{"id":1131,"date":"2016-04-13T12:38:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T18:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewebsiteisdown.com\/twidblog\/?page_id=1131"},"modified":"2016-05-01T23:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T05:00:39","slug":"day-of-the-tentacle-puzzle-by-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thewebsiteisdown.com\/twidblog\/day-of-the-tentacle-puzzle-by-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Day of The Tentacle: Puzzle by Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is part three\u00a0of a three part series analyzing The Day of the Tentacle:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. Puzzle Dependency Graph Primer<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Dependency Graph Analysis<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Puzzle by Puzzle<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This post is\u00a0an in-depth analysis of each\u00a0puzzle in the game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Note: This is a work in progress. Currently 18 of 63 puzzles\u00a0have been broken down. Follow me on twitter (@brickshot) for updates.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n

    Welcome to the third and final part of this series on The Day of the Tentacle. By this point you have hopefully read the introduction to Puzzle Dependency Graphs and seen them used\u00a0in Part two to breakdown the framework of the game. This final post is a puzzle by puzzle wrap-up in which we’ll take a critical look at the game and apply some of Ron Gilbert’s rules for game design along the way.<\/p>\n

    Note that this is not a walk-through. There are plenty of those available (an excellent one is here<\/a>). This is an attempt to analyze the game as a creative work in the way a film or novel might be. I will attempt to determine the quality of each\u00a0puzzle (via a standard set of criteria) and see what part it plays in the game as a whole. My desire is to create\u00a0a resource game developers seeking to learn from the game or just for fans who want to delve deeply into a classic game to see what makes it tick.<\/p>\n

    The Puzzles<\/h3>\n

    By my count there are 63 puzzles in Day of the Tentacle. That does not include a few things which are not technically puzzles according to my definition but which will still feel like a puzzle to the player. Like realizing you can shut the door to the Sleeping Conventioneer’s\u00a0room and get the keys out of it. I didn’t include it as a puzzle in my graph because it has no dependencies other than starting the game. You could certainly make an argument for including it in which case it would have an edge directly from the ‘Begin Game’ node.<\/p>\n

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    <\/a>Ron Gilbert’s Rules of Game Design<\/h3>\n

    In addition to the puzzles it will be interesting to refer to Ron Gilbert’s rules for game design as laid out in his article Why Adventure Games Suck<\/a>. He wrote that while designing\u00a0Monkey Island (after Day of the Tentacle). There are 6 affirmative and 6 negative. We will look at instances of the affirmative in DOTT and note any cases where the negative rules were not followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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    Affirmative Rules:<\/h5>\n
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    • End objective needs to be clear<\/li>\n
    • Sub-goals need to be obvious<\/li>\n
    • Puzzles should advance the story<\/li>\n
    • Incremental reward<\/li>\n
    • Reward Intent<\/li>\n
    • Give the player options<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
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    Negative Rules:<\/h5>\n