Are the Puzzles in Monkey Island 2 Unfair? (Playthrough Complete - Spoil Away!)

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

So I've been playing the Special Edition re-release of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge for the past few weeks and I'm really not loving it. Just a few short years ago, I was able to make my way through the original Monkey Island without any hints or guides and I don't remember it being overly frustrating. There were definitely a few puzzles that made no sense, but I eventually figured them out without bashing my head against the keyboard.

Monkey Island 2 is a totally different beast. I'm only on part two (gathering the map pieces) and I've already run into multiple inane, illogical, and unfair puzzles. I know this is par for the course for classic adventure games and there are certainly harder ones out there, but this game has an amazing reputation that seems unearned right now. Having to brute force my way through the game by trialing every possible combination of objects is really sucking the fun out of the experience. The special edition has a built-in hint system, but I don't see the point of playing the game if I'm going to remove the only gameplay that exists (i.e. puzzle solving).

So are these puzzles just bad? Am I just bad at them? Should I use the hints? Or should I just skip the game entirely and watch a Let's Play to enjoy the writing and story?

-Puzzled in Paradise

Edited July 10, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

I can only add that I went through Monkey Island twice, but gave up on Monkey Island 2 because I repeatedly got stuck.

[erac | 78]

I think I had to look up the solutions to all the insult swordfights, and some of the other puzzles too. (not sure which game the swordfights were in, it's been like 15 years since I played these)

[Sumez | 2,952]

Maybe by modern "standards", where you can't "afford" to sit still in any game for more than a couple of minutes?

Classic adventure games are about taking in all the little details of the world, picking up on obscure hints, and maybe walking around aimlessly for a while, maybe even a couple of days, and then return to the game with fresh eyes and realise what you had missed.

Yes, some games do have puzzles that are just a little too obscure, but Monkey Island 2 is one of the best games of the genre at evading those, and LucasArts' games in general over the more uneven nature of the Sierra ones. There is always some twisted logic to the solution of every obstacle in the game. I guess one challenge is getting into the right mindset. When you examine items or try blindly using items on other items, always pay attention to what Guybrush is saying, because it could be an obscure hint at the correct thing to do, or it could just be a joke.

I think if you do end up taking the walkthrough/hint way, or even brute forcing some puzzles, you might end up in a situation where the puzzle feels more "unfair" than it really is, because you skipped the path where you're gradually clued in on the solution.
As a kid (who wasn't even very good at English at the time, and didn't pick up on language-centric puns like "monkey wrench") I made it through all of Monkey Island 2 without using any guides, but it did take a few weeks. Loved the game all the same.

3 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

The special edition has a built-in hint system, but I don't see the point of playing the game if I'm going to remove the only gameplay that exists

Hell yes, I'm glad you stick to this take. Stick to not using the hint system, and definitely don't just watch a let's play. Monkey Island 2 is one of my favourite games.

Do you have any examples of puzzles that you are currently stuck on, or puzzles that you felt were really bad? I'd be curious to know if there's anything you missed.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Sumez

[ifightdragons | 234]

I really like the game, but yeah, a lot of the puzzles feel illogical compared to the rest of the series!

[Tanooki | 4,934]

I'll leave this here, notice the link, then look at the first image supplied as an example then read through what is going on and you'll feel right at home with the suffering.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoonLogicPuzzle

 

For those not wanting to click that, the image to highlight the trope is Monkey Island 2, and if you expand gaming examples it has its own section dedicated to it, which includes the monkey wrench image there.

[guitarzombie | 924]

I played almost every one of those LucasArts games.  I loved Monkey Island and when I played them I hardly try to use a guide unless im really stuck.  I had a REALLY tough time with Monkey Island 2.  I thought some of the puzzles were over the top.  I remember one puzzle (that I think I figured out accidentally) that really left a bad taste in my mouth.  You get into this maze or something and you get to a locked door.  I looked around for a key for a while and nothing.  Turns out, if you just 'open' the door it opens, even though it appears to be locked visually.  

[guitarzombie | 924]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I'll leave this here, notice the link, then look at the first image supplied as an example then read through what is going on and you'll feel right at home with the suffering.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoonLogicPuzzle

 

For those not wanting to click that, the image to highlight the trope is Monkey Island 2, and if you expand gaming examples it has its own section dedicated to it, which includes the monkey wrench image there.

