Sound-based puzzles

[Cultist]

I like puzzles a lot, especially challenging ones. But with one exception - sound puzzles. By "sound puzzle" I mean something that requires repeating some sound to progress. For example - you hear several tunes and have to adjust switches on some mechanism to match the tunes heared.

 

In sci-fi it's "hear button sound and guess the code by sound"

uch puzzles are rare, yet somehow manage to squeeze their way into the games from time to time.

 

I hate them with passion. mostly because I am extremely bad with defining different tunes, to me they sound mostly alike. And judging by feedback on various forums, I am not alone in this.

Saddest part is that some people have very nice hearing and simple can't understand how others could mistake one tune for another.

 

Yet I hope if such puzzles are planned for PE, then maybe they could be changed for more versalite kind of puzzle without removing challenge for players?

[Somna]

You know, I don't think I've run across sound-only puzzles in a long time.

 

Usually if it is a sound puzzle, there is also a visual aspect to it as well, just in case you run across a gamer who is also deaf.

[spudud]

The most recent one I remember was in NWN2 with the bard in Blacklake District. It was fun and a pain in the ass at the same time being so musically inept. On the other hand, puzzles like Towers of Hanoi or cryptograms have been used quite a lot in other games, so I hope they include something we haven't seen before.

Edited April 11, 2013 by spudud

[rjshae]

It's a really nice idea. Unfortunately I know several people who are hearing impaired and may have a problem with such a puzzle.

[Inq]

I generally dislike puzzles of most kinds, they usually take me out of the game. I'd rather just focus on the strategies and tactics of combat.

[rjshae]

The one sound-based puzzle I've seen recently was the "Tranquility Lane" quest in Fallout 3. It was ingenious, appropriately placed, and ... tedious. I didn't find that it broke the immersion factor.

[Lephys]

I believe your dislike for these puzzles has a pretty... ... Sound basis.

[AGX-17]

There's never been any evidence of such a puzzle being present in P:E, so I don't see what reason there is for concern. Hell, have they even said there would be puzzles in P:E?

I generally dislike puzzles of most kinds, they usually take me out of the game. I'd rather just focus on the strategies and tactics of combat.

Sounds like Dragon Age 2 is right up your alley. Edited April 12, 2013 by AGX-17

[Inq]

Really? Dragon Age 2 had pretty terrible gameplay.

[Lephys]

There's never been any evidence of such a puzzle being present in P:E, so I don't see what reason there is for concern. Hell, have they even said there would be puzzles in P:E?

Using the same logic, have they even said there wouldn't be puzzles in P:E? There's never been any evidence of such a puzzle not being present in P:E, so I don't see what reason there is for a complete lack of concern.

[Cultist]

Ah, I've found best example of this issue. Aquaria. Awesome and beautiful game with bittersweet ending. But several sound puzzles make it almost unbeatable for some, because you play as a kind of siren girl and all your spells are songs. And you have 8(EIGHT!) tunes to choose from. So at some point game will play a melody you have to repeat to advance. Needless to say, that people such as I are very thankful for internet solutions\walkthroughs.

[Ineth]

Ah, I've found best example of this issue. Aquaria. Awesome and beautiful game with bittersweet ending. But several sound puzzles make it almost unbeatable for some

 

Well, but each note that you can play also has a unique color and symbol associated with it. So the pitch is not the only thing to go by.

 

It has been a while since I played the main game, but I can only remember 3 puzzles where you actually had to reproduce full melodies.

Two of them were optional side-quests, and were not sound-only (i.e. you were given color/symbol/position info for the notes you needed to play).

 

The third one is the one in the youtube video you linked (the "ghost child"), and that does indeed cause a lot of players to get stuck and turn to google (probably more so than any other part of the game). Although in hindsight, it seems obvious:

 

The melody you need to reproduce is the central tune of the game's soundtrack, it has been playing in the background again and again throughout the entire game. The notes symbols you are given as hints, are not the entire tune but they should be enough to recognize it. And the ghost mother you passed a few minutes earlier sings the entire thing.

 

 

all your spells are songs. And you have 8(EIGHT!) tunes to choose from.

 

10 actually, but those 'special abilities' songs the protagonist learns aren't puzzles. Each of them gets automatically transcribed to your "song book" when you reach a certain point in the world, and from then on it can be quickly accessed using a keyboard shortcut ("1" key for first song, "2" key for second, etc.).

So you don't actually have to manually play them using the song circle, ever. (Although of course you can, if you want.)

 

The main uses for the song circle, are occasions where you need to play a single note to match a specific color.

[Tamerlane]

There is only one acceptable sound based puzzle:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF83LhxnAPA

 

[Brother Pain]

Hmm, the only really sound-based puzzle I've seen in a long time was in The Secret World, and required you to enter a code based on the sounds the buttons made, since the person entering the code was between the keypad and the hacked camera you watched through. A lot of people had a lot of trouble with said puzzle (though TSW has a ton of puzzles requiring you to do on the fly decryption, math puzzles, looking up obscure artists, and whatnot) but it was actually one of the few puzzles I found easy

 

That said, I know most people don't have absolute pitch and relative pitch, just like not all people are good at ciphers, riddles, or math, so I'd hope that there's always a way out of a puzzle, perhaps in the style of cutting the Gordian knot.

[Randomthom]

It sounds like you have acute tone deafness, essentially the inability to distinguish between pitches in a certain frequency band. It is not uncommon.

 

Unfortunately I'd personally want to say to you simply "deal with it"... I know that sounds harsh but there are also puzzles that use colour, a problem for the colour blind gamers, others that use numbers, a problem for dyslexics etc.

