Have Modern Gamers Lost the Patience For Puzzles?

[wraggster]

Brainy Gamer has an interesting reflection on old puzzle games and why their style of gameplay seems to be a dying art. According to the author modern gamers seem more interested in combat and seem to have lost the patience for difficult puzzles.
"Despite my fondness for the adventure games of yore, it appears the days of puzzles in narrative games have come and gone. Puzzles - especially the serial unlocking variety found in the old LucasArts games - seem to have become a relic of a bygone era. Where they once provided a necessary ludic element to a—clever and often complex narrative - designed to add challenge and force the player to earn his progress through the story - few modern players have the patience for such challenges anymore."

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/28/2031254

[osgeld]

i never had the patience for puzzles period

especially when in the middle of the most interesting part of a game *sounds horns* theres a puzzle! gah now lets spend an hour figuring out someone elses mind just so i can GO ON past this one stupid ass door

really come on, if your game is not a collection of puzzles (7th guest, pandora's box ect) and you rely on puzzles to add a challenge to your otherwise worthless "interactive movie on rails" game then you just need to quit

[agenericperson]

Wait. If this is true, I might have to quit gaming. I've been gaming for 20+ years. I don't want an interactive movie. I want a game.

[mooseknuckle2000]

I was always a big fan of "Myst style" puzzle games. Sometimes they were more rewarding than constant battling...

[Kulawend]

I think gamers are searching for a source of quick entertainment rather then a long drawn out puzzle.

[jamotto]

Developers are going for games that everyone can play and beat. Puzzle games are hard to balance the difficulty to meet the above requirement. The best they could do was something like Grim Fandango where you could get the puzzle wrong but you could still try again until you got it right.

[PoorKingz]

I hate when you get stuck and have to run around back and forth for an hour trying to find what the hell you need to do to proceed. It depends if its an intelligent, well-planned puzzle or just one that the devs thrown together to keep you busy for an hour. I did enjoy solving the puzzles in Silent Hill: Origins.

[mike_jmg]

I enjoyed solving the puzzles in Silent Hill Origins too
But for some reason I think developers made them easier, maybe a little more difficulty would've been nice.

Although there are some limits, like right now, as I really liked Silent Hill Origins, i'm playing Silent Hill 1 via pops.

And there was this damn impossible puzzle I had to look up just to get pass.

One where you need to play a piano, I spent 2 hours looking for the right combination of keys, then I left it, and the next day I kept looking, then I finaly realized the notes for the english language are C, D, E, F, G, A, B and there was a script on the wall but even then I couldn't get it

It was just stupidly hard

Puzzles are good but there are limits

[kcajblue]

i like puzzles in games, it makes them more fun i think.

i really liked the ds game professor layton and the curious village.

but yeah, puzzles in games are cool.

games with only action are good too, but it wouldnt hurt having a puzzle in there.

[WhizzBang]

Puzzles work if done well but often they aren't. The ones in Zelda games are generally well put together with clues being clear enough.

The Resident Evil series seems to have benefited from removing most of the puzzles which were usually "place object A in place X".

[JKKDARK]

I love puzzles really.

[Auriman1]

As long as the puzzle can be solved via conventional means, I'm okay with it.

[alanparker05]

Older gamers will talk about the golden age of gaming being the 8 and 16 bit days but what i remember was games that could make kids these days burst into tears and make manufacturers of control pads a lot of money with the amount being thrown against the wall in frustration i'm happy now with a nice relaxing war simulation