This was a fun thing to check out and something I actually forgot the name of.  Im surprised they didnt mention the inner door code for Maniac Mansion as a Moon Logic Puzzle.  I think it should be up there.

[Sumez | 2,952]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I'll leave this here, notice the link, then look at the first image supplied as an example then read through what is going on and you'll feel right at home with the suffering.

Just to be clear, the idea behind this trope isn't bad game design, as the page also clearly states:

To find the solution, you have to look at the problem in a way that may seem entirely unintuitive on its face. This is not a Guide Dang It!; all the information you need to complete your objective is right there in the source. Some people will be able to make the intuitive leap almost immediately, others will struggle for hours and still never spot the bend in logic that leads to the answer.

(...)

Failed attempts at creating a moon logic puzzle, on the other hand, will have the player screaming at the ceiling in rage upon reading the solution, and are generally unsolvable except by accident. The worst offenders cross the threshold from "convoluted but comprehensible logic" into Non Sequitur or even pure Insane Troll Logic

Edited July 5, 2021 by Sumez

[guitarzombie | 924]

46 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Just to be clear, the idea behind this trope isn't bad game design, as the page also clearly states:

To find the solution, you have to look at the problem in a way that may seem entirely unintuitive on its face. This is not a Guide Dang It!; all the information you need to complete your objective is right there in the source. Some people will be able to make the intuitive leap almost immediately, others will struggle for hours and still never spot the bend in logic that leads to the answer.

(...)

Failed attempts at creating a moon logic puzzle, on the other hand, will have the player screaming at the ceiling in rage upon reading the solution, and are generally unsolvable except by accident. The worst offenders cross the threshold from "convoluted but comprehensible logic" into Non Sequitur or even pure Insane Troll Logic

Im fairly confident that the only reason why those games used bizarre puzzles is purely to extend the life of the game from when games were smaller and could only do so much.  But after a while, it's not about cleverness but just trying any random combination of things to figure something out.  Thats why I didn't like MI2 because it seemed to be over the top where as Day of the Tentacle/MI 1 weren't as confusing but more about being a bit clever.  

The reason why I brought up Maniac Mansion was from an experience when I was a kid.  I played and figured out everything in that game, and everything made sense.  Of course there are some dead ends but they were accidental.  Nothing I was totally stuck on that I couldn't figure out intuitively.  So I got to the inner door code and I said to myself "Where the hell did I see a 4 digit code?".  Theres one to call Edna, the house address IIRC, and the safe.  I tried all of those and nothing worked.  (Side note, I said "well I must start from the beginning" and put in all 0s thinking I would have to put in 10,000 digits and the door opened.  I shit a brick).

When I got older I learned what you were supposed to do: 

 

Theres a cutscene where Dr. Fred plays an arcade game.  The last cutscene the game gives you I think.  Before when you get there, none of the arcades work.  So you go back and they STILL don't work.  How did he use it?  Maybe it was just a scene added just for fun.  Well what you have to do is,

- Use the Yellow Key from the Green Tentacles room on the trunk of the Weird Edsel to get the tools (and need to have used the Hunk O Matic to be strong enough to open the garage door). 

- Open the grate under the house and have a kid turn on the water pump, so another kid can go into the pool and grab the radio.  Open the radio for the batteries and put them in the flashlight.  Also the kid has to have used the Hunk O Matic to be strong enough to open the grate, which again is not obvious because you have to remove a bush.

- Make sure to grab the paint remover on the paint blotch (and if you use the paint remover on anything else you've technically lost the game).  That shows a door that goes to an attic with exposed wires. 

- You need another kid to push the loose gargoyle, so another kid can go in and turn of the power so you can use the kid with the tools to work on the wires.  Also making sure you have the batteries in the flashlight so he can see.  Then when you're done turn the power back on.

- Now the powers on for the arcade but you cant play it without a quarter. 

- You need to lure Weird ed out of his room so a kid can open the piggy bank to get the dimes.

- Make sure you fill up a jar with the radioactive pool water and have a can of pepsi to give the man eating plant.  So the water will make him grow, but then pepsi wont make him aggressive anymore.  Now you can reach the hole in the attic which has a giant telescope.

- Get another kid to distract Enda by either repairing the telephone with the tools (if you have Benard or Jeff) or getting thrown in the dungeon while another sneaks in there to go up the ladder.  

