Opinions about Dark Portal (some spoilers)

[Parallax]

Is there any puzzle that sticks out as being particularly bad? This dungeon was inspired by the game Shadowgate, and, to tell the truth, in that game, the puzzles were even less logical. I actually tried to make them a little more orderly.

I never played Shadowgate, so I'm only looking at the puzzles in relation to this game. I'm looking at puzzles and, knowing the solution, at my answer to the question: "Can the solution be derived logically from the premise of the puzzle and the hints given inside the dungeon?"

A few puzzles stand out:

1) Desire-rised. I don't think the solution can be deduced from these two words, nor can the effect of the solution be predicted. It can all be rationalized afterwards, certainly, but I believe solving this puzzle comes from throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks.

2) I had given up on the mummy and kept going before I first visited this thread, precisely because lightning did not affect it. Had I not seen people mention that they had destroyed the mummy, I would have discounted it as 'flavor', like I did the banshee, and later would have wondered why I couldn't solve the puzzle that requires the mummy's item.

3) The item needed for the acid fountain is placed somewhere where such an item would not normally be located. The same can be said of the gold key and the anti-eye weapon. Actually, for the last two, I believe that only extreme frustration can lead to their discovery.

4) The wand puzzle is pretty logical, but if it's not too hard to implement, I think a message telling the player that the rapier doesn't work when tried would be nice. Until I found the correct item, I wondered for a while if I was going at it the wrong way.

5) I solved the magical box puzzle accidentally. The description makes it sound like there is something desirable inside the box even when it's empty.

6) The garden puzzle is not actually hard to solve, but I defy anyone to predict in advance how solving it will actually help getting the chest. Oh, and a message by the vi altar asking for remains would be nice. The hint that's there is just a little too subtle.

7) I couldn't tell why the following monsters are killed by the weapon that kills them as opposed to any other: Spectre, worm, incorporeal-being-whose-name-I-can't-recall-just-now, troll. Once again, it's a matter of throwing everything at the wall.

The weapon for the spectre is poorly hidden, in the sense that it promotes a culture of grabbing everything that isn't nailed down, just in case. I actually let my poor character starve for a while because I didn't dare eat the cheese!

A lot of these comments are nitpick, really. I enjoyed this game a lot, even though I am more of a physical puzzle type of person.

[Daecon]

1) Desire-rised. I don't think the solution can be deduced from these two words, nor can the effect of the solution be predicted. It can all be rationalized afterwards, certainly, but I believe solving this puzzle comes from throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks.

That should come naturally from being aware of the Rune's names... although I admit I didn't figure it out myself because I didn't notice!

7) I couldn't tell why the following monsters are killed by the weapon that kills them as opposed to any other: Spectre, worm, incorporeal-being-whose-name-I-can't-recall-just-now, troll. Once again, it's a matter of throwing everything at the wall.

The weapon to kill the spectre come directly from the Shadowgate game, blame whoever designed that!

[beowuuf]

1. Des-ir and rised, it's a weird name one, but I like it as a puzzle. Originally the shadowgate just said 'rope' and yopu had to know to call the rope! This one does seem logical, though it stumped me for ages in a good way

2. The text does call it a dry dusty mummy...dry, dusty, try fire. DM2 used fire n mummies, and lost of old stores use mummies. I'm defending this one heavily as sophia even asked me if this was logical, and it was to me : )

3. It's hidden in a fountain and used in a fountain., which is a fun vconverse, and just like there ios one place you need to click on a wall item, the game still nods to DM and then circumvents DM when you aren't expecting it - I like both those aspects. Personally I click on all wall items and walls! And you were the one interacting with them in other ways too...

4. I think the readme text or download thread does explicitly that this is a puzzle game so monsters arne't killed in thenormal way but are puzles.

