Disappointed...

I really really wanted to like this game, But so far the puzzles are so obtuse that I don't know if I can keep going. I've had to look at a walk through 5 times already in the first 3 hours. Every time I read it I tend to shake my head and wonder how the hell I was suppose to know how to do any of that. I really wish they had added in some kind of mild hint system instead of being stuck in the dark all the time.

That being said the game looks great and the asetetic is clearly something unique and amazing. But, in the end this game has the same problem that a lot of things made by Tim Schafer do. All style and very little substance. Sad Day.

Little substance? How does it have less substance than any other adventure game?

I respect your opinion, but I disagree with it. I love this game and I love this remake.

Is this your first time playing it? I was curious when this was announced if people new to the game would enjoy it.

Yep, I'd never gotten the chance to play this back in 1998. So far I'm struggling to see what makes it so cool other then the nifty art style.

I'd be curious to hear specifically which puzzles seemed too obtuse. Because by adventure game standards, most of this game's puzzles are extremely straightforward, it's not like it's a mid-80s Sierra game or anything.

I adore this game, I remember playing through it when it came out. Yes, the puzzles can be a bit obtuse but that's just how it was and I honestly liked that because it meant that I wasn't just blowing through them. Maybe I don't have the patience for that anymore, we'll see. I'll certainly get it some day.

I'd also like to hear the opinions of other newcomers. I've never played this and I keep hearing about how it has.....how should I say.....old game "we're not gonna tell you anything" syndrome. Don't get me wrong, that's never inherently a bad thing but sometimes that shit doesn't hold up. I think I'm going to get it anyway. It's a "classic" I don't wanna pass up.

I grew up playing Sierra games, which were seriously unforgiving and didn't tell you how to do ANYTHING. You should play Space Quest 1, forget to insert the astral cartridge into the computer in the room with the aliens near the beginning of the game and then make it to the very end and not have the code to self destruct the star generator. That sucked, lol.

Personnaly I felt like I just don't have the patience I had before. It's weird. I played all the monkey island game younger but skipped this one because I was a kid with no clue.

I'm just one hour and a half in. Everytime I don't know immediatly where to go I kinda lose patience and just go play a game in which I know I can make progress. I don't have much time to play games and wondering what I need to know next isn't fun. I'm gonna try to "immerse" myself more in the game when I'll have a good chunk of time to dedicate to it.

How hard the puzzles are compared to the monkey island game? Is there any way too obtuse puzzle I should just look up to avoid frustration?

Obtuse puzzle design is why I'd much rather watch someone play an adventure game rather than play it myself. That way, I can still experience the good writing and the jokes without having to go through the crappy part of the game.

Puzzle design is fantastic in games like Portal, Braid, Swapper, etc. Adventure games, on the other hand, seem like games where the puzzles were created exclusively by writers who have no clue about gameplay design.

I'm with you on the obtuse puzzles, they suck. But seriously no substance? You can't see what makes the game cool? :(

It's not really fair to compare "adventure games" as a whole to games in a different genre, and then conclude that they're bad based on that false premiseon that. Seems more like that kind of gameplay just isn't your thing.

@fear_the_booboo: I think it's one of the easier adventure games Lucasarts ever made, actually. It is a very long game, so there's greater chance of getting stuck purely because of the volume of puzzles. But it definitely doesn't require you to do as much magical thinking as the Monkey Island games.

The game does require you to pay attention to what people are saying. The importance of things is often telegraphed or emphasized in conversation or observation.

Modern day adventure games have trained people that breezing through the game is a-ok. The puzzle difficulty of the game compares well to its peers but requires you to think out-of-the box, much like one would when doing something like a Cryptic Crossword.

Hmm, I'm not sure I'd agree with that, although it's been years since I've played it. I remember having some real trouble with this one. I'd probably put it on par with the harder Monkey Island games (2 and 4).

If you've never played this game before you have to love classic adventure game design, end of story. It's cool you don't like it, but I don't mind it at all. You need to be in the mindset of "I'm just going to sit down and try and progress and see what happens tonight" kind of mood and really bask in the atmosphere. If you just want to flash through the game constantly moving forward - it's not for you. Old games like this were all about you trying out everything you could and spending 10x the amount of time in a place as you "need" to. Banging your head on the wall is supposed to happen. It feels great when the wall finally breaks though!

I'm also playing it for the first time, for the record! And love the hell out of it. Only been 5-6 hours so far, so not going to report in much yet.

One thing though:

You are destroying any chance you have to like that game by using a walkthrough I think.

The more you use it the more you will depend on it and hate not having it. Basically walkthroughs are like the heroin of adventure games. Just don't do it. Get help somewhere on a specific puzzle piece or something before going that dark way :D

I remember the puzzles not being that great but those characters though. And that style, GF is pretty awesome

I think the story is one of the best in any video games it is worth seeing through the characters are really good and it has a great sense of humor. I feel once you hit the middle portion of the game the characters just really start to shine, and other things I would want to speak about I would consider spoilers because they surprised me at the time it isn't a revelation gameplay but everything else is so good.