- Once up the ladder, you turn on the light and see a painting.  You have to open the painting to reveal a safe but the combination is too small to read.

- The other kid using the telescope has to put the dimes in the coinslot and turn the telescope twice to the right.  If you waste your dimes or go in the wrong direction you lock the game because you dont have enough dimes to move the telescope back.  Another thing the game doesn't tell you.

- Once you see the combination, you can open the safe which has an envelope with a quarter inside.  Once coming down the ladder make sure you get the small key (which you'll probably be thrown in the dungeon again).

- Get the kid out of the dungeon and now you have the quarter to play an arcade game.  

THE INNER DOOR CODE IS THE HIGH SCORE DOCTOR FRED GETS ON THE METEOR MESS GAME.  Something the game doesn't tell you at all aside from showing him playing the arcade game.  But how would you even know to do that?  Also there are OTHER scores listed there too.  You have to do all those steps just for 4 numbers.  If the game even hinted by Dr. Fred saying "I had to change the inner door code again.  But I got some inspiration from my favorite Arcade game" it would be perfectly acceptable.

 

I might add that in order to circumvent this, they wanted to add a feature where if Jeff gets electrocuted, he would tell you the inner door code, as hinted by him guessing lotto numbers, in a poster that came with the game.  So Jeff, although usesless, could be very strong so you can bypass all that stuff and get an inner door code, but they took that out.  So to technically beat the game in ANY way (aside from the 0000 glitch), you have to do all of that to get the inner door code.  

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Well I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking that MI2 is significantly tougher than the original and that a lot of the puzzles are nonsensical. Nothing has been close to the convoluted mess @guitarzombie just described for Maniac Mansion, but a few certainly come to mind. I'd be willing to wager that no human ever beat this game through pure logic. Even the best gamer would have to resort to some straight up trial & error.

So far I've gathered a 2/4 map pieces and this is how they played out. I don't consider this puzzle particularly bad, although the solution was frustrating in its simplicity.

Spoiler

1. After solving a ridiculously difficult handsign puzzle, I visit Elaine in the Governor's Mansion, where the first map piece flies out the window.
2. Chasing it eventually leads me to a cliff edge where it's stuck on a branch, just out of reach.
3. At this point I brainstormed some ideas (e.g. use a rope, ladder, long stick, etc). I tried what I had and nothing worked. I also had never seen any of those items in the game yet, so I was a bit stuck.
4. Eventually I talked to the fisherman on another island and realized he would give me his fishing pole if I beat him a fishing contest. I felt like that would be a good item to use and get the map piece.
5. I quickly realized there is no way to fish in the game, so I'd have to find a large fish somewhere. I then remembered there were some fish in a bucket in the kitchen of the Governor's Mansion, so I went back there. I kept luring the cook out and tried every item combination possible, but he wouldn't let me walk in the kitchen. Frustrated, I explored for a while and checked out a whole bunch of library books about fishing, but that was a dead end (although I did give one to the fisherman with no obvious result).
6. After exhausting literally every possibility in the game, I went back to the kitchen. When the cook came out to chase me away, I just exited the screen. And he followed me. That was it. I just had to move to a different screen, circle back around, walk freely into the kitchen and take the damn fish.
7. I take the fish to fisherman, he admits I won the contest and gives me his pole.
8. I use the pole to collect the map piece.

So this mostly makes logical sense and doesn't require any crazy mental leaps. Even so, this still took a ton of time just walking around, talking to people, reading library books, and trying different items to stop the cook from blocking me. That being said, I think it's quite likely that some people solved this very quickly. I just can't believe the solution was to simply do a lap around the house. It doesn't fit with any other solution in the game up to that point. Anyways, a decent puzzle.

How about something way less logical? I present map piece number two.

