Puzzles that solve themselves [Spoilers Within]

[Falanca]

Sorry Telltale, but this season is Sam & Max is kind of full of those puzzles. Either because of absences in design or some bugs, some puzzles are so easy to be solved. Players can actually solve them without bothering theirselves with the details (that are required to think about otherwise). This leads players disrespectfully but unknowingly think that developers don't put much effort in puzzles. But, the efforts are there, you just missed it! I'll be listing those I encountered or I'm heard of, complete with some thoughts of mine, so that you can think about it.

Note: I didn't re-download Penal Zone and The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, so if the issues I listed here are actually fixed, sorry to remind you again. I still think they worth to be addressed..

Episode 1: The Penal Zone

-Getting rid of Skun'ka-pe's minions inside and around Momma Bosco's building.
How to solve: Going into the building gets Sam kicked out of the building while Max's still there, getting beaten out by a minion. During this happens, Sam has to go on the roof and stay on the flagpole right over the minion outside while holding Stinky's cellphone, so that Max can teleport himself and the minion holding him to THAT cellphone, causing the minion to fall down on the other one.
Why's this so problematic: If Sam and Max teleport theirselves to somewhere else while on the roof, and then do all the stuff above except making Sam staying on the roof, player can still solve the puzzle.
What can be done: First of all, I assume it's about coding, and caused by a broken parameter. Parameter holding the value of Sam being on the roof changes itself to 0 to 1 or to 1 to 0 if Sam uses the ladders to climb on/off the building, but the value is kept untouched if Sam and Max uses teleportation to get out of the roof. This event tricks game so that it still thinks Sam's still on the roof after the teleportation. What can be done is simply giving the permission of changing the parameter back to 0 to the event of getting off the roof using the teleportation.

-Final confrontation with Skun'ka-pe where he holds onto a pipe to avoid getting sucked into the Penal Zone.
How to solve: You have to trick him with holding a fake toy on his face so that he tries to get it from Sam, but always fails as he's getting sucked by the Penal Zone with a great force. However, he recovers because ground has so much friction. Using the boiler, you have to raise the heat so that the molemen can sweat under Skun'ka-pe's feet, making him slip down after trying to get the toy once more.
Why's this so problematic: Becuase tricking Skun'ka-pe is a two-step process, many players only try the one-step processes first, such as clicking on hotspots. Boiler is a big hotspot, so people always raises up the heat before trying to trick Skun'ka-pe. Therefore, players can't see the cutscene where Skun'ka-pe recovers from being sucked, and can't understand why making molemen sweat is such an important detail.
What can be done: Making the boiler unusable before trying to trick Skun'ka-pe once is understandable. It makes sense, since Sam wouldn't be able to find a use of the boiler before realizing that the ground has so much friction. After seeing that cutscene, Sam can say 'I guess I have to find a way to make things more slippery for Skunkape.' to hint it out, then making it possible for us to click on the boiler.


Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak

-In Reel 2, using one bust on two bust carvings to reveal a straight path.
How to solve:You have to slice the bust, using the gates of Life and Death. You don't know which door has the scyther next time, yet Sameth's so lucky he always finds the one without the blade. He has to get a bad luck charm, and grandpa moleman is able to do it. But this raises another problem, as Sameth and Maximus has to make the moleman hate them by using an information gathered in Reel 3.
Why's this so problematic: It's not as nefarious as the other ones listed. It's just that some friends of mine did solve the puzzle without realizing the importance of the bad luck charm in this puzzle. They did play the game in the reel order of 1-3-2-4, and did not try to slice the bust before getting the bad luck charm.
What can be done: It can be left this way, it's not a real problem indeed. As a measure, maybe it can be coded in a way that it's impossible to go in the burial chamber where grandpa moleman resides before talking to dad moleman about him first. That'd just avoid people going straight to the burial chamber, therefore getting the bad luck charm without even finding a use for that. Again, it's not as important, I'm just typing this out to have an even longer post.


