Organize adventure game resources into 7 category subdirectories
Created category structure: - criticism/ (5 articles) - Design critiques and anti-patterns - defense/ (2 articles) - Praise and genre defense - puzzle-design/ (7 articles) - Puzzle mechanics and methodology - technical/ (4 articles) - SCUMM and engineering history - history/ (6 articles) - Genre evolution and decline analysis - moon-logic/ (5 articles) - Moon logic puzzle psychology - community/ (2 articles) - Community discussions and analysis Each category has README.md with summaries and key themes. Main index.md updated to link to all categories.
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# Moon Logic
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Articles examining the specific phenomenon of "moon logic" puzzles—solutions that seem logical only in the game's unrealistic world rather than real-world reasoning.
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## Articles
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| File | Title | Source | Summary |
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|------|-------|--------|---------|
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| `moon-logic-adventure-games-tvtropes.md` | Moon Logic Puzzle: Adventure Games | TV Tropes | Catalog of infamous moon logic puzzle examples specifically in adventure games, with annotated problem cases. |
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| `moon-logic-divergent-thinking.md` | Moon Logic and Divergent Thinking | Simply Put Psych | Psychological perspective analyzing whether moon logic puzzles require "divergent thinking" or represent design failures. |
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| `moon-logic-puzzle-tvtropes.md` | Moon Logic Puzzle | TV Tropes | General TV Tropes entry defining moon logic as puzzles whose solutions make sense only within the game's alternate logic. |
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| `moon-logic-reddit-discussion.md` | Moon Logic Reddit Discussion | Reddit r/gamedesign | Community discussion on where the threshold for "real" moon logic lies and whether beyond-basic puzzles inevitably become moon logic. |
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| `pcgamer-moon-logic-classic-adventure.md` | PC Gamer on Moon Logic | PC Gamer | Article examining why players tolerated moon logic puzzles in classic adventures and whether modern design has lost something. |
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## Key Themes
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- **Definition problem** - What actually constitutes moon logic vs. legitimate challenge?
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- **Psychological appeal** - Why some players enjoy moon logic despite frustration
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- **Design failure vs. feature** - Whether moon logic represents poor design or genre character
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- **Historical tolerance** - How context (no internet, different expectations) affected acceptance
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- **Modern alternatives** - How modern adventure games avoid or embrace moon logic
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## Usage
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These articles help define and contextualize one of adventure gaming's most notorious characteristics, providing nuance for the Puzzle Design Handbook's treatment of puzzle difficulty and logical consistency.
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---
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source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MoonLogicPuzzle/AdventureGames
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---
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MoonLogicPuzzle / Adventure Games - TV Tropes
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#
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**Moon Logic Puzzle / Adventure Games**
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[2](javascript:void\(0\);) [Following](#watch)
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[
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Go To
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](#mobile-actions-toggle)
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- [Main](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdventureGames "The Main page")
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- [MoonLogicPuzzl…](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MoonLogicPuzzle/AdventureGames "The MoonLogicPuzzle page")
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- [More Less](javascript:void\(0\);) \- More - ArtificialStup… ButThouMust DemonicSpiders DevelopersFore… DummiedOut MultipleEnding… NintendoHard
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---
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- Collecting a footprint clue in the 2006 adventure game *Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express* requires that you cast the thing in cake batter, then prevent the batter from falling apart by putting it in a big bowl of ice. Even your character's own dialogue admits how goofy the resulting "evidence" looks.
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- *[Another Code](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AnotherCode "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AnotherCode")*: The original DS release had a few that revolved around manipulating the handheld itself.
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- There was one puzzle where you had to close the DS *just* enough so you could see the reflection of one of the screens on the other without closing it so much it went into standby mode. It also had no hints other then the fact that it was simply a photo frame that folded the same way. Should you be playing on an original DS without a backlight on, good luck seeing the reflection. To say noting of if you're playing it later hardware revisions of the system, or the 3DS and any of *its* revisions, in which case the two halves of the clue will not line up properly. Fortunately, simple brute force also works for solving the puzzle.
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- There is one puzzle where you have to complete a picture using a pair of stamps; this is done by closing the DS twice.
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- *[Armed & Delirious](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ArmedAndDelirious "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ArmedAndDelirious")* is a game infamous for being nearly entirely made of Moon Logic, with many puzzles involving using inventory items at random, clicking VERY specific pixels on the screen, and requiring strange/incredibly specific timing in order to proceed. A particularly infamous puzzle requires you to use the discs of the game itself to solve a colour matching puzzle, including the disc that is currently inside of your PC as you are playing it.
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- *[Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BeyondTheEdgeOfOwlsgard "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BeyondTheEdgeOfOwlsgard")*: At one point, you need to widen a gap in some rocks so Gwen can squeeze through. Sadly, Finn can't just widen the gap with his shovel; instead, the player must catch a piranha in the swamps, use the piranha's sharp teeth to cut a drill off the flailing tendrils of a trapped robot, then drill a hole through the rocks. At least the cables in the mines provide a clue as to what you'll need.
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- *[The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheBizarreAdventuresOfWoodruffAndTheSchnibble "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheBizarreAdventuresOfWoodruffAndTheSchnibble")* is a mind-bender of an adventure game in general, but one lateral-thinking puzzle that particularly stands out involves the hero being asked to fetch quest an item for a ridiculously nitpicky bureaucrat who keeps rejecting your attempts. The eventual solution is to give yourself magic strength and *punch him in the face*.
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- *Broken Sword* fangame *[Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BrokenSword25TheReturnOfTheTemplars "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BrokenSword25TheReturnOfTheTemplars")* has been designed by people who think it makes sense to aquire a flashlight by trading with a bum for the pair of panties Nico left in her handbag (which you rummaged in). Yup.
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- [Douglas Adams](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/DouglasAdams "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/DouglasAdams")'s text adventure *[Bureaucracy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Bureaucracy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Bureaucracy")* is filled with this; in order to progress, you frequently have to use strange leaps of logic to deal with a world designed and run by demented [Obstructive Bureaucrats](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObstructiveBureaucrat "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObstructiveBureaucrat"). (For example, a creditor sends you a "bill" in the form of a check for *negative* three hundred dollars. Simple; deposit it in your account, but use a withdrawal slip instead of a deposit slip. Since the negative of a withdrawal is a deposit, the negative of negative three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars.)
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- *[Chaos on Deponia](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Deponia "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Deponia")* has an especially awful puzzle that relies on Moon Logic AND [Cruelty Is the Only Option](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption") to solve. You need to break into a house, which has a cat food bowl outside. So, you put some fish bait on a burning tire, which you put on the window of a kitchen with some baby dolphins in a pool just outside. They jump through the hoop and get turned into *cans of tuna*. Then you feed the cat so your character can 'discover' (and finally interact with) the *cat flap* which has been clearly visible to the player the entire time.
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- *[Codename: ICEMAN](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CodenameIceman "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CodenameIceman")* was bad about this kind of puzzle. In one instance, you had to have the installation manual handy so you could manually type in the correct (according to the manual) procedure for giving CPR. In some cases, to get from one setting to the next, you might have to take an action that would result in getting stalled in the next scene.
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- One of the first interactive-text games, *[Colossal Cave](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ColossalCave "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ColossalCave")* (aka *Adventure*) required you to state what weapon you were using to attack an enemy. If you just typed "attack monster", the game would reply, "With what? Your bare hands?" Normally, you'd have to enter "attack monster with sword". An exception to this rule was when you were faced with a fire-breathing dragon ...
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ATTACK DRAGON
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\>With what? Your bare hands?
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[YES](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BluntYes "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BluntYes")
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\>Congratulations! You have just vanquished a dragon with your bare hands! (hard to believe, isn't it?)
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- An example of when this goes wrong can be found in an obscure adventure game called *[The Crystal Key](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheCrystalKey "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheCrystalKey")*. At one point, you're in an alien docking bay, trying to get a ship to take off before a Darth Vader [Expy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy") can find you and force-choke you. All the keys on the ship's control panel are labeled in an alien language. You're supposed to have written down the coordinates of the ship you docked at the very beginning, then you're supposed to enter in those same coordinates. Apparently, it's taken for granted not only that you remember the coordinates, but that you'll know the aliens use base-10, arrange their keys in the same order as on a telephone number pad, and use the same coordinate system as is found in your ship. Note in particular that the keys are arranged as on a *telephone* keypad, with 123 at the top. Which, of course, is different from the layout of the PC keypad that's likely to be closer at hand for someone playing the game.
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- *[Curse of Enchantia](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CurseOfEnchantia "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CurseOfEnchantia")* is composed mostly of these puzzles; as a largely textless adventure game with little dialogue, everything is conveyed via thought balloons and similar image bubbles. This leads to very bizarre puzzles, but even that is no excuse once the game takes a turn for the completely surreal. For instance—at one point, [your path will be blocked by an anthropomorphic nose](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext). There is no reason given for why it's there or why it wants to stop you, you just have to get past it somehow. What you have to do is find a giant pile of cut hair on the ground a few screens back, grab a handful of hair, and shove it into the nose to make it sneeze itself out of the way.
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- The *[Nancy Drew](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/NancyDrew "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/NancyDrew")* game *Danger By Design* requires purchasing an ancient decoder from a vendor and a book of ciphers from another vendor, then finding a message in the final room, then *encoding* that message with the date shift cipher from the book, then inputting the encoded message into the decoder to eventually get a message in French with the numbers to unlock the door.
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- In *[Day of the Tentacle](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle")*, for Hoagie to charge the super-battery he must strap it to Benjamin Franklin's kite so that it gets hit by lightning. The problem is that it's a sunny day, so to make it rain, he must wash the dirty carriage outside the inn. [Get it?](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TemptingFate "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TemptingFate")
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- *[Death Gate](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeathGate "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeathGate")* had two infuriating puzzles of this type.
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- One was opening the treasure room in the tower of the Brotherhood. You have a code list, but all it says is "Buy their time to die" above a list of in-universe Arianus continents. You also can find a book that explains the codes change based on the time of month. To open the wall with lots of hands, you have to look at what continent currently obscures the sun from that place, then use that continent to figure out what word to use from the "Buy their time to die" phrase (it's the word above the name of the continent) then if it was for example "die", you have to press Diamond Iron Emerald hands. First letters for the materials they're made of. Aside from the Brotherhood book, and the code list itself, there are NO clues about this whatsoever. Good luck getting this without a walkthrough. They do show you the materials in the item descriptions at least.
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- The second is even more [egregious](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/Egregious "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/Egregious), especially because it's the final puzzle. You have to continuously fend off Sang-Drax while figuring out the correct starting rune for the Interconnection spell. Fending off Sang-Drax is simple enough (figuring out which elemental storm to use against his current form, which isn't hard) but figuring out the starting rune without trial and error is nigh impossible. The character who could tell you the rune is *dead* so the logical option is to resurrect him. Problem: he only says "the heart, the heart" which is a very obscure reference to a back-then-didn't-seem-important conversation *near the beginning of the game*. Again, good luck. Fortunately this time there are only six options, logic whittles it down to five, and a possible in-universe logical trick diminishes it to four, so trial and error (along with save scumming) gets there FAST.
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- *[Discworld](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Discworld "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Discworld")*. Most of the puzzles don't make sense even in retrospect. [Terry Pratchett](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/TerryPratchett "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/TerryPratchett") jokingly summed it up as follows:
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**Pterry:** To get the walkthrough, you have to take the sponge from Nanny Ogg's pantry and stick it in the ear of the troll with the tutu, then take the lumps and put them in the pouch with the zombie's razor.
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- Here's the worst from *[Discworld II](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DiscworldII "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DiscworldII")*, which was somewhat saner, and where most puzzles made sense if you read the books. You need some sticks. That's easy — steal the mallets from croquet players by swapping them with something similar, so that they wouldn't notice. One is simple: a hammerhead shark, who does look like a mallet. Another is OK, if you remember *[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland")*: a flamingo. The third is a pelican. What leap of logic connects it with croquet is unclear. [The Pelican Croquet Club?](https://www.lakemac.com.au/Venues/Pelican-Croquet-Club)
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- *[The Dig](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheDig1995 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheDig1995")* has places where you can't use certain items until you progress to the point where you need them. There is a patch of dirt that you can't interact with until you do several other things, and a rock that you can't interact with until you enter a particular code into a map room.
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- *[EarthBound (1994)](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/EarthBound1994 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/EarthBound1994")* parodies these. Getting past a giant statue of a pencil, for example, requires you to obtain and use a Pencil Eraser. And to get past an eraser statue? Eraser Eraser.
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- Due to *[Epiphany City](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EpiphanyCity "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EpiphanyCity")*'s theme of thinking outside the box, several puzzles are solved in unintuitive ways, usually involving the shape of objects mimicking another—the Ocean Flower, for example, is discovered by placing 4 unrelated setpieces together in such a way that, when combined with a setting sun for the middle piece, they become a flower.