Spoiler

1. After roaming around, you eventually find that a shopkeeper on Booty Island has a second piece of the map. He wants $6 million or a figurehead from a sunken ship in exchange.
2. Okay, I'm obviously not going to come up with $6 million so I must need to get the figurehead. I assume that this figurehead has either washed up on one of these islands or I need to navigate to the shipwreck and retrieve it. Well, my ship won't take me anywhere but the three islands I've already seen, so that's not it. There is, however, a glass bottom boat available for rent nearby, so that's probably part of the solution.
3. Unfortunately, glass bottom boat rental costs $6000, so I need to make some money. I can make a little gambling in the alley after solving the stupid handsign puzzle, but not enough to matter. The only other way I can think to make money is winning a spitting contest, but no matter what I do I cannot win.
4. The spitting game appears to be some type of puzzle involving which order I choose my spitting technique, but the result is totally random. So I figure there must be a specific order for inputting the commands. I go to the library to find a book about spitting. I look through every single book, but there is nothing.
5. I go back to the shopkeeper and buy every single item he has. I now have a shit ton of items and don't know how or where to use them. I also can't find any way to combine them. Through sheer luck, I eventually discover that I can blow the ship's horn whenever I'm outside, but nothing seems to happens when I do.
6. I go to every location and talk with every character. The only thing I find is that I can now use my library card as an ID to buy booze. I buy all the different types of booze and combine them in ever way possible, but this doesn't really give me any answers. When I try to drink the standard drinks, Guybrush just says they taste gross.
7. I literally spend hours roaming around and I'm starting to hate the game. I finally, accidentally realize that if you blow the ship's horn on Booty Island near the shopkeeper, it triggers an event. There is an old man next to a cannon waiting for the mail ship to come in. When he hears the horn, he fires the cannon which signals to others on the island to come check for mail. This causes the spitting contest judge to run over.
8. Realizing this must have something to do with winning the spitting contest, I move over to that area and blow the horn again. It causes the old man to fire the cannon and the judge runs off, which lets me move the markers for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place closer. I did it! I'm so happy!
9. I enter the spitting contest expecting to win... and find that I can still only get second place with my best spit. Blowing the horn doesn't send the judge away anymore, so I can't move the markers closer. I am demoralized and consider quitting the game.
10. After another hour or so of checking all the library books and trying every item combination, I finally drink the green drink. There is no way you could know to drink this drink, no hint or anything. But once you do, Guybrush says something about how it thickens his saliva. Mother fucker.
11. I go back, drink the green stuff, and win the spitting contest. But no, this doesn't get you $6,000. It gets you a plaque. Mother fucker.
12. Thankfully, the next step is simple. Take the plaque to the shopkeeper, sell for $6000.
13. Hire glassbottom boat which lets you choose a spot on the ocean map to explore. Sadly, I don't know where the treasure.
14. Thankfully, I've read every book in the library fifty times at this point and I know there is a book that has the coordinates listed. I memorize them.
15. Finally, I take the boat to the correct coordinates, get the figurehead, trade for the map piece, and thank God that I'm done.

Anyone who tries to tell me this puzzle can be solved by cold hard logic and intuition is deluded. It requires brute forcing on multiple occasions without so much as a single line of dialog to make the connection.

Ugh. We're not even going to talk about the monkey wrench. The only reason that one didn't stump is because it has such a strong reputation that I had already heard about it and knew it would require some alternative logic.

Edited July 5, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[Sumez | 2,952]

1 hour ago, guitarzombie said:

Im fairly confident that the only reason why those games used bizarre puzzles is purely to extend the life of the game from when games were smaller and could only do so much. 

Eh, depends on your perspective maybe?

I'd say it's kind of in the same way Contra adds enemies that shoot at you, because if you can just walk to the end, the game is over much faster.

That's an oversimplification of course, but the bizarre puzzles is the game. I've played adventure games (mostly newer games of the genre, or games for kids) where the solution to a puzzle is just the straightforward logical answer, and there's really no satisfaction to doing these. You're just going through the motions and moving to the end of the game. Puzzles feel like a hurdle that's slowing you down, rather than a full on obstacle that you need to use your wits to overcome.

Of course, making and balancing puzzles like this is exceptionally hard, and you can easily make them too either too obvious or too obscure. It's hard to predict the unique mindset of every single person playing your game, and it only takes one clue that doesn't click with a player to lose part of your audience.

With that in mind, LucasArts's adventure games are never perfect, but pretty god damn close compared to everything else out there. It's pretty amazing to me what a good job they did at pouring just the right amount of pointers in your direction without ever telling you any solution outright.

I'm not really going into details about your Maniac Mansion example, because I think honestly that game suffers from plenty of bad puzzles. It's an early Ron Gilbert game before he found his stride, and for every unique and charming thing the game does, there's a bunch of much bigger issues with it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are certain combination of kids that are able to get you into unwinnable scenarios. The game does a lot of the things, LucasArts would later on swear off completely, and even ridicule.

