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Grim Fandango: is there a more obtuse game in the industry?

M

Memento

Member
I just finished this game yesterday on a 7 hours marathon with 4 friends. One of these friends had already beaten it of course, so he knew the answers to all the puzzles, that is why we beat it in 7 hours.

But "playing" through it, I gotta say, this is definitely the most obstuse game I have ever played. It got some smart design but the the raw obtuseness of some puzzles are just ridiculous.

That said: I loved the game and found it incredibly well designed as an adventure game. But yeah, obtuse as fuck.

Is this just a general characteristic from the old adventure games?
 
It's very obtuse, as are many adventure games from that time. The Myst games, from around that time period, are a lot better though

Also, modern puzzle games like Broken Age, or the King's Quest reboot, have much better puzzles
 
Can't be more obtuse than that one Indiana Jones Atari game...

... and yeah, some stuff in classic point and click adventures can be pretty obtuse. It's somewhat of a genre staple for some.

Cue the Gabriel Knight cat mustache stories.
 
King's Quest V: You're hungry. You've got a pie. But don't eat the pie. You'll need it to fight off a yeti later on.
 
There's a ton of adventure games way more obtuse than this. Still I got stuck 45 minutes in and never finished it.
 
I completed it with no help at release (so I'd have been, what, 17?); there's nothing as utterly egregious as the frog puzzle in Discworld, or the inflatable ring puzzle in The Longest Journey, or the diamond maze in Zork 2.

Mind you, took me longer than seven hours. I think I completed one 'year' a day.
 
Grim Fandango is actually pretty easy compared to a lot of old school adventure games.
 
All things considered Grim Fandango ain't even that bad. Try and play the original kings quest games are a lot of stuff from the 80s and early 90s and you'll see why the adventure genre ended up dying for a time. For some games it wasn't even uncommon to get yourself in a no win state and not realize it.

Kings Quest V when you need to catch the mouse and the eating of a sandwich in the dagger of Amon ra come to mind. There's actually a good video about the older style of adventure games here

Did moon logic kill adventure games?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zpiAFd9OkHY
 
It's hard with some things that are pretty unintuitive, but it's not that hard compared to some of the other 90s adventure games.

GF is the best of all though, fantastic story, writing, and atmosphere. One of my favorite games ever.
 
I don't remember even breaking a sweat back in the day. Then again, I was a massive adventure game as a kid, so the difficulty standards were pretty high for me.
 
Grim Fandango is fairly representative of the old-school puzzle design found in point & click adventure games made back then. There are way worse candidates for screwy solutions to cryptic puzzles though.
 
6, 2, Tuesday.

It was in front of me the whole time but I got stuck there for over a year in my pre-internet days.

The signpost puzzle in the woods was something else too, here I was, thinking you have to enter those caves in a certain order and the signpost was somehow showing you which one. Turns out the caves were just a red herring and all you had to do was put the signpst in a specific spot. Figured this out after months.

Most of the puzzles were managable with some brute force trial & error, but each area had that one puzzle that kept you stuck for an eternity.
 
Gave up my blind run when you had to do some like coral grappling hook thing. Enjoyed it immensely with a guide.
 
Of the releases on console, it's probably the lead in that category.

But overall, no, it's fairly middle of the road in that regard.
 
I beat it when the remaster out and didnt look up a single answer.

Its tough but doable.

There are adventure games that are MUCH worse
 
I loved the puzzle for getting that sailor to not get on the boat. Year 2 was clearly way better than the other ones in terms of puzzle design

Joey Ravn said:
I don't remember even breaking a sweat back in the day. Then again, I was a massive adventure game as a kid, so the difficulty standards were pretty high for me.
Click to expand...

🤔
 
Ifnkovhgroghprm

That's the answer to a Rumplestiltskin puzzle in King's Quest 1. It's Rumplestiltskin spelled backwards by using a backwards alphabet.

Yep.
 
Yeah, there's a reason a lot of the puzzle/adventure games from the era were often called "pixel hunting games". I think it's mostly that Grim Fandango is the most well-regarded from a breed of games where that was an issue.

Jawmuncher said:
All things considered Grim Fandango ain't even that bad. Try and play the original kings quest games are a lot of stuff from the 80s and early 90s and you'll see why the adventure genre ended up dying for a time. For some games it wasn't even uncommon to get yourself in a no win state and not realize it.