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- *[Gabriel Knight](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GabrielKnight "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GabrielKnight") 3* [was accused](http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html) by [Old Man Murray](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Website/OldManMurray "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Website/OldManMurray") of being an excellent example of [what killed adventure games](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreKiller "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreKiller"): themselves. It featured a very nonsensical puzzle that includes using honey on an old piece of tape to steal hair from a cat, to make a fake mustache, to impersonate someone, to get a motorcycle, because the hero refuses to drive a scooter. The guy you are impersonating doesn't have a mustache. You also need to steal his driver's license and find a pen, to draw a mustache on his picture. The last part makes some sense, as an eye-catching feature on a face draws attention away from a face's bone shape, and other characters hint at this; but it does nothing to explain how cat hair glued with maple syrup can make a convincing moustache. In addition, the article highlighted there was an [Interface Screw](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InterfaceScrew "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InterfaceScrew") aspect as well; several objects involved in the puzzle don't show up as interactive *until* you've reached the point in the plot where the puzzle must be solved, but at the same time they have nothing particular to do with the puzzle, so the only way to find them was to visit every previous location and mouse over everything to find if something had become available that wasn't before. It even has its own dedicated page [on the other Wiki, with multiple sources to discuss the puzzle's legacy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_hair_mustache_puzzle)
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- *[Grim Fandango](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/GrimFandango "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/GrimFandango")* mostly plays fair with its hints (and changed the genre by trying to make it obvious what objects could and could not be interacted with), but it has a few of these, [mostly late in the game](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisappointingLastLevel "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisappointingLastLevel"):
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- At one point, you're trying to get into [the lair of a psychotic florist](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItMakesSenseInContext "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItMakesSenseInContext") without him shooting you. He's holed up, yes, a florist shop, where everything is covered with cloth and/or tape. How do you get him to calm down and stop taking potshots? Cut the tape off the bell above the door, go out, and come back in. The noise of it ringing makes him go into "florist mode," and talk to you normally.
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- At another, a bouncer is keeping you from meeting with the mob boss who runs the casino you're both standing in, unless you prove that you know said mob boss by answering a series of number-based questions about him ("How many Limos does Hector LeMans own?"). You know none of these things, but you will inexplicably succeed if you always answer the number that just won on the roulette wheel behind you.
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- Whenever he asks a question, he first looks up at the roulette board, lending credence to Manny's accusation of "You're just making up these questions."
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- And then there's the one you solve using something an NPC said to you in passing *in an optional conversation* 8-ish hours (or four in-world years) ago. You need to find something that can be used as fuel. You have a coffee mug filled with packing foam lining the coffin you retrieved it from. There is a room with a toaster that catches fire if you put an oily rag in it. The station employees will put out the fire using fire extinguishers if that happens. Placed the packing foam-stuffed mug on the mug rack next to the toaster, and put the oily rag in the toaster. The fire extinguisher spray will chemically react with the packing foam and make the mug jet around the room. If you missed the optional conversation or forgot about it, you have absolutely no way of knowing that the extinguishers and packing foam will react together like that.
|
||||
- Yet another illogical puzzle involves you trying to retrieve your car from a booby trapped garage. The villain has rigged a bomb that will be set off if you disturb the giant domino chain that runs all over the floor and the hero is not confident of his ability to step through the trap or disarm it by removing dominoes from the chain. The solution is to have Glottis drink a huge vat of liquid and then make him queasy so that he violently vomits all over the floor. The liquid can then be frozen with liquid nitrogen to prevent the dominoes from moving, although quite why uncontrollably puking over the dominoes is considered less risky than manually picking them up is not explained. Luckily you are stuck in quite a small area with few items so it isn't hard to find the solution.
|
||||
- The text adventure version of Douglas Adams's *[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984)](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1984 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1984")* is notorious for abusing the player with this kind of puzzle logic. In order to solve one particular puzzle, you are told that you need to show exceptional intelligence. A bit of research in the Guide reveals that in order to do so, you need to both have something and *not* have something at the same time. Given that "no tea" is listed as an inventory item -and has been since the beginning of the game- it's increasingly clear that this is what you need to find. However, there doesn't seem to be any source for it in the game. Even a machine that seems perfectly suited to dispense it will, maddeningly, produce a product that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike it. It's not a [Stock Lateral Thinking Puzzle](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockLateralThinkingPuzzle "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockLateralThinkingPuzzle") either—you can't simply DROP NO TEA to get it. Once you finally *do* get the tea, after acquiring a proper interface for the Nutrimat, you *still* have to deal with getting both the "tea" and the "no tea" at the same time, as "your common sense tells you you can't do that". You eventually have to go inside your own brain and remove said common sense, which finally allows you to possess the tea and the "no tea" at the same time. Oh, by the way, even after removing your common sense, you *still* can't DROP NO TEA if you don't have tea, though the [message changes](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InformingTheFourthWall "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InformingTheFourthWall") to reflect your newfound lack of common sense. [Douglas Adams](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/DouglasAdams "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/DouglasAdams") once described the game as moving beyond user-unfriendly, to user-hostile.
|
||||
- *[King's Quest](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuest "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuest")*:
|
||||
- *[King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestIQuestForTheCrown "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestIQuestForTheCrown")* contained one optional puzzle where the player had three attempts to guess a Rumplestiltskin character's name, with the sole hint in the game being a letter saying "sometimes it pays to think backwards". In the original edition, this implied spelling "Rumplestiltskin" using an alphabetic *cipher* where Z=A, Y=B, and so on (the answer was thus "Ifnkovhgroghprm"). This proved too difficult for most players even in its time (reportedly, the Sierra hint line got more calls for the solution to this puzzle than literally anything else), so for the game's [Enhanced Remake](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhancedRemake "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhancedRemake") the solution was simplified to just spelling "Rumplestiltskin" backwards. In a further bit of mercy, the game also accepts both Rump**le**stiltskin in addition to the literature-accurate Rump**el**stiltskin.
|
||||
- *[King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestIIRomancingTheThrone "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestIIRomancingTheThrone")* has a point where you're blocked by a [pOIsonous snake.](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MemeticMutation "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MemeticMutation") You can kill it with your sword (which even has a snake inscribed on it, inclining players to think that's what they're supposed to do), but the **correct** thing to do is to throw a bridle at it so it becomes a talking pegasus. Even the novelized walkthrough in The King's Quest Companion, which makes a point that Graham can be an eccentric and a daydreamer to explain how he just happens to blunder into the correct solutions to the games' more counter-intuitive puzzles, couldn't come up with a better explanation for this one than Graham threw the bridle completely by accident. The [Fan Remake](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanRemake "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanRemake") splits it into several puzzles, but using an opal necklace to stun the snake so you can get past, create an [Anti-Magic](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiMagic "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiMagic) item in the sorcerer's home, use it on the snake, and THEN get the bridle using a [Solve the Soup Cans](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolveTheSoupCans "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolveTheSoupCans") riddle is only marginally less out there.
|
||||
- *[King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder")* has the infamous puzzle in which you kill a yeti by throwing a pie in its face.
|
||||
- And chasing a snake away with a tambourine. And powering a piece of magical equipment with some moldy cheese.
|
||||
- You're lost in a cursed forest. How do you get out? Simple: Squeeze some honey onto a completely arbitrary spot on the road, and drop your emeralds into the puddle until an elf gets stuck in it. Incidentally, if you drop the emeralds *without* putting down the honey, the elf will just take them and run, and [that's it for that playthrough](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnwinnableByDesign "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnwinnableByDesign").
|
||||
- *[King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestVIHeirTodayGoneTomorrow "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestVIHeirTodayGoneTomorrow")*:
|
||||
- Casting the "Make Rain" spell might qualify. You need to combine three different liquids in a teapot. There are no teapots in the game, and the only hint (not explicitly mentioned in the game itself) is that the old hunter's lamp looks a bit like a teapot. Considering that in a previous game (*[King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestIIIToHeirIsHuman "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestIIIToHeirIsHuman")*) spells had to be cast *exactly* according to the [instructions](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual) (it doubled as the game's [Copy Protection](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CopyProtection "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CopyProtection"), so failure meant [Have a Nice Death](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveANiceDeath "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveANiceDeath")), it's easy for gamers playing the series in order to be [Wrong Genre Savvy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WrongGenreSavvy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WrongGenreSavvy) on this one.
|
||||
- Later on there's an even more unintuitive puzzle: Jollo informs Alexander that you can get the [Big Bad](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad")'s right hand genie out of the way by switching the genie's lamp with an identical one. Conveniently, there's a peddler selling lamps out on the street but you don't know which lamp to pick. What's the solution? Go to the pawn shop where the genie is there in disguise and make Alexander drink a *fake death* potion so that a cutscene appears where the genie goes to report this to his master and the player can get a look at the lamp and choose it when Alexander wakes up. What makes this completely out of left field is the fact that not only have the prior cutscenes between the genie and the [Big Bad](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad") not shown the lamp meaning there would be no reason to believe this would work, but the puzzle itself breaks the fourth wall since the knowledge of the lamp's appearance is only shown to *the player*, meaning that from an in story perspective Alexander got the right lamp via a lucky guess (Alexander himself claims this when he is later asked how he chose the right lamp).note The Fake Death potion is actually supposed to be used for a different in-story reason: [Alexander knows that the Vizier knows of his plans to save Cassima](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IKnowYouKnowIKnow "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IKnowYouKnowIKnow), and he also knows (or at least suspects) that the guy following him with glowing gold eyes is the Vizier's genie. In order to throw off Al-Azahred, Alexander pretends to kill himself and thus get the Vizier to lower his guard. It doesn't actually have an in-story *effect*, but that's the justification presented. The fact that it also gives the player a glimpse of the genie's bottle is just a bonus.
|
||||
- In *[King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestVIIThePrincelessBride "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuestVIIThePrincelessBride")*, this is taken literally. In one chapter, a hunk of green cheese falls into a fountain in the town of Falderal which Chicken Little claims to be the Moon. Despite it being clearly within her reach, Valanice claims she can't reach it. The idea is that, being cheese and in water, it is slippery and has to be retrieved a different way. You must instead obtain a book and trade it to Roo Rat for a shepherd's crook and then use the crook to get the Moon. After being then found guilty of "Moon theft" and ordered to put it back into the sky, you then have to use the rubber chicken and a tree branch resembling a slingshot to fling the Moon back into the sky.
|
||||
- Gets played for laughs in [the 2015 reboot](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuest2015 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/KingsQuest2015"). At a certain point, Graham gets stuck in quicksand and the apparent solution is to grab a nearby bucket, umbrella and a wheel to build a sort of impromptu watermill and then use a nearby skeleton to hold it. Graham looks proudly for a few moments at his contraption, and then Vee throws him a vine which allows her to pull him out, throwing in a comment that she's amazed you really thought something like that would actually work.
|
||||
- Later, in the epilogue, Gwendolyn references the trope directly when the player attempts to use an item on an object it's not meant to be used on.
|
||||
|
||||
**Gwendolyn**: Moon, meet logic.
|
||||
|
||||
- *[Laura Bow: The Dagger of Amon Ra](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LauraBow "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LauraBow")* has this. The player will be hinted toward two questions throughout the game "What room do you leave without entering?" and "What room do you enter without leaving?", twin riddles that will come to haunt you near the end of the game in the cult of Amon Ra's secret meeting room. The answers *are* given, but in a slab found in Olymia's office. [In hieroglyphs.](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BilingualBonus "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BilingualBonus") Even if you take the time to decipher the message, it is told in a long passage that still doesn't *directly* give you the answers and, to the ones that don't know the answers otherwise, will sound interesting but otherwise useless and will be very easy to overlook what the answers were. womb and tomb.
|
||||
- *[Limbo of the Lost](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LimboOfTheLost "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LimboOfTheLost")* has the now-infamous Soul Vial puzzle, where the player has to obtain a green-tinted vial containing the also-green soul of a warrior. To do this, the player needs to find an empty green-tinted vial, fill it with water ([which is rendered as thick blue instead of clear](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaterIsBlue "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaterIsBlue)) and mix that with saffron to create a substitute to make the exchange with. This puzzle, of course, not only relies on the fact that the player assumes that the [Water Is Blue](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaterIsBlue "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaterIsBlue") instead of clear, but also assumes that the player knows what saffron is and what it does — and by extension, you would also know that putting saffron in water makes it *yellow*, not *green*!