[Sumez | 2,952]

1 hour ago, DoctorEncore said:

Anyone who tries to tell me this puzzle can be solved by cold hard logic and intuition is deluded. It requires brute forcing on multiple occasions without so much as a single line of dialog to make the connection.

Hmm, it feels to me you are approaching the puzzles in the right way, but thinking of them the other way around. "How to get the map piece" isn't the puzzle. The map piece is the end goal, and it's never right in front of you. You'll never have any idea how to go about it at first.

Playing a game like this isn't about trying to draw a path back from the end goal, or at least not until you get close enough that you have all the pieces to do so. Usually information about things you can do is only given to you when you are able to do so, or a single step from it.

What you have, at any point in the game, is a series of lose ends. Though the game has red herrings (the first game has a literal one), almost anything you can interact with has a purpose. So you might have items you haven't find a use for, or knowledge that sounds like it should come in handy, but no idea where, and of course you typically have a bunch of locations with items you can't acquire for whatever reason, or things that react to something you do, but no idea why it is in the game. And the core gameplay of course, is to connect these loose ends, and the challenge comes from not knowing whether you already have the other end or not.

Trying to brute force them can some times help, but it's never the real answer, and a quick way to get frustrated rather than feeling enlightened from actually figuring it out. I think the LucasArts games are generally pretty good at giving you just enough options, however, that brute forcing is never really viable.

In your second example, you obviously have not one puzzle, but a whole bunch of apparently completely disconnected puzzles. You have the spitting contest, the glass bottom boat, the shop keeper, the bar, and so on. All things you encounter early on in this chapter, but don't know yet how to approach.
While you sound annoyed that the spitting contest was a two-part solution, to me that's a good example of the things that elevates this game, and really proves how well thought out it is.  From your writeup, it sounds to me you only really had two genuine issues that got in your way. 1. Not knowing what to do with the alcohol mixing, and 2. Not knowing that the ship horn would have an effect in one specific location. Sounds to me like you had an unfortunate experience with those that definitely can't be defended, at least from that perspective.

Unfortunately I can't really remember much about either, as you can only play a game like this completely blind once, and in my case that was 26 years ago. But I do remember that I had the green drink before I knew what do do with it, so I definitely didn't have your experience here. As for the cannon? Honestly, I don't remember that being an issue either. I do remember being able to make the guy leave and have no idea what to use that for. I think being able to interact with the goal markers just never crossed my mind, so to me that was my obstacle.

One curious thing though is how the game does something I think is really great, but apparently caused you frustration. After moving the markers, the game doesn't allow you to cause the event that does this again. To me, that's a very clear cut way for the game to tell me that I did something correctly, and made progress. If it felt to you like you made a mistake and the game mistakenly doesn't allow you to correct that, you and the game probably aren't talking quite the same language yet. And I get it, in a lesser adventure game (especially older Sierra ones), this could have easily been the case. But in a LucasArts adventure game newer than the first two, you can easily rest assured that the game is completely reliable with these things.  
With the issues you are having, there are a lot of Sierra games that I imagine you'd absolutely hate, hehe.

[guitarzombie | 924]

30 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Of course, making and balancing puzzles like this is exceptionally hard, and you can easily make them too either too obvious or too obscure. It's hard to predict the unique mindset of every single person playing your game, and it only takes one clue that doesn't click with a player to lose part of your audience.

With that in mind, LucasArts's adventure games are never perfect, but pretty god damn close compared to everything else out there. It's pretty amazing to me what a good job they did at pouring just the right amount of pointers in your direction without ever telling you any solution outright.

I'm not really going into details about your Maniac Mansion example, because I think honestly that game suffers from plenty of bad puzzles. It's an early Ron Gilbert game before he found his stride, and for every unique and charming thing the game does, there's a bunch of much bigger issues with it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are certain combination of kids that are able to get you into unwinnable scenarios. The game does a lot of the things, LucasArts would later on swear off completely, and even ridicule.