Kings Quest V when you need to catch the mouse and the eating of a sandwich in the dagger of Amon ra come to mind. There's actually a good video about the older style of adventure games here

Did moon logic kill adventure games?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zpiAFd9OkHY
Click to expand...

Interesting to see that there's evidence the common wisdom is turning against "Myst killed adventure games."
 
My friend and I played through days of the tentacle the other day after a few sessions. I have to say that wasn't pretty obtuse haha
 
cuate said:
machinarium is probably the most obtuse game i've played. it must be the genre i guess.
Click to expand...

I didn't think Machinarium was that bad really. I'm pretty sure I did use the hint system once or twice way back when, but I always try to avoid those so if I did, it wasn't more that once or twice. Same with Grim Fandango.

Myst, however, every time I start I simply have no idea what the hell I'm doing, what I'm supposed to do, or what I'm doing... does.
 
KarasuEXE said:
I hope you played it dubbed in PT-BR, OP.

Assuming you're brazilian because of you pic, of course.
Click to expand...

I did. Amazing voice acting, hilarious stuff lol.

After we finished it we put the original audio on to compare both and we reached the consensus that the PT-BR dub is actually better than the OG one. Mr. Calavera's voice in portuguese is so much better than the english one. Glottis. The lawyer. Everything. Kind of awesome that they had such a high quality dub back then.
 
See now I want people to describe all the gory details of the worst puzzles in adventure games. I'm sure there's some real BS puzzles out there.
 
Some of the things you have to do in Day of the Tentacle are very counter intuitive, like switching the matresses or microwaving a hamster (which in the previous game would lead to a game over).
 
Classic Adventure games are incredibly fun games with a lot of charm, whimsy and personality.

BUT GODDAMN, if they aren't obtuse as fuck.
 
While there are some puzzles in the game that fit this criteria, I think most of the game is really well designed and the puzzels fit the wacky tone of the universe, whilst still maintaining a basic sense of logic. It takes some time to click, but I don't think someone providing the clues (before you get a sense of the game) is representative for the experience this game can offer.

And I am not exactly a hardcore adventure gamer (kind of missed out on it back in the day).

Well, it is obtuse, but not out of the ordinary for the genre in my opinion. I think the puzzles in GF are very creative and due to it's mechanics are not focused on pixel hunting but more on shapes, object recognition/functionality, and dialouge.
 
Fuchsdh said:
Interesting to see that there's evidence the common wisdom is turning against "Myst killed adventure games."
Click to expand...

I've always thought the narrative was that Grim killed adventure games.

Also i kept doing lines at the bar thinking that would be some kind of solution to some kind of puzzle and the joke totally flew over my head.
 
Yeah, you definitely haven't seen the true depths of the screaming abyss that are most old school Sierra games.

I love the genre but a bunch of old school adventure games, even LucasArts, had some really bad puzzles on the regular and Grim Fandango is no exception. Play with a guide if you need to, it doesn't ruin what makes some of these games truly special, their narratives.

I would strongly recommend Day of the Tentacle for you though, because its puzzle design is really good and almost modern in how fair and logical it mainly all is.
 
I played though Sam and Max due to a recommendation here on GAF and I have to say...as a game, its total shit.

Its impossible to figure out due to how obtuse the puzzles are, they're is no logical sense in most of them. I love the atmosphere and the characters but the game is a total chore. I gave up and just used a guide for all the puzzles.
 
Yes, there is. Grim Fandango and other late Lucasarts games are definitely on the easier side of the adventure gaming spectrum.

Try playing any of the pre-CD-ROM-era Sierra games (especially the ones with a parser), Zork games or Discworld. Those are obtuse.
 
Yeah, that's why I never got the praise for Grim Fandango back in the day. The solution to some of the puzzles felt really obscure and sometimes borderline bs.

Had a better time with Day of the Tentacle tbh. Even though I did get stuck a couple of times, it never felt unfair like GF.

Edit: that said, GF was actually one of the least obtuse IMO. What's the name of that game where you had to smoke grass? Like, super random.
 
It's really not that obtuse compared to the worst examples in that particular genre.
The most insanely obtuse game I have personally encountered was Sherlock Holmes vs Arsene Lupin, the mid-2000s PC game. I can't even fathom how somebody could beat it without a FAQ. It's just complete nonsense. But I'm sure there's way worse.
 
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