Do You Use Walkthroughs in Adventure Games?

If I simply cannot figure out what to do for the life of me, walktthrough it is. But that goes for every game I play period.

Otherwise, walkthroughs are blasphemy on a first playthrough

I have recently, realized I just wasn't enjoying harder puzzles in Grim Fandango and Broken Age: Act 2. Solved about a third of the puzzles in both with hints from walkthroughs.

I find that I don't have much trouble with the LucasArts style puzzles. It all makes sense once you understand the logical rules the games follow. Now puzzles like The Longest Journey's duck puzzle, I needed help for that shit.

I don't like to, but it's better to use one and keep playing than get frustrated and/or bored and stop playing. There's a point when the reward of figuring out a puzzle is no longer worth it.

Walkthroughs effectively remove the game element from the video game. Especially the adventure game genre. A game is fundamentally broken and not fun if one needs, or just wants to rely on a walkthrough to play it.

I try to avoid walkthrus for any game unless I'm completely stuck or just don't give a fuck.

I grew up on adventure games, so I can't really relate at all when people talk about not being familiar with the logic of something like a Lucas adventure game. That being said, the inherent nature of those games revolves around an incredibly delicate balance of making puzzles that you don't blow through immediately but don't get stuck on forever. That must be a difficult mark to hit, since everyone's brain is going to work at solving that stuff differently.

Now if you want to check a walkthrough on a Sierra adventure game, I don't think anybody could judge you for that. I can't help but wonder if they made those things deliberately unfair to a) cover up the fact that they're generally actually pretty short and b) sell hint guides. Take something like Space Quest 1. I can think of three or four SUPER EASY ways to put that game into a state where it can't be completed, and they're all before the half-way point of the game.

Absolutely.50% of the fun I get from adventure games is from the writing, 40% from exploring cool environemnts, and 10% from puzzles. I'll give a good puzzle a good for quite a while, if I haven't gotten it in 15 minutes I'm booting up a guide though.

I use Universal Hint System for adventure games when I get stuck although most games these days have their own hints.

If I feel like I know what I'm suppose to do but it just isn't working, and I've spent a long time on it, I'll look it up. Because otherwise it's just going to sit there unsolved. If I legit didn't solve the puzzle then I accept that after looking it up; game challenged me and I confronted and experienced the challenge. If it's something that really intrigues me to want to solve absolutely on my own I'll keep going with it.

Basically, I play it as I go. Some puzzles are fun and some aren't. It's all about whether or not I got the experience I wanted/expected out of that one challenge.

Practically every RPG I've ever played has some hidden content or sidequest somewhere that I'll inevitably use a walkthrough at some point to find. RPGs are still far and away my favorite genre. Self-discovery is great, but it is not literally the only thing that makes a video game a video game.

I have no patience for bullshit in video games, particularly not anymore, so I do tend to use walkthroughs for adventure games, particularly older ones. So many of those old games are pixel hunts or have puzzles with insane logic that make me want to punch my fist through the wall if I get stuck. Therefore, I do the sane thing and just use a FAQ. Since story is the important part of nearly any adventure game, I don't feel any shame in using a (hopefully spoiler-free) walkthrough to smooth over the iffy parts. It may ruin the actual "game experience" of an adventure game, but if I didn't use FAQs, I just wouldn't play them in the first place.

I was forged in the fires of old-school Sierra adventures, but I still hit walkthroughs when needed. Despite loving the genre, I often find myself just wanting to advance the story rather than comb through screens looking for the thimble that will let me buy a cheese curler to give to the fisherman in exchange for a melted geranium.

I always at least try to do it "legit", though. I won't hit a walkthrough unless I'm absolutely, completely stuck.

I would use a walkthrough two / three times while playing an adventure game. When the game's puzzles are too difficult for me, than I abandon the game.

Well, I was talking specifically about the Adventure game genre, where elements like riddles and discovery ARE the only parts that makes those games... well, "games."

I really, really, really try not to...except sometimes I feel I just won't finish the game unless I use a walkthrough...

If I can't figure out a puzzle I have zero shame in looking to a guide. Ultimately I'm not really there for the puzzles, really.

Yep, shamelessly. I'll give it a fair try first. As soon as I'm stuck - which is almost inevitable due to the nature of the games - it's guide time.

Too many of the puzzle solutions in adventure games in general are obtuse as fuck. I don't mind a challenge, but when the solution to your puzzle is the most arcane and unintuitive process imaginable - a la the entirety of King's Quest V - fuck your game design. Bring on the guide.

I'll work a puzzle until I hit that tipping point where it's "look it up" vs "stop playing entirely." At the end of the day, it's about the characters and story, so I want to avoid walk-throughs as much as possible... even when I look up a solution, I try to attain as little information as possible to get me past the roadblock.

