Hi all,

What are some of your personal rules of gaming? I always look at everything I pick up and put in inventory. If I don't, sooner or later I get stuck, and really need the help of the gamers here. I find I have to overrule my personal objection to being (nosey) to play games.

Charllotte

Same as you, Charllotte, anything I pick up into inventory I straightaway examine, in close-up if possible, to make sure I get all the info I can from it. Same with any books or documents I collect along the way -- I open 'em up, read them back-to-front, cover-to-cover, so that the game recognises I've done so. It's so easy to get stuck in a game and have no idea why, until it turns out it was just down to an unexamined inventory item, or an unread document.

Ditto here. I search a room corner to corner, look at everything like it could be a clue, write down numbers and where I found them etc. Leave no stone unturned!

Me too !!

Good question! When I'm stuck, I look to see if I've missed an oddly placed directional arrow. A good portion of the time, I've simply missed a new area to explore.

I also pick up everything, though there are games with limited inventory slots, so eventually you have to choose what can be thrown away. It is sometimes helpful to keep going back to talk some more with people, even after you think you've gotten all the info you can from them (especially after talking with a third person).

Does anybody else try to shut doors behind them or return borrowed items? It feels right to do, but it rarely works.

I think it was a Tex Murphy game that had one place where you had to restore the area to the appearance it had before you got there.

Yes, I try to shut doors and turn off faucets and close drawers and return borrowed items (unless they're REALLY cool).

I do the same!

Same rules. I think because of the inherent nature of adventure games and the rules we learn over the years playing them, most of us share an "obsessive" similar style of gameplay rules. Good question!!!

I, too, try to shut doors because something vital could be hanging on the back of one !!

I also try to combine everything with everything in my inventory just in case the game thinks it might go together for some reason. I also get a lot of messages telling me that those items don't go together. But, you never know.

Thanks all,
Now I don't feel so foolish trying to put things back and shut doors and drawers, it must be up bringing or some such thing.

Charllotte

Although I don't usually close doors or return borrowed items, I HATE to leave a faucet running.

From what I remember in one of the early Broken Sword games, leaving a faucet running in one instance resulted in a flooded cellar.

It was in Ireland at the pub, Broken Sword I, right?

Charllotte

Yes! I couldn't remember if it was BS 1 or 2.

Definitely BS 1. I'll fess up, I left the faucet running in the basement.

Gil.

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If the game lets me shut something off or close it, I usually do. I remember the flooded basement!

Also, I write down everything oddly displayed, like numbers on a wall, or markings in a book or on a carving, etc. They usually play into it.

Talk to everybody; go back and talk to them again to make sure you don't need to trigger access to another scene.

Combine everything in your inventory with everything else, and don't be afraid to use that piano in inventory to knock in a nail; often the oddest things are supposed to be used in the scene, to complete a machine or perform an operation; it does not always follow logic!