Somewhere in the middle of Portal 2, I got stuck. I can’t remember exactly where — that’s not important. I told myself I was going to play the game without looking up any guides to rescue me from tricky puzzles. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep my promise.
I glanced at online walkthroughs a couple of times to get me through some particularly difficult areas, but only after I spent more time than I should’ve shooting portals onto every inch of every white wall in the immediate area. I tried so hard to figure out the entire game by myself, but alas, I wasn’t smart enough. And it got on my nerves.
By the time the game ended, I didn’t like it anymore. My inability to solve certain sections in a short amount of time mixed with the repetitive test-chamber-after-test-chamber level layout didn’t keep things fresh enough for me.
Portal 2 is best classified as a puzzle-adventure game. Unlike a game such as Tetris that’s 100 percent, pure puzzle, Portal 2 follows a set narrative, has an extensive script and entire sections that feature no puzzles or combat. You explore until you’re funneled into the next test chamber to do more science.
Those moments — the ones where you’re aimlessly searching the depths of Aperture Science and connecting the dots between blasts of chambers — were my favorite, because I wasn’t constantly solving puzzles.
In the puzzle segments, it’s hard to strike the right balance of difficulty. Perhaps I’m too dumb or just don’t think the right way when it came to solving them in Portal 2. That led to a healthy amount of my dislike for the game, but it’s something Valve can’t change per person. Valve can’t make me a more patient person. It can’t make me better at solving puzzles.
I guess what this boils down to is it was hard, and it detracted from my experience. Whine whine whine.
Before my experiences with Portal 2, I think I knew I wasn’t great at puzzles in games. If it doesn’t involve something as simple as pushing a statue across the floor (hello, Resident Evil) then get it out of my game. Konami was smart in Silent Hill 2 when it designated not only a combat difficulty selection at the start, but also a riddle difficulty option. You want tough enemies and easy puzzles, or perhaps average enemies and difficult puzzles — it’s yours. Why has no other game implemented this?
As I’ve dived deeper into iOS gaming, my experiences have become plagued with puzzle games as well. Whether it’s World of Goo, Angry Birds or Scribblenauts, I become impatient with them too quickly. The difficulty-to-satisfaction ratio isn’t high enough. I grew up playing games that featured mostly murder as their main fare and bullets soaring from barrel to brain require no patience. It’s instant (and satisfying) gratification.
So I’m a caveman.
Somehow, in the midst of my war on puzzle-adventure games, the Hitman series remains my favorite series. At its heart, Hitman is a puzzle game. In every level you are dropped in an environment as everyone goes about normal business. There is a target (sometimes more than one) and you must figure out how to eliminate him, her or them and make it out alive. Hitman is part adventure, part puzzle, part action and part strategy. It takes patience, a lot of planning and surveying (and saving and loading) to pull off the perfect hit. There is nothing more gratifying than being awarded a Silent Assassin ranking at the end of a mission. Getting in, taking out only the target(s) and slipping away without anyone knowing you were there takes a special touch. Doing just that sends a shiver of excitement through my body. To get there, you have to spend a lot of time in each stage and really learn all the ins and outs of them. To me, finding the right square inch of wall on which to shoot a portal doesn’t carry the same weight as a perfect assassination.
Perhaps if Portal 2 had bullets you could unload into the sentry turrets I would’ve liked it much more.
Just joking, of course — this is also coming from someone who would fast-forward through all of Uncharted‘s combat in a heartbeat.
I noticed an iOS game at one point that intrigued me. I dismissed it because it was a puzzle game. I knew I’d end up spending money on it, and I’d stop playing after 15 minutes. I’ve done it too many times before. With the help of some Christmas iTunes gift cards and a seasonal sale, I had no reason not to take the plunge, and a little morsel of a puzzle game titled Machinarium appeared on my screen.
Machinarium for iOS (and iPad 2 only) is a touchscreen-supported port of a well received 2009 PC game. It’s about a robot named Josef in a somewhat dystopian land of machines. He’s swept out to a garbage dump by a trash gathering machine. You must help him make his way back to the town and reunite him with his female friend. On the way, he discovers a band of evil robots are planning to blow up the city. Now he has to save the day.
Completely void of dialogue, Machinarium runs on music, sound effects, small cartoons and the body language and vocal smirks of robots to get its points across. Every environment in the game appears hand-drawn, and they’re stunning because of it.
I bought Machinarium under, and only under, a new puzzle-game oath. I dismissed my try-hard attitude of past puzzle-adventure titles. I stuck my hand out, placed it on my iPad and said, before the ghost of Steve Jobs, that I’d solemnly swear to use a walkthrough any time I felt stuck. This would hopefully save me the frustration and allow me to enjoy the experience.
I kept this promise to myself and spent most of Machinarium switching back and forth from the game to a walkthrough to find out what to do next. I’m not kidding when I say I literally read my entire way through it. You might call me silly or dumb, but at least I never got impatient or frustrated. Checking a walkthrough every few minutes was the best decision I ever made.
It’s also worth noting that the game features a hint system and its own built-in walkthrough. You have to play a short, 2D-shooter mini-game to access the walkthrough each time, and the game urges you not to use it unless you’re really stuck. For some reason, I used a text walkthrough online instead of the game’s.
Machinarium is one of the best games I’ve played recently, but if I would’ve skipped a guide, I’d probably hate it. Or I never would’ve played enough to gather an opinion other than frustration.
The game suffers from what I call Obtuse Puzzle Syndrome, which requires you to pretty much tap everything on the screen in hopes that Josef will grab something and be able to use it. A majority of the puzzles aren’t intuitive, and when you add in an inventory with the ability to combine items, it gets worse.