|
||||
|
||||
*[The Longest Journey Saga](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheLongestJourneySaga "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheLongestJourneySaga")*:
|
||||
|
||||
- *[The Longest Journey](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheLongestJourney "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheLongestJourney")*:
|
||||
|
||||
- At the beginning of the game you need to get a large piece of iron off an electrified metro track. How does one accomplish this feat? By combining a clamp, a clothesline and a rubber ducky. And to get the clamp you need to use the ring your father gave you to close an electrical circuit to fix the plumbing system of your apartment building so the clamp isn't needed to hold a pipe shut? And the duck requires the player to feed a pigeon outside their window, and it will fly down to the grate in the canal the duck is trapped under. The pigeon jars the grate, which both releases the duck, and the chain the clothesline is on. The worst part is that this action is prone to a bug in which April will act as though there's something missing from your Rube Goldberg contraption — so that even if you managed to figure it out, you *still* might be told that you're wrong (incidentally, this is one of [several glitches](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameBreakingBug "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameBreakingBug") which can only be got around by restoring a previous saved game). Also, there's a band-aid on the duck. April has to remove the band-aid, blow up the duck, and then remove it so it'll deflate and the clamp will close automatically. This puzzle stands in stark contrast to most of the other ones in the game, seeing as they are generally based on *actual logic*, instead of a college student, for no good reason, meddling with several pieces of machinery she has no business operating.
|
||||
|
||||
**[Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/article_19974_the-6-most-absurdly-difficult-video-game-puzzles.html):** Now you're ready to get that key! Wait, what key? Oh, right — you were doing something at some point before you got high and started fucking with these birds.
|
||||
|
||||
- Later on, you have to take some candy from the bar April works at. Problem is, if the player chooses to look at the bar instead of manipulating it, April specifically says her boss doesn't like the employees eating the candy. The player might reasonably assume that this is just for the characterization of April's boss, and they shouldn't or can't take the candy, and not even bother to try. The player, admittedly, might decide to go all the way back to the bar just to retrieve the candy when they need it, so they can roll it in stinky ooze and give it to a cop. The cop spits it out, and the guy he's watching thinks it was on purpose and chases him off. Yes, April will decide to, as far as she knows, *poison a police officer* to meet her admittedly-desperate goals.
|
||||
- How do you remove a police officer from an accident scene? Bribe him with a soda, which the game indicates is the right thing to use? Nah, that won't work. Ride the subway clear across town to put the soda in the paint shaker you may have noticed some time ago, then ride the subway all the way back, then walk to the cop and hand him the soda which has somehow not gone flat so that it sprays him in the face, forcing him to leave to change his armor? Correct! Please note that the solution is, in essence, intuitive, but the game forces the player to go about it in a really convoluted way. The game could've simply had April shaking up the soda behind her back before handing it to the cop. It would've been a bit of a [Deus ex Machina](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina), but given that the audience knows April is an intelligent and capable young woman, it would probably be a more logical solution than the one that made it into the game.
|
||||
- A powerful wizard can be defeated by handing him a calculator, causing him to be sucked inside when he starts messing with it. Why? [Fan Wank](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanWank "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanWank") has suggested that it is something to do with the calculator being an object of pure logic that conflicts with the wizard's magical nature but the game doesn't bother to explain this at any point.
|
||||
- *[Dreamfall: The Longest Journey](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney")*:
|
||||
- When Zoë is first transported to Arcadia, her first task is to find her way out of a cave that links to Marcuria. The final step to accomplish this is to solve a musical lock to make a door appear, which requires you to input a specific sequence of four tones to open. How do you figure these tones? They've already been presented to you, in various different ways: in the music that plays for the cutscene when you first arrive in the cave, by having them hummed by the cave-dwelling trolls found on the way to the door, in the combat music when engaging said trolls, and when solving a minor puzzle also required to reach the door. Unsurprisingly, the cutscenes in question cannot be repeated, and it is entirely possible to beat all the trolls (who will aggro on sight) to death, meaning that by the time you reach the door and even realize that you need those clues at all, any possible way to access them has been permanently lost short of loading an earlier save.
|
||||
|
||||
- *[Machinarium](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Machinarium "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Machinarium")* is mostly straightforward in its puzzles, but a few of these fall squarely into Moon Logic territory. For instance: After powering up an electric fence so you can trick a cat into being shocked by it and stunned, you're then able to collect the cat. Why did you need a cat? Why, obviously to give to the didgeridoo player so it can chase the critter out of his didgeridoo!
|
||||
- *[Monkey Island](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MonkeyIsland "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MonkeyIsland")*:
|
||||
- *[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge")*:
|
||||
- At a certain point you have to find something to turn off a pump to reveal a pathway behind a waterfall. The solution was to plug a hypnotized monkey into the pump and turning its tail. Yup, it's a [monkey wrench](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualPun "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualPun"). Bonus points to players of non-English versions (or, indeed, players who speak a [non-American dialect of English](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeparatedByACommonLanguage "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeparatedByACommonLanguage)), because [that's not a puzzle that translates very well](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostInTranslation "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostInTranslation") — the Spanish version of the game, for one, resorted to putting a book in the Phatt Library which flat-out tells you that monkeys can be used as "English wrenches", the Spanish equivalent of "monkey wrenches".
|
||||
- Near the end of the game you have to use an elevator, but the door won't close because the combined weight of Guybrush and a huge immovable crate exceed the weight limit. Guybrush has to be holding a balloon and two surgical gloves filled with helium in order to be light enough to ride the elevator.
|
||||
- *[The Curse of Monkey Island](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland")*:
|
||||
- At one point you need to make a snake throw up. What's the answer? Put an ipecac flower into a carafe of pancake syrup! There is a hint where you get the flower stating that natives use it as a 'purgative', but if the player is unfamiliar with that word or if they read the hint hours earlier...
|
||||
|
||||
["It's syrup of ipecac. That seems...logical..."](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging")
|
||||
|
||||
- 7th Level's *Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail* involved this throughout the whole game. A parody of point-and-click adventure games, this involved a really long registration process at the very beginning. Guess what? The registration is necessary to complete a later section. Fortunately, you get to go back if you didn't complete it the first time around.
|
||||
- There are several of these in the game *Monty Python's The Meaning of Life*.
|
||||
- For example on the last level you need to generate power by turning a wheel, and you have a Rude French Mouse and several types of cheese. Since the Rude French Mouse doesn't want any of the cheese you have to use the mouse on a giant man's head to get a small elephant, use the Chocolate Mousse recipe to make a peanut, and convince the elephant to run in the wheel by placing the peanut nearby. You use the cheese to build a tower that lets you get into the attic.
|
||||
- You also bring a dead parrot back to life using spam, lupins, and a gumby brain surgeon.
|
||||
- Another one, which many players could only solve by forcing themselves to [Try Everything](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TryEverything "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TryEverything"), has several ingredients being put through grinders and added to a bowl to make the infamous salmon mousse from the film. The trick is not to use the grinders - just put all the ingredients directly into the bowl.
|
||||
- *Mudlarks* has several puzzles which combine moon logic with apparent psychosis. Early in the game, the player character gets trapped in a quarantine tent which they were supposed to be just visiting. The solution? Yank an electrical cable on the floor, causing the panel it's connected to to begin sparking, then throw water on it! The character does comment in internal dialog that they've broken the law several times later in the adventure, but never considers the potential consequences of starting an electrical fire in a tent where genuinely sick people are sleeping.
|
||||
- A few parts of *[Myst](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Myst "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Myst")* games. Some are a bit closer to plain ol' [soup cans](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolveTheSoupCans "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolveTheSoupCans") but especially terrible bits include, in *[Uru: Ages Beyond Myst](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/UruAgesBeyondMyst "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/UruAgesBeyondMyst")*, when you have to take aquaphobic one-jump fireflies into a cave behind a waterfall to have enough light to see. You're an explorer, and you don't have the sense to bring a flashlight? Or go back to Relto and grab a firemarble? And even if you *do* get through with some other light source or by feeling your way through, you can't activate the triggers until you come back with fireflies. The underground train where there are small noises at each intersection, each different noise indicating a different direction. This particular puzzle is easier if one has completed the Mechanical Age, or at least used the fortress-rotation simulator in another save, as it uses the exact same sound cues. The train puzzle still has a twist, though: at some points, the train needs to go in a secondary direction (southwest, northeast, etc.), and the cues for those consist of two sounds playing at once.
|
||||
- *[The Mystery of the Druids](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheMysteryOfTheDruids "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheMysteryOfTheDruids")* opens with one of these. You need to contact someone by phone; your office phone in Scotland Yard doesn't let you make external calls. There's a pay phone available, but you don't have change. None of your co-workers will let you use their phone, and nobody will give you change or make change for you. The solution: talk to a hobo on the street, and have him ask you for a drink. Then go to the Scotland Yard lab, tease the lab technician about having alcohol in the lab, and have him dare you to drink medical alcohol. Drink it (which in reality would be potentially fatal), pass out, wake up, use fingerprinting powder on the bottles to see which one held the medical alcohol (even though it's labelled), tip it into a bottle with some apple juice, and feed it to the hobo - who falls unconscious letting you steal the change out of his hat. It is an important hint to how deranged and unscrupulous the player character is (your boss actually chews you out for doing such a ridiculous and dangerous thing), and the fact that the office doesn't give him the money to make external calls hints at how little they trust him; but it's also a very unintuitive puzzle with no hint but to try everything.
|
||||
- The superhero adventure game, *[Noctropolis](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Noctropolis "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Noctropolis")*, is full of these. To enter a cathedral guarded by a lethal, flying gargoyle, the player must A) locate the couple pixels representative of the only loose bar in the iron-wrought fence, B) open utility panel of a nearby streetlight, C) attach fifty-pounds worth of cable to connect the fence post to an arbitrary lead, and d.) throw the bar, like a spear, some 20-yards so that it lands upon the fountain on which the beast occasionally perches so that it is electrocuted the following time it does. This puzzle was one of the first in the game and significantly simpler than later examples.
|
||||
- *[Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/NordAndBertCouldntMakeHeadOrTailOfIt "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/NordAndBertCouldntMakeHeadOrTailOfIt")* runs on a specific type of weird logic, dependent on wordplay, so some of the puzzles end up being quite obtuse if you aren't familiar with the terms. For example, one part in "[Shake a Tower](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Spoonerism "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Spoonerism")" has you save a shepherd from a rabid rat, and he drops a book of riddles. You also see a burning pile of soap suds, with an icicle hanging above them. The solution is to "riddle while foam burns", a play on the obscure expression "fiddle while Rome burns". This leads you to a well-boiled icicle, which you can turn into a well-oiled bicycle and use to get around. Other puzzles involve figuring out how to scare a portrait of [Karl Marx](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/KarlMarx "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/KarlMarx) and finding various ways to annoy a waitress.
|
||||
- 3D adventure game *[Outcry](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Outcry "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Outcry")* invoked this on purpose in its latter half, where the landscape is shaped by your brother's subconscious. While the previous puzzles were mainly about studying abandoned/incomplete instructions to operating mysterious machinery, the puzzles in the so-called "Shimmering World" will have connections to psychotropic drugs, ancient monoliths and other things your brother knew very well but the player might struggle to figure out.
|
||||
- *[Out of Order (2003)](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/OutOfOrder2003 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/OutOfOrder2003")* has a couple:
|
||||
- At one point, you need to obtain a device called a "MotorTroll" from a shopkeeper named Bob. It just happens that Bob has a bunch of cardboard boxes behind his shop, including one for the MotorTroll. If you look into it, you obtain an instruction manual, and if you look into it again you get a warranty. If you show Bob the warranty he'll say that he'll give you a new MotorTroll, but only if you bring him the old broken one. So what do you do? You're supposed to mess with an electrical transformer in the doctor's office to obtain a pile of burnt-out wires, and show them to Bob claiming that they're the broken MotorTroll. There's absolutely nothing connecting the wires and MotorTroll other than the fact that they're both electronic.
|
||||
|
||||
...37253 bytes truncated...
|
||||
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src/resources/moon-logic/moon-logic-divergent-thinking.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
source: https://simplyputpsych.co.uk/gaming-psych/point-and-click-adventure-games-pure-moon-logic-or-an-expression-of-divergent-thinking
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Point-and-Click Adventure Games: Pure Moon Logic or an Expression of Divergent Thinking? — Simply Put Psych
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
[Skip to Content](#page)
|
||||
|
||||
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|
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|
||||
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|
||||
|
||||
Articles
|
||||
|
||||
[Psych 101](/psych-101)
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
|
||||
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# Point-and-Click Adventure Games: Pure Moon Logic or an Expression of Divergent Thinking?
