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Worst Puzzles in History

S

Sho Nuff

Banned
I was on Mobygames and I nominate this one.

In King's Quest I (the original, NOT the remake), you meet this gnome dude who is supposed to be Rumplestiltskin. You have to guess his name, and he tells you to think backwards (or something, I can't remember the clue properly myself). So is it "Rumplestiltskin" spelled backwards? NO, BECAUSE ROBERTA WILLIAMS IS BUGFUCK INSANE. What you had to do was write the alphabet forwards and backwards:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

And then match up the letters of "RUMPLESTILTSKIN" with the letters below, giving you the unpronouncable and incomprehensible "ifnkovhgroghprm." Of course, there is no clue even pushing you in this direction. Roberta Williams, I love you.

Seriously. WTF.
 
Zaptruder said:
Are you really bitching about a game over 15 years old? Or are you just waxing nostalgic on great games of the past? :p
Click to expand...

Waxing nostalgic, now give me a horrible puzzle or get out of my thread!

Another atrocious puzzle: In Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, you must use mayonaise on a totem pole in order to move it.
 
This one's actually pretty recent. I thought it was pretty horrible, only because it took me about 5 tries before I got it right.

In the fifth episode of Phoenix Wright,
during Ema's testimony, you need to figure out what the real weapon that Neil used and the answer is the halberd part of a trophy that he was awarded. The trophy is comprised of a halberd and a shield. He pulled the halberd part out of the trophy. That really shouldn't be possible.
 
Off the top of my head, I believe both Wild Arms 1 (original version) and Tales of Destiny have puzzles where the clues weren't translated properly and are basically impossible to solve.

There's a similar problem with the desert area in Breath of Fire III, though it's not really a "puzzle." When you're first given the instructions for getting through the desert, they're correct. But if you later look at them on the written copy your party is given, the instructions actually give you the WRONG directions. If you didn't write them down when first given them, you're basically screwed (without outside help, of course :P ).
 
I don't know if it's on the "worst" list, but the "tea/no tea" puzzle from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fucked me up good for a long while. The books were zany and fun...but when you combine that with a text adventure format, all hell breaks loose.
 
In Resident Evil Outbreak File# 2, we had to insert six jewelry-colored moon-shaped plates into a statue to open some ventilation shaft beneath it. WTF.
 
underworld_1.jpg


I have nightmares with this image, what the hell is it?
 
Ironclad_Ninja said:
In the fifth episode of Phoenix Wright,
during Ema's testimony, you need to figure out what the real weapon that Neil used and the answer is the halberd part of a trophy that he was awarded. The trophy is comprised of a halberd and a shield. He pulled the halberd part out of the trophy. That really shouldn't be possible.
Click to expand...
I figured that out way before it happened :P
 
Sho Nuff said:
And then match up the letters of "RUMPLESTILTSKIN" with the letters below, giving you the unpronouncable and incomprehensible "ifnkovhgroghprm." Of course, there is no clue even pushing you in this direction. Roberta Williams, I love you.

Seriously. WTF.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I still have most of that memorized (ifnkovhgro). There was a 'clue' in the witch's house, the 'think backwards' note.

argon said:
Can you be more descriptive?
Click to expand...

I've never played it, but some X-Men game on the Genesis, like at the very end, a computer told you to reset the system or something to move on, and you had to actually press the reset button on the Genesis to progress.
 
Jonnyram said:
I figured that out way before it happened :P
Click to expand...
At the moment, it just didn't make sense to me. How could he dismantle the damn thing? That's what I kept thinking to myself over and over again. Plus, I had about 10 different items in my record that could have passed off for weapons, how the hell was I supposed to pick that one?! The whole case was a bit... unorthodox.

I figured it out nonetheless. Then the pieces fell into place.
 
I dunno about the worst, but the best ones were in Out of this World; and that's BY FAR. Shadowgate Classic also had some great ones though.
 
In MYST there was a puzzle that the input device was a piano, and to beat the puzzle you had to enter the precisely replicate a correct sequence of notes.

I'm just going to guess that most people who could play a piano would have major trouble deducing which ones to play. I ended up holding a tuning device up to the computer speakers and pressing every note until the proper keys were discovered. It annoyed the heck out of me, but I was impressed as all get out that it actually worked.

That, and pretty much everything from Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.
 
Ironclad_Ninja said:
At the moment, it just didn't make sense to me. How could he dismantle the damn thing? That's what I kept thinking to myself over and over again. Plus, I had about 10 different items in my record that could have passed off for weapons, how the hell was I supposed to pick that one?! The whole case was a bit... unorthodox.

I figured it out nonetheless. Then the pieces fell into place.
Click to expand...

I figured it was either
the screwdriver or the trophy
. I just didn't know whether to present the actual item for the latter, or the picture.
 
Finding the last boss in Phantasy Star on the SMS. You got some cryptic hint about finding door which cannot be seen, then dumped into a circular dungeon with no way out. You had to turn and face a wall as a specific spot, and the door to Dark Falz would appear. But the spot was totally random (as in a weird place, not that it changed all the time), and unless you took a step and then turned to face every wall individually the odds of finding him solo was about nil.
 
