Gamers in the 80s-90s that had no internet or strategy guides

[Calavera]

How many games did they finish on their own? There are so many games from the 80s-90s even into the 2000s that are so cryptic that I really don't see how many people could have ever completed them without a guide or hints or some sort. Like those old Sierra Adventure games, that not only had "moon logic" for some puzzles but in those games you could actually get yourself into an unwinnable state. That is beyond cruel imo. It is bad enough that the game is nearly impossible to figure out but you also make it that several hours in I can no longer make any progress because I missed an item 2 hours ago in a location that I can't return to. People must have had a lot more patience back then. It could take you months to complete a game!

An example I can personally relate to is you guessed it Bioforge. Not sure if I've ever mention Bioforge on here before. :olol: I think the only reason we made any progress back when it came out because it came with a mini-guide that told you the first couple of puzzles. We made it to a point where you go into the Doctor's office, a cutscene plays where you get knocked out. You then come to and as soon as you exit the Doctor's Office there are to Marine's who gun you down immediately. We tried and tried to figure out how to get past them. We'd try leaving the blaster right outside the door (you would lost the blaster when you got knocked out) We tried everything we could think of to get past them but it just seemed impossible. So my time playing Bioforge back then consisted of exploring the base over and over again.

Years later I learned the solution. You are supposed to take the blaster to the top floor. There you need to shoot down the drone type robots outside the elevator. You do this by shooting inside the elevator and getting your blaster to ricochet in the correct direction to take them down. You then walk around to the front where you see a man. You are supposed to hit him a couple of times. If you kill him you've put yourself in a no-win situation. You just need to rough him up a little so he'll turn on the main guns. After you get him to do that you take control of the gun and shoot down the two incoming dropships which contain the marines. Now you can go to the Doctor's Office and let that cutscene play. When you wake up you can walk right out of the doors because the marines aren't there because you shot down their ship. Super easy to figure out, huh?

And that is just one puzzle, there are many other things farther in the game that I just don't see how a person could figure out on their own. One more thing worth mentioning is that when you are inside the base you need to stabilize the reactor as it is going critical. You can continue without doing this however if you miss it you can get to where the game is around 90 percent or so to the end but everytime you try to walk on the path back to the base the reactor causes an earthquake and the character falls to his death. If that happened you'd have no idea what you did wrong. You'd think well he falls everytime maybe I'm supposed to do something else. I doubt you'd think that you missed something hours ago that is now blocking your progress.

Well that was my little post about old games being too cryptic. There are many games out there that I would really like to know how many people completed them within 1 year of their release. I'd love to hear from someone who beat Bioforge back in the day with no hints at all and how they were able to do it.

[ian]

I think it seemed easier to beat games when our minds were younger, and we had all the time in the world to work things out.

Of course most magazines usually had playthroughs and lots of hint and tips lines existed so for those who did get stuck could get unstuck. And of course you can't rule out talking to people about the game you're playing etc.

Point and click puzzle games hardly ever made any fucking sense though, a lot of those puzzles are just made by psychopaths for other psychopaths!