Octopus Overlords

You know the type. You're having a good time playing a game and then you run up against the "...most devious puzzle ever created!" You get increasingly irate and seriously consider quitting the game forever. After a few hours, days, or weeks, you accidentally discover the solution....was in fact very simple.

Mine was when I first started playing Doom 2 in October of 1994 (release day! "Doomsday" I think they called it). I was hopelessly stuck early in the second level. I had to jump across a space to get to a raised doorway or a porch-like area. There was no jump key. I figured there must be another way in, but there obviously was NOT. I explored every area I could though, pressing every wall for a secret door. There was none. I went back and spent hours analyzing the area, looking for some switch that was hidden or something. There was none.

I then BOUGHT the strategy guide (I wasn't on the internet yet), which made it seem like I should just be able to 'go over there' or something. Didn't help.

After several days (5 IIRC), I finally hit upon the answer. You have to press the 'run' key at the same time. Why this never occurred to me, I don't know. I HAD already completed Doom 1, and don't remember any running to substitute for jumping in that game.

When the preacher said "Do you take this woman for your wife?".

Back in the day with "The Dig" there was a part where I knew I had to get to a place where a character kept running me off but I couldn't get him to go away.

Turns out I had to shine my flashlight at some bats (which I had done before, so it wasn't an unknown to me) to scare him off. I was more of the "club his dumb ass with a rock" sort of player (I still am, hence I no longer play adventure games) so it totally stumped me.

I guess the thing that puzles me the most is how EA still gets people to work for them.

dbt1949 wrote:When the preacher said "Do you take this woman for your wife?".

Ummm. That was from "Doom", right?
Or maybe it was "Sanitarium"....
No I got it! "Redneck Goat Huntin'"!

one of the Monkey Island games (#3 I think) begins with Guybrush locked in a cabin on board a pirate ship. I've never been able to get out of the room.

Ka Faraq Gatri wrote:one of the Monkey Island games (#3 I think) begins with Guybrush locked in a cabin on board a pirate ship. I've never been able to get out of the room.

That's #3. My wife couldn't figure that one out either and hasn't played the game since. Just as well; there are some truly heuristic solutions later in the game (at least in monkey-mode).

Panzer General, the Iraq scenario. I kept trying to plow through from west to east, the answer was paratroopers and blitzkrieg to seize the eastern objectives first then clean up in the west.

Ars Fatalis - there was a room, with some giant sundial thing as far as I can remember, that had to be set correctly with some other thingie, based on some thingies located in the self-same giant room.

also, in Arx Fatalis, the damn labyrinth where the damn kings crown was supposed to be..hated that.

oh, and of course, the damn hard puzzles in doom3.

In Jedi Outcast there was the level with the room of 10000 crates and you had to go from one end to the other and out the other side... took me about 4 hours to realize that if I *held* the jump key I would go higher. I was pissed... I'd taken a vacation day to play the game and spent half of it stuck in one spot early on... oh well.

I don't remember which game it was, but it was a shooter. Not one door in the entire game opened - they were all just decorative textures. One level, late in the game, then, ended when you went through a door. Of course, I had quit even trying to go through doors, and never even considered that it might even be possible. I must have spent hours wandering that level, looking for the exit.

In Monkey Island 2, where you had to figure out the guy's hand signals to gain admittance to some secret hideout. A friend who had figured it out (and was sick of watching me trying) wrote the numbers down on a piece of paper and told me to look at it closely. Even then, he had to explain what was going on. So simple, it was impossible.

By contrast, in Escape from Monkey Island, I had no problem figuring out the "combat" puzzles near the end.

Ancient History here...

Zork 2: I was in the wizard lair and there was a puzzle that had me completely stumped. I have three globes (ruby, diamond, and obsidian) and three circles (red, white, and black) and no clue what to do. I would put the globes in the circles and nothing would happen. I was stumped on this for weeks. Then my friend came over well, have your tried putting the ruby in the red circle? And being the smart ass jerk I was (err am) I said, thats stupid. But I had no other ideas so I gave it a try and OF COURSE it worked. A freaking color puzzle and I totally missed it.

First one to come to mind was A Mind Forever Voyaging. It just hadn't occured to me that the recording mechanism used in the simulation could also be used in the real world.

Oh, that's easy.

I really enjoyed Myst, so I picked up Riven on the first day.

(In retrospect, I should have just stayed home and practiced pounding wooden splints under my toenails. I would have had just as much fun plus I would have learned a new skill!)

At one point, I got stuck. I had vowed to not look at any walkthroughs or hint sheets, so I spent a good 4 or 5 hours running around, looking for someplace I had missed.

Finally, I found it. Turns out that if you shut the door behind you after entering a room, another passageway was revealed.

I kept my vow, but I've never finished Riven.

this thread...

Blackhawk wrote:I don't remember which game it was, but it was a shooter. Not one door in the entire game opened - they were all just decorative textures. One level, late in the game, then, ended when you went through a door. Of course, I had quit even trying to go through doors, and never even considered that it might even be possible. I must have spent hours wandering that level, looking for the exit.

After more consideration, I've become moderately sure this was Iron Storm.

Paper or plastic?

Silent Hill on the PSX. My friend and I had been waiting AGES for it to be released, and promptly rushed into town to buy it on release day.

We were having a blast until we got to the room in the hospital with a combination lock switch and pictures of animals from the zodiac. We literally spent hours trying to figure out the combination; we even got out encyclopedias and studied the zodiac, came out with wild, outlandish theories. All to no avail, and we finally gave up, very pissed off.

The next day we showed it to Miss Poo. She took one look and said "it's the number of limbs the animals have, innit?" With jaws on the floor, we watched as she calmy entered the correct combination first time and got through the door.

Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Atlantis (or something like that). There was one part where you had to go in a cave, but it was so dark you couldn't see what you were doing.

The only way I found to beat it was to crank up the brightness on my monitor.

FULL THROTTLE. One of the penultimate scenes has a plane about to explode. I tried everything to stop the thing from going boom when I finally moved to the right and saw my bike. This was I think the only scene with a pan, every previous one had the camera locked in position.

The solution was simply to ride my bike outta there.

Bruce wrote:FULL THROTTLE. One of the penultimate scenes has a plane about to explode. I tried everything to stop the thing from going boom when I finally moved to the right and saw my bike. This was I think the only scene with a pan, every previous one had the camera locked in position.

The solution was simply to ride my bike outta there.

That one sure was a pisser.

Still, can't beat a Corley.

This one where I'm in a small enclosed room, hungry and with no way to get out. Over my head, hanging from a net is a bag with some food. But I can't reach it! There's nothing in the room except some empty crates and so in my frustration I smash the boxes and sit on the floor. Hungry but no longer angry.