-In Reel 3, trying to go in Kringle's cabin as he only opens the door when his order is complete and Sam and Max are not around
How to solve:Complete the order. Which is, not surprisingly, cookies and milk. You'll also throw in a can o' nuts as a ticket for you to get into the cabin. You already have the cookies, and the empty glass is already on the serving tray which is in front of Kringle's door. To fill the glass with milk, you have to make use of Nefertiti's Holstein Hex and turn Max into a cow. After everything is ready, put things in the tray, knock the door, say that you're room service, and quickly get into the can o' nuts.
Why's this so problematic: I didn't encounter a problem on this one, but I've heard that you can actually solve this without using can o'nuts in the right timing.
What can be done: As I said, I didn't encounter it, so I can't say much things on it. I don't know what to do first in order not to rely on using can o' nuts in the right time, but still, it sounds like a parameter problem like the one in The Penal Zone. So fixing the trigger events changing the parameter values may be the solution. I still don't know which event causes parameter values change, so I may need info from someone who GOT that one.

Episode 3: They Stole Max's Brain!

-Making Frankie not use his credit card AND gifting Sammun-Mak something rare.
How to solve:Both puzzles use the same solution in one point. In the gift puzzle, you have to make Sammun-Mak like toasters so that you can turn Max into a toaster then give it to him, BUT there are so many toasters on the planet so people keep giving him toasters, so you should destroy all the toasters on the planet at once first. Destroying Frankie's credit card also uses a similar solution. Simply turn into a credit card or a toaster using rhinoplasty (pictures are near Stinky's Diner and near Frankie's betting place) and then go to the museum and while Max's changed in one of those forms, hit Sammun-Mak from where it hurts most: Right in the corndog pyramid. That'll make Sammun-Mak hate credit cards or toasters, so it'll end up all the toasters or credit cards on the planet destroyed. Don't forget making Sammun-Mak love toasters again by using the laser show before gifting one.
Why's this so problematic:Max doesn't change forms while travelling around using Desoto. And to destroy the corn dog pyramid, only one click is enough when Max's currently using rhinoplasty. If it's the first time player looks at corndogs, Max will destroy it and player may be left oblivious why destroying the pyramid or having Max turned into something is important. Yet, that would cause solving the puzzle without thinking over it.
What can be done: While he's transformed, using Max can be split into a two-step process. First picking up Max from where he is and grabbing him (like how we did in the very beginning of Penal Zone), second using the basic structure of "USING X on Y" with Max and corndogs. That would be effective as noone would try such a thing before thinking about it, and it's not that hard to expect 'picking up transformed Max' to use him on something.

-Accusing someone as a heretic to get a badge.
How to solve:If someone doesn't kneel or salute fast enough, it's easy to accuse him as a heretic easily. Grandpa Stinky's knees hurt during a rainstorm, so he's the perfect victim. Use rhinoplasty on the newspaper box near Sal to transform Max into a storm cloud, then go neat Grandpa Stinky and make him kneel.
Why's this so problematic:This one carries the second most biggest bug in all the season (first being the game killer bust-vanishing bug in The Tomb of Sammun-Mak), as after having Grandpa Stinky exiled, he actually stays THERE after you go somewhere and come back. Not only that, you can repeat the same thing and solve the puzzle again. Not only THOSE, when you do that, it actually counts as you picked ANOTHER badge when you do it. So, complete it three times = get all the badges easier = get to the next part easily and unfairly. Not to mention, without bothering yourself with other, (imo) more difficult puzzles.
What can be done: DESTROY. GRANDPA. STINKY. Or make it unable for people to raise the "badge-counter" after solving the puzzle again.

-Fight against Skun'ka-pe.
How to solve:There are so many details here to bother yourself in order to defeat the space ape. Use the Future Vision of Max on the fighters to see that Sam actually manages to defeat Skun'ka-pe and what kind of a taunt Sam actually uses to distract Skun-ka'pe. Then go back to Sam again. First, distract Sammun-Mak so that he won't interfere with your fight. To do that, switching from Max to Sam is enough, as a cutscene shows Skun'ka-pe hits the laser projector so it creates visuals for Sammun-Mak to have an eye feast for himself. After that, taunt him about fighting molemen. Skunkape will get them mad so they'll stick their arms out. Normally, this is when Sammun-Mak interferes, but he's too busy looking at the sky. Then, taunt him about getting dumped by Papierwaite. He'll then get Papierwaite mad, so Papierwaite will blind him. Simply attack him then, and let moleman do the rest. When he's knocked out cold, finish him.
Why's this so problematic:Two of the many details of this fight is actually not even cared by much players (distracting Sammun-Mak and activating molemen) because it's DEAD easy to trigger those events. It's as easy as to switch between characters to distract Sammun-Mak, so a player fiddling with the taunt options and activated molemen somehow will end the fight quickly, without seeing the cutscene where Sammun-Mak chills molemen out by using a spell, wondering why it was so important to distract Sammun-Mak and getting help from molemen.
What can be done: The triggering event of distracting Sammun-Mak could have been something different (and something makes more sense) such as talking directly to Sammun-Mak or giving a different taunt to Skun'ka-pe, since he's the one swinging his axe more passionately to hit the laser protector.




