Broken Sword puzzle lock

I’ve randomly gotten on an Adventure Games kick lately–I played Gray Matter this week, and discovered that there’s a whole host of free ones available on GOG and elsewhere, so hooray! I was TOTALLY into the genre when I was a kid–I played a billion Sierra games. Maybe I’ll do some kind of retrospective or something about that–it’s a very interesting genre and I’m getting some ideas.

(For the record, this week has proven that Telltale games are not bad because the genre is dated. Telltale games are bad because THEY DO NOT MAKE GOOD GAMES.)

I’m working on Broken Sword: Director’s Cut because it’s free at the moment because Good Old Games sold like a billion copies or something. I’ve never played it–I played a bit of the PSX version of the sequel, and the less said about that the better. So far it’s pretty good–I’m in the prologue chapter still, only about 20 minutes in. But look at that image up there. There’s two of these puzzle locks I’ve got to solve to continue. They’re tough–I’m normally pretty good at spatial puzzles like this so I’m not worried, I just need to play with it a little more, but what I find hilarious? The game keeps popping up hints for the puzzle, ones which seem to imply that the reason I haven’t solved the puzzle yet is because I can’t figure out what to do. That’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? It’s getting there that’s the problem.

I love how secret vaults are always locked with an intricate puzzle lock that anyone who’s played an adventure game could solve, though. That people who want to keep secrets hide their stuff behind locks of this type, or write messages in easily-deciphered code, or whatever, that implies that this is a world without adventure games. Given my complex feelings towards the genre, I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Anyway, it’s free, and you should be supporting GOG anyway, so pick it up and get something else while you’re at it!

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