5. I think the magical box one took me a few seconds too, as yes, i thought it was full then twiggd...does it say empty in the description text?: Out of interest, have you read the description texts/ I think thye also hint well at items

6. The vi altar was a little hard for me too, but then you fo get a hint - you would try bones, it says 'too long dea' so maybe something fresher...like a critter you killed. Personally I wondered why you then couldn't re-animaed the troll or the rat, but otherwise though this was ok

7. Spectre is a weird one, but yup, from original game...the incorporaial being, at the end of the game, seemed logical - it's incorporeal and you have a text saying how to deal with incorporeal...by then you shouldhave presed thre button and seem the fireball hooter, so really it's like 'aha!' Troll text actually mentions casting the spell to be 'like the iwnd' and when you nter that hall, it mentions the wind

Shasdowgate was grossly unfair and you shouldn't play it , and it's fun but you can completely stuff yourself by doing somehting and not realise...sophia made it qwuite robust...and I like that you have to try crazy yet logical stuff, i like an environment where doing anything can be requwarded...you don't feel like an idiot for trying to burn things or touch everything or try everything! I think the worm was also logical when I tried it...gaping maw, pointy... it was an armoured worm after all!

8.

[Gambit37]

1) Desire-rised. I don't think the solution can be deduced from these two words, nor can the effect of the solution be predicted. It can all be rationalized afterwards, certainly, but I believe solving this puzzle comes from throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks.

I think this is one of the clearest puzzles in the dungeon, though having played shadowgate maybe I'm biased. But even without that knowledge, it's obvious. You have a pit revealed, you need to get up there, the message says (effectively) "You desire to rise" and you have two runes named DES and IR. How much more obvious can you get?

2) I had given up on the mummy and kept going before I first visited this thread, precisely because lightning did not affect it. Had I not seen people mention that they had destroyed the mummy, I would have discounted it as 'flavor', like I did the banshee, and later would have wondered why I couldn't solve the puzzle that requires the mummy's item.

Again, pretty obvious as Beo said. Mummies are made of rags and rags burn.

3) The item needed for the acid fountain is placed somewhere where such an item would not normally be located. The same can be said of the gold key and the anti-eye weapon. Actually, for the last two, I believe that only extreme frustration can lead to their discovery.

I found this one only slightly strange, but as I investigate everything and click all wallitems it wasn't really tricky at all.

6) The garden puzzle is not actually hard to solve, but I defy anyone to predict in advance how solving it will actually help getting the chest. Oh, and a message by the vi altar asking for remains would be nice. The hint that's there is just a little too subtle.

I agree, while it's easy to solve the altar puzzle it's not really obvious why you would want to resurrect a worm and the final solution was... a bit weird to say the least. There's nothing to indicate that the worm would clear away the foliage.

[Sophia]

I split this because the posts were getting long and it wasn't really about "Help" anymore.

Anyway, I'm glad other people like "Desire Rised," because, to be honest, I rather enjoyed it myself. To me it was a fun wordplay puzzle, but the sort that even those who aren't the most proficient in English can get (something good considering the diversity of our community!), because it's based on things everyone knows about DM instead.

The whole vi altar and worm puzzle was even worse to begin with, in the first revision of DP. I'll admit it was still a little out there, but part of that was that beo made this wonderful "eating" wav and I had to use it for something.

Finally, as for the weapon for the wraith (or spectre, as you call it), it was from the original game, but I changed a lot about the original game, so I could've changed it if I wanted to. Here is why I didn't: To me, it wasn't so much promoting grabbing everything that isn't nailed down, but rather, seeing that nothing in this dungeon is "commonplace." It's not so much to become a mad klepto, but rather, to look closely at any object that may be useful to you. To be fair, it was at least a torch, which many players do tend to take, not just some wall scratch or something.

[Gambit37]

Anyway, I'm glad other people like "Desire Rised," because, to be honest, I rather enjoyed it myself. To me it was a fun wordplay puzzle, but the sort that even those who aren't the most proficient in English can get (something good considering the diversity of our community!), because it's based on things everyone knows about DM instead.

Even though I didn't have a problem with it, maybe changing it to:

Code: Select all

desire
  to  
 rise

would actually give a bit more of a clue as 'rised' isn't exactly a real word and the palindrome is misleading. It then makes it very obvious that 'to rise' you need 'desire' or in this case DES IR.

[Sophia]

Oh, I reversed it because it reminded me of EPOR. Call it homage to the original!

[TheMormegil]

I think desire rised is the kind of puzzle where you can't see the wood for the trees. I needed a hint to solve it but once solved it was embarrisingly obvious.

I don't think any of the puzzles were that bad compared to some games (hitchhikers guide anyone? )

I think the thing that bugged me most about dark portal was that I was afraid to leave any items on the floor in case I needed it for a puzzle, but carrying everything made encumbrance an issue. Walking around in the yellow is no fun. I felt that I shouldn't have been penalised for carrying puzzle items in a puzzle game.