|
||||
|
||||
[Cognitive Psychology](/gaming-psych/category/Cognitive+Psychology)[Game Design and Psychology](/gaming-psych/category/Game+Design+and+Psychology)[Game Development & Design Theory](/gaming-psych/category/Game+Development+%26+Design+Theory)
|
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||||
1 Nov
|
||||
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||||
Written By [JC Pass](/gaming-psych?author=643ad5af58e40f270c343c5c)
|
||||
|
||||
In the realm of video games, few genres evoke as much nostalgia as point-and-click adventure games. Often characterized by their immersive storytelling, quirky characters, and elaborate puzzles, these games have secured a devoted fan base since their inception in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Titles like *Monkey Island*, *Grim Fandango*, and *Day of the Tentacle* not only defined a genre but also shaped the way narrative-driven games are developed today. However, a common critique of point-and-click adventures is their use of what many players refer to as "moon logic"—puzzles that seem illogical or arbitrary. This leads to a fascinating debate: are these games a testament to creative, divergent thinking, or are they merely exercises in frustration masked by whimsical storytelling?
|
||||
|
||||
## A Brief History of Point-and-Click Adventure Games
|
||||
|
||||
To understand the nuances of this debate, it's essential to trace the evolution of point-and-click adventure games. The genre traces its roots back to early text-based adventures like *Colossal Cave Adventure* and *Zork*, where players interacted with the game world through typed commands. The transition to graphical interfaces in the mid-1980s marked a significant turning point. Games like *Maniac Mansion* (1987) introduced point-and-click mechanics, allowing players to interact with the environment through simple clicks rather than text input.
|
||||
|
||||
As technology progressed, so did the complexity and depth of these games. The golden age of point-and-click adventures in the 1990s showcased innovative storytelling and rich worlds, often featuring bizarre and surreal elements. Companies like LucasArts and Sierra On-Line became synonymous with the genre, creating iconic titles that remain influential to this day.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Nature of Puzzles in Point-and-Click Adventures
|
||||
|
||||
At the heart of point-and-click adventures are their puzzles, which can vary from straightforward tasks to mind-bending conundrums that require outside-the-box thinking. Puzzles often incorporate items collected throughout the game, and their solutions can sometimes seem contrived or nonsensical to players. This phenomenon, humorously dubbed "moon logic," refers to puzzles that defy conventional reasoning or require a leap of intuition that may not align with the game's narrative.
|
||||
|
||||
For instance, consider a scenario where a player must combine a rubber chicken with a pulley to advance the story. While this may seem nonsensical at first glance, it highlights an essential aspect of the genre: the reliance on creativity and unexpected solutions. In this light, "moon logic" becomes not just a source of frustration, but a hallmark of the genre's unique approach to problem-solving.
|
||||
|
||||
## Moon Logic: A Double-Edged Sword
|
||||
|
||||
The presence of moon logic in point-and-click adventures often leads to divided opinions. On one hand, players who enjoy a challenge and appreciate unconventional thinking may find joy in deciphering these puzzles. The satisfaction of overcoming a particularly tricky challenge can lead to a profound sense of accomplishment. Conversely, players who prefer more logical, straightforward puzzles may feel alienated by the genre's sometimes arbitrary nature.
|
||||
|
||||
Critics argue that the reliance on moon logic can detract from the overall experience, leading to moments of frustration where players feel stuck due to puzzles that lack clear logic or context. This sentiment is especially true for newer players unfamiliar with the genre's quirks, who may abandon a game in frustration rather than embrace its eccentricities.
|
||||
|
||||
## Divergent Thinking: Embracing Creativity in Gameplay
|
||||
|
||||
While some players may view point-and-click adventures as a minefield of illogical puzzles, others see them as a celebration of divergent thinking. Divergent thinking refers to the cognitive process of generating multiple ideas or solutions for a given problem. In this context, the challenges presented in these games require players to think creatively, exploring unconventional connections between items and ideas.
|
||||
|
||||
For instance, players often have to think laterally, making connections that may not be immediately apparent. This kind of creative problem-solving not only encourages players to engage with the game world on a deeper level but also fosters a sense of exploration and discovery. The bizarre and whimsical nature of these games invites players to suspend their disbelief and embrace a world where the impossible becomes possible.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Art of Narrative and Puzzles
|
||||
|
||||
The interplay between narrative and puzzles is a defining characteristic of point-and-click adventures. Developers craft intricate stories where puzzles serve as both obstacles and narrative devices. In this sense, the moon logic that characterizes many puzzles often aligns with the thematic elements of the story. A rubber chicken with a pulley might represent the absurdity of the game's world, contributing to the overall tone and experience.
|
||||
|
||||
Consider *Grim Fandango*, a game that masterfully intertwines its puzzles with its narrative. Set in the Land of the Dead, the game challenges players to navigate through a world steeped in Mexican folklore and existential themes. The puzzles, while sometimes perplexing, serve to deepen the player's understanding of the characters and their motivations. Here, the moon logic becomes a reflection of the game's surreal atmosphere, enhancing rather than detracting from the experience.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Revival of Point-and-Click Adventures
|
||||
|
||||
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in point-and-click adventure games, fueled by both nostalgia and the advent of independent game development. Titles like *Thimbleweed Park* and *Broken Age* have reimagined the genre for modern audiences, retaining the quirky charm while addressing some criticisms of their predecessors. These games often strike a balance between challenging puzzles and a clearer logical framework, appealing to both veterans and newcomers alike.
|
||||
|
||||
Moreover, the revival has sparked discussions about the role of player agency and satisfaction in puzzle design. Developers are increasingly mindful of creating puzzles that are challenging yet fair, allowing players to feel rewarded for their efforts rather than simply frustrated by arbitrary solutions. This evolution signifies a maturation of the genre, demonstrating that point-and-click adventures can adapt while still honoring their roots.
|
||||
|
||||
## Simply Put: Embracing the Quirkiness
|
||||
|
||||
Point-and-click adventure games exist at the intersection of storytelling, creativity, and problem-solving. While the presence of moon logic may pose challenges for some players, it also represents an invitation to engage in divergent thinking and embrace the unexpected. These games, with their whimsical worlds and eccentric puzzles, offer a unique playground for imagination and creativity.
|
||||
|
||||
As the genre continues to evolve, the challenge remains for developers to balance the quirks that define point-and-click adventures with player expectations. Whether viewed as frustrating obstacles or creative opportunities, the puzzles in these games ultimately serve a greater purpose: to immerse players in richly crafted worlds where the only limits are their imagination and willingness to explore the absurd. In a world increasingly defined by logic and structure, point-and-click adventures remind us of the joy of thinking differently and the beauty of embracing the nonsensical.
|
||||
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☰ Table of Contents
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## Table of Contents
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Featured
|
||||
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||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/why-resident-evil-9-stops-being-scary-once-you-notice-the-bottles)
|
||||
|
||||
[Why Resident Evil 9 Stops Being Scary Once You Notice the Bottles](/gaming-psych/why-resident-evil-9-stops-being-scary-once-you-notice-the-bottles)
|
||||
|
||||
A psychology-informed look at how *Resident Evil 9* uses selective interactivity, and why Grace's bottle mechanic weakens immersion, tension, and fear in survival horror.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/kim-kitsuragi-externalised-executive-function-in-human-form)
|
||||
|
||||
[Kim Kitsuragi: Externalised Executive Function in Human Form](/gaming-psych/kim-kitsuragi-externalised-executive-function-in-human-form)
|
||||
|
||||
An in-depth psychological analysis of Kim Kitsuragi in *Disco Elysium*, using the game as a case study to explain executive function, co-regulation, and cognitive support.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/controller-psychology-what-game-developers-need-to-know)
|
||||
|
||||
[Controller Psychology: What Game Developers Need to Know](/gaming-psych/controller-psychology-what-game-developers-need-to-know)
|
||||
|
||||
Discover how psychology influences controller design. Explore motor habits, interference, cognitive load and cross-platform consistency to build better game controls.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/why-pokmon-still-has-no-voice-acting-a-considered-look-at-twenty-years-of-silence)
|
||||
|
||||
[Why Pokémon Still Has No Voice Acting: A Considered Look at Twenty Years of Silence](/gaming-psych/why-pokmon-still-has-no-voice-acting-a-considered-look-at-twenty-years-of-silence)
|
||||
|
||||
Why do mainline Pokémon games still have no voice acting after 20 years? This analysis examines handheld habits, player expectations, development choices, and the contrast with the Pokémon anime to explain the franchise's enduring commitment to silent storytelling.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/fallout-4-cognitive-dissonance-and-the-case-for-the-distant-tiger-a-psychological-perspective-on-main-quest-design)
|
||||
|
||||
[Fallout 4, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Case for the Distant Tiger: A Psychological Perspective on Main Quest Design](/gaming-psych/fallout-4-cognitive-dissonance-and-the-case-for-the-distant-tiger-a-psychological-perspective-on-main-quest-design)
|
||||
|
||||
Explore how *Fallout 4's* main quest creates cognitive dissonance and how psychology, through temporal and distance discounting, offers smarter game design.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/blood-and-reflection-the-psychology-of-missed-potential-in-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2)
|
||||
|
||||
[Blood and Reflection: The Psychology of Missed Potential in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2](/gaming-psych/blood-and-reflection-the-psychology-of-missed-potential-in-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2)
|
||||
|
||||
A psychological deep dive into Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Exploring missed potential, identity, and the loss of the Beast within a haunting neon Seattle, this essay examines how atmosphere outshines agency in Paradox's long-awaited vampire RPG.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/can-cbt-help-improve-your-game-performance)
|
||||
|
||||
[Can CBT Help Improve Your Game Performance?](/gaming-psych/can-cbt-help-improve-your-game-performance)
|
||||
|
||||
Discover how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can enhance your esports performance. Learn techniques like mental rehearsal, breathing exercises, and cognitive restructuring to improve focus, manage stress, and boost confidence in high-pressure gaming situations.
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
](/gaming-psych/so-you-think-you-can-stream)
|
||||
|
||||
[So You Think You Can Stream](/gaming-psych/so-you-think-you-can-stream)
|
||||
|
||||
Unpack the hidden psychology of live streaming. Discover the extreme cognitive load, multitasking demands, and complex **parasocial relationships** that make **Twitch streaming** a high-skill job.
|
||||
|
||||
[JC Pass](/gaming-psych?author=643ad5af58e40f270c343c5c)
|
||||
|
||||
JC Pass, MSc, is a social and political psychology specialist and self-described psychological smuggler; someone who slips complex theory into places textbooks never reach. His essays use games, media, politics, grief, and culture as gateways into deeper insight, exploring how power, identity, and narrative shape behaviour. JC's work is cited internationally in universities and peer-reviewed research, and he creates clear, practical resources that make psychology not only understandable, but alive, applied, and impossible to forget.
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[https://SimplyPutPsych.co.uk/](https://SimplyPutPsych.co.uk/)
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## Are We Shaping Future Societies Through Virtual Economies?
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## Ethical Considerations and Concerns Surrounding Battle Passes
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](/gaming-psych/ethical-considerations-and-concerns-surrounding-battle-passes)
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213
src/resources/moon-logic/moon-logic-puzzle-tvtropes.md
Normal file
213
src/resources/moon-logic/moon-logic-puzzle-tvtropes.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,213 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoonLogicPuzzle
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Moon Logic Puzzle - TV Tropes
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|
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|
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoonLogicPuzzle
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# Moon Logic Puzzle
|
||||
|
||||
[9](javascript:void\(0\);) [Following](#watch)
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
Go To
|
||||
|
||||
](#mobile-actions-toggle)
|
||||
|
||||
- [Main](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoonLogicPuzzle "The Main page")
|
||||
- [Laconic](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/MoonLogicPuzzle "The Laconic page")
|
||||
- [Quotes](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/MoonLogicPuzzle "The Quotes page")
|
||||
- [ VideoExamples](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoExamples/MoonLogicPuzzle "Video Examples")
|
||||
- [Create Subpage](javascript:void\(0\);) \- Create New - Analysis Archive Awesome Characters DerivativeWork… FanficRecs FanWorks Fridge Funny Haiku Headscratchers Heartwarming ImageLinks ImageSource MediaNotes Newsletter NightmareFuel PlayingWith QuoteSource Recap ReferencedBy Shocking TearJerker Timeline Trivia WMG YMMV
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge")
|
||||
|
||||
[It's a monkey wrench, get it?](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualPun "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualPun")
|
||||
... [So what's the captain doing there?](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComicallyMissingThePoint "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComicallyMissingThePoint")
|
||||
|
||||
*"'Ninja star + Chess + Watermelon + Sand = Swimsuit. I need to bring a banana with me 'cause... it makes me immortal if I get shot. My teddy bear can find pieces of a screwdriver, but it is useless without fish.' I know that this game took a lot of work, but you can't make people think they'll need to take the cat and cover it with gasoline if they want to proceed..."*
|
||||
|
||||
— **0EndlessNameless0**, *[Pursuit](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheTrappedTrilogy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheTrappedTrilogy")* [user review](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Platform/Newgrounds "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Platform/Newgrounds")
|
||||
|
||||
Sometimes, it's easy to see how to [Solve the Soup Cans](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolveTheSoupCans "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SolveTheSoupCans") — give the chicken noodle soup to the guard with the cold, trade the tomato for the red orb, and pour the cream of mushroom into the chalice with [Mario](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/SuperMarioBros "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/SuperMarioBros") engraved on the side. The puzzles may be challenging and have nothing to do with what you're doing, but given enough thought, the solution at least is logical.