-jinx- said:
Sorry -- it's a portion of the artwork from Underworld's album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman.
Click to expand...

You have excellent taste in music. :D


Anyway.


Worst: Myst, the mine maze where the correct direction was indicated by a sound effect. Wha?

Generally worst: most of the puzzles in the King's Quest games - especially the ones where you could screw your game if you did it incorrectly. Like that $@*#ing bridge in King's Quest II that leads to the 3 magic doors. I walked across it once to see the doors, walked back across. Of course, the bridge breaks and you die after you walk back and forth more than three times... meaning it broke when I was approaching the bridge with the last key AND I HAD TO START THE WHOLE DAMN GAME OVER.

Worst/Best: Getting the babel fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
 
i remember in the batman game on SNES (adventures?) i was unable to get past one of the riddlers riddles. NOT as ridiculous as that sounds, that shit was hard
 
Soul4ger said:
I figured it was either
the screwdriver or the trophy
. I just didn't know whether to present the actual item for the latter, or the picture.
Click to expand...
At first, I thought it was the
screwdriver or that the switchblade was already broken. I tried both of those. I even tried the jar! It could have been a fragment after all. The trophy did occur to me, but I presented Edgeworth's trophy as opposed to the picture and that threw me off completely when I was rejected.

Still, that was a pretty interesting twist.
 
"LOOK ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE!"
-- MGS:TTS, GameCube

What was the Reset the System puzzle, again?
 
Lemming_JRS said:
I walked across it once to see the doors, walked back across. Of course, the bridge breaks and you die after you walk back and forth more than three times... meaning it broke when I was approaching the bridge with the last key AND I HAD TO START THE WHOLE DAMN GAME OVER.
Click to expand...

YES! These are my favorite puzzles because you can completely f*ck the game by just going somewhere that looks interesting. And then it makes fun of you! Imagine if there'd been Infocom games like that.

You are in a cave. The path extends north.
>go north

The walls begin to shake, and then thousands of spears fall down from the ceiling, impaling you in multiple places. Maybe next time you'll be more careful!

*** YOU HAVE DIED ***
 
Red Scarlet said:
What's worse is after guessing the gnome's name..oh my god the beanstalk is a pain in the ass to climb up.
Click to expand...

There were one or two stairways in King's Quest IV (the shitty IIgs AGI version) where you had to navigate areas that were two pixels wide at some points. There were also some areas where you had to walk INTO the screen where you couldn't see the steps due to the perspective. Of course, screwing up meant you FELL TO YOUR HORRIBLE DEATH and more trash talk from Roberta. In an Infocom you'd type CLIMB STAIRS and that would be it, but in King's Quest it's a friggin charade.
 
Yeah, speaking of King's Quest and games screwing you over...

In KQ V, in a scene early in the game, some animals would run onto the screen for a brief few seconds and you had to throw a shoe at them in order to get an item. You only had a few seconds to do it, and if you didn't do it that once, you'd never get the item and couldn't finish the game. What's even worse is that the item wasn't needed until near the very END of the game. If you didn't throw the shoe, you wouldn't even find out you'd screwed youself over until much later in the game ... at which point you'd have to go back basically to the beginning and do everything again from the start.

I always preferred LucasArts's "you can never ruin your save file" policy.
 
Was IV the one with the prince (Alexander?) living on the mountaintop as a servant to the wizard, or was it the one with the princess (Rosetta?)? I can't recall.
 
DavidDayton said:
"LOOK ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE!"
-- MGS:TTS, GameCube

What was the Reset the System puzzle, again?
Click to expand...

Take me off ignore and you'd see!

Greenpanda said:
Was IV the one with the prince (Alexander?) living on the mountaintop as a servant to the wizard, or was it the one with the princess (Rosetta?)? I can't recall.
Click to expand...

4 had Rosetta, 3 was the one with Gwydion/Alexander and Manhannan or whatever his name was. CAT COOKIE
 
Played this one yesterday: you have to
eat the revival pill
after
the sorrow kills you
and get the
game over screen
. How should anybody know withou trying a thousand times or using a gameguide?

Thank you Mr.
Kojima
 
Red Scarlet said:
4 had Rosetta, 3 was the one with Gwydion/Alexander and Manhannan or whatever his name was. CAT COOKIE
Click to expand...

Is that what you did with the cat? Haha, I didn't remember. I don't remember much about IV at all. III was the one that took me forever; it was pretty darn unforgiving, since being spotted in the wrong place, carrying the wrong items at the wrong times, falling off the mountain path, or doing pretty much anything else would get you killed.
 
johnjohnson said:
Played this one yesterday: you have to
eat the revival pill
after
the sorrow kills you
and get the
game over screen
. How should anybody know withou trying a thousand times or using a gameguide?

Thank you Mr.
Kojima
Click to expand...

