In some games suddenly you find yourself trying to do something against the clock, there's a visible health bar on the screen and it's ticking going down, you have to find the antidote before you expire etc. Definitely a timed sequence.

In other games you may cause a NPC to move temporarily which gives you a limited time to accomplish something? Would people call this a timed sequence? Not as bad as having a health bar going down I agree, but still the kind of sequence which can drive me to consult a walkthrough after repeating it vainly several times.

I consider anything to be timed, if I cannot sit back and stare at the computer without pausing the game, or answering the phone, or making a potty stop. I expect my games to sit here and wait till I get back without worrying I'm going to die. Unless of course its a FPS or RPG.

Ana :Wave:

I like to call the second type 'timing sequences' since they are similar to timed sequences but rely on having good timing, and do not pose a time limit.
However that is a bad and confusing name.

I agree with Ana. Being able to play at your own leisure and pace is really what distinguishes adventure games from the rest of the pack (or it should be!). Any puzzle that limits you to a number of tries is a potential source of frustration, too.

The text adventure Lydia's Heart has a few sequences of the latter type you mention (distracting NPCs, with limited attempts), and just hearing of them has me wary of playing very far into the game, if that says anything.

I don't mind tension in other genres, but this is definitely one case where I don't want your chocolate in my peanut butter!

Your peanut butter in my chocolate? YUM! But I get it and I hate it when I encounter timed sequences or timed tasks in my Nancy Drew games! Having to request someone else's saved game to get me past it/them is frustrating and embarrassing too - especially after I spend a lot of time attempting to succeed at the task and fail time after time. Not fun in my book. As far as I am concerned, any task that runs out of time before you succeed at it to open or unlock something or save your own skin is a "timed puzzle". And I don't like them at all
Love, Betty Lou

It's definitely a timed sequence, and I would say the type without a health bar is worse because you have no idea how much time you have left and whether you're on schedule to be finished in time.

Despite them having appeared in adventure games right from the very early days, I don't enjoy timed sequences (especially those that mean having to repeat a lengthy section after every failed attempt) and never have

Too much of that sort of thing and I lose interest in the game because I don't find it at all exciting, I just get annoyed and fed up !!

In adventure games, tension and excitement etc can easily be injected via cut scenes as has successfully been the case many times

Thanks for the input all. It may not be real world, but like Ana and others I like to play games in a relaxed way not feeling I'm under pressure.

I stopped playing "Nostradamus" when I hit the timed sequence towards the end.

Kickaha -- Malcolm Schmidt found a way that eliminates the timer on that last sequence. If you're interested:

Thanks Becky - there are resourceful people around!