Been told the game is not for you? Please read this.

[seebs]

We've had a few people tell newcomers and people with questions or suggestions that the game is fine the way it is and no one should be complaining. If you've been told this, I'd like to offer you some information on what the game is, why it's like that, and so on. This game has a lot of assumptions about how you will be playing it; if those assumptions don't hold, you may find it a lot more frustrating than is intended.

This game is a Dungeon Master homage. If you have been told it's like Eye of the Beholder or some such, there's a key element missing, because DM was a little different from most of the "DM clones". Some basic philosophy:

1. DM is supposed to be fair. Which is to say, you should be able to study and think about traps before getting killed by them in most cases. There's no one-chance stuff; you can trigger something, see what it does, and then try again.
2. Combat is about agility and mobility, not standing toe-to-toe. In the original DM, you could generally kill pretty much everything without even getting hit. This is both a question of combat mechanics and dungeon design. Notice how many places there are where a corridor opens up into a 2x2 area? That's intentional.
3. The game is not intended to be easy. Solving puzzles can require experimentation, thought, and timing. If you are not good at thinking outside the box, you will find a lot of puzzles hard or impossible. But know this: If you try to do something, and it's not even close, you probably need to try something else.
4. Search everything. No, really. Search everything. Not every secret thing is labeled or noted or warned. (Guess where the first secret room in the game is? Hint: It's probably earlier than you think.)
5. Timing is a big deal, for both combat and puzzles. You can kill mobs quite a lot faster if you time their movements and attack repeatedly between moves, for instance.

The game is not afraid to kill you. It is not afraid to dump swarms of critters on you, it is not afraid to have traps which do more damage than even max-level characters can survive. If you can't survive damage, the chances are that you are supposed to be trying to avoid it somehow.

Now, with all that said, you might conclude that this game really isn't what you want to play. That's okay; not everyone likes every genre of game. Please be aware that "this game requires you to solve puzzles" is not a defect, but rather, a fundamental design goal. On the other hand, this is supposed to be more a thinking game than a twitch game; if you're finding something to require more twitch than you have, it's possible that you're missing something, and it's possible that a particular encounter or monster is not tuned quite the way the devs would like it. It's also possible you're just a bit slow; my personal hope is that the devs will give us a speed slider for difficulty tweaking, because there's a lot of people who would absolutely love this game if it moved about 80% as fast as it does (and some who would find it more interesting at 120%).

[EvoluZion3]

^ well said that man!

[Elderian]

Hi,

a good text!

But i'd say you need rather good timing and reflexes, both for the combat situations als well as for some of the riddles the game throws at you.
Th riddles where you have time usually are more easy.... simply because you have time for them. =)

Elderian

[r3sistance]

I have to say I've been liking this game myself but certainly I can see where people would be having trouble with it, this game is fairly unforgiving but to anybody that has played any of the rogue type games... or hardcore mode in minecraft, it's harshness isn't really all that bad at all.

[xdeath]

I have to say I've been liking this game myself but certainly I can see where people would be having trouble with it, this game is fairly unforgiving but to anybody that has played any of the rogue type games... or hardcore mode in minecraft, it's harshness isn't really all that bad at all.

Or minecraft in general.

[gasgas]

I think that you don't really need to be smart to win the game (save one or two puzzles), but you really just need to understand some basic game mechanics and be very good with the keyboard to solve all the timing puzzles etc. Most of the times to discover the secrets it was just a matter of looking at random walls to get the right door opened or to find some hints on what buttons to push and in what order, the most difficult part, regarding riddles, was looking in the right direction and see that far away door/pit opening or getting that random hidden switch on the wall, or jumping in that random pit.
I think however that the game is pretty good and very innovative in a modern sense and brings some fresh air to rpg players.
What it misses is really intelligent puzzles that requires to use your brain actively and not your hands only.

[Gudadantza]

Great and explanatory. Basically the design basis.

[cryocore]

Great post OP.

I agree that a lot of the complaints are from people with expectations that were not in tune with what the game presented.

As for speed slider I disagree but I do like how you phrased the suggestion. If I could +rep you I would.

[seebs]

I think that you don't really need to be smart to win the game (save one or two puzzles), but you really just need to understand some basic game mechanics and be very good with the keyboard to solve all the timing puzzles etc. Most of the times to discover the secrets it was just a matter of looking at random walls to get the right door opened or to find some hints on what buttons to push and in what order, the most difficult part, regarding riddles, was looking in the right direction and see that far away door/pit opening or getting that random hidden switch on the wall, or jumping in that random pit.
I think however that the game is pretty good and very innovative in a modern sense and brings some fresh air to rpg players.

Consider the Trials of Thought. Totally possible to reason through it, or you can spend hours trying stuff at random and memorizing patterns.

[gasgas]

Do you mean the scroll placing puzzle or all the challenges?