It's almost like the Gulliver's Adventures, only with Lemmings.
Emphasis on almost.
Did you notice that there are less puzzle games lately? At least when it comes to those big games, because there are a lot of small, often free, puzzle games around and those are doing just fine.
There used to be a time when there were a lot of puzzle games released. In example these games with little creatures that needed your help to survive. Lemmings are the first to pop up in mind. Every Amiga fan remembers dozens of hours spent trying to save small creatures whose number of brain cells can only be matched with the amount of pixels used to portrait them. I can easily recall titles like Diggers or Benefactor from the top of my head. Apart from saving little things there were games that let you build strange contraptions (Incredible Machines), help some Vikings escape alien abduction (Lost Vikings) and much more. Sure, a lot of them had action embedded into gameplay, but those were still puzzle games.
Puzzle games are few today. Lemmings resurrections on PSP don't count here.
I guess it's not healthy to ponder why this is happening. What can one deduct? Are people more stupid and don't want to play games that require them to put more intellectual effort into gaming than WoW demands from a gamer in need of checking out his armor bonuses? This kind of calculations used to be easily carried out by ancient amoebas playing Diablo, and you could tell that those jellies weren't very rich in their brains.
I guess that the expectancy towards games has changed over the years. Contemporary gamer needs a lot of fast action in the game and hates when he or she needs to stop and look for solutions to some puzzles. A puzzle game requires a lot of thought and pauses while gamers expect fast tempo and no barriers. Cinematography went the same way if you ask me. Check out any old movie and you might notice how long every scene seems there. Movies today are significantly faster.
However when it comes to cheaper and smaller games puzzle titles are doing fine. You know what I mean if you know the game called Deadly Rooms of Death. Maybe that's because smaller games don't need a lot of money for development, because they are usually good when it comes to gameplay and there is always a small market to support small time publishers.
It might be that my interpretation is totally false and I might be seeing less puzzle games than there actually are, because my permanent lack of time prevents me from looking for them. But I believe that puzzle games are rare today.
Let's hope we don't loose our puzzle solving abilities. You don't want to be as stupid as a lemming, do you?
-Game on!
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm mostly interested in PC gaming, mostly because I don't have any console. It might be that that things are different when it comes to non-PC platforms. I'd adding this note, because I got some mail telling me that I'm posting false statements and providing examples from console gaming. Thanks for alertness.
Small edit: I almost forgot about the desktop calendar for April. Here it is:
[ 800x600 ] [ 1024x768 ] [ 1280x960 ] [ 1600x1200 ]
It's almost like the Gulliver's Adventures, only with Lemmings.
Emphasis on almost.
Did you notice that there are less puzzle games lately? At least when it comes to those big games, because there are a lot of small, often free, puzzle games around and those are doing just fine.
There used to be a time when there were a lot of puzzle games released. In example these games with little creatures that needed your help to survive. Lemmings are the first to pop up in mind. Every Amiga fan remembers dozens of hours spent trying to save small creatures whose number of brain cells can only be matched with the amount of pixels used to portrait them. I can easily recall titles like Diggers or Benefactor from the top of my head. Apart from saving little things there were games that let you build strange contraptions (Incredible Machines), help some Vikings escape alien abduction (Lost Vikings) and much more. Sure, a lot of them had action embedded into gameplay, but those were still puzzle games.
Puzzle games are few today. Lemmings resurrections on PSP don't count here.
I guess it's not healthy to ponder why this is happening. What can one deduct? Are people more stupid and don't want to play games that require them to put more intellectual effort into gaming than WoW demands from a gamer in need of checking out his armor bonuses? This kind of calculations used to be easily carried out by ancient amoebas playing Diablo, and you could tell that those jellies weren't very rich in their brains.
I guess that the expectancy towards games has changed over the years. Contemporary gamer needs a lot of fast action in the game and hates when he or she needs to stop and look for solutions to some puzzles. A puzzle game requires a lot of thought and pauses while gamers expect fast tempo and no barriers. Cinematography went the same way if you ask me. Check out any old movie and you might notice how long every scene seems there. Movies today are significantly faster.
However when it comes to cheaper and smaller games puzzle titles are doing fine. You know what I mean if you know the game called Deadly Rooms of Death. Maybe that's because smaller games don't need a lot of money for development, because they are usually good when it comes to gameplay and there is always a small market to support small time publishers.
It might be that my interpretation is totally false and I might be seeing less puzzle games than there actually are, because my permanent lack of time prevents me from looking for them. But I believe that puzzle games are rare today.
Let's hope we don't loose our puzzle solving abilities. You don't want to be as stupid as a lemming, do you?
-Game on!
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm mostly interested in PC gaming, mostly because I don't have any console. It might be that that things are different when it comes to non-PC platforms. I'd adding this note, because I got some mail telling me that I'm posting false statements and providing examples from console gaming. Thanks for alertness.