Puzzles are at the core of Adventure gameplay, they provide challenges for you to overcome with brains rather than brawn. For Action Adventures, they offer a break from the hacky-slashy-stabby-shooty element of title.
Every week I’ll bring you a new puzzle, drawn from some of the best and worst adventure or puzzle games I’ve ever played. Every once in a while I’ll even leave you one of my own for you to solve. If you do, I’ll find a way to reward you!
This week I have something different in mind. The puzzle is a simple scenario. Every solution you propose is valid, I just want to know how you’d go about it. It’s a simple scenario and some variations:
Base Scenario: “You wake up in a small room with concrete walls. Opposite the cot you were sleeping on is a door. A simple wooden door with a faux-golden handle—it’s locked. Under the cot is a toolbox. The toolbox has TWO tools of your choice, though they need to be real tools, so no laser swords. Which do you pick to escape?”
Variation 1: “Same scenario, but it’s a steel door. Increase the number of tools to THREE.”
Variation 2: “Not only is the door closed, but boarded up as well. The door itself has 5 locks for five different keys. Increase number of tools to FOUR.”
You can ask me as many questions as you’d like in the comments. I will answer them to help you reach whatever solution works for you. I also reserve the right to veto tool combinations I consider irrational.
This week’s puzzle is a little different from our previous issues. This one comes straight from the heart of Arkham City, where they’ve shipped off all of Gotham’s worst criminals.
In Batman: Arkham City you once again have to find ridiculous trophies for The Riddler but unlike its predecessor, Arkham Asylum, the knickknacks are more than just collectibles. They’re prerequisites for advancing the Riddler casefile and discover where the conundrum criminal hid his hostages.
But it’s not the trophies I want to talk about, as I think we could all do without them. It’s the challenge rooms themselves, where you’ll have to rescue one of the hostages. Each of them is a murderous trap where you have to use your gadgets in the correct order and time everything properly while keeping your wits about you in case there are additional traps on the way—which they are. As you progress and unlock further rooms, the complexity increases and you need to combine your tools together and use them in unusual ways.
I like the rooms. They’re one of the best parts of the game. They’re exciting and, along with the crime-scene investigations, put you in Batman’s shoes better than any of the beat-ups will ever do. People often forget that Batman is about more than just taking down criminals—I blame the films. Batman is also a genius detective and clever strategist. He’s usually a few steps ahead of his enemies and when he’s not he adapts. The challenges give you a glimpse into those skills (or virtues) and make you feel like Batman…and that is AWESOME!
I do want to reiterate that by challenge rooms I mean those trap-filled ones you go in the campaign to rescue the doctors and security guards Riddler kidnapped, and not the Challenge Maps you can access from the menu.
Have you had moments when you’ve felt like The Dark Knight? Let me know!
And because I’m a child of the 80s, here’s this clip!
I have enjoyed the Batman games, but I never had the patience to solve all the Riddler puzzles.
The scanning Riddles are annoying. They often require you to find a minuscule item in the environment. These rooms are much more hands on though