here forever" death like the one that happens in the desert vault, those are hard to misconstrue.
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Sep 23, 2017 17:08
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To be fair, there is a sign at the entry way.
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Sep 23, 2017 17:43
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A lot of KQ5's weaknesses with DMW situations harken back to its story. Previous games gave you one land to wander around in. Daventry, Kolyma, Llewdor, Tamir. KQ5, the setup is you're only in Serenia briefly to "gather supplies," and then you're off on a grand adventure through the mountains, across the ocean, to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, to the temple where the cup that holds the blood of Jesus Christ resides forever. Because you're constantly moving forward, and the path back is constantly being closed off to you, it's very easy to forget to pick up an item in an earlier area and only realize later on that you need it, and you've been walking dead ever since you left. Future games would fix this... KQ6 would return to form by giving you free run of almost the entire game world like the earlier games did, though I think it dies have a couple DMW scenarios... forgetting to get the gauntlet, the River Styx water, or the handkerchief from the lady ghost all come to mind, or the items you need to conquer the Labyrinth, or the coins prior to visiting the Land of the Dead. KQ7 I don't think has any DMW situations at all. Come to think of it, I don't think SQ6 does either... They might have learned from their mistakes by the time Sierra reached the end of their run. Unfortunately those games stunk too for different reasons. Bloops Crusts fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Sep 23, 2017 |
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Sep 23, 2017 18:02
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Bloops Crusts posted:Future games would fix this... KQ6 would return to form by giving you free run of almost the entire game world like the earlier games did, though I think it dies have a couple DMW scenarios... forgetting to get the gauntlet, the River Styx water, or the handkerchief from the lady ghost all come to mind, or the items you need to conquer the Labyrinth, or the coins prior to visiting the Land of the Dead. And in the one KQ6 DMW The Labyrinth is at least kind enough to warn you if you don't have the needed items and gives you a chance to get those items, but won't stop you if you go in anyways
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Sep 23, 2017 18:30
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Bloops Crusts posted:Because you're constantly moving forward, and the path back is constantly being closed off to you, it's very easy to forget to pick up an item in an earlier area and only realize later on that you need it, and you've been walking dead ever since you left. Let's not forget that some of Sierra's other series had done similar things long before this point - Space Quest I (the rather vital cartridge at the start of the game that you might well not stumble into finding, not to mention that jetpack) and Leisure Suit Larry II (just about every item in the dang game) leap to mind immediately as games where you're constantly moving from place to place and probably missing important things at every step of the way, not to discover it until you've gone so far that you won't make the connection to the specific, obscure thing you were supposed to do. Hint books were a very lucrative business back then.
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Sep 23, 2017 22:24
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Nidoking posted:Let's not forget that some of Sierra's other series had done similar things long before this point - Space Quest I (the rather vital cartridge at the start of the game that you might well not stumble into finding, not to mention that jetpack) and Leisure Suit Larry II (just about every item in the dang game) leap to mind immediately as games where you're constantly moving from place to place and probably missing important things at every step of the way, not to discover it until you've gone so far that you won't make the connection to the specific, obscure thing you were supposed to do. Hint books were a very lucrative business back then. LSL 2 was a sore spot for Al Lowe--he really wanted to redo that one specifically with the new refreshes. Pity they died horribly due to infighting after the first one. While it had a lot of legit DMW scenarios, some of them were designed as iterative puzzles requiring frequent save/reloading because you simply couldn't know what was going to happen/what was needed. The beach and the lifeboat, especially.
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Sep 23, 2017 22:38
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Bloops Crusts posted:Dead Man Walking in KQ6 If Alexander has everything he needs to survive the labyrinth, he says "I'm ready." Otherwise, the Winged Ones' queen tells him to prepare first before coming back. Note that you only get that particular mercy once if you need it! Bloops Crusts posted:the gauntlet There's a lot of reasons why King's Quest VI is the best in the series. The writing is, of course, the main reason (I can still call off the spellcasting chants from memory, 20+ years later) but the other biggest reason is using the spoilered inventory item when you're supposed to use it. OAquinas posted:LSL 2 Among all my game manuals is my dad's photocopied LSL2 manual from the 80s, complete with the copy protection and entire strings of two-digit numbers in his handwriting. They're part of the solution for a puzzle that changes every time you start a new game. I got stuck on the same puzzle. He found that interesting when I mentioned it to him. Snorb fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Sep 23, 2017 |
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Sep 23, 2017 23:38
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