Absolutely, and I agree.  The balance is tough, but I feel ultimately there should be some logic OR way of hinting to the player the direction they need to go in, in order to solve it.  LucasArts def are the best.  Ive played all up until after Day (So Grim, Sam/Max, The Dig) and thats why I was so surprised by MI2 because I felt it lacked what made MI1 great.  Fun challenging, not "I spent 2 hours on this and can't think of anything else".  I beat Myst without a guide and that was challenging but nothing I felt was obtuse except for the rail puzzle mentioned in that link.  I used a pen/paper for the majority of that game.  MI2 was the game I struggled with the most, aside from Zak McKraken, because that really needed multiple playthrus to learn where to go since money was limited.

TBH, I think the best game of all of them and of all time is Thimbleweed Park.  I also love how theres a hint option but you can take it as far as you want.  Maybe you just need a push in the right direction so you know where to look (maybe missing an item that wasnt picked up because its not in an obvious place?) or just tell me what to do so I can move on.  

Each game has a few challenging things but ultimately, I just felt MI2 was too obtuse.  MAYBE one day i'll play it again but I really didn't enjoy it.  Which is a shame because it looked beautiful.  

[Abelardo | 154]

LucasArts had a hint line that charged per minute, the motivation to make the puzzles really difficult to figure out was there. I remember reading a review where they mentioned it was good thing they included the in game hint system as a substitute for the old hint line.

[Sumez | 2,952]

59 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

TBH, I think the best game of all of them and of all time is Thimbleweed Park.  I also love how theres a hint option but you can take it as far as you want.  Maybe you just need a push in the right direction so you know where to look (maybe missing an item that wasnt picked up because its not in an obvious place?) or just tell me what to do so I can move on.  

I never used the hint system in Thimbleweed Park even once, so I guess subjectively I think it shouldn't be there. But I can understand why they put it there, nowadays there's a much bigger risk of losing your audience. However, I also think that serves just to prove how well designed the puzzles are. Thimbleweed Park is an absolutely exemplary demonstration of how to design good adventure game puzzles. Some of them really had me puzzled for a long time, but always left me with just enough clues to figure out the solution, and I can't think of a single bad one.

If anything they might have been a little "too" good, because I got through the game way too fast, in a couple of days at most, but it's hard to really fault the game for that. The bulk of the puzzles felt really satisfying to solve, and that's what matters.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

One curious thing though is how the game does something I think is really great, but apparently caused you frustration. After moving the markers, the game doesn't allow you to cause the event that does this again. To me, that's a very clear cut way for the game to tell me that I did something correctly, and made progress. If it felt to you like you made a mistake and the game mistakenly doesn't allow you to correct that, you and the game probably aren't talking quite the same language yet.

While I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on many aspects of adventure game design, I do agree with you here. This game does a nice job of letting you know when you accomplished an important task. I wasn't really frustrated that I couldn't move the markers again, just frustrated that the puzzle wasn't complete after so many hours of wandering.

As for your argument that the focus should be on the small puzzles, I disagree. I think adventure games are at their best when the player can see the prize (i.e the map piece) and has to work backwards in a logical, if convoluted, manner to obtain it. Of course, the small puzzles make up the bulk of the game and they need to be interesting, but they are meaningless without the context of the greater goal. That's why the series of puzzles which leads to collecting the first map piece is high quality.

I don't think it's good game design to expect the player to just buy every item and complete every activity without a reason for doing so. That's how 95% of old adventure games work and I don't think it deserves praise. There is a reason games aren't designed like that anymore and the reason isn't that players became 'weak" or "impatient." It's because players now have hundreds of other options for entertainment and they don't want to spend 20 hours walking around aimlessly repeating the same conversations until they get lucky or something clicks. We don't have to put up with aspects of games that aren't fun. Also, don't forget that this game shipped with an easy mode on many platforms since the designers knew it was filled with convoluted puzzles.

Another puzzle that's killing me right now is getting the crypt key from the coffin salesman and it perfectly illustrates my point.

Spoiler

 

During the course of conversation, he will get inside the coffin and I can close the lid. This should give me an opportunity to grab the crypt key hanging on the wall, but the game won't let me, even if I walk over to it before he pops out. So, I'm assuming I need to trap him in the coffin so I can run over and steal the key, but I can't figure out how. I tried putting a heavy book on the lid but that didn't work. I tried quickly using the fishing pole to grab the key before he pops out. I won't go into detail, but I tried a ton of other things with no luck.