That's it. Am I nitpicking? Maybe. But the reason I listed those out is that I don't want Telltale to get unfair feedbacks, after they put so many thoughts on their games and all. Feel free to discuss or add similar things you saw during playing so we can talk about this too.

EDIT: Now I think of it, I guess I sound like I'm trying to teach you guys coding or making a game. It's simply not, it's actually a practice of mine trying to deduce algorithms. See, I'm learning computer science and engineering, and I'm still being taught general sense of algorithm. So it's really entertaining for me to point those out. Long story short, it's helping me to poke your eyes. 8D

[NeatNit]

Personally, I never (I think) got an "auto-solve" glitch, but I did once or twice accidentally solve a puzzle.

I don't think Telltale should take the time to fix the puzzles that can be solved without realising it, but the glitched ones definitely need to be fixed at some point.


You really took the time to write this, and get the details about everything. Well done.

[Falanca]

Originally Posted by NeatNit

Personally, I never (I think) got an "auto-solve" glitch, but I did once or twice accidentally solve a puzzle.

I don't think Telltale should take the time to fix the puzzles that can be solved without realising it, but the glitched ones definitely need to be fixed at some point.


You really took the time to write this, and get the details about everything. Well done.

Same, I didn't get any solver bugs. I tried some of them during my second or third runs. But I would bitch about it A LOT if that happened during my first playthrough. So that's why I kinda used some sort of empathy and wanted to make a topic like this.

Well, I still think solving a puzzle with considering every detail of it gives the most satisfaction. So if they ever want to iron out more nefarious bugs with some sort of updates, they may throw in some less important things like I listed there, to make the gaming experience better. Just saying and all~

Well, I'm not bragging or anything, but after completing like 2/3 of the entire thing I pressed Preview button and it gave me a white screen, then when I pressed back it erased the whole thing, so I had to type it twice. I still think it worths. Well, thanks a lot!

[NeatNit]

Originally Posted by Falanca

Well, I'm not bragging or anything, but after completing like 2/3 of the entire thing I pressed Preview button and it gave me a white screen, then when I pressed back it erased the whole thing, so I had to type it twice.

Ah, we've all been there

That's why when I write a big/important post, I always save it in a txt file before I click anything.
But right now I have a new problem - I keep clicking one of my extra mouse buttons accidentally to do forward/back

[Falanca]

Originally Posted by NeatNit

Ah, we've all been there

That's why when I write a big/important post, I always save it in a txt file before I click anything.
But right now I have a new problem - I keep clicking one of my extra mouse buttons accidentally to do forward/back

Yeah, I'm using a lot of forums for at least 7 years and still haven't got used to that Notepad thingie!

[Kjella]

I would just like to put it briefly: I strongly disagree. I loathe it when you pick the right solution, but the game refuses because it's forcing you to fail first. A good example was in 301, where you have to trick the gorilla to fall down in the manhole by slipping on a banana. If you try getting the banana peel from the trash can *without* having watched it in future vision, Sam will just go "It'd be a lot easier if I knew what I was looking for" or something like that. I absolutely hated that moment, Sam was like a helpless drooling retard.

Every Sam & Max puzzle can be solved by more or less trying random events because you can never truly fail - you simple have to try again from the beginning. A good puzzle will lead you to the most logical attempt, then give you "heh, you didn't think it'd be that easy?" moments. If you just try random things or just exhaustive option-clicking and somehow get it right, then fine. That's failing as a player, not failing as a game.

I do agree on one point though, it should be more obvious that you can "activate" Max. Like in the last episode, I didn't understand that I should destroy the corn dog pile by "looking" at it because it'd make transformed Max tear it down.

P.S. If you put spoilers in the subject, I think spoilers all over the text is redundant. This thread will be very annoying to read otherwise.

[serializer]

Nice write-up Falanca. I didn't really get so many of these problems in the first two episodes, but in the 3rd several of them hit me!

Let me just add a couple of things to your list:

Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak

1. Sometimes, the Can-o-Nuts would be visible on the tray during the cutscenes of Kringle poking his head out of the door, even tho Sam and Max were still stood there. This basically spoiled the solution for me because it showed me I was going to use the can there! This comes under "spoilery glitches" rather than "auto-solving".


