

This wasn’t the first time StarTropics had been ported over to a new console. So there was literally no way for new players to solve the puzzle, because there was no letter included with the instructions. In 2019, the game was ported over to the Nintendo Switch, the latest Nintendo console, allowing a new generation of gamers to rediscover this cult-classic 8-bit adventure.Įxcept they forgot about the puzzle and the letter and the dipping into water thing. That puzzle was confusing enough for players, but it got worse almost thirty years later. (An entire video game, File://maniac, was built around this concept.) Since this is “outside” what the player has been told is part of the game - the components inside the box - this is clever, but also unexpected. This sort of fourth wall breaking puzzling can certainly add to the gameplay, but it’s also very confusing for players not familiar with the concept.įor instance, more than one escape room game I’ve encountered outwitted and baffled some players by utilizing images on the game box itself (or even the bar code) as part of a puzzle. It’s not like you need to jump up and down to make your character jump. So, yes, the game did tell you what to do, but it’s not intuitive because at no other point in the game do you have to do something outside the diegetic space of the game. That was the note you had to dip in water to reveal the three-digit code.
#KONAMI PIXEL PUZZLE HINTS MANUAL#
You see, there was a physical letter from the uncle included with the instruction manual to the game. It was something the players actually had to do. The solution was simple, but eluded many players because it wasn’t in-game. The only clue was “dip my note in water.”
#KONAMI PIXEL PUZZLE HINTS CODE#
At one point in the game, you needed to find a three-digit code to utilize a transceiver your uncle had in his shoe. The game became famous for a non-intuitive puzzle that baffled many players. Mike wielded a yo-yo and had to search for his missing uncle, eventually exploring the island, the ocean, and outerspace along the way. It featured a protagonist named Mike, who was visiting his scientist uncle in the South Seas. StarTropics was a video game released for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. This non-intuitive puzzle managed to baffle people twice… thirty years apart. These days you’re more likely to encounter a non-intuitive puzzle in an escape room or other physical puzzly activity than a video game.īut today, we have a doozy of an example for you. One of the most infamous came from the Monkey Island series, where you needed a wrench, but instead of just finding one, you had to hypnotize a monkey with a banana on a metronome and use IT as your monkey wrench. Non-intuitive puzzles used to be the bane of many video game fans - so much so that they spawned an infamous trope, That One Puzzle, describing a puzzle with a solution so utterly non-intuitive that it bordered on the nonsensical. In the past, we’ve discussed the topic of intuitive puzzles vs.