However, the design, animations and music sweep in and save the day. Machinarium might very well be the most charming game I’ve played. Josef does many adorable and unexpected things throughout the campaign that had me smiling and giggling. It’s all quirky and cute humor, too. For instance, occasionally when you tap on a staircase instead of bumbling down the stairs, Josef hops on the railing and slides down it. He’s also a skilled dancer.
You encounter many other robots in the world with whom Josef forms small relationships. He helps them; they help him. It adds urgency to saving the dystopia, too. The population raises the stakes.
The best feature of Machinarium is no doubt the soundtrack. Tomáš Dvořák, who also goes by Floex, crafted a mostly-electronic score that’s humble, sweeping, deeply gorgeous and a load of fun all at once. There’s a walkway in the game that queues up a ditty titled “Mr. Handagote” (in the clip above) upon entry. When I first entered that area, I knew I had to purchase the song. Eventually, I bought the entire soundtrack and downloaded Dvořák’s free bonus EP for the game, as well. Puzzle difficulty aside, Machinarium is an adorable blend of character, charm and narrative. Devoid of words, it establishes more character and connection between characters than most console AAA titles ever hope to.
iOS gaming, if nothing else, has opened the door for games previously published on other systems to flourish with newfound touch controls and, generally, cheaper prices. It’s hit-or-miss for me, but for the right price (or no price at all) I’ll try something out, even if the trial lasts a mere half-hour.
My leap from Portal 2 to Machinarium gave me an amendment to my gaming constitution. If I’m stuck, and I feel like the outcome won’t be worth the trial and error, I’ll look up the solution online. I don’t necessarily have a preference for or against puzzle-adventure games like I thought I did, I just need to go about them the right way. I didn’t realize until recently I feel the same about shooters — my favorite genre. I find many shooters try to beat you over the head with their shooting or they shoehorn violence into situations where it doesn’t belong. I prefer combat to be by my own rules. Perhaps this is why I love Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Hitman so much. Those games rarely force you to kill people, especially people tangential to the main objectives. From here on out I won’t feel unnecessarily pressures to solve puzzle (and puzzle-adventure) games with my own wits — or lack-thereof.
Corey Motley 
Oh shiny!
Well, I think I want to touch on two things here.
1)This notion of a guide, and gamer’s prides. I find way too often people are too pig-headed or stubborn to use a guide when they feel it makes them less of a gamer, but really if you want to experience the game, it is better to do that shortcut than give up in frustration. I mean I try my best not to use them, but its not like can’t find GameFAQs in a pitch.
2)And I guess this is differing opinions, but I wrote about this last year when I talked about Skyward Sword and Portal 2 being 2 of my Top games of 2011, and its precisely for the reason you hate puzzle-adventure games. I find very little more satisfying in a game than an ah-ha moment. That precise moment when a puzzle or situation has you stuck, and then all at once it clicks in your head. Its why I like the Zelda franchise, and Portal is a blast. And I think it was doubly awesome in co-op.
Other than that, I’m glad you continue to keep an open-mind about the genre even if it has bought you nothing but frustration for the most part.
Great read, dawg. I’m glad to see you’ve resolved to give puzzle games a fair shake. Many of my favorite games involve heavy puzzles that can leave you sitting for hours, wondering what the hell is next. I especially like that you are delving into point-and-click adventure games. This is an exciting time for that genre with the recent news of Double Fine’s Kickstarter. I don’t know of a more elegant way to share a link on this commenting service, but if you have thirty minutes to spare, you should absolutely watch this video. It’s Ron Gilbert talking to Tim Schafer about why adventure games are awesome. There’s some good commentary about how expectations for video game pacing have changed over the years.
I do not know if you finished Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, but if not, you should give it a shot. You’re new love for Machinarium should translate to that game easily.
I have mixed feelings about puzzles in games, depending on how they’re used and how they fit into the overall experience. To me, Machinarium is an art and music game with puzzles thrown in to slow things down and make you examine every nook and cranny of the interactive painting in front of you. Portal 2 is a puzzle game with great, humorous writing to make the experience more enjoyable and less tedious. And puzzles like, say, the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time, are the spawn of some devious asshole who wants you to get angry at an otherwise awesome game. (Because there’s no other possible explanation for that shit.)
My willingness to use guides and walkthroughs depends on what I want to get from the game. Like your first commenter, much of my enjoyment from Portal 2’s gameplay comes from that “ah-ha!” moment that makes me feel smart for finding the solution. If I’m frustrated, the funny writing usually keeps my spirits high enough to keep at it. And if it doesn’t, I take a break and come back later, and usually something will click that didn’t before. [note: co-op with similarly skilled friend often leads to simultaneous, SUPER “ah-ha!” moments]
With Machinarium, I never got that “ah-ha!” moment. I clicked on things that looked like they might do something until I managed to click them in the right order and without my robot shaking his head at me, and then I got to see the next piece of art. Some of the puzzles made sense: You need to look like a guard that has a blue cone head, so you grab a street cone, dip it in some blue paint, and voila! But far too many of the puzzles were just guessing games with no rhyme or reason. I would find the solution and think, “Well, THAT was stupid.” And for that type of game, if the other factors (art and music) are enough to keep me interested, I’ll gladly just follow a guide. Same with the Water Temple. Since I loved every other aspect of the game, and the puzzles were rarely satisfying on their own, I didn’t mind looking up a solution so I could get back to what I loved about the game.
Games should be fun. If you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t be playing the game. And in the case of many puzzle games, luckily there’s an easy way to get some enjoyment even if the puzzles aren’t doing it for you.