|
||||
|
||||
And sometimes, standard logic just won't get you to the right answer, no matter how hard you try. 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!](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt"); 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.
|
||||
|
||||
If a frustrated player eventually does reach for the strategy guide, there will be two common reactions on discovering the answer: If the puzzle is well written, [the answer will make complete, brilliant sense in hindsight](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance"), and the player will respect the puzzle designer, perhaps curse themselves for giving in to the strategy guide, or for needing it in the first place.
|
||||
|
||||
If it is poorly written or implemented, you still may not think anyone could possibly solve it on their own. You may also find yourself cursing the developer for expecting you to make overly arcane connections, notice [absurdly minute details](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PixelHunt "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PixelHunt"), or for throwing in intentional or unintentional [Red Herrings](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring"); but even a badly executed but successful moon logic puzzle makes sense after you read the answer. The pieces of the solution were in fact provided, and the solutions make logical sense in hindsight, just in strange or hard to notice ways. Even a highly skilled puzzle-solver will occasionally get stuck on one of these. When this is bad enough that hundreds of players will get stuck on this puzzle, it's [That One Puzzle](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatOnePuzzle "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatOnePuzzle").
|
||||
|
||||
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](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonSequitur "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonSequitur") or even pure [Insane Troll Logic](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneTrollLogic "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneTrollLogic") — for example, you should just *know* which three rocks should be arranged on the three pedestals and in what order.note obviously by size order to form the first three digits of Pi because there are more circles than squares in the pattern on the wall. Other times, the clues that would have led to the solution seem so out of left field that it leaves the player wondering "how was I supposed to know *that*?" Such "out of left field" examples might entail figuring out the third meaning of a [Double Entendre](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleEntendre "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleEntendre") [someone you talked to 20 hours ago made](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrickJoke "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrickJoke"), listening to the [unlisted audio track included on the bonus disc](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual") that didn't come with the rental, knowing some obscure pun in a language other than English that got [Lost in Translation](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostInTranslation "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostInTranslation"), or not being familiar with a [common custom of the writer's culture](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorProvincialism "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorProvincialism"). note for example: "Click the blue button, followed by the purple button." The Russian language recognizes dark blue (*siniy*) as a separate basic color from light blue (*goluboy*). The range covered by siniy includes a chunk of what an English speaker would call purple, and is "obviously" distinct from *goluboy*. Purple, on the other hand, is *fioletoviy*, which more closely matches "violet". Thus, with a simple slip of translation or colorization, a Russian player may be utterly baffled by having two slightly different *siniy* buttons, no *goluboy* or *fioletoviy* buttons, and no hint as to what the problem is.
|
||||
|
||||
This can go full circle into its polar opposite, [Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay"), where players get so used to game logic that [Real Life](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealLife "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealLife") logic is now what's alien.
|
||||
|
||||
If a character In-Universe has to solve one of these *without player interaction*, they may best display the skills necessary to tackle these kinds of problems if they're the [Cloudcuckoolander](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Cloudcuckoolander "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Cloudcuckoolander"); anyone else will have to rely on [Bat Deduction](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BatDeduction "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BatDeduction"). And in either case, the solution will turn out to be an [Unexpectedly Obscure Answer](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexpectedlyObscureAnswer "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexpectedlyObscureAnswer").
|
||||
|
||||
Moon logic and soup can puzzles tend to still be in favor more amongst hardcore traditionalists than casual adventure gamers who prefer storytelling and puzzles that actually make sense within the context of the story. There seems to be a niche group who enjoys whimsical brainteasers exercises in quirky thinking more than serious attempts at a story. For them, it is more about the pride of figuring out on their own [just how to get the Babel Fish](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1984 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1984"), this example being perhaps the [Trope Maker](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropeMaker "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropeMaker").
|
||||
|
||||
Far, far too many moon logic puzzles are based on [Puns](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Pun "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Pun").
|
||||
|
||||
In real life, the genre of brainteasers known as "lateral thinking puzzles" or "insight puzzles" often fall in this category. Compare and contrast [Stock Lateral Thinking Puzzle](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockLateralThinkingPuzzle "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockLateralThinkingPuzzle").
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
## Examples:
|
||||
|
||||
open/close all folders
|
||||
|
||||
## Video Game Examples
|
||||
|
||||
- [Adventure Games](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MoonLogicPuzzle/AdventureGames "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MoonLogicPuzzle/AdventureGames")
|
||||
|
||||
Pure Puzzle Games
|
||||
|
||||
- *[Antichamber](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Antichamber "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Antichamber")* [intentionally instills this atmosphere](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools"), although once the player gets used to the strange yet consistent dream-like logic, it gets a lot less frustrating. The puzzles in the game are usually either this or block puzzles, though sometimes both. The most common general principle is that areas will often change when you aren't looking at them.
|
||||
- *[The Fool's Errand](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheFoolsErrand "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheFoolsErrand")*. Sure, most of the riddles still had text in the help menu, but while that might have provided theory, ambiguous wording obfuscated mechanisms. The Death Puzzle in particular is a huge leap from anything else in the game (mostly wordplay and logic challenges). Players needed to catch a fast-moving symbol with the mouse pointer (while avoiding another). The only way to solve the puzzle is to interfere with the mini-game by activating the program's pull-down menu, halting the animation and allowing the user to align the mouse for the payoff click, or find a way to move the symbol without moving the mouse (the latter was the intended solution,note and in fact is the way to solve the Three Ships puzzle but the former, a glitch caused by the Macintosh's single-tasking nature, was [deemed a valid alternate solution by the developer](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AscendedGlitch "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AscendedGlitch")).
|
||||
- Pretty much any question on *[The Impossible Quiz](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheImpossibleQuiz "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheImpossibleQuiz")* that isn't an outright [Guide Dang It!](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt") (or an [Unexpected Gameplay Change](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexpectedGameplayChange "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnexpectedGameplayChange")) is this. For example, one question asks you to "Pick the smallest" of several circles. The correct choice? The dot on the "i" in "Pick", which is, indeed, the smallest circle.
|
||||
- Smartphone game series *Let's Mischief To Couple* is all about screwing up the relationships of happy couples by manipulating circumstances in insane ways. For example: how do you screw up a quiet walk in the woods? Obviously you take a knife from a nearby overweight kid's backpack, use the knife to cut down a flower from a nearby tree, and give that flower to said overweight kid, so that he can use its intoxicating pollen to brainwash a nearby deer into attacking the couple. Obviously.
|
||||
- The raison d'etre of *[McPixel](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/McPixel "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/McPixel")*, where the entire appeal of the game is to intentionally seek bizarre and hilarious outcomes in order to find the (usually) contrived solution. It helps that the interface is bare-bones as possible so that all possibilities can be boiled down to just [clicking everything](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TryEverything "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TryEverything").
|
||||
- *[Professor Layton](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLayton "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLayton")* series:
|
||||
- *[Professor Layton and the Curious Village](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheCuriousVillage "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheCuriousVillage")*
|
||||
- One puzzle which frustrated many players literally requires knowledge of the QWERTY keyboard layout — which is, of course, not actually used within the game, but which can be found within PictoChat on the DS if someone doesn't have a keyboard at hand. It also requires seeing that the candy bar on which the puzzle is written has bite marks in it which are easily missed, but which make up part of the solution, and which are not mentioned in *any* of the in-game hints. Oh, and also, the puzzle is phrased in terms of SMS messaging, thus suggesting a completely different keypad layout that's entirely a [Red Herring](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring"). Luckily for Europeans this puzzle was replaced with a mathematical puzzle; whether it was because it was deemed too difficult or because not all of Europe uses QWERTY is unknown.
|
||||
- One puzzle mentions a device that makes a hole in a piece of paper and then marks the hole with a line. The answer they're looking for is "compass" as a compass is used to draw a circle by hinging a pin with a pencil. Of course, if you think "line" means "straight curve" you're never going to figure it out and this puzzle comes off as a particularly bizarre jump in logic.
|
||||
- Another puzzle features ten lit candles; three have the flame blown out and you are asked how many candles are left "at the end". The answer is three because the other seven lit candles are allowed to burn until there is nothing left; "at the end" referring to when this has happened.
|
||||
- *[Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheDiabolicalBox "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheDiabolicalBox")* has one puzzle that involves a bottle with three long, twisty openings that form a maze and two corks. The bottle contains garlic, and you must block two openings with the corks to stop the person who gave it to you from smelling the garlic. No matter what combination of openings on the bottle you block, you will fail the puzzle because all three of the openings lead to the garlic. The solution is to put the corks in the nostrils of the person who gave you the puzzle, which are also openings. The puzzle didn't specify that the openings were on the bottle.
|
||||
- *[Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheAzranLegacy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheAzranLegacy")* has the game's second puzzle. Prima's friend sent her a gift inside a block of ice, with a card saying that "you can use five 150 ml cups of hot water to melt 30 g of ice" and that she'd need to work out how many cups she'd need to melt the 2kg block of ice encasing her gift. The answer: 0. Prima just needs to stick it in front of her fireplace. The image displayed during the puzzle does indeed display a fireplace in the background, but the puzzle puts itself as a simple word based mathematics puzzle, meaning that most players just pay attention to the text and take the image as just being there for the sake of flavor.
|
||||
- *[Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LaytonsMysteryJourneyKatrielleAndTheMillionairesConspiracy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LaytonsMysteryJourneyKatrielleAndTheMillionairesConspiracy")* has a number of these, more so then is even usual for the *Layton* series. One of the puzzles gives the player a brief explanation on the pH scale, and describes that pH 3 indicates acid and pH 7 indicates alkaline. It then asks what pH 0+0 would indicate. The answer is "photo". Because pH 0+0 kinda looks like "photo".note It helps to know that the pH scale goes from 1 to 14, so there is no "ph 0," but the game's brief explanation does not state that and *it isn't true in real life either*, not that they hadn't already mistaken pH 7 for alkaline rather than neutral. Another puzzle has a man talking to his wife about how last year it was their seventh wedding anniversary on the 30th of June, while next year it'll be their tenth wedding anniversary. You have to say when the conversation was taking place. The conversation started on the 31st of December at 11:59 at night and halfway through the sentence it became midnight and the date changed to the 1st of January. Meaning the start of the sentence took place in the year of their 8th anniversary, while halfway through, it became their 9th. Just forgetting about the fact that it's pretty awkward that you have to put the date that the conversation specifically *started*, you don't exactly expect people to change the context of what they're saying based on a to-the-second clock, mid-conversation.
|
||||
- In the final puzzle in *[System's Twilight](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SystemsTwilight "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SystemsTwilight")*, your goal is to reboot the system by [quitting and reopening the game](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakingTheFourthWall "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakingTheFourthWall") but requires a giant leap of intuition since there are no hints given and most (if not all) game guides only partially reference the solution. Or, more likely, you get frustrated by it to the point where you [Rage Quit](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RageQuit "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RageQuit") in mid-puzzle, thus solving it accidentally.
|
||||
- *[There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ThereIsNoGameWrongDimension "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ThereIsNoGameWrongDimension")*: Parodied during the Sherlock Holmes game. Game constantly points out how the solutions to each puzzle are ridiculous and nonsensical. Some of the game's actual puzzles can be downright outlandish, with lampshades aplenty, but exploration is often limited so you should quickly realize what to do anyway. Special mention to the [Allegedly Free Game](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllegedlyFreeGame "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllegedlyFreeGame") part, where a series of in-game switch combinations have to be found in the pop-up ads, hidden in a QR code and a game of [Sudoku](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GridPuzzle "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GridPuzzle") respectively, that otherwise have nothing to do with *Legend of the Secret*.
|
||||
|
||||
Other Video Games
|
||||
|
||||
- The RPG *[Albion](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Albion "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Albion")* has a weird little example. You are in a room. There are two doors and a sign on the wall saying you may go through the doors if you want. Naturally, if you try to open the doors, they are locked. The solution? Well, if you try a door a second time, it will open with no problem. Likely, you'll puzzle over it for some time the first time and try everything (there's not much you can do), and then manage to get out without knowing how you did it, but if trying it a second time immediately see what the trick was.
|
||||
- In *[ANNO: Mutationem](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ANNOMutationem "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ANNOMutationem")*, one of the early [sidequests](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sidequest "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sidequest") revolves around finding a suspect who disappeared in an elevator. The only clues being video footage of the suspect entering the elevator before vanishing and examining the crime scene has Ann noting that something in the room has changed. The real solution is that several objects in the crime scene are broken into a specific number of pieces, which requires Ann to go to that floor with the elevator, that also has a room identical to the previous one, following the clues on each floor will lead to the suspect's location.
