I have not played many adventure games and for those few I needed a lot of help like hints & walkthroughs. Now I started "Secret at Loch Ness" and have again the suspicion that I'm missing a lot. I even have trouble finding my way arround in the manor. Has this something to do with practice or am I just too daft? How do you all get through a game without cheating? Please tell me that there is still hope!

I've been playing adventure games since the "beginning of adventure gaming" and I STILL use a walkthrough for every game.....though only as a last resort. I don't know if i've ever played any game without one at some point.

I will tell you though that somewhere down the line you will get smarter and more crafty and be able to figure more things out on your own.....i guess that just comes with years of practice and playing. And of course......getting help here at Gameboomers is a MUST!!! I would be hopelessly lost without my Gameboomer buddies.

And no.....you're not dumb or daft.......a lot of adventure gaming involves convoluted thinking and doing crazy things that a normal person would never think to do!! But of course that's half the fun!!!!!!

I second everything Liz has said. I too need a wt for every adv. game. IMHO a lot of puzzles are unsolvable without one. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="confused.gif" />

Thanks guys, you made my day! Guess I'll just persevere and keep looking in the most unlikely places. I get a real buzz everytime I can pick something up, haha.

Ingrid,
Always take time to explore as much as you can because anything can be a clue. Remember to take lots of notes and save often. If you're exploring a place with many areas, draw yourself a rough sketch of the place to help you orient yourself or your character. Turn around a lot to see where you've been, and look from side to side and up and down, if the game allows it. If you've done all you could in an area but still think you're missing something, check a walkthrough or hints page. Ditto with tough puzzles. Usually just the smallest hint will get you going again, but sometimes you need a fuller explanation, expecially when it's a quirky one. The game designer's logic may not be yours, and sometimes just figuring out what you are expected do is half the battle. Remember, adventure games are supposed to be fun. Anything you do to make them more enjoyable for yourself is what counts.

Lady K.

Ingrid, As Lady K can definitely tell you, EVERYONE needs help. She just helped me with my latest game. Thanks Lady K! You're the best. I can get really frustrated and feel very stupid when I play. There is such a buzz when things do go right and I can move on to the next puzzle. It all comes down to enjoying yourself, so remember you are definitely not alone.

Lorlor

I almost always have to check a walkthru at sometime during a game, but I DO remember when I first started playing adventures and there were no walkthrus, ( that I could find anyway ) it could take me months to finish a game, the only games that I can say that I didnt have SOME kind of help from a walkthru were GK 1, and Shivers, I WAS able to get a few hints from some other gamers that had already played them at a prodigy board I used to belong to,but that was about it, I LOVE the fact that now you can just get online and easily get help or a walkthru, because as Johnboy said some things are just unsolvable without some kind of help. And for the gaming snobs who say they NEVER use a walkthru, well...
personally, I dont believe it.

Ingrid just click on Walkthroughs at top of this page then C for Cameron Files Secret at Loch Ness and print out your walkthrough

Thanks for all your advice! I made a rough map of the manor house, this safes me a lot of time finding my way from one room to another. I always read a WT before I start the game just to have an idea when it gets hairy - don't like nasty surprises jumping out of cupboards! This time though I will only refer to the WT when I'm absolutely stuck.
You people are terrific, always willing to give a novice like me a helping hand!

But nasty things jumping out of cupboards are what makes these games fun!

Lady K.

I love the adventure games--have trouble with the RPGs tho-can't seem to hit those nasty creatures! I always have to use a WT but I still enjoy the games.