 

With all this in mind there are 2 obvious solutions. Have no puzzles or have puzzles and accept that some people are going to need to apply guesswork/game guides etc.

 

I like puzzles (I prefer riddles) and I know I'm not alone in this.

 

There is a potential third solution and that is to provide an in-game alternative to the puzzle e.g. getting it wrong 3 times results in a guardian being released, killing it allows the player to progress.

[Cultist]

It sounds like you have acute tone deafness, essentially the inability to distinguish between pitches in a certain frequency band. It is not uncommon.

 

Unfortunately I'd personally want to say to you simply "deal with it"... I know that sounds harsh but there are also puzzles that use colour, a problem for the colour blind gamers, others that use numbers, a problem for dyslexics etc.

 

With all this in mind there are 2 obvious solutions. Have no puzzles or have puzzles and accept that some people are going to need to apply guesswork/game guides etc.

 

I like puzzles (I prefer riddles) and I know I'm not alone in this.

 

There is a potential third solution and that is to provide an in-game alternative to the puzzle e.g. getting it wrong 3 times results in a guardian being released, killing it allows the player to progress.

I can deal with it all right and generally don't like the idea of "appease everyone" as it results generally in being bad for everyone. The point of this post is to ask to stay away from such sound-based puzzles if possible. For example, Paradox Interactive had once a duscussion about their game menus and colorblind people and ways to make menus in colors that are ok for colorblind and other players.

Also, Deus EX approach seems best for me, when player can either solve the puzzle and open the door, or bash the door or bypass the door due to, for example, good dexterity, or hack it, simply put, have alternative solution based on his playstyle.

[Kjaamor]

It sounds like you have acute tone deafness, essentially the inability to distinguish between pitches in a certain frequency band. It is not uncommon.

 

Unfortunately I'd personally want to say to you simply "deal with it"... I know that sounds harsh but there are also puzzles that use colour, a problem for the colour blind gamers, others that use numbers, a problem for dyslexics etc.

 

With all this in mind there are 2 obvious solutions. Have no puzzles or have puzzles and accept that some people are going to need to apply guesswork/game guides etc.

 

I like puzzles (I prefer riddles) and I know I'm not alone in this.

 

There is a potential third solution and that is to provide an in-game alternative to the puzzle e.g. getting it wrong 3 times results in a guardian being released, killing it allows the player to progress.

 

This, cruel as it sounds. For me puzzles and particularly riddles are some of the best bits in rpgs. Baldur's Gate II, as I recall had some corkers. The princess and prince one in particular springs to mind. Anyway, variation is the key and unfortunately there will be some puzzles that you'll struggle with and some that I'll struggle with. I'm sure none will be so placed as to completely halt main quest progress without any other options.

 

Meanwhile:

 

I believe your dislike for these puzzles has a pretty... ... Sound basis.

 

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[Cultist]

Anyway, variation is the key and unfortunately there will be some puzzles that you'll struggle with and some that I'll struggle with. I'm sure none will be so placed as to completely halt main quest progress without any other options.

 

I prefer riddles and puzzles to be dependant on my logical ability and intelligence, rather than how good my hearing is or how quickly I can press buttons or similar physical features.

[Kjaamor]

I prefer riddles and puzzles to be dependant on my logical ability and intelligence, rather than how good my hearing is or how quickly I can press buttons or similar physical features.

 

While to the greater extent I would agree, I think a good variety of puzzles keeps things interesting, and also helps with the whole mechanic of puzzles. If every puzzle is something you're good at, then that's not very...well...puzzling.

[rjshae]

A sound-based Easter Egg puzzle might be amusing. But it shouldn't have to depend on the acuteness of a player's hearing.

[Lephys]

I think it would be interesting if you got to pick, somehow. Like, some deity or ancient people designed something to be found by a clever enough person, but they knew not in which particular way that person would be clever, so they made a visual/spatial puzzle, an audible puzzle, AND a mental-acuity puzzle. So, maybe solving "the puzzle" is necessary to get somewhere, but you don't HAVE to have awesome hearing, or awesome eyesight, or be quite clever with word meanings/riddles, etc. You get to pick, though.

 

*shrug*

[Aldereth]

For a bonus and non-plot stopping quest, yeah.   It's good to mix things up.

 

As a side note:  If it were a multiplayer game or MMO, pretty bad idea.    I still have flash back of a whole bunch of people standing there waiting their turns on a puzzle(not sound base but still) thing in SWTOR

[teknoman2]

i dont have a problem distinguishing sounds, and indeed i found that secret world keypad riddle very easy, however i dont have a very strong short term memory so i found the bard part of nwn2 impossible since i could not play the tune more than 3 or 4 times to figure out the sequence (the fact that the sequence choices were made from dialog options made it even harder because i had no way to reproduce an actual melody... just notes).

[PrimeJunta]

I like problem-solving in games. Puzzles... yes and no. If they're too transparently puzzle-ish, i.e., there's no or very little in-game rationale for them being there, they tend to jolt me out of the game. I think that's what first comes to mind when you think of a puzzle.

 

But if P:E turns out to have lots of challenges that need smarts, knowledge, color perception, tone perception or whatever to solve, and if they're well integrated into the gameworld, I'm all for it. The toughest ones, or at least the ones that would otherwise lock out, say, colorblind, deaf, or tone-deaf people, are probably best left in optional areas.

 

There can be too much of a good thing of course. Wouldn't want P:E to turn into an adventure game.

[JFSOCC]

You should have all the time in the world for puzzles.