|
||||
- *[Another World](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AnotherWorld "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AnotherWorld")* had a particularly obnoxious one near the end of the game, where you climb a flight of stairs to encounter an armed alien soldier. Instead of immediately blowing him away like any other enemy, you instead have to run to the other side of the room where, instead of blowing *you* away at first sight like any other enemy soldier, he'll instead [start deploying mobile bombs that will never reach you and instead travel down the stairs](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooDumbToLive "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooDumbToLive") and explode on the screen below you, blowing a hole in the floor. But you can't stop him after just one! You have to let him deploy about *five* of these things before they break through the floor completely. If you screw up and kill him before that, it's time to suicide and start over.
|
||||
- The Atari action-adventure game *Artefakt Przodków* has a puzzle like this. How do you get past a wall? Why, you need to give poison to a small animal, then use its corpse near the wall to destroy it. There are no in-game hints to this either. That said, the solution to this puzzle *is* directly given in the manual (with a hand-wavey explanation that it's an "explosive corpse"), and the other puzzles in the game make more sense.
|
||||
- *[Assassin's Creed](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/AssassinsCreed "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/AssassinsCreed")*:
|
||||
- *[Assassin's Creed II](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII")*:
|
||||
- The glyph puzzles, where a common theme must be found between paintings, a code cracked, or anomalies found in photographs. Most of them are fine, but one or two of the painting puzzles are outright frustrating if you don't pick up on the weird hints they give you, or haven't been following the framing story too closely. Luckily, if you get it wrong enough times, Shaun Hastings can give you some advice that makes it clearer, but until then, who knows! (and sometimes that doesn't help much) The codes can be even worse.
|
||||
- Of particular note is the code wheel in the 18th glyph- for one thing, it involves Sumerian numerals, and it's highly unlikely you'd know what they were in the first place until Shaun gives you the hint, but even with the hint, it's still an absurdly difficult puzzle.
|
||||
- And then there's the code in the 20th glyph, which gives no real hints to the solution, and even Shaun is so puzzled he can't give you any help.
|
||||
- The glyph puzzles seem to be targeted directly at players familiar with the puzzle style of [alternate reality games](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlternateRealityGame "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlternateRealityGame"), and as they're off the critical path you don't actually have to solve them to complete the game.
|
||||
- *[Assassin's Creed: Unity](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity")* has the Nostradamus Enigmas. These are 18 challenges throughout the game that contain 3 or 4 riddles each. Each riddle leads the player to another riddle until they reach the end. What makes this challenging is the locations of the next riddle are never consistent. Sometimes one Enigma's riddles will keep the player within a small area, other times the next riddle will be hundreds of kilometers away.
|
||||
- *[Attack of the Mutant Penguins](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AttackOfTheMutantPenguins "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AttackOfTheMutantPenguins")* is as close to a Moon Logic *Game* as you can get. [The Angry Video Game Nerd](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd") describes its bizarreness:
|
||||
|
||||
**Angry Video Game Nerd:** From what I understand, [there's a bunch of](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NarratingTheObvious "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NarratingTheObvious") penguins walking around. You buy tickets and they go into a [transformation booth](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke") where they become [evil mutant penguins](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mutants "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mutants"). And from there, they go to the Doom Scale — [yeah, the Doom Scale](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObviouslyEvil "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObviouslyEvil"). They jump in the mouth, and appear *on* the scale. So, you gotta stop the penguins by using a weapon, for example, [a baseball bat](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BatterUp "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BatterUp"). How do you get the bat? [You gotta collect letters that spell the word "BAT".](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpellingBonus "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpellingBonus") Where do you find the letters? [Inside treasure chests.](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InexplicableTreasureChests "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InexplicableTreasureChests") But how do you open the treasure chests? [A key, right?](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InterchangeableAntimatterKeys "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InterchangeableAntimatterKeys") NO, *[GREMLINS!](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoodleImplements "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoodleImplements")* Yeah, you collect what they call "gremlins" and supposedly, you drop the gremlins inside the treasure chest, and then it opens. But no, it doesn't open right away, [it takes like ten seconds](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DelayedExplosion "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DelayedExplosion"). [The more gremlins you use, the faster it opens.](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfAThousandCuts "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfAThousandCuts") But it doesn't open, it like, [explodes](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffBlowingUp "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffBlowingUp"). When you get the bat, [you gotta kill all the penguins](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootEverythingThatMoves "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootEverythingThatMoves"), [but they don't die if you hit 'em](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSayDie "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSayDie") instead there's a bunch of *power orbs* that scatter all over. You gotta get all the power orbs to power up your bat so you can kill the penguins, [but you only kill the penguins wearing hats](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticRacism "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticRacism") [because the ones that](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality") *[don't](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality")* [wear hats fight the ones that](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality") *[do](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality")* [wear hats](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality"). If the mutant penguins on the Doom Scale outweigh the regular penguins, the Doom Scale starts *[screaming and going apeshit!](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TurnsRed "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TurnsRed")*
|
||||
*[\[Beat.\](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Beat "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Beat")\]*
|
||||
**Angry Video Game Nerd:** This is the weirdest game I've ever played.
|
||||
|
||||
- *[The Binding of Isaac](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac")*:
|
||||
- Using The Bible on [Mom](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFundamentalist "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFundamentalist") will instantly kill her, unlocking the Halo (a pretty useful item). Nowhere in the game itself is this explained, and The Bible isn't an item you're likely to randomly use in a boss fight (it normally just grants temporary flight). At least the game justifies this, since a Bible falls on Mom's head and kills her in a cutscene, but no other item in the game has this kind of special rule.
|
||||
- Unlocking The Lost in *Rebirth*. First, you have to kill yourself in a Sacrifice Room while holding the Missing Poster. This will display one of several unique death screens on your last will. Each death screen needs to be pieced together in the right order, then you need to kill yourself as each character in the right order with the methods listed. There are no hints that any of this will happen anywhere in the game. This was a [deliberately impossible puzzle](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImpossibleTask "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImpossibleTask") that was supposed to be solved by the community as a whole, although the character and solution ended up [getting datamined](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuttingTheKnot "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuttingTheKnot") instead.
|
||||
- *Afterbirth+* added an even straighter example. To unlock The Forgotten, you have to beat the boss on the first floor in under a minute. This will cause Mom to laugh. If you return to the spawn room, you'll see an odd shadow looming over it. Placing a bomb in the center of the room causes the handle of a shovel to fall down. While holding the shovel, Mom will **constantly** try to stomp on you, which will only cease for a single room when you activate the item. You need to carry this shovel all the way through the Mom fight and into Boss Rush, beat Boss Rush, then complete the shovel (mercifully making the feet stop). Then you need to take the shovel all the way to [The Dark Room](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon") and use it on an innocuous patch of dirt in a random room. Good luck even *starting* the puzzle.
|
||||
- One that may take hours or be solved instantly, depending on how you think: in the RPG *Blades of Exile* you encounter a group of [GIFTS: Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunWithAcronyms "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunWithAcronyms"), [each named Spider](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfSteves "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfSteves"). One acts as a [Beef Gate](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeefGate "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeefGate") and won't let you past unless you can prove you know the chief. The proof is to tell him the chief's name. Yes, the chief's name *is* Spider.
|
||||
- Everything about the old PC FPS game that time (wisely) forgot, *[Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BloodwingsPumpkinheadsRevenge "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BloodwingsPumpkinheadsRevenge"),* follows a form of moon logic that even the developers probably didn't get half the time, from using a fire extinguisher to cross pools of lava and using a shovel to smash a crystal to upgrade your main weapon.
|
||||
- *[Borderlands 3](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Borderlands3 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Borderlands3")*: [Played for Laughs](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlayedForLaughs "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlayedForLaughs) on Eden-6, where Wainwright Jakobs and his boyfriend Hammerlock have to progress through the Jakobs family puzzles. Thankfully you just have to shoot people while they help you behind the scenes, but judging from Hammerlock's commentary the puzzles make *no sense*. And to top it all off, it turns out that the solution was written on the ceiling.
|
||||
- Beating the [Final Boss](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FinalBoss "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FinalBoss") of *[Chrono Cross](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ChronoCross "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ChronoCross")* ([correctly](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldenEnding "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldenEnding")) requires spells with certain colors and sounds associated with them to be cast in a certain order. Without casting the spells in the correct order, beating the boss correctly would be impossible. While the correct order *is* found in a few places in the game, it's very rarely in a way that call attention to it. The most obvious place is a boss that uses it as the answer to riddles, but this is A) optional and B) perfectly possible to mess up.
|
||||
- Also of note is that the tune that the *Chrono Cross* plays is composed of the first few notes that make up what is the theme song of the game: "The Unstolen Jewel".
|
||||
- Additionally, the order is intentionally hinted at and countered by the final boss, who will use the opposite element of whatever the next in the order is until he is low on health. When his health is low, he will instead casts the elements in the correct order, allowing you to simply use the [MacGuffin](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin") when the pattern is done.
|
||||
- The [Secret Level](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecretLevel "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecretLevel") in *[Commander Keen](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CommanderKeen "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CommanderKeen") 4* can be accessed by collecting twelve inchworms together, so that they form a giant flying foot that takes you there. That explains the strange sentence in their description: "Watch out where you step or they'll be afoot!"
|
||||
- *[Dark Souls](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSouls "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSouls")*:
|
||||
- *[Dark Souls II](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSoulsII "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSoulsII")* has Earthen Peak, a giant windmill tower filled with deadly poison, including inside the boss room. How does one remove the poison? Why, set the blades of the windmill on fire with your torch, of course! Despite there being no indication in any of the games that you can do this to an environmental object (only enemies can normally be struck with the torch) and it being in no way obvious that the windmill mechanism is pumping the poison (most of it is just sitting in still pools with no obvious source), and the fact that the part of the windmill you interact with looks like metal.
|
||||
- In the titular Ringed City from the *[Dark Souls III](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII")* [DLC](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DLC "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DLC"), there's a wall with the inscription "Show Your Humanity". How do you show your humanity? Being embered? Unequipping your armor to show your human-looking skin? Bringing some specific NPC with you? No, you have to step into the water outside (it doesn't work in the room with the message itself), use a Young White Branch (or cast the Chameleon spell) to transform into a Humanity sprite from *[Dark Souls](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSouls1 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DarkSouls1")*, and then walk back up to the wall while transformed, which reveals a ladder leading up a hidden path. There's absolutely [no indication whatsoever](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt") that using an item or sorcery that normally disguises you as something found in the local scenery suddenly transforms you into a *Humanity sprite* in a specific area, let alone that you have to transform into something at all, other than an obscure connection to the lore.
|
||||
- *[Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening")*: During the fourth mission you enter a room with two doors, a statue and a staircase which leads to another door. The doors before the staircase are locked, including the one you just came through, so you have to go through the staircase. But once you're in the middle of the staircase, it will break send you to a room full of enemies. After you beat them, you're returned to the previous room but with the doors unlocked. You fight the miniboss after the door in the middle and the mission ends. On the next mission you will eventually acquire the item Soul of Steel which hints to the statue in the mission before. So, of course, you go back there but nothing happens if you try to use the item on the statue. What to do? After you acquire the Soul of Steel an invisible staircase will appear where the first staircase was! You can now use the invisible staircase to reach the next door.
|
||||
- *[Dino Crisis](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DinoCrisis "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DinoCrisis")*'s door passwords each have to be deciphered from a Code Disc and a Digital Disc Key, with increasingly convoluted rules. Surprisingly, the final password ends up being [DOCTORKIRK](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish").
|
||||
- In *[Donkey Kong Bananza](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DonkeyKongBananza "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DonkeyKongBananza")*'s *Emerald Rush* DLC, a strange Fractone named Banandiumtone can be found on DK Island. They only speak in symbols: attacking them causes the symbols to cycle, and once they are all yellow, a completion jingle plays and another symbol is added. The puzzle then becomes discovering which actions cycle which symbol, and though the solutions start simple (initially, just attacking Banandiumtone will make it cycle, at two symbols each of DK's arms cycles different symbols, and at three the Hand Slap toggles which symbol is cycled when you punch), the puzzle quickly goes off the rails:
|
||||
- At four symbols, the symbol you cycle corresponds to the direction Banandiumtone is facing when you attack them.
|
||||
- At five, you'll cycle three symbols at once based on which Bananza form you have selected in the UI, with each form affecting a different group.
|
||||
- At six, all of the symbols will cycle randomly on each attack. The six symbols in Banandiumtone's dialogue box correspond to the six Bonus Stages on DK Island; completing the stage will lock in its respective symbol as the one you left it on, so you have to attack Banandiumtone until you get a golden symbol, complete the Bonus Stage that corresponds to it, and repeat until you get golden symbols on all six. This can force you to reset the level if you clear the wrong stage.