Episode 3: They Stole Max's Brain!

1. Noir/interrogation. Don't get me wrong, I *loved* this sequence. But it got kind of spoilery due to used options getting grayed-out. After I'd gone through all the sequences several times and used all the options, everything was grayed out; then when I found out some new information the "You're lying!" option would suddenly be in white again, so it was obviously the new option. Working through dialog puzzles just by seeing which options have been used and haven't made me feel like I wasn't actually solving a puzzle intelligently.

The other problem that sometimes happens (and in other dialog sequences as well, not just noir) is when I'm trying to pick the wrong answers, but accidentally I stumble on the right one! This happens sometimes when puzzles aren't totally logical, I can't think of a specific example but it did happen once or twice in noir.

The grayed-out dialog options are generally quite useful when you're trying to get all the gags out of a normal conversation, it helps avoid repeated lines. But I think when a puzzle is centered around dialog it can help a bit too much.

2. Museum. I tend to wander around and click on everything... so I didn't realise the significance of having to use the monster diaorama to hide it before I set up my own fake one; it was either hidden already, or a game glitch made it irrelevant.

3. Corn dog pyramid. The only puzzle I actually got stuck on in this game was the credit card. Basically, because I'd already used the corn dog pyramid to get toasters banned, I assumed that would be the only use for it. I was trying to work out how I could get the card directly off Frankie, or somehow substitute Max for his card, or something like that. Telltale don't usually repeat puzzle solutions like that, so I really wasn't expecting it. When I read on the hint forum "you have to make credit cards illegal" I was like OH *facepalm*.

4. Skunkape fight. I should add that I didn't even see the molemen help at the end (I was expecting them to be involved somehow and was looking for it, for whatever reason I just didn't even see it happen, again it's possible that a game glitch meant I won the fight even though the molemen had actually been zapped by Sammun-Mak). So I was left at the end feeling confused about the purpose of a whole bunch of things.

Overall I think some of the puzzles in this episode lacked the depth we're used to in Telltale games. I think basically by taking the inventory away, it's result in lots of "click on this to get an effect" centric puzzles. Certainly an interesting change, but it means there aren't enough different combinations of things to try. Inventory items are kind of an instant multiplier of possibilities, making it much harder to complete something by accident!

It's started feeling more like watching an entertaining cartoon, than actually having much to interact with and solve. Except I have to spend ages clicking through all the options to find the good gags, whereas on a TV show they're just served up to you. It is still highly entertaining of course! But I think with new puzzles based around dialog and superpowers, you still need some inventory in the mix to vary the options.

P.S. If I've written a long post, I usually just press CTRL-A then CTRL-C to copy the whole thing to memory before I submit it. Then I can just CTRL-V to paste it back in if there's a problem and it gets lost! This happens all the time on all kinds of websites, so it's a good habit to get into. It's saved me from tears on more than a few occasions

[LogicDeLuxe]

I encountered some of those, too.

-Getting rid of Skun'ka-pe's minions inside and around Momma Bosco's building.

It totally confused me at first. Of course, what you see makes sense, but it didn't feel like a puzzle was solved.

-Final confrontation with Skun'ka-pe where he holds onto a pipe to avoid getting sucked into the Penal Zone.

Like you said.

-In Reel 2, using one bust on two bust carvings to reveal a straight path.

Interesting. I didn't even realize that you could go through the blades door without "busting" it first.

-Making Frankie not use his credit card AND gifting Sammun-Mak something rare.

While it didn't spoil a puzzle for me, I can see how this could easily happen. I didn't run around as something shape-shifted for no reason, since it looked really silly.
And I agree on picking up Max could solve things. In fact, I first tried picking up the toaster and give it to Sal instead of just talking to him.

-Fight against Skun'ka-pe.

While it certainly wasn't a hard puzzle, this one didn't feel wrong or confusing to me. I tried the available options and observed, and concluded what event would lead to what, which ultimately happened. I agree, that you could easily solve this puzzle with just random clicking, though.

[Hassat Hunter]

Most of the stuff listed here are just gamebugs though, not badly designed puzzles.

It seems TTG can't cope with the increased complexity of the TTG engine or gets pressed for QA time, releasing buggier and buggier games, which is a shame.
Actually releasing patches could help here, no idea why they don't do that...

[onlyamonkey]

Wow. How long did that take to write down?

