Campbell wrote:Do you think that has anything to do with your assumptions on the ability of the author. I think I'm the same, but I would say that there was a reasonable chance that older games were written by more "serious" authors, so even if the puzzle was difficult, you expect it to be fairly well designed.
That probably has a lot to do with it. Those old games had entire teams working on them, whereas most IF today is written by one person. Betatesters can offer advice on puzzle design, but ultimately it's down to the single author to decide whether or not to include a certain puzzle in the game or make it easier. As an author, I've put some unfairly hard puzzles in my games over the years and not realised until someone else has pointed out to me how unfairly hard they are. To me they seemed fine and perfectly logical, but then I wrote them and I'm approaching them already know the answer. To anyone else, they're probably not fine or logical at all. A lot of the time when I'm playing games, I'm wondering if the puzzle I'm trying to solve is one that seems perfectly logical to the author but not to anyone else, of it's simply a case that I'm just not 'getting it'.
Another thing, though, is that the IF I grew up playing in the 80's was commercial. People paid money for the games and when money's involved, there's an expectation that you're getting a better product than if it were free. Games that couldn't be finished would end up going back to the store with a demand for a refund. Plenty of games back then had unfairly hard puzzles, but there was usually a kind of logic to them that you could figure out if you tried hard enough. Then, too, there were computer magazines galore which contained hints and tips for games, and I also remember knowing plenty of people at school who played them as well and we used to discuss puzzles. If I was stuck, odds on someone I knew could help out. These days I don't know anyone in real life who plays IF games and so I'm left to solve the puzzles on my own. Most of the time I haven't the patience.