302: Too Easy? What do you think?

[Ezny]

Originally Posted by Falanca

Oh, no, I don't mean you're trying to do that kind of a thing, it just shocked me noone ever replied on this thread by pointing out that it kind of, well, takes some time to complete.

lol ok

For the record it was a 6 hour run for me, maybe a few minutes more... I don't skip cut scenes and like to milk all the dialouge, even it means restarting the reels over a few times [reel 2&4]. : )

edit: including food and smoke breaks.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Falanca

it kind of, well, takes some time to complete.

That's a bad thing?

I think it's great!

EDIT:
Glad that when you did all 3 other reals you can do the "wrong" reel 4 answers without getting cut out.
That certainly would have made a certain Wallace & Gromnit 2 ending a lot more bearable to get all the gaglines.

[Falanca]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

That's a bad thing?

I think it's great!

EDIT:
Glad that when you did all 3 other reals you can do the "wrong" reel 4 answers without getting cut out.
That certainly would have made a certain Wallace & Gromnit 2 ending a lot more bearable to get all the gaglines.

It may get kind of unpleasantly frustrating when you start your game at 3am.

Yeah, it's definitely my fault, but still.

[onlyamonkey]

it went very smooth sailing thru it. coulda been a tad harder, but im still extremely happy.

[The Big z]

I'd like to see harder games. The episodic games always seem too easy simply because I always know the thing I need to solve the puzzles must be withing a very limited amount of game sets. Even the more difficult puzzles really aren't that hard to figure out given with the limited amount of items, locations, and actions for a given episode.

However, given the quality of humor, animation, dialog, and actions on most of Telltale's games... that keeps me coming back. I really would like to see what the company could do with a full production, non-episodic, adventure game in the style of TMI or SnM. I'd really like to see them do that with perhaps the Grim Fandango world, if they could get the rights. "The adventures of Glottis" anyone?

[StrawHat89]

It was a bit confusing at the beginning, but once you get the ball rolling it's not too bad. I didn't think the Penal Zone was all that bad either, though. Season 2 seemed to have more difficult puzzles.

[Avistew]

I didn't get stuck, but I enjoyed the episode (as opposed to Tales, which was "I didn't get stuck and I hated that"). Don't think it was too easy, although I find it surprising that I played on the hardest difficulty. Would make sense to me if it was the easiest or second easiest one.
I just... Don't understand where people could get stuck, I guess.

Anyways, I like it the way it was.

[Avel]

Only time I was stuck was the very end with the torch and that really was only a problem when the hotspots aren't revealed. Other than that, the first two episodes have been far easier (or perhaps more logical) than Season Two's puzzles, but honestly I like the level of difficulty.

[Psy]

Difficulty is something I think about a lot [NB: I'm not a designer, I don't write our games or anything, this is just me rambling]

I came from a place where the cool thing to do was rag on game developers for making content that's too easy. And that made sense, because we devoured their content FAR faster than they could make it, and we repeatedly beat content that was too difficult for the designers themselves.

I can totally understand hardcore adventure gamers looking at 301 and 302 and saying, "Wow these puzzles are so simple." But consider that most people posting on these forums are the high end of adventure gaming skill and are probably the minority. I feel like it's a success when people say they didn't have to look up a walkthrough, or that they could work out the puzzles logically rather than resorting to the spam-it-with-items theory of gameplay.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can totally understand wanting games that are super difficult, it just doesn't make sense to alienate a huge portion of our players just because the best of the best think it's easy >_>

[StrawHat89]

Psy is right. This season's difficulty is a LOT more balanced than the previous one, which did have some situations of spamming items until you find the solution. That seems to be what people think of when they mean "difficult" adventure games, but that's not really fun for a lot of people.

[Avistew]

I've never been called "the best of the best", "a hardcore gamer" or "at the high end of X gaming skills" before.
I feel all teary.
You're like, topping the whole "I added you tag for you" thing.

[Astro Gnocci]

I found the difficulty perfect.
Didn't get stuck either (i usually have to look up at least one hint or two), but still had to actually think to figure stuff out.
To me at least, the balance was just right, even if it's obviously a piece of cake compared to the old classics, so i understand why the more "hardcore adventure gamers" could complain.

[Baliame]

The difficulty was spot on, and finally all the puzzles made sense.

[corruptbiggins]

I feel that the difficulty was just about right in that some puzzles did make me stop and think about how to solve them and that gave moments and flashes of inspiration when I did get the solution which I love getting when playing adventure games. Gives me a sense of achievement.

[ThijssjihT]

This is better then episodes with problems that are almost unbeatable. I agree, it was very easy. But to make all puzzles from a little easy to very hard, without making any puzzles too hard and unbeatable, is an impossible mission. So I think they did a darn good job!

[The Big z]

Addressing psy's point, even an adventure game could have a difficultly level setting to provide better balance. I'm not talking about the hint level system either. One of the original monkey islands game had a great 'expert' mode which made several of the puzzles harder by adding more, and sometimes lateral thinking, steps to obtaining key items. So, even though i agree telltale episodic games are having a good balance of difficulty for most of the audience, more can be done to provide a challenge to those of us which have more hair to pull out and like to cut the cucumber lengthwise.

[guitarsareboring]

Overall the episode was quite straightforward. I resorted to the walkthrough once and that was to find out I needed to be cursed in order to repel Amelia to the Elf. I guess I just didn't think to go back to the Moleman again and convince him his daughter was in love with yet another person - a solution that I think was a little overused in this episode.

So I think the difficulty was about right but I didn't *enjoy* the episode quite as much as previous ones. The story, dialogue and characters just weren't as interesting and I found myself just wanting to get it finished. The reel thing was a great idea, akin to Maniac Mansion/Day of the Tentacle's multiple settings - and at times it was like future vision without, well, future vision.

[taumel]

Overall i was fine with the difficulty. I got stuck twice, then some riddles were too easy as you already knew what to do a few steps into the future and then sometimes i didn't get it because i was thinking into a different direction and the solution seemed kind of weird to me.

I guess this thinking the same way like a designer thing, sometimes works better, sometimes worse.

[Hayden]

For me personally, I would have liked it to be a little more challenging than it was. At least it wasn't ridiculously easy though; there were a few moments where I actually had to stop and think for a while.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Avistew

I've never been called "the best of the best", "a hardcore gamer" or "at the high end of X gaming skills" before.

Same here. Well, maybe aside from the hardcore gamer thingie then.

It was rare for me to finish an episode of even the first 2 seasons of S&M without consorting to a walkthrough, let stand the games of old...