97 pieces of a 100 piece puzzle

One of the most common criticisms that I have when playing games, and that I have heard from others, is centered on feelings of frustration when it is unclear how to proceed. There's nothing worse than that feeling of "ok I finished that what now?" Frequently this is because the player is unable to identify or locate the elements needed to proceed. You clear out a room reach a door, and its locked. Ok you think what's the puzzle? What do I need to do? No puzzle nor challenge left in this room. The room is empty and it's time for you to start backtracking to figure out what you missed. Oh what fun.

Overcoming a difficult challenging is the most rewarding aspect of playing video games. However, when the challenging is simply finding the different elements of a puzzle I often find challenge is either unrewarding in success or frustrating and arbitrary in failure. Having your progress stopped because there was a hidden switch in some random corner, that you missed, can destroy immersion.

When I am tasked to complete any kind of puzzle or challenge I want all of the elements I need to succeed to at the very least accessible. I don't mean to say the puzzle should be easy or uncomplicated, I simply mean all the elements to puzzle should be available to you. Completing a rubric cube that has pieces scattered throughout your house would not be rewarding experience. It would certainly take longer to complete the cube. It would be ridiculous for a real world puzzle to force you to hunt down the pieces before you can even begin, with the exception of scavenger hunts, so why is that so many video games rely on just this sort of puzzle? The simple answer is because it's often not a puzzle or even a real challenge and requiring a player to collect a bunch of random stuff to progress is an easy way to pad out a game. When I say its not a challenge, I mean its not difficult. Hunting down four keys to open a door isn't hard. It may take time, but it rarely takes effort. After all the enemies have been cleared backtracking through a level to find a missing item isn't hard it's just annoying.

Even games that are universally loved and praised feature this game mechanic and it drives me nuts. Take Zelda Majora's Mask for instance. I recently started replaying Majora's Mask and I stopped when I was very early in. Early in the game you are required to play hide a seek with a group of children. I understand that the purpose behind this was to force you to explore and become familiar with central area, clock town, but I just couldn't muster up the motivation to go through the motions and search for them. And the dungeon design in many oft he 3D zelda titles feature hidden switches in odd corners of the room or even the ceiling that hinder your progress. 

Some games are built specifically for scavenging around for items . Most commonly point and click adventures, which saw there hay day in the 90s with titles like the King's Quest series, the various Lucas Arts titles (Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion), Grim Fandango. There is certainly merit to many of these titles, good writing and a clever placement/use of the different objects can make for a fun and rewarding experience when properly executed. I just don't feel that the actual process of finding the different objects to be rewarding or challenging in a meaningful way and have found other aspects of the games (great plots, dialogue, clever traditional puzzles) hold up the titles.

I want to distinguish collectathon games, such as Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kavooie, Spyro, or Super Mario 64 where the entire purpose of the game is to run around collecting items to proceed. In collectathons your progress will be hindered until you've collected X number of items (stars, jiggies, golden bananas). However, typically in these titles you are rewarded with the collectibles for completing tasks, and the collectibles purpose is to serve as an indication of your total progress. You can also progress and complete the game without collecting everything, so if a particular collectible is hidden in some uninitiated uninteresting corner of the map you can proceed without it.

I love challenging games, Dark Souls is my favorite series of all time, and I've had a blast with difficult puzzle games like Catherine (no relation to Cat) or Portal. I just think that when a game stops your progression and forces you to re-explore an area you've been to already to gather items to progress it comes across as lazy game design and its rarely worth of the players time. Hiding an item isn't a challenge its a chore.


Art from canceled title "Fortress" found here http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-11/frt-magic-door.html