Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs Discussion Topic Part 3

[Draug]

You just had to use that picture as a profile pic? XD

Why not?

[Newsman Waterpaper]

I got stuck on a few puzzles(Mainly the machine room one) in TDD and looked up help from internet and that didn't break immersion for me.

You didn't break immersion even from leaving the game? If so I have to question how you tell real life apart from video gaming.

I didn't closed down the game to look for help on a puzzle.I justed pause it and used the steam web browser .

[Kreekakon]

I didn't closed down the game to look for help on a puzzle.I justed pause it and used the steam web browser .

Same thing really, mostly because I find it very hard to believe you can still be thinking about what you're doing in the game immersevely anymore when you're staring at a web browser which is completely not part of the game.

[Newsman Waterpaper]

I didn't closed down the game to look for help on a puzzle.I justed pause it and used the steam web browser .

Same thing really, mostly because I find it very hard to believe you can still be thinking about what you're doing in the game immersevely anymore when you're staring at a web browser which is completely not part of the game.

I didn't find as immersion breaking as people thought it did but hi that's just me .

[jiersk]

Anyone else who thinks that Jens looks like Bam Margera on his profile pic.?

[Googolplex]

I got stuck on a few puzzles(Mainly the machine room one) in TDD and looked up help from internet and that didn't break immersion for me.

Exactly.
And normally I always agree with Thomas' posts, but in this case he is totally wrong in my opinion. Puzzles never should be too easy. They are made to let the player thinking with his brain and searching around in the environment for something useful to get forward. THIS means immersion for me! As more complex a puzzle is, as better the immersion. And it doesn't break the experience when I have to look for help. In contrary, that's what I always enjoy in games.

Immersion will take no effect when puzzles are easy solved without challenge. For me immersion means that I have to think about what to do next.

Anyone else who thinks that Jens looks like Bam Margera on his profile pic.?

I think Jens looks like "Benno Fürmann".

[Kreekakon]

Exactly.
And normally I always agree with Thomas' posts, but in this case he is totally wrong in my opinion. Puzzles never should be too easy. They are made to let the player thinking with his brain and searching around in the environment for something useful to get forward. THIS means immersion for me! As more complex a puzzle is, as better the immersion. And it doesn't break the experience when I have to look for help. In contrary, that's what I always enjoy in games.

Immersion will take no effect when puzzles are easy solved without challenge. For me immersion means that I have to think about what to do next.

Well, whatever floats your boat then...

[summit]

Good puzzles and very creepy atmosphere is better than monster chases for me.

[Kreekakon]

Exactly.
And normally I always agree with Thomas' posts, but in this case he is totally wrong in my opinion. Puzzles never should be too easy. They are made to let the player thinking with his brain and searching around in the environment for something useful to get forward. THIS means immersion for me! As more complex a puzzle is, as better the immersion. And it doesn't break the experience when I have to look for help. In contrary, that's what I always enjoy in games.

Immersion will take no effect when puzzles are easy solved without challenge. For me immersion means that I have to think about what to do next.

Well, whatever floats your boat then...

On second thought, no, let's try to talk this out

I partially agree with what you said that puzzles can heighten a player's immersion, because they are a part of interacting with the game, and thinking to solve something in the world. This can make players feel like they are participating in something in the world.

However, my main concern is that if the puzzles are too hard then you are no longer appreciating the game world's sense of interactivity which makes you feel involved. You would instead be going beyond that to feel frustration, and be pulled out of the immersion, and mindset you put yourself in when you are feeling like you are a part of the game's world.

All of your focus by this point would be taken away from the game's world, and you would be pitting your highlight on solving the puzzle not in a story progression type of feel which is good for immersion, but a more gamey type of feel which naturally occurs when you are "stuck". I don't think this feeling is one that helps immersion at all, and can even damage it.

As for looking up answers on the web...see my post above on how I think that breaks immersion completely:

Same thing really, mostly because I find it very hard to believe you can still be thinking about what you're doing in the game immersevely anymore when you're staring at a web browser which is completely not part of the game.

[DavidS]

Silent Hill is a very good horror game, even scarier than Amnesia and there are the hardest puzzles I ever saw in a game. Really awesome and I always enjoy to stuck and search for help in the internet. Puzzles are even more important than pure horror, that's why I find Penumbra better than Amnesia.

I don`t want to get into the discussion about immersion, but it sure is important to note that the puzzles in Silent Hill (apart from sometimes having their own difficulty settings) are also often cloesly tied to the protagonists subconcious or the environmental circumstances (The town as an almost sentient being... wich then is again tied to the protagonists subconcious. This even works for NPCs like in SH2. I always love to think that the fat kid and the suicidal girl are there to set a psychological contrast to James). In a way these made them engaging and interesting as the way to the solution was almost an act of self reflection and so delicately incorporated into the setting that often the player only gets some sort of "gut feeling": Sometimes you didn`t even want to solve a puzzle as this could reveal something nasty about your surroundings and yourself (at least I sometimes felt that way... good lord, if I had the money and team... SH games are what made horror games interesting for me in the first place. ...wich of course makes me biased to an extend ^^ ).

What I am saying is: SH (especially 2 and 3) could allow itself to have sometimes difficult and obscure puzzles because within the context of the story and setting, they made sense (to some extend... nothing is perfect and in the end it is also personal preferences that matter).