That said I found it compulsive playing and a very interesting illustration of what you can get out of the RTC engine now.

[Sophia]

I think the thing that bugged me most about dark portal was that I was afraid to leave any items on the floor in case I needed it for a puzzle, but carrying everything made encumbrance an issue. Walking around in the yellow is no fun. I felt that I shouldn't have been penalised for carrying puzzle items in a puzzle game.

That's a very valid point, and something I tried to address.

I lowered the weight of a lot of items, and included the powertowers with a hefty carrying bonus, but I still found myself using the three doors room as an item drop. Still, it does encourage thinking about the puzzles, rather than kleptomanically grabbing everything, I guess.

If I were going to do it again, though, I would probably reduce the weight of some things still further.

[Parallax]

That seems like an idea, and it's coming from someone who dragged the boulder along for most of the way. After a while I realized that important items had a description when examined, so I dropped the boulder and ate the cheese, but I could never bring myself to eat the apple, just in case.

I have a strong preference for those puzzles games where no item is useless, so I don't end up carrying dead weight in the form of red herrings, and single-use items disappear from my inventory once used. DP does that in some instances but not all.

My problem with 'desire-rised' stems from the fact that there is no logical connection between "you desire to rise" and "cast a particular spell in this particular spot to get an item." Yes, I desired to rise, but I had to take a trip to the help thread in order to bridge the gap. Maybe if I had kept trying I would eventually have tried that, but I wouldn't call it solving the puzzle.

Also, I did not mean to say that the way the mummy is killed is illogical. In fact, considering folklore about mummies, it makes total sense. I was disappointed that the lightning shooter didn't work. Considering how mundane the weapon that works is, I think an alternate solution would be a nice touch.

I found this one only slightly strange, but as I investigate everything and click all wallitems it wasn't really tricky at all.

OK, maybe I'm just bitter because I missed it.

You can probably get a good idea of what puzzles are hard to solve by looking at the help thread and seeing what topics come up most (gold key anyone?) In that respect, I didn't mention the neta altar because it seemed obvious to me almost from the start (who hasn't tried the cross first?) but it generated a large amount of posting.

The eye array stumped me for a long time but only because I play with the sound off, so I couldn't tell when my answers were accepted. I finally had to turn the sound on just for this puzzle. Of course that's a problem on my part, not DP, and it's otherwise easy to solve.

To be fair, it was at least a torch, which many players do tend to take, not just some wall scratch or something.

People take torches? I never take the torches, that's what 'ful' is for. I originally sidestepped through that puzzle, and only found the torch later when I got into the pack rat mentality.

[Daecon]

My problem with 'desire-rised' stems from the fact that there is no logical connection between "you desire to rise" and "cast a particular spell in this particular spot to get an item." Yes, I desired to rise, but I had to take a trip to the help thread in order to bridge the gap. Maybe if I had kept trying I would eventually have tried that, but I wouldn't call it solving the puzzle.

It's more of a linguistic puzzle than a logic one.

Although thinking about it, if I'd tried to design that particular puzzle, I may have made it more like the EPOR from Shadowgate: "Rised, rised... what a strange sounding word!" Although it would be far more ambiguous, those familiar with Shadowgate probably would have spotted it instantly. Making it a palendrome is a compromise, I guess.

[Gambit37]

Yes, I remember the palindrome from Shadowgate, but I think in this instance NOT being faithful to the original would make more sense as I suggested above.

[beowuuf]

About eating items - I think you will find nothing should make the game insoluable - so if you ate the cheese, it would either kill by being poisonous or not needed : )

YThe problem with any alternate solution to the puzzle is it is supposed to be a puzzle game, so if you have several methods that aren't a puzzle then it becomes too DM - 'hey, why can't I kill that monster with the knife then, or punch it to death with the gaultlet, I spent ages swinging etc etc'

If ou notice the palendrome turns about the 'e', so desire rised is desir-e-rrsed so you kinda can spot it eventually that the e is mirroring the word des ir - desire to rise makes less sense as there is an e on the end

And as for taking torches - well, then it makes a good puzzle if you are ignoring items just because you are using a spell instead! A flaw in your assumptions they are there only for decoration : )

eye array - there is six runes in the wall somewher - a clue that should have nade you go 'ah' perhaps when the sar shield was lying with six items. I guessed what all six were logically after that if I recall correctly