|
||||
- At seven symbols, using moves on Banandiumtone will make new symbols slide in from the right, with each one corresponding to one of DK's moves and its [respective controller button](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LeaningOnTheFourthWall "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LeaningOnTheFourthWall"). The goal is to spell "BANANZA" with them.
|
||||
- Finally, the symbols are no longer present and Banandiumtone instead speaks words which cycle on each hit. The solution is to take each distinct word and make a coherent sentence using all of them: performing the action the sentence tells you magically completes the puzzle.
|
||||
- *[Doodle God](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DoodleGod "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DoodleGod")* is this. It's all that is. There is no plot except you combining random objects, sometimes sensibly (lava + water = steam and stone), sometimes randomly (fish + knowledge = octopus?)note It's a reference to octopodes being known as extraordinarily smart animals.
|
||||
- Parodied in *[Earthworm Jim 2](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EarthwormJim2 "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EarthwormJim2")*'s sudden quiz show in "Villi People"/"Jim is a Blind Cave Salamander", where neither the questions nor the answers make any sense (though, [as suggested in the manual](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual"), the "right" answer is usually the most nonsensical/wrong of them). In order to answer questions, you require mealworms (each question costs a mealworm, and you need 9 to join the show). Unlike other examples, you don't need to join the show to proceed in the level (but once you join it, you cannot leave until you spend all mealworms), and answering "correctly" only earns you either more mealworms or rewards you cannot use for the rest of the level.
|
||||
- In *[Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FateExtellaTheUmbralStar "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FateExtellaTheUmbralStar")*, unlocking [Artoria Pendragon](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/FateStayNight "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/FateStayNight") as a playable character is a doozy to say the least. The first thing you do is go into your system settings and set your clock between 3:00 and 4:00 pm if you have version 1.00 of the game. This is only for patch 1.00 of the game (if you have patch 1.01 then you can skip this part). Next up you'll need to choose one of the main levels with a "Mystery" side mission on any difficulty. Then, you have to complete the Regime Matrix but **don't** defeat the boss in the stage. From there, you'll need to go to one of the following locations: Sector D in the Jeanne d'Arc stage of Nero's arc; Sector J in the Nameless stage of Tamamo's arc; Sector E in the Cu Chulainn stage of Altera's arc; or Sector H in the Tamamo stage of the Special arc. After completing the Regime Matrix and have gone to one of those sectors, begin to kill the enemies and make them drop health power-ups. Consume 5 health power-upsnote Being low on health (when the health bar starts flashing red) makes enemies drop more health power-ups. in that sector after completing the Regime Matrix. After completing those steps you'll be informed that Artoria, King of Knights, will challenge you to a fight. Once you defeat Artoria (force her to retreat) you'll need to defeat the boss Servant and then you'll unlock her as a playable character.
|
||||
- *[Final Fantasy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/FinalFantasy "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/FinalFantasy")*:
|
||||
- A well written one appears in *[Final Fantasy Adventure](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure")*. Palm Trees and Eight, got it? Some people got it right away. Others spent years trying to figure out the puzzle. The solution? Walk in a figure-of-eight path around some palm trees in the desert. How do we locate the place in the huge desert (it isn't even on the map that came with the game)? You have to have noticed that screens with a dungeon entrance usually lack enemies. An unintentional hint is that the game lags when you go between the trees.
|
||||
- *[Final Fantasy X](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FinalFantasyX "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FinalFantasyX")*: Accessing the ultimate weapons involves deciphering puzzles hidden in seemingly random locations, written in a language you need to be quite far along the game to understand, translated into phrases you enter in the map on the [Global Airship](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GlobalAirship "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GlobalAirship"). Solved about five times in recorded history; mostly, people just get the answers on the internet.
|
||||
- *[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles")*: In order to cross through the final Miasma Stream and face the final boss, you need to find the Unknown Element hidden in the desert. Getting the Unknown Element involves casting certain spells on certain landmarks in a certain order throughout the desert. Said order is disguised as a poem told to you by Gurdy. Problem is, Gurdy tells you the poem in a sequence of [Random Encounters](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RandomEncounters "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RandomEncounters") with him. This combined with the extreme non-linearity of the game means that the player might not have gotten the poem from Gurdy before reaching the desert -or worse, gotten it so long before that by the time it becomes relevant they've forgotten about it. Once you've triggered the random encounter the only way to see the poem again is to flip through your journal... Assuming you even remember you have it.
|
||||
- *[Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance")*: Re-recruiting Shinon. You have to talk to him with Rolf, and then defeat him with Ike. The latter part is logical enough given the sheer contempt Shinon shows Ike in basically every conversation they've ever had (though still something of a [Violation of Common Sense](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViolationOfCommonSense "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViolationOfCommonSense") in a game that otherwise employs [Permadeath](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PermaDeath "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PermaDeath")) but Rolf? Prior to this, the two have never had a single onscreen interaction. See, you're supposed to remember a seemingly throwaway line from 10 chapters ago where Rolf played coy about how he learned to use a bow, deduced that Shinon must have taught him because he also uses a bow, and that because of this Rolf holds a special place in Shinon's heart that can be used to return Shinon to the side of good, but only if Ike humiliates him in a duel first.
|
||||
- *[Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GarfieldBigFatHairyDeal "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GarfieldBigFatHairyDeal")* has very little instructional text and no hints. Combined with the game's overuse of [Red Herrings](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHerring"), it's almost impossible to figure out without a guide.
|
||||
- How do you get rid of the [giant rat](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RodentsOfUnusualSize "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RodentsOfUnusualSize") in your basement? Find Nermal in [the sewers](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DownTheDrain "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DownTheDrain), kick him and collect a wind-up mouse, drop it on the desk of the health food store so you can scare the owner and steal a spinach donut, then feed that to the rat.
|
||||
- Then there's the question of how Garfield is supposed to get to the animal pound. You find a trowel in Jon's garden, sell it at the hardware store, buy birdseed, go to the park, and drop it so a giant duck will fly you over there.
|
||||
- What makes this even worse: Those two examples above? That's *all the puzzles in the game*. Getting rid of the rat gets you the key to the pound, and getting to the pound with it frees Arlene and wins the game.
|
||||
- *[Golden Sun](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GoldenSun "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GoldenSun")*:
|
||||
- *[Golden Sun: The Lost Age](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge")* had the secret to navigating to Lemuria cryptically explained through a completely missable and rather convoluted children's song in a remote and completely optional town on an entirely different continent.
|
||||
- *[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn")*: "THE GOAT LEAVES NO TRACE BEHIND." The puzzle consists of three goat statues with differently-shaped bases, three correspondingly-shaped holes they need to go into, and a floor that changes colors where one goat has passed, so *the others won't cross its trail*. It would be an impressively tough puzzle anyway, but the hint pretty much tells you the *opposite* of what you need to know to solve it. However, [Insight Psynergy](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnnoyingVideoGameHelper "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnnoyingVideoGameHelper") maps a possible solution [if you think to use it here](/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotCompletelyUseless "/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotCompletelyUseless").
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
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src/resources/moon-logic/moon-logic-reddit-discussion.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/comments/1kgzfvy/what_do_you_consider_moon_logic/
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
What do you consider moon logic? : r/gamedesign
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
[Skip to main content](#main-content) Open menu Open navigation [](/)Go to Reddit Home
|
||||
|
||||
r/gamedesign
|
||||
|
||||
Get App Get the Reddit app [Log In](https://www.reddit.com/login/) Log in to Reddit
|
||||
|
||||
Expand user menu Open settings menu
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Go to gamedesign](/r/gamedesign/)
|
||||
|
||||
[r/gamedesign](/r/gamedesign/) •
|
||||
|
||||
[RenDSkunk](/user/RenDSkunk/)
|
||||
|
||||
# What do you consider moon logic?
|
||||
|
||||
I want to make a pnc adventure with puzzles, problem is I hear a lot of people got a hard hate for "moon logic puzzles" which I can understand after dealing with the Gabriel Knight "Mustache" but it feels like any kind of attempt at something beyond "use key on lock, both are in the same room" winds up getting this title.
|
||||
|
||||
So I ask, what would the threshold for a real moon logic puzzle be?
|
||||
|
||||
So I ask, what would the threshold for a real moon logic puzzle be?
|
||||
|
||||
I got a puzzle idea for a locked door. It's a school, it's chained shut and there a large pad lock on it.
|
||||
|
||||
The solution is to take some kind acid, put down a cloth on the floor so the drippings don't damage anything further and carefully use a pair of gloves to get the lock damaged enough to break off.
|
||||
|
||||
Finding the acid can be a fast look in the chemical lab, have a book say which acid works best the cloth could come from the janitor closet and the gloves too before getting through.
|
||||
|
||||
It feels simple and would fit a horror game set in a school.
|
||||
|
||||
Read more
|
||||
|
||||
Share
|
||||
|
||||
# Related Answers Section
|
||||
|
||||
Related Answers
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
Understanding moon logic in game design
|
||||
|
||||
](https://www.reddit.com/answers/bb227451-6aa6-47d1-a72a-542e2046e243/?q=Understanding+moon+logic+in+game+design&source=PDP)
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
Examples of moon logic puzzles
|
||||
|
||||
](https://www.reddit.com/answers/623ad8ed-59e8-40f4-bb02-b892c42e4fbb/?q=Examples+of+moon+logic+puzzles&source=PDP)
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
Adventure games without moon logic
|
||||
|
||||
](https://www.reddit.com/answers/62b0bee5-37e9-48b5-8a7e-0fd153a202b1/?q=Adventure+games+without+moon+logic&source=PDP)
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
Fair and logical puzzles in adventure games
|
||||
|
||||
](https://www.reddit.com/answers/7bde7b83-d0b1-40c8-b9be-792ba7b18a9e/?q=Fair+and+logical+puzzles+in+adventure+games&source=PDP)
|
||||
|
||||
[
|
||||
|
||||
Innovative mechanics that changed gameplay
|
||||
|
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# A willfully old school point-and-click reminded me why we put up with moon-logic puzzles in classic adventure games for so long
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[Features](https://www.pcgamer.com/features/)
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By [Holly Boson](https://www.pcgamer.com/author/holly-boson/) published 2 February 2024
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Twilight Oracle's vintage design illuminates exactly why the genre has endured for so many years.
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[Twilight Oracle](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2338490/Twilight_Oracle/) is a point-and-click adventure game in a style so traditional that it's been unchanged since Sierra On-Line was on top of the world, and it's aimed at an audience that already knows its mechanics so well they disappear into the lovely pixel-art background.
|
||||
|
||||
The old annoyances started when I put a cabbage in a cauldron and a girl gave me a 12V battery. I had no reason to think she had it, she had no reason to think I needed it, and yet when it appeared in my inventory, I knew that the fate of the universe depended on me finding the right place to put this thing. The battery promised me an answer to a question I would be asked in due time. But the ridiculousness of someone paying with a battery for cabbage soup was a warning that the question might be gibberish.
|
||||
|
||||
I know the signals. I've been here before, and Twilight Oracle wanted to take me back in time with it. There's nothing new or subversive here, yet the hours I spent letting Twilight Oracle frustrate me helped me understand that these games still matter, and why.
|
||||
|
||||
Article continues below
|
||||
|
||||
You may like
|
||||
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||||
- [Counterfeit Monkey is so magnificent a text adventure that I'm convinced the puzzle genre went wrong when it added graphics](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/counterfeit-monkey-is-so-magnificent-a-text-adventure-that-im-convinced-the-puzzle-genre-went-wrong-when-it-added-graphics/)
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- [The best indie games on PC](https://www.pcgamer.com/best-indie-games/)
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- [Pathologic 3 review: One of the most compelling mystery adventures since Disco Elysium](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/pathologic-3-review/)
|
||||
|
||||
## Venturing back
|
||||
|
||||
I don't know when people started announcing the death of adventure games, but I know it didn't work. When LucasArts and Sierra stopped point-and-click development at the end of the '90s it was a beheading, but only of a hydra. Many of the most significant games of the 2010s were heads on those regrown necks; Tim Schafer's Broken Age Kickstarter changed the way games were financed, The Walking Dead taught videogame writers how to have characters remember things, and Five Nights at Freddy's defined 2010s horror with a sadistic remix of mechanics from Night Trap for an audience too young to understand why it's funny to compare things to Night Trap.
