Quote:
Originally Posted by Pirateguybrush
Chuck, that's really not a professional way to treat your customers. My complaint was that Puzzle Agent is a game about puzzles, where you are given the information and rules needed to solve a puzzle, and then asked to solve it. It is jarring, and poor game design to include a puzzle that requires players to alt tab out and research online. If Puzzle Agent was more ARG-oriented, or included a built in encyclopedia or web browser as an integral gameplay mechanic, that would be different. But in the context of Puzzle Agent, this is a bad puzzle. I'll thank you to not make any more snide remarks, and learn how to take constructive criticism.
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But you're not my customer! I'm not a full-time employee of Telltale, so the only difference between me and any other forum poster is that I happen to have written dialogue for this game. (And my name is still in italics on this forum for whatever reason). It seems like I should be entitled to comment on the puzzles just as much as anyone else.* I'd respectfully thank you not to get upset when there's no reason to be.
And there was absolutely nothing snide about my remark, and I don't see why people are taking offense at it (apart from the obvious fact that this is the internet). I don't believe there's any such thing as useless information, especially within the context of a puzzle game. I'd much rather be working on a puzzle with a real-world counterpart than something made up like imaginary species of fish or matching socks. If it were a puzzle about, say, Japanese currency, I'd be excited to be learning something I didn't know before. (And it probably would've kept me from short-changing people in Tokyo!) But this is a game set in the US.
I've been playing on the iPad, so I can't speak to alt-tabbing out. But I disagree that it's a "bad puzzle;" I think it's the more interesting kind of puzzle -- taking real information that you've just learned (instead of arbitrary rules presented to you and immediately forgotten), and then applying them.
I like being presented with stuff I don't know or am unfamiliar with. But several times I've seen players complain about games for being "too American" -- here, with the Sam & Max games, and as far back as Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island 2. And I'm saying I don't get that. When I see European or Asian stuff in a game, I think "exotic;" I don't get offended or frustrated.
Where I think it's silly is when the complaint turns to one of "Ugly Americanism." In other words, treating the game as if it were a standardized test where "cultural bias" is forbidden, and any game that relies on US-specific cultural idioms is decried as if it were some kind of modern imperialism. Sometimes a monkey wrench is just a goofy pun, chopping down a cherry tree is an excuse for a time-travel puzzle, and people in Minnesota use American coinage. I know I wouldn't have minded if the puzzle used Canadian money, and I had to go look up what a loony was.
* In fact, when I was an employee, one of the most appealing things about the TTG forums was that they allowed open discussion between developers and fans that you don't get from larger studios. One of the things that quickly ruined that was when posters stopped acting like people united over an interest in games and started behaving like "customers" who were making complaints about a "product." Maybe that's inevitable whenever the size of the audience grows past a certain point, but it's still a shame.
Regardless, I don't in any way speak for Telltale, and it shouldn't be inferred that I do.