When I used to actually play adventure games at all I tended to push annoying puzzles for a little bit and then go to a walkthrough. The only game I remember beating without one entirely is the first monkey island.

I don't use walkthroughs but I do collect strategy guides for RPGs. I have about 150 and most are untouched/unread just for the novelty.

Only when I'm stuck for a rather long time or just annoyed with a certain type of puzzle (I hate/have no patience for sliding puzzles, gear puzzles, wire puzzles etc.)

Used to need way more hints in older games, since they just seemed to be really inscrutable sometimes. Adventures got way easier over time.

Yes and its more that I don't have time nowadays to dedicate to games as much as I would like, so I go to guides quite often to help speed up my playthrough.

I do see what he's saying though about adventure games in particular, that's it's the game part of the game you're basically removing from the equation. Though I feel like Telltale has more or less done that with their Walking Dead-esque games too. I basically enjoy the few adventure games I've played as interactive stories and get enough enjoyment out of them that way, more so than if I was banging my head on the wall for half an hour over one single puzzle. I try not to just go step-by-step through a guide though - just looking when it gets rough or I look for a general flow of places to go, because I'm stupid with these games and miss the obvious stuff.

When I get stuck for more than 30 mins or so I'll probably look at a FAQ. I've got too little patience and other games to play.

Only if I really need it. Adventure games specifically get to a point that I can go overboard, because there are a lot of obvious, but not-so-obvious stuff, and then it gets to a point where if I get stuck for even a little bit, I would use one, and that sucks because I hate guides as it makes me feel stupid, though other times I would think it was overly obtuse and wonder how anyone could get it. The most recent games are Syberia, Syberia 2, The Longest Journey, and Grim Fandango; I stopped on Grim Fandango because I didn't really enjoy it that much, and I kind of refuse to use a guide... Syberia was a good game. I didn't finish two, but that was decent as well from what I played, which I also refused to use a guide, so I just quit. I really liked The Longest Journey, though I think I like its sequel a bit more, which also made me appreciate the first more from a setting perspective. Yeah, I rarely use guides, but older adventure games I use them when things get tricky, and I find it unfortunate. I don't know if I want to blame the game for them being difficult in the way they are, or blame myself for simply not knowing how to do them quick enough so I have to resort to a guide. I will never sit down with a guide though, no, and have never bought a paper guide before, though thought about it as some kind of collection, in case a friend wanted to use one or something; that was years ago though. I don't have much use for guides, but they look cool to me. When it comes to modern games, I never really have to use them.

I will second @hayt that UHS is excellent since it sometimes just provides the little poke in the right direction you need to progress.

Yeah, UHS is great.

I had trouble doing stuff in Broken Age act 2, even when using the walkthrough.

I don't like the elobarote very complex puzzles in adventure games even though that's a big part of it.

I recently started playing Still Life 2 and while it has some other frustrating bits, I liked its more realistic approach to solving puzzles. Most of the locked doors in that game I break open with my trusty bigass hammer which is very satisfying!

The frustrating bit for me was the pixelhunt aspect of it combined with the requirement to collect all the clues. At one point I had to investigate the house of a killer and collect 30+ clues consisting of blood samples, hair locks, synthetic fibers... etc. Even when using a walkthrough, it took me an hour to find the last final clue which was hidden in a drawer somewhere!

Absolutely! I get very little satisfaction from solving puzzles in adventure games, 99% of the time it feels like an arbitrary game of "Find the two things the designers decided needed to go together", with no room for any real experimentation or interactivity, and it frustrates me to the point of taking me out of the experience. Especially when walking around areas is excruciatingly slow, it just ruins my enjoyment of the world, atmosphere or story (which is what I play adventure games FOR).

The Portal games are probably the only puzzly adventure games I beat without ever referring to a guide. I think the fundamental difference between those games and a lot of puzzly adventure games, is the experience of working things out is fun and bouncing around through portals is fun in its own right. Can't say I feel that way about " *Pipe and Hat* I don't see how those would go together. *Banana and Pipe* I don't see how those would go together. *Banana and Fish* I don't see how those would go together. *Hat and Fish* AH YES GOOD"-- that kind of thing isn't even a matter of isolated incidents, almost every single adventure game I play I end up with a handful of occasions where I look things up and go "HOW IN GOD'S NAME WAS I SUPPOSED TO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT?"

Second choice is my answer. I do my best, but if I have to resort to a walkthrough, I will. Especially since, as others have mentioned, adventure games can have some really odd solutions. I generally need to use a walkthrough once or twice per adventure game.

I don't think I've ever finished an adventure game without resorting to a guide at least once or twice during my playthrough. I feel like that's par for the course for the genre rather than something I'd be ashamed of doing.