Did Not Enjoy

[poetic_justice_]

After finishing The Journey Down trilogy, I found the experience tedious. Without a guide, I would not have completed any of the three games. Point-and-click adventures, if they maintain a consistent, rational puzzle logic,  enjoyable characters, and an interesting narrative, can be entertaining. Unfortunately, Bwana and Kito, the protagonists of The Journey Down, were two-dimensional idiots. Perhaps worse, the puzzle solutions were bizarre to the point of being irrational. For all three games, I attempted a blind playthrough, only to be forced to use a guide because of non-sensical puzzles. After using a guide, I found the solutions so beyond reason that I questioned how the developers expected people to discover the solutions by themselves.

 

For example, [spoilers] in one section, two characters needed to escape through a locked door. There was no key. However, one of the characters had a gas can and lighter.

• Was burning the door the solution? No.
• Was throwing the gas can through a cracked window and escaping an option? No.
• Was lighting the gas can under a sprinkler system to activate the fire alarm an option? No.
• Was using another tool on a window or the door to open either an option? No.
• Were any other inventory items (besides the gas can and lighter) applicable to the situation? No.

 

Stumped, I looked at a guide. The solution left me asking, "What?" and scratching my head. Apparently, the key to opening the locked door was using the stuffed head of a toy rabbit. Yes, you read that correctly: the solution for opening a locked door with explosives was a stuffed toy rabbit's head. I had to take a machete and cut the head off a stuffed rabbit toy. The stuffed rabbit head had to be combined with the gas can. Only then could the gas can be ignited. No rabbit head, no ignition, no fire, no explosion. Once the rabbit head was combined with the can, the gas can no longer burned like an ordinary gas can; instead, it transformed into a "firebomb". This device was essentially  C4 that exploded the locked door. How was an ordinary gamer supposed to arrive at this solution?

 

This was only one of the many puzzles that made no sense. Another puzzle required the player to take a sticker from a piece of fruit, combine it with copy paper on a copy machine, and trade the fruit sticker copies to an NPC for a satellite phone. To make the puzzle even more opaque, the NPC never provided any indication that she wanted fruit sticker copies, so there was literally no way for the player to know what to do. A third puzzle required the player to activate a crane in one scene to grab a towed car from another scene, lift the car via crane into a factory, melt the car down into molten metal, pour the molten metal into a mold to create an I-beam girder, then move the I-beam girder with the crane back to the first scene so that Bwana could walk across the girder into an unlocked second story window. How would a player know to do all that without a guide?

 

Obviously, with a guide, the puzzles become a 1/10 difficulty. However, I play games for enjoyment more than trophies, and The Journey Down lacked the enjoyment of other point-and-click games. Finishing The Journey Down was like eating a loaf of bread with no water. I found almost no enjoyment in the experience, and the more I continued, the less I wanted to continue. Seeing an indie studio funded by Kickstarter succeed makes me happy. I sincerely wish all the best to the developers. However, most gamers will not enjoy The Journey Down. Even with a guide, it is too random and illogical to be an engaging, immersive point-and-click experience.

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by poetic_justice_

[Dark_Overlord]

8 minutes ago, poetic_justice_ said:

I sincerely wish all the best to the developers. However, most gamers will not enjoy The Journey Down. Even with a guide, it is too random and illogical to be an engaging, immersive point-and-click experience.

 

 

I'm most likely going to enjoy it for the reasons you hated it.  I grew up with the Amiga and all it's nonsensical P&C puzzles, which even to this day I still enjoy.  I can understand why others would dislike that gameplay element though.  I still remember pixel searching on games like Simon The Sorcerer XD

[HuntingFever]

As much as I love the old school P&C games of my childhood, many of them have aged horribly over the years due to the dated mechanics not holding up - including moon logic puzzles (though they were never fun, even in the early 90's).

[poetic_justice_]

8 hours ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

I'm most likely going to enjoy it for the reasons you hated it.  I grew up with the Amiga and all it's nonsensical P&C puzzles, which even to this day I still enjoy.  I can understand why others would dislike that gameplay element though.  I still remember pixel searching on games like Simon The Sorcerer XD

If you enjoyed Full Throttle Remastered, particularly the minefield puzzle solution, The Journey Down will be more of the same X10. The Journey Down is very niche, so more power to you if this is your jam. Positive things in TJD include great music - wow, really fun music -, beautiful varied artwork, committed voice acting [the actor who played Lee from Telltales' The Walking Dead is in TJD Chapter 3], interesting set pieces, and a truly out-of-the-box narrative. Clicking on everything in the environment and trying to combine inventory items over and over just took the fun out of it for me and broke the immersion.   