One promising lead is that there is a woodsmith on Scabb Island with a hammer and nails, so maybe I could use those. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to get them and there are no obvious hints as to what I need to do.

But let's back up further so I can illustrate the real problem with this puzzle. Why am I trying to get the crypt key? BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY THING I HAVE AVAILABLE TO DO RIGHT NOW. That is not an interesting motivator in a game that's supposed to reward you for using your brain to solve puzzles.

What is in the crypt that I need? Why do I need it? I don't know and that makes this puzzle much less interesting to solve. I assume it will start me on some series of quests which will eventually lead to a map piece. Furthermore, I know there is a building on Scabb Island which is locked and was owned by one of the people who had the treasure map. So I'm assuming the crypt puzzle will eventually give me access to that building. I also know the voodoo lady keeps mentioning using ashes for some kind of spell. So maybe I get some ashes from the crypt, bring someone back to life, they let me into the Weenie Hut, and then maybe I get a map piece. But that's all just assumptions based on context of other puzzles I foresee coming up. It does nothing to help me solve the current puzzle.

 

And that is why I do not think many of these puzzles are well designed.

Edited July 5, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[guitarzombie | 924]

Oh @DoctorEncore sorry for spoiling part of the game!  I thought you finished and that was your conclusion.  

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

2 minutes ago, guitarzombie said:

Oh @DoctorEncore sorry for spoiling part of the game!  I thought you finished and that was your conclusion.  

No worries. When I start seeing references to puzzles within the game, I just skim over them. I'll update the title to reflect my current playthrough status though.

[Gloves | 11,779]

Ifnkovhgroghprm.

[G-type | 2,482]

I suck at these kind of games. I think the only one I beat without hints was Space Quest 3.

[Sumez | 2,952]

6 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

As for your argument that the focus should be on the small puzzles, I disagree. I think adventure games are at their best when the player can see the prize (i.e the map piece) and has to work backwards in a logical, if convoluted, manner to obtain it.

I think that's a fair take, but in reality that is zero adventure games ever. It's just not that style of game.

I think this approach describes more of a fully fledged Puzzle game, something like Lolo, or The Witness.
Comparably, what classic point'n'click adventures do is something like "oh, now that I have this item, I can try using that to achieve this thing that had puzzled me for days, and I hadn't even thought of it before" and then, if it's really well done, when you try it, you realise there's a complication with the idea and you need this other item that you'd been holding on to for a while without realising its purpose. This gradual spilling of information is what I think makes some adventure game puzzles really satisfying, and it's naturally derived from not being able to see the full connection between objectives.
Solving the puzzles aren't about being smart, it's about being able to change the way you think about things.

6 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I don't think it's good game design to expect the player to just buy every item and complete every activity without a reason for doing so. That's how 95% of old adventure games work and I don't think it deserves praise. There is a reason games aren't designed like that anymore and the reason isn't that players became 'weak" or "impatient."

Obviously I disagree. For most players of video games, there is always a compulsion to do everything you possibly can. Is your goal striaght down the hallway? You bet your ass I'll check every side room before proceeding down there! Is there any item I can achieve which feels like some sort of progress? I don't care what I need it for, I just need to have it.  How many people, when they first played Morrowind, didn't try to just pick up everything they possibly could from the shelves? It's just natural, and if you don't have those impulses, yeah, you probably aren't the target audience. 
Adventure games aren't about resource management (though I'd be curious to try one that is), they are about the feeling of progression and accomplishment whenever you managed to somehow change the state of the game to further your options in it.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Sumez

[Sumez | 2,952]

6 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

One promising lead is that there is a woodsmith on Scabb Island with a hammer and nails, so maybe I could use those. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to get them and there are no obvious hints as to what I need to do.

I'll try giving a vague hint, because if you haven't seen this yet, it's possible you won't for some time.
 

Spoiler

Try looking for unique items in nearby areas made of wood...

 

6 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

But let's back up further so I can illustrate the real problem with this puzzle. Why am I trying to get the crypt key? BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY THING I HAVE AVAILABLE TO DO RIGHT NOW. That is not an interesting motivator in a game that's supposed to reward you for using your brain to solve puzzles.