[serializer]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

Most of the stuff listed here are just gamebugs though, not badly designed puzzles.

It seems TTG can't cope with the increased complexity of the TTG engine or gets pressed for QA time, releasing buggier and buggier games, which is a shame.
Actually releasing patches could help here, no idea why they don't do that...

I think it's a mixture of the two; there are certainly bugs causing problems, but then there are also puzzles that can be solved by accident thru being too easy.

Either way, I'm sure TTG are acknowledging the various feedback surrounding this series, and will also improve the stability of the engine in the future. Obviously there has recently been a massive upgrade; increased complexity coupled with porting to Mac and PS3 platforms has perhaps stretched their QA department a little thin!

[Zonino]

Originally Posted by Kjella

I would just like to put it briefly: I strongly disagree. I loathe it when you pick the right solution, but the game refuses because it's forcing you to fail first. A good example was in 301, where you have to trick the gorilla to fall down in the manhole by slipping on a banana. If you try getting the banana peel from the trash can *without* having watched it in future vision, Sam will just go "It'd be a lot easier if I knew what I was looking for" or something like that. I absolutely hated that moment, Sam was like a helpless drooling retard.

The joke there is that without future vision you have no idea what you should be doing. The trash can could be filled with all kinds of stuff, how do you know what is right? Would you rather the game force you to try different items till you randomly picked the right one?

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by serializer

I think it's a mixture of the two; there are certainly bugs causing problems, but then there are also puzzles that can be solved by accident thru being too easy!

Sure. But of the original list only 4 are actually issues with puzzles, the other 3 are game bugs.
That's quite a big percentage.

[richforce]

Personally I could never get Skunkape to hit the projector unless I taunted him about his age making him angry about all those years he just spent in the Penal Zone, and I think that was the intended solution.

[Gman5852]

Originally Posted by serializer

2. Museum. I tend to wander around and click on everything... so I didn't realise the significance of having to use the monster diaorama to hide it before I set up my own fake one; it was either hidden already, or a game glitch made it irrelevant.

I never once had to hide the machine. it was still there when I completed the puzzle.

Originally Posted by richforce

Personally I could never get Skunkape to hit the projector unless I taunted him about his age making him angry about all those years he just spent in the Penal Zone, and I think that was the intended solution.

Same

[Pantagruel's Friend]

Originally Posted by Gman5852

I never once had to hide the machine. it was still there when I completed the puzzle.

It helps you when you're figuring out the puzzle. If it's in view, then Sal finds it according to the tour guide. If it's hidden, Sal identifies Skunkape's goon as the monster, though without the city. I was assuming it was actually required to get Sal in the right position.

[tobar]

This thread isn't what I thought it was going to be about. Here's what happened to me, somehow I gained access to SammunMak without getting a third badge! I dunno how that happend all I did was trick Grandpa Stinky and give Max as a toaster to Sal. Then all of a sudden Sam exclaimed that we had all three badges and was excited to see the Pharoah. Even though I never won that last badge in a bet. I still don't know how to solve that one and I've already beat the game!

[Falanca]

Originally Posted by tobar

This thread isn't what I thought it was going to be about. Here's what happened to me, somehow I gained access to SammunMak without getting a third badge! I dunno how that happend all I did was trick Grandpa Stinky and give Max as a toaster to Sal. Then all of a sudden Sam exclaimed that we had all three badges and was excited to see the Pharoah. Even though I never won that last badge in a bet. I still don't know how to solve that one and I've already beat the game!

It IS probably about that problem you've encountered.

Accusing Grandpa Stinky a heretic for a second time tricks the game into believing that you got a SECOND badge, althought what you've done is simply doing the same thing to get your first badge. It's a bug of the game.

I feel sorry for your experience, also. The puzzle behind the other badge was also a good one.

[Little Writer]

I guess I must be total dumb-ass then, considering I was totally stuck on some of those puzzles that apparently "solve themselves" ...

[PainDealer]

Originally Posted by NeatNit

Personally, I never (I think) got an "auto-solve" glitch, but I did once or twice accidentally solve a puzzle.

I don't think Telltale should take the time to fix the puzzles that can be solved without realising it, but the glitched ones definitely need to be fixed at some point.


You really took the time to write this, and get the details about everything. Well done.

Well, I solved most of the puzzles in the previous seasons by trial and error which is partly accidental. I'd say 50% of them were not puzzles that needed common sense to solve but something else. This season has been more logical and I'm yet to run into an accidental solution.