Blog: "Why Trial and Error will Doom Games"

[wcer]

I agree with gbee in that any time I can't do something in a game that I can easily do in real life I tend to end up frustrated. (Typically grabbing a ladder, crawling under something, being unable to push some shelves over while able to push others, etc.. usually mobility/interaction related).

It's not like I'm a super hero in real life who plunges down ancient mine shafts to converse with alien horrors (sadly?) but I can certainly jump/crawl/etc pretty decently.

While I appreciate games can not (and arguably should not) mirror reality perfectly, as gbee points out things like invisible walls or one-way-only problem solving are problematic.

I'm not sure there's really a solution. Invisible walls can always be filled with textures/visible objects, but multi-solution puzzles are a far more complex beast that would almost require some sort of AI to determine if what you're trying to do makes sense for the problem.