Well, like you and I have already been addressing, that's definitely where we differ. There's a big interesting crypt in the game that you come across as early as the first chapter, and you can't get into it. It's there, it's a part of the game, of course you want to get in there. If that's not a motivator for you, I don't think the game can do much else to motivate you. Hell yeah I want that damn crypt key!
Besides, did you try reading the name on the crypt? You shared a bunch of ideas about the possibilities of this string of events, and while I won't address whether some of them are correct or not, I find it crazy that those ideas alone aren't enough to motivate you

Edited July 6, 2021 by Sumez

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Well, I finally finished the game and have returned here to pass final judgment. I updated the topic, OP, and poll to reflect that I've completed the game, so feel free to spoil away. I also updated the title from "Bad" to "Unfair," because after spending twenty hours of my life trying to beat a three hour game, that felt like a more appropriate description.

So a few realizations (***SPOILERS***):

1. Part II, or the map-gathering section of the game, is BY FAR the most illogical and frustrating. I detailed a lot of this above, but two sections stand out as particularly nonsensical and egregious in wasting your time. The line of puzzles that requires you to complete the spitting contest (see above) and one particular portion of the grog-drinking puzzle line.
    
2. The maze in LeChuck's Fortress is also quite badly implemented since it requires you to remember something that may have happened many, many hours before you got to that point. Even if you do remember that Guybrush wrote down the lyrics to the Bone Song, I think it is quite a leap to assume he wrote them on the spit-encrusted paper. ESPECIALLY because he always says "It's too soggy"  if you try to use it for anything AND you can have regular, crisp paper in your inventory during that event, which I did. I personally never thought to check the spit-encrusted paper and only solved this maze through sheer luck (which is borderline miraculous thinking back on it).
   
   
    
3. The puzzle are often especially frustrating because you can see a reasonable solution or have an idea what to do, but the true solution makes little sense, even in the logic of the game world. This makes it feel like you're solving the game design and not the puzzle within the game. In medical education, these type of situations are known as "Guess What I'm Thinking" questions and they come up all the time. In these situations, the connection between the question and answer seems logical and linear to the person writing/asking the question. However, the person attempting to answer the question often finds the connection far-fetched or tangential at best. Adjusting the question and providing subtle hints allows the teacher to guide the student towards the solution. It is more a process than a simple right or wrong answer and this is where MI2 fails its players.
    
4. Another painful example: During the grog drinking puzzle line, I was struggling find a way to switch out the grog. I quickly realized you could pour the drink out into the tree, but the pirate would always realize you had an empty mug or the wrong drink (if you poured anything else in its place). I actually did remember there was a thing called "Near Grog" and that the glass-bottom boat woman, Kate, had been involved in drinking it. The problem was, I had heard that dialogue 5-10 hours earlier and couldn't remember it exactly. I spent so much time trying to solve this puzzle that I actually tried to look up the earlier dialog online just to find out what she and the bartender said so long ago. So even though I didn't know the answer, I was extraordinarily close! In my opinion, the game designers should have left a recurring dialogue option in place to repeat this previous conversation or at least reference it. Or better yet, have Kate drinking from a bottle, then quickly hiding it every time Guybrush came on screen, then denying it's existence in conversation. This would not have given me the answer, but would have pushed me towards trying more solutions specifically focused on Kate. Instead, without any memorable clues, the player has to figure out she has the Near Grog, make a giant mental leap and figure out she needs to get arrested on an entirely different island (there is a small clue that she could potentially change locations), then trick the authorities into arresting her by posting her picture over the wanted poster, find her in the jail, realize her stuff has been confiscated, take that envelope, and finally find the Near Grog. This is madness to me.

In the end, I think this is just how these games are and maybe old school adventure games aren't for me. As I said before, the reason these types of games don't exist anymore is because people don't like having their time wasted. Difficult games are extraordinarily popular right now (Souls, Celeste, Cuphead, etc), but those games allow for a sense of progression even if the primary goal is not obtained. In classic adventure games, several hours can pass with literally no advancement in skill or story and this is frustrating to even the most patient gamers. The original Monkey Island struck a great balance between illogical puzzles and logical progression and deserves praise for doing so. Monkey Island 2 is often a bridge too far and I would not recommend it to anyone but the most hardcore point and click adventurers. Still, I don't plan to give up on the genre. Perhaps I'll move to something a bit newer such as Machinarium and find my groove again.

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 7/5/2021 at 7:28 PM, Gloves said:

Ifnkovhgroghprm.

At least that one wasn't required to finish the game. Still...