|
||||
|
||||
More on adventure classics
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
(Image credit: LucasArts)
|
||||
|
||||
\- [**Every Sierra graphical adventure, ranked**](https://www.pcgamer.com/best-sierra-adventure-games/)
|
||||
\- [How Hero-U avoided disaster to resurrect '90s adventure game nostalgia](https://www.pcgamer.com/how-hero-u-avoided-disaster-to-resurrect-90s-adventure-game-nostalgia/)
|
||||
\- [**From floppy disks to the crowdfunding revolution, adventure RPG pioneers Lori and Corey Cole have seen it all**](https://www.pcgamer.com/from-floppy-disks-to-the-crowdfunding-revolution-adventure-rpg-pioneers-lori-and-corey-cole-have-seen-it-all/)
|
||||
\- [Classic LucasArts biker adventure Full Throttle still kicks ass](https://www.pcgamer.com/classic-lucasarts-biker-adventure-full-throttle-still-kicks-ass/)
|
||||
\- [**The secret history of LucasArts**](https://www.pcgamer.com/the-secret-history-of-lucasarts/)\- [Best Story 2022: The Case of the Golden Idol](https://www.pcgamer.com/best-story-2022-the-case-of-the-golden-idol/)
|
||||
|
||||
Add in the impact of visual novels, walking simulators, hidden object games, live action escape rooms and the webcomic Homestuck, and it's obvious adventure games became more culturally significant after their "death."
|
||||
|
||||
But the evaporation of the blockbuster 2D point-and-click did lead its devotees to believe the genre was dead, so they buried themselves underground to join it. In 1997, British programmer Chris Jones launched [Adventure Game Studio](https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/), an engine inspired by the limitations of already ancient Sierra games like 1986's Space Quest. While programmers could expand it, AGS was best at archaisms—walk-to-click movement, verb cursors, and inventory puzzles. But more than an engine, AGS was a community, with its own game awards, archives and forum in-jokes.
|
||||
|
||||
[](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nr4CBfBsm3pvauPUbp49xA.jpg)
|
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|
||||
(Image credit: Double Fine)
|
||||
|
||||
Astonishing work was—and still is—made in AGS. The gunky Amiga-Paint noir of [Gemini Rue](https://www.pcgamer.com/gemini-rue-review/), the metahumour about point-and-click tropes in the [Ben And Dan series](https://www.pcgamer.com/lair-of-the-clockwork-god-review/), and [Soviet Unterzӧgesdorf's](https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/616-soviet-unterz-gersdorf/) use of outdated game design to reinforce its perma-80s setting all come out of an ageing scene of purists capable of getting the references. Even as more developers abandoned AGS for platform-agnostic, flexible modern engines, this classicist subculture remained both developer and target audience.
|
||||
|
||||
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
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Why do trad adventure games stick to this ancient formula as firmly as a pulley sticks to a rubber chicken? Because the genre is based on the item combination puzzle, a guess-what-number-I'm-thinking of game that is always a couple of clicks away from gibberish. While your character's inventory functions as a pocketful of Chekhov's guns, if the player ever knows for sure how an item will be used, it's a spoiler—developers have a choice of either clearly telegraphing the solutions to the puzzles, giving them the dramatic satisfaction of a tax return, or basing them on the kind of twisted logic that let the developers of the 90s squeeze profit out of their premium-rate hint lines.
|
||||
|
||||
[](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kREXmPMLupHfwywbqZCDi.jpg)
|
||||
|
||||
(Image credit: Sierra)
|
||||
|
||||
Eric Wolpaw's [influential 2000 blog post](https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html) blaming Gabriel Knight's cat hair moustache for the death of the medium may have been wrong, but it was not nonsense—general audiences tolerated moon logic when point-and-clicks were the only games with reliably good stories, and had no desire to return after experiencing something like Final Fantasy 7. But this frustration is the specific emotion the purist audience still seeks out. There's an intimacy in attempting to understand someone else's illogic, like a psychoanalyst free-associating with a patient's dreams in order to spelunk their unconscious. Doing a task you can't comprehend is a humbling and almost spiritual experience, like a task granted to you by God.
|
||||
|
||||
## A timeless craving
|
||||
|
||||
Image 1 of 3
|
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|
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|
||||
|
||||
(Image credit: Cosmic Void)
|
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|
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|
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|
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(Image credit: Cosmic Void)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
(Image credit: Cosmic Void)
|
||||
|
||||
Now I can close my History Book by clicking it with my Bookmark equipped, and finally tell you about Twilight Oracle. The protagonist, Leo, is an underperforming student at a school for children with supernatural abilities, dispatched to another world to eliminate an enemy of his teachers. The genuinely unusual setting is sketched in with a few lines of dialogue, but soon becomes little more than a frame for the puzzling—Each intricate, curlicued cloud and mirror sea is illustrated with an airbrush-surrealist-inspired style evoking Barclay Shaw illustrations. The multiverse is an excuse for school-textbook visuals and a transition into a different adventure game setting every few screens. The neon-surf colour palette, knotty shading and gorgeous character portraits are a pleasure throughout the game.
|
||||
|
||||
What to read next
|
||||
|
||||
- [Esoteric Ebb isn't just the best Disco since Disco, it's the closest anyone's come to the magic of tabletop D&D in a videogame](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/esoteric-ebb-review/)
|
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- [This horror game built from the bones of an abandoned FPS server and an accidental ARPG might be one of the strangest puzzlers I've ever played](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/this-horror-game-built-from-the-bones-of-an-abandoned-fps-server-and-an-accidental-arpg-might-be-one-of-the-strangest-puzzlers-ive-ever-played/)
|
||||
- [TR-49 review: A tense and beautifully written mystery, told entirely on a bizarre 1940s computer](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/tr-49-review/)
|
||||
|
||||
A slight bum note in the nostalgic presentation is the soundtrack, which occasionally goes into sort of a synthwave-lite that evokes an aspirational '80s rather than the geeky prog-scapes of the visuals.
|
||||
|
||||
> The sense of a magic ritual is created by puzzles based on dream logic, where items often connect based on symbolism rather than literal sense
|
||||
|
||||
More revealing about the spirit of the game is the voice acting, recorded in wildly differing quality, drawing attention to its internet-based, community contribution nature. The casting is appealingly demented—characters turn up with accents you wouldn't expect them to have. Ellis Knight, the 20-year-old voice actor who plays Leo, is the star—his character was clearly written to be an American (words like "Tylenol" and "candy" sound jagged coming out of his posh-English mouth) but his Inbetweeners version of a beach bum is an amusingly off-centre interpretation of the archetype, and he hits the emotional beat in each dialogue box about noxious socks.
|
||||
|
||||
Leo discovers he's been misled by his teachers. After learning he's the main character of a prophecy to save a fantasy world, it takes only a handful of text boxes for him to turn against everything he knows, but it's so natural for him to hate restrictions on his freedom. As an everyman, he's a universal citizen of the multiverse, just as accepting of monsters and sealife as he is princes and astronauts. Leo contextualises Twilight Oracle's understanding of adventure game moon logic as an act of systemic magic. He has no understanding of the prophecy or what it represents, or why he is collecting this item and not that one, or if another character will give him anything useful in return for helping them out, but magic (and Leo's basic underlying goodness) dictate that everything will come together.
|
||||
|
||||
The jokes remind us of Leo's lack of personal hygeine, but one of the last puzzles in the game involves him picking up a mop—what better metaphor for playing a point-and-click game is there than cleaning, the task of improving the world by finding items in the wrong place and putting them where they belong?
|
||||
|
||||
While Twilight Oracle is too goofy to stop and examine it, the sense of a magic ritual is created by puzzles based on dream logic, where items often connect based on symbolism rather than literal sense—tighty-whities on statues are cotton, hand-pump bellows become more powerful when filled with wind, and stylish fashion garments belong with the Instagram-branded giant camera, even if you can't predict what will happen when you click them together.
|
||||
|
||||
YouTube 
|
||||
|
||||
[Watch On](https://youtu.be/GVk5uQXa25s)
|
||||
|
||||
More than anything, Twilight Oracle is the kind of game where its crowdfunders were asked to contribute jokes, which are written on posters pinned up in various places. When you click, Leo will read them all out, even the ones that aren't funny. At one point, the €150-tier backers show on screen as portraits, underscoring another character's assertion that heroes can just be "normal people" like Leo.
|
||||
|
||||
It's thanking the people who came together to make the game possible, but also a satisfying emotional beat in the story. At a time when where AI-generated content fills the internet with shiny mediocrity and big studios make elaborate open world games where no real creative vision is present, trad adventure games are utterly reliant on humans craving that very specific timeless flavor of frustration.
|
||||
|
||||
The intimate connection of walking through a world crafted and written by another human, and letting them fool you with their minds. A scene of people willing to make art in a genre the market gave up on, just because that art made them happy when they were kids. The generous spirits of people willing to throw hundreds of dollars into Kickstarters, just to support the kind of odd, personal art they want to see more of.
|
||||
|
||||
[Twilight Oracle](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2338490/Twilight_Oracle/) might be inward-looking, but inward is where our heart lives.
|
||||
|
||||
[Holly Boson](https://www.pcgamer.com/author/holly-boson/)
|
||||
|
||||
Read more
|
||||
|
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[
|
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Counterfeit Monkey is so magnificent a text adventure that I'm convinced the puzzle genre went wrong when it added graphics](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/counterfeit-monkey-is-so-magnificent-a-text-adventure-that-im-convinced-the-puzzle-genre-went-wrong-when-it-added-graphics/ "Counterfeit Monkey is so magnificent a text adventure that I'm convinced the puzzle genre went wrong when it added graphics")
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[
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[
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Pathologic 3 review: One of the most compelling mystery adventures since Disco Elysium](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/pathologic-3-review/ "Pathologic 3 review: One of the most compelling mystery adventures since Disco Elysium")
|
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[
|
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Esoteric Ebb isn't just the best Disco since Disco, it's the closest anyone's come to the magic of tabletop D&D in a videogame](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/esoteric-ebb-review/ "Esoteric Ebb isn't just the best Disco since Disco, it's the closest anyone's come to the magic of tabletop D&D in a videogame")
|
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[
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This horror game built from the bones of an abandoned FPS server and an accidental ARPG might be one of the strangest puzzlers I've ever played](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/this-horror-game-built-from-the-bones-of-an-abandoned-fps-server-and-an-accidental-arpg-might-be-one-of-the-strangest-puzzlers-ive-ever-played/ "This horror game built from the bones of an abandoned FPS server and an accidental ARPG might be one of the strangest puzzlers I've ever played")
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[
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TR-49 review: A tense and beautifully written mystery, told entirely on a bizarre 1940s computer](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/tr-49-review/ "TR-49 review: A tense and beautifully written mystery, told entirely on a bizarre 1940s computer")
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Pokémon streamer's Kickstarter for a roguelite monster-collector hits its target in 10 minutes, then blows past $800K](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/pokemon-streamers-kickstarter-for-a-roguelite-monster-collector-hits-its-target-in-10-minutes-then-blows-past-800k/ "Pokémon streamer's Kickstarter for a roguelite monster-collector hits its target in 10 minutes, then blows past $800K")
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After 2 years in early access, Greedfall: The Dying World still feels unfinished](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/after-two-years-in-early-access-greedfall-the-dying-world-still-feels-unfinished/)
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[
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Playing Slay the Spire 2 and Esoteric Ebb on my ROG Ally all weekend turned me into a happy lump of swaddled gamer joy](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/card-games/playing-slay-the-spire-2-and-esoteric-ebb-on-my-rog-ally-all-weekend-turned-me-into-a-happy-lump-of-swaddled-gamer-joy/)
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1
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[Best gaming laptop 2026: I've tested the best laptops for gaming of this generation and here are the ones I recommend.](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-laptops/best-gaming-laptop-2026-ive-tested-the-best-laptops-for-gaming-of-this-generation-and-here-are-the-ones-i-recommend/)
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2. 2
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[Best handheld gaming PC in 2026: my recommendations for the best portable powerhouses.](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/handheld-gaming-pcs/best-handheld-gaming-pc-in-2026-my-recommendations-for-the-best-portable-powerhouses/)
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3. 3
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[Best gaming PC builds: Shop all our recommended system builds as we ride out the RAMpocalypse](https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-pc-build-guide/)
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5. 5
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1. [
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](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-mice/corsair-sabre-v2-pro-wireless-cf-review/ "Corsair Sabre V2 Pro Wireless CF review")
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1
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[Corsair Sabre V2 Pro Wireless CF review](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-mice/corsair-sabre-v2-pro-wireless-cf-review/)
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2. 2
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[Monster Hunter Stories 3 review: An excellent monster battler bogged down by a war story without stakes](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/monster-hunter-stories-3-twisted-reflection-review/)
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3. 3
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[Gravastar Mercury V60 Pro review](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-keyboards/gravastar-mercury-v60-pro-review/)
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4. 4
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[Obsbot Tiny 3 review](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/webcams/obsbot-tiny-3-review/)
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5. 5
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[Obsbot Tiny 3 Lite review](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/webcams/obsbot-tiny-3-lite-review/)
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|
||||
|
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