DarkestLink
Darkest of all Dark Links
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2012
I'm suggesting multiple methods of getting past each obstacle. Let's say the player only has the bow in this particular example, and has not yet acquired the hookshot. In this instance he's in a room with a door and an inaccessible balcony. There's an eye switch above the door and a hookshot target above the balcony. Using the bow, the player is able to shoot the eye switch which opens the door and allows him to progress upstairs. When going further he would pass the balcony. If Link had the hookshot, he could grapple up to the balcony and end up in the same place.
OK...so either you ARE suggesting we just kill off the puzzles or ended up using a poor example that didn't articulate your thoughts. This isn't a puzzle. You see an obvious target and eye switch and simply decide which one you will hit. There's no thinking involved. And while this is fine for an opening obstacle to teach players what their item does without an outright tutorial, this isn't a puzzle.
If you want to make a simple puzzle, you could block the eye with something flammable and leave the player to figure out how they can light this object on fire, considering the various obstacles and barriers in the room. Maybe a bit simplistic, but it's something. Of course when you can just shoot the hookshot target, this becomes rather redundant now doesn't it? The puzzle is effectively killed.
Of course maybe the hookshot target has its own puzzle to it. OK so now you're just choosing which of the two puzzles you want to do. Nothing's technically lost except for the fact that developers only have so much time and resources. If they're going to add multiple ways forward for every barrier they're going to have to make at least 2-3x as many puzzles per area and spend that much time on each area. Not only does this sound horribly cramped, but this means they're going to have to either
1) Make the dungeons smaller.
2) Have less dungeons.
3) Cut from other areas of the game.
And all of this is for the sake of letting players do things out of order, which adds nothing to the experience. Not to mention that with this design the player will only end up doing half the puzzles. This is terrible design.