There're 2 ways to do this, I think.

1. Use the walkthrough of your liking and just enjoy the humor and storyline.

2. Do it right. It's infuriating but don't forget that you are trying to get in Tim Schafer's brain and figure out how his mind works! That's awesome to think about, right?

http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/grimfand.php

Much much better than walkthrough. Gives you the little push you need to work it out yourself often

@spunkyhepanda: I distinctly remember beating Grim within a week when it came out, and I only got stuck once for maybe a day or so. Compare that to Monkey Island 2, where I was literally stuck for over ten years on one puzzle, not an exaggeration. Hell, I never finished Sam & Max Hit the Road because I got stuck so bad. So yeah, I dunno. It's not so much that I think it's easy, just that it's easier than usual.

Grim's puzzles might not seem intuitive to folks who don't usually play adventure games, but at least it uses relatively real-world logic, and not the cartoon logic that a lot of adventure games suffer from.

I can't believe no one has mentioned how awesome the music is!

I tried playing this when I was younger, but never got very far. I really liked what I played of it back then, but I don't really like adventure games so I probably won't play the remastered version. I'll always love the music though. I've had the soundtrack on my iPod for years!

You might be right. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think part of my problem was the interface and controls. The old Monkey Island games were designed in such a way that any stupid idea you had could be tested out in a matter of seconds, whereas in Grim, all the digging through your inventory and maneuvering Manny made everything more laborious and probably made every failed idea more frustrating.

It was the monkey wrench one wasn't it? Yeah, Grim Fandango's puzzles made a ton of sense when I played it 4 years ago.

Actually no! That made perfect sense to me as kid, weirdly enough. It was putting Kate's face on the wanted poster.

When I was a young kid I had a lot of trouble solving adventure game puzzles because they were thought up by adults with a lot more worldly knowledge than me. I remember being super stuck in some Kyrandia game because I couldn't make the association between gems and colors. Topaz goes in the yellow opening? Emerald is green?! It actually helped me learn all that stuff. There were also terms that I wasn't familiar with which impeded my progress. I remember playing Grim Fandango at the tail end of Middle School and finding a lot of the puzzle kind of hard - I'm curious to pick this up and see how how the adult me deals with them.

It's an adventure game.

Reminds me of Tim's original Kickstarter video after funding Broken Age, saying how some people would respond to one of those. "Oh, what is this. You have to click on things?"

UHS-hints.com is a Godsend for adventure games (and even some RPGs)

I've been resorting to a FAQ that gives hints in addition to a straight up walkthrough when I get stuck. I wish DF had added a hint system into the game though.

Anyway, I'm not huge on the puzzles but the story and the world and everything are rad as fuck.

I went back to Grim fandango a few years and found it still pretty top notch fun. That being said adventure games/point and click has always been a strong love of mine. Bit sad to hear you're not enjoying it but just let the story take you by hold like most adventure games that's where the love oozes out. (that and the daft comedy writing)

15 years ago obtuse puzzles would have been frustrating but you would just have to leave and come back, eventually you would figure it out, be that a (metaphorical) light bulb switching on or just clicking everything and combining everything until you got it but it'd be more satisfying than getting pissed off and looking at a guide after 15/20 minutes

That's how people decided to make games back then and that's what people wanted to play. Point and click adventure gameplay has always been sweaty dog balls to me. Quite frankly, though, I've got more games with solid gameplay than I can play, but I've never had enough games with the artistic merits of Tim Schafer's games. I thought the gameplay of Brutal Legend was pretty boring, but I consider the game a phenomenal work of art. I don't want to play Brutal Legend, but I love Brutal Legend.

This is a bit off-topic but out of a curiosity, how is the Vita port? It seems like a perfect fit for that console, but not sure how the performance is

I've played about 3 minutes just to check that it was working on my Vita. It seemed perfectly fine.

This is exactly right. It's also why I don't think traditional adventure games really work anymore now that it's so trivial to cheat and in a culture where everyone just wants to get through everything ASAP and move on to the next thing.

The magic of traditional adventure games --especially if you were young at the time-- was in getting stuck and having to rack your brain to figure it out. Arguably the real meat of the gameplay didn't even take place when you were sat at your computer playing the game; it happened in your head during double maths when you were staring out of the window and trying to figure out how the fuck to steal the birds' eggs.

I think it's pretty much impossible to fairly judge Grim Fandango (or similar) if you are playing it for the first time today. The culture and context has changed too much and you are likely --through no fault of your own-- completely unequipped to appreciate it as you might have done if you had played it 17 years ago. You may still be able to enjoy it on some levels, but... you know the saying about jazz? "If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know". If you have to ask where the hint system is you'll never be able to truly appreciate a classic adventure game.

I know for certain that if I played a game like Grim for the first time today I would last about 2 minutes before I had a walkthrough open, and once open it would stay open. I also know for certain that I would not be able to tell you how the fuck to steal the birds' eggs 2 weeks later, let alone the best part of 20 years later.