I'm torn on this one. It's ALMOST a good puzzle, but the only way you'd find it is if you got frustrated and started
mashing the shoulder buttons.
 
Taking some fur from the cat to make the cat cookie, then crumbling it up in the stolen porridge was one way of getting rid of the wizard guy in 3. I can't remember the other ways.

I DO remember the cat being on the stairs going down to the library; you could trip over it and die.
 
The piano puzzle in Silent Hill.

"Look on the back of the CD." Why can't I find the fucking CD? I've searched the entire fucking base. I borrowed the damn game from a friend and he didn't give me the case.
 
Red Scarlet said:
Taking some fur from the cat to make the cat cookie, then crumbling it up in the stolen porridge was one way of getting rid of the wizard guy in 3. I can't remember the other ways.
Click to expand...

Geez, I only barely remember that ... 's been a while :P

I think maybe you could push him off the mountain?
 
I thought it was just Rumplestiltskin backwards, I don't remember having to write out the alphabet ike that, which is even worse. It's possible my brother solved that one. I was like 8 years old whn I played this game so I've forgotten most of it.

What I do remember though is that in King Quest 1 you also had to push a witch into an oven to escape captivity, a la Hanzel and Grettel. It was obvious that pushing the witch in the oven was the key, she bent over the thing for like a minute giving you ample time to type the command. However, typing "Push witch into oven" did not trigger the event to happen. We tried every permutation of the phrase from "shove witch into stove" to "cook witch in fire" but none of them worked. Finally after a month or so when we were fed up with the whole thing my brother typed "kill witch". Low and behold, Sir Graham pushed the witch into the oven, just like we had asked him to do months ago :(
 
Red Scarlet said:
Take me off ignore and you'd see!
Click to expand...

I'd never ignore the Scarlet that is red!

I just need to pay attention to posts...

Lucasfilm Games was nice in that they were one of the few publishers to make adventure games that couldn't become impossible to finish. The first umpteen years of adventure games (of all sorts) seemed to be chock-full of evil puzzles like that.

The Kobun that is Heated said:
I hated that g------ stamp puzzle in Trace Memory though.
Click to expand...

I was playing the game and got stuck at that point. After trying all sorts of tricks to solve the puzzle, I gave up and shut the DS. When I returned, I noticed the image had changed... leaving me more puzzled. After many fruitless minutes, I gave up and shut the DS again... when I opened in 30 minutes later, the picture changed again.

That's when I got it.
 
The "Worst Puzzles in History" thread has basically turned into a King's Quest nostalgia thread.

....I guess that kinda says something about the KQ series ;)
 
When I got my first computer, a 386 my parents bought me "Return To Zork". The puzzles in that game gave me nightmares (I was like 9 at the time.) What with the grues, and the myriad ways to die, etc.

There were many ways to stuff up the game too. There was a little plant at the very start that you needed to get for this puzzle 3\4 of the way through. If pulled it out of the ground or cut it out with scissors it would seem fine, but then die after a certain amount of time. You had to *dig* it up to stop it from dying.

The puzzles wern't that hard, but it was pretty freaky for a young kid.
Want some rye, course you do.

Kobun Heat said:
I hated that goddamn stamp puzzle in Trace Memory though.
Click to expand...

That one I got straight away, but I literally spent an hour walking round the house looking for a solution when I was stuck on the
Painting that you have to blow the dust off. I had forgotten that the DS had a microphone, eventually while I was looking at the painting I sighed and a little bit of the dust moved. Eureka!
I felt really dumb afterwards.
 
With the MGS3/Sorrow one, you get some clues if you phone people up on the codec.

They're acting like you're dead, so I guessed the whole thing was a 'near-death experience' hence the revival pill.
 
Having to have the crappy ghost ship map to actually be able to catch up to the damn thing. The number of times I tried to get inside, and trying to work out the pattern of appearance WITHOUT the map. You can figure out what game I'm talkiing about.

This thread also reminds me of two things:
*climb under the pipe
*The compass in Wind Waker is broken!

Oh yeah, about the reset genesis to continue thing:
So you actually had to do it? And did it actually work? How?
 
I don't know whether this is a worst puzzle as in it being inane or it being annoying... if it's the latter, any box puzzle absolutely pisses me off :p
 
Lemming_JRS said:
YWorst/Best: Getting the babel fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Click to expand...

Best. Definitely. Especially the way it reacts to you tying the sleeves of the dressing gown. :)
 
Don't get me started on King's Quest V... you don't understand the pain I experienced unless you played the NES version. Thinking I didn't solve the puzzle (when I actually did) only to die for seemingly random reasons (I clicked 2 pixels too far to the left? The wizard randomly appears in 2 seconds and kills me as opposed to 10? grah) was really irritating to my 7/8 year old self.

King's Quest VI was annoying if only for the hours my friend and I spent trying to get the alternate ending that involved doing a rain dance of some sort. Damn, those games were unforgiving, but quite special at the same time.
 
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