I played quite a few games without a w/t, only because there wasen't one that I could find...matter of fact, I didn't know there was such a thing when I played Shivers 1 and the first KQ games..{guess that "dates" me LOL} The only way I was able to get through "Shivers 1" was the great big manual that came with it that gave some hints! Funny thing is....If you play without a w/t you remember a lot more of the game!! Anyone remember the "potions" you had to mix to make "spells" in KQ3??? You not only had to mix the "potions" you had to type in the mixtures, if you misspelled one thing or left out a comma..it was no good! I don't remember how long it took me to play that game, but I didn't have to worry about a new game coming out for a long time!! ROFL Glynn

Maybe I'm getting too old for this kind of excitement LOL. I remember that nerve wrecking scene in Tex Murphy Overseer where I had to break into some cabin and hide in the wardrobe and then behind a shower curtain. When I finally made it out of there alive (after 20 attempts!!) I was a nervous wreck. Maybe not the best game to start with, now I'm playing the more sedate ones to practice before I tackle another "blood & gutser".

Ingrid, I played Loch Ness twice, and I had trouble finding my own room!! Those hallways were the pits! :-) Glynn

Teehee....Just wait til you have to take the "swim" in Loch Ness...I am playing Conspiracies now, and would you believe...I am still in the habit of closing every drawer, door and cabinet that I open "Thanks Tex"!! LOL

I'm more WALKTHROUGH-ER than ADVENTUERGAME-R.

Thanks for warning me, Glynn. I'm really looking forward to that (not)! Now talk about daft: I started that game yesterday and did everything as prescribed. When I took up today where I left yesterday I still couldn't get out of the manor. It took me ages to discover that I hadn't saved my game yesterday!There you have it, maybe I should be doing crossword puzzles instead.

I do "jigsaw" puzzles when I really get stuck in a game, crossword puzzles are too taxing on my tiny brain! LOL Glynn

So do I - the ones with 80 pieces

YES!! I could live with that! :-)

Oh! I just had an idea for Rusty's next nosey question of the week. What was the most personally embarrassing stupid thing you've ever done in a game? How many times have you had to re-do a level because you forgot to save? AND it was a simple answer! How about letting some simple little monster kill you while you're not paying enough attention? I'm not even sure I would answer these! <img border="0" alt="" title="" src="graemlins/woozy.gif" />

Lorlor

Well, there's one for starters. It wasn't playing the game but getting it. There was this game on Ebay that I badly wanted so I decided to snipe it. I kept watching it like a hawk, heart racing, palms sweating.... Then I pounced - my personal best with 3 sec to spare - and I was the only bidder!!

Ingrid, thats priceless!!! Good practise for bidding on other games though!!

I often have Duh moments when gaming, at least one per game!!! One thing which has made me turn more to walkthroughs is the fact that in some games you can have done Everything right, but have to wait for a specific time slot before you can move on (a couple of instances of this in Black Mirror) so you start to wonder if you have missed something important.

The more games I play, the better I become but there are some puzzles which floor me.... Schizm springs to mind immediately!!

Oh have you tried any of the Nancy Drew games?? Theres an easy mode or hard mode (for puzzle difficulty)

Hugs

Tig

In graduate school I took a course called Cognition and Information Retrieval that dealt with "cognitive processing and concept formation to the case of humans interacting with information storage and retrieval systems." This basically means the way we think will determine a search term that we come up with that may or may not match up with the search term the creator of the database or storage system implemented. In this course we also discussed how poorly designed objects (or puzzles) can make us feel stupid when we can't figure them out. An example is the stove top - on most of them the four buttons for each burner don't make logical sense as to which one they turn on. Even after using my stove for two years I still have to look at the diagram. And I think this would apply to game puzzles as well - you aren't stupid - the puzzle is either poorly designed or you aren't thinking like the designer of it.

Anyway whenever I get stumped with a puzzle or object that makes me feel stupid I remember this course and what I got of it - "You're not stupid, it's designed poorly." :-)

Thanks KWBRIDGE, I thought I was the only one in the world who still had to at the diagram on my stove after two years!! AND before that, the one I had for 20 yrs!! I can't think of a way they could be "labled" that would make sense to me..unless they could put a "toggle" in the center of each burner! LOL Glynn