I've never played the original but I don't think I'd have much fun with the remake given the above comments. I always have a bunch of games I want to play and I like keeping up with as much stuff as possible. I think not always making some progress will make me feel like I'm wasting time and that I'm limiting my opportunity to play other games. I probably suffer from the mindset that Patrick avoided by being at peace with not being able to play everything.

I completely sympathize when it comes to obtuse puzzles. Year One is simple enough until you get to the petrified forest. My girlfriend was impressed with my ability to remember all facets to the early puzzles, but I made sure to stop playing before I got to the forest as I remembered it taking me hours when the game was first released and I didn't want to look stupid after she praised my memory. Once I began that section it took me around an hour and required the use of a walkthrough even. It remains one of the greatest games of all time in my estimation, but confusing puzzles are more or less a given in the genre. I don't feel Double Fine was remiss by not adding a hint system, as we are currently discussing the issue on the internet and obviously have access to dozens of hints/walkthroughs/faqs.

Obtuse puzzles is usually why I stay away from this genre of game. I just don't think along the lines that these kind of games usually do.

I will, however, probably buy this game at some point. I want to support Double Fine and this era of adventure game is something I missed out on while growing up.

@demonwayans: haha. Had a very similar experience this evening!

Honestly I was surprised by how not obtuse a lot of the puzzles were. I think the key to it is that you have to be interested in exploring for it's own sake, not laser focused on making progress.

I didn't really get any of this as a kid, but I was impressed by how intuitive a lot of the early puzzles seemed in the end. Admittedly, having a good memory of the layout of El Marrow helped a lot, and navigating is probably a big factor in making it frustrating early on. When I played it the first time, I remember it taking me hours to even realise there were side doors in the downstairs bit. Although playing this evening I remembered that the game does "place" you in that area at the appropriate time, so you are pointed that way a bit...

I love this game. I'm a bit disappointed that the widescreen appears to stretch everything horribly.

"Obtuse" means a dumb or slow-witted person. The word you want to use is "abstruse".

@duke_of_the_bump: Obtuse: "difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression", "Indirect or circuitous". If you're gonna correct people, better make sure you're right.

@erickmartins: Well, the dictionary says the word can be used that way because people commonly misuse it, but it's not a standard definition. The term is traditionally only applied to a person.

It's kind of like how the dictionary says "literally" can also mean "not literally". Technically true according to common usage, but people shouldn't use it that way.

Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993) on obtuse/abstruse:

Obtuse in its literal sense means “blunt or dull,” and an obtuse angle is one of more than 90 degrees but less than 180 degrees. The figurative sense of obtuse (which is almost always applied to people and their behavior) is “dull, imperceptive, unintelligent, unthinking”: How can he be so obtuse as not to understand us? Abstruse means “difficult to grasp or comprehend, needlessly complex, impossible to understand” and is applied typically to arguments, propositions, and the like: Her proposals were so abstruse as to be meaningless to us. Using obtuse as a rough synonym of abstruse is Nonstandard, and you should avoid it.

@duke_of_the_bump: I'm not discussing descriptive x prescriptive in a thread about Grim Fandango, but you're wrong. :)

I have never played this game before as I never heard of it until they announced the remake. I am a fan of practically every genre and from what I read above, this has puzzles, and I think puzzles are cool. Should I pick this up?

@erickmartins: You're both correct technically so no he isn't wrong.

Edit: To be fair though very few people use abstruse in place of obtuse so it is viewed as nitpicking.

If th puzzles in GF makes you shake your head, you should play Alone in the Dark 2 (or was it 3) at some point. Throwing a sack of scorpions into a pit opens the door you say? Alright!

@kevin_cogneto: I find it telling that he never came back to say which ones he was stuck on. Most of the puzzles are straightforward so I assume he got stuck on something simple that he just wasn't thinking of.

My vague understanding of the difference between the days of Portal and the days of Grim Fandango is that Portal was aggressively play tested and they changed anything play testers struggled with. I listened to every commentary I could find in GF- not one mentioned playtesting. One did remark how, in retrospect, they had no idea how the player was supposed to figure out what had to be done though. By comparison about half the Portal commentaries mention play testers.

It was a different era though. Back then they didn't think to appeal to a wide audience, just made the best product they could for the shrinking number of gamers down for tricky puzzles. Granted, it's not as bad as other examples of the era. You can't kill yourself or make the game unbeatable so whenever something happens it has to mean something to do with a puzzle solution. Still though in today's world where frustrating dumb shit is stomped out of games whenever possible Grim Fandango's issues stand out.

Still very fun though. I played through with a FAQ ready to go on my iPad when I got stuck. It told me of rooms I didn't see the doors to, details I hadn't picked up on, elaborate sequences that made no sense, items I'd missed completely, etc etc. It kept the game moving at a solid pace and I'm happy to have done it that way.