 

 

7 hours ago, HuntingFever said:

As much as I love the old school P&C games of my childhood, many of them have aged horribly over the years due to the dated mechanics not holding up - including moon logic puzzles (though they were never fun, even in the early 90's).

I am unfamiliar with Moon Logic. For nostalgia, Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle from Lucasarts still hold a special place in my heart. In general, though, I have no desire to rediscover other 90's point-and-click games for reasons you mentioned. The genre itself has tremendous potential but with moronic characters and illogical puzzle solutions, TJD eliminated itself from reaching a broader audience of casual gamers.

[HuntingFever]

49 minutes ago, poetic_justice_ said:

If you enjoyed Full Throttle Remastered, particularly the minefield puzzle solution, The Journey Down will be more of the same X10. The Journey Down is very niche, so more power to you if this is your jam. Positive things in TJD include great music - wow, really fun music -, beautiful varied artwork, committed voice acting [the actor who played Lee from Telltales' The Walking Dead is in TJD Chapter 3], interesting set pieces, and a truly out-of-the-box narrative. Clicking on everything in the environment and trying to combine inventory items over and over just took the fun out of it for me and broke the immersion.   

 

 

I am unfamiliar with Moon Logic. For nostalgia, Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle from Lucasarts still hold a special place in my heart. In general, though, I have no desire to rediscover other 90's point-and-click games for reasons you mentioned. The genre itself has tremendous potential but with moronic characters and illogical puzzle solutions, TJD eliminated itself from reaching a broader audience of casual gamers.

Here's an explanation of what Moon Logic is : https://www.haggardhawks.com/post/moon-logic

Edited October 8, 2023 by HuntingFever
Update.

[poetic_justice_]

6 minutes ago, HuntingFever said:

Here's an explanation for Moon Logic : https://www.haggardhawks.com/post/moon-logic

Absolutely brilliant explanation. 'Moon Logic' fits The Journey Down to a T.

[ZenaxPure]

This is how I felt trying to play Deponia a few years ago (2019 according to my trophy list.) One of the early game puzzles involves having to use a mouse trap to catch a toothbrush. That alone made no sense to me (and I probably wouldn't have figured it out with a guide) but even getting the pieces together so you could reach that point was silly as well. Ended up just using a guide for the rest of the game.

 

I never had a PC as a kid so I missed out on classic style point and click games for the most part. Tried to get into them as an adult to see what I missed out on but the only one I've really enjoyed playing was Yesterday as it had a really cool story and characters (and the puzzles weren't too bad from what I recall, though it's been literally a decade since I played it so I don't remember much.) I usually just prefer to watch other people play them on youtube instead.

[poetic_justice_]

On 10/8/2023 at 1:46 PM, ZenaxPure said:

This is how I felt trying to play Deponia a few years ago (2019 according to my trophy list.)  Ended up just using a guide for the rest of the game.

 

The only one I've really enjoyed playing was Yesterday as it had a really cool story and characters (and the puzzles weren't too bad from what I recall, though it's been literally a decade since I played it so I don't remember much.) I usually just prefer to watch other people play them on youtube instead.

A good friend played the Deponia series and commented, "Yeah, the trophies are easy with guides, buuuut... if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have started."

 

A good in-between game for me was The Suicide of Rachel Foster. It was like a cross between a point-and-click, a thriller novel, and a found-footage horror film. The puzzles were basic and logical (e.g., "the lights went out and it's dark, so I need to find a flashlight, then find a way to flip the circuit breaker.") It was long enough to offer an actual story, but short enough to avoid causing boredom. I think the 100% took five hours or so.

 

Yesterday goes on sale regularly (if it's the same game you're talking about). I'll look for that one.

[ZenaxPure]

50 minutes ago, poetic_justice_ said:

Yesterday goes on sale regularly (if it's the same game you're talking about). I'll look for that one.

If you're looking at playstation stuff we only have access to Yesterday Origins, which is a prequel and sequel to the original game. Haven't played it myself (since I kinda swore off the genre and all) but it has good reviews on Steam. The original was mobile/PC only.

[poetic_justice_]

@ZenaxPure Yesterday Origins was the game I had in mind. I couldn't remember the name other than it had Yesterday in the title. If you're swearing off moon logic point-and-click games (like Deponia and The Journey Down) but still interested in exploration/puzzle/mystery/paranormal titles with point-and-click elements, the Suicide of Rachel Foster and The Medium might be to your liking. They are more like interactive thrillers than point-and-click games.