Same. And it's not even close to having the worst puzzles in classic LucasArts catalogue. Sam & Max Hit the Road drove me nuts with how great it looked, how funny it could be, and how impossible to play for more than five minutes without getting stuck on utter nonsense it was. And at least that one was so cartoonishly ridiculous you could argue utter nonsense fits the style, even if it sucks as gameplay, which is why I'd argue The Dig is probably the worst of them all. It looks amazing, it's original, but good grief for a game that tries to be a serious sci-fi story some of the puzzles were just infuriatingly absurd. And that's just LucasArts. You want to see true lovecraftian level insanity, try playing the first Discworld game without a walkthrough.

Saying The Talos Principle has ''little story'' actually hurts the soul a little... :'')

About Myst - there was once a Myst game on giveaway here. I didn't took it precisely because I associate Myst with all the negatives I wrote before.
When I looked into Quern - the first thought was - oh no... pixel hunting... Even though that can't possibly be the case with a game released in 2016. :D
I look at reviews: Goddammit!! :''D

First impressions have scared me away from that game.

But seeing as how you call it amazing; the reviews are positive; it has a rating of 4.3 -- it's not hard to see that there's actually more to the game than the screenshots would have you believe... interesting...

About The Witness -- this one is a weird one!!! I opened the game page -- What?! This game is not in my library?! I vividly remember looking at this game's page for a century!!! Did I actually not buy it in the end?!

The Witness -- yeah, if there's 1 puzzle game I would buy - it would be this one. Into the wishlist it goes! That way I won't forget about it. :/
(Whether I'll actually get a taste for some puzzles in the far future is another matter...)

Thanks for the suggestion!

I swear -- I open the game page... what?! I have looked at this game's page how many times already!?

---

t-elos mentioned Zachatronics games.

Yeah... goddamn Infinifactory... the one game that taught me I absolutely cannot comprehend automation... the few levels I did finish - I did so by brute-forcing or spamming blocks. :/

Why do you think, I put that statement (quote) in my initial post?

The names of the games don't matter here.
I could play three other puzzle based games next week and find the same bad puzzle designs there.
Then I would have to make another thread, mentioning those three games by name.

Would that help anyone?
No.

The names of the game are not the problem - the way, the puzzles are presented/expected to get solved, is.

Sigh
I knew, I shouldn't have create this thread... smh

Never create a thread in the GOG forum, it always comes back at you!

And if we knew what games we are talking about, we'd know exactly what "way the puzzles are presented/expected to get solved". But we don't. We have no idea what kind of puzzle games you are talking about. I'm not sure what you expected us to say with nothing to go on? Just a chorus of "yes, puzzle games (whatever they might be) suck now"?

I'm not trying to be an asshole here, there's no reason to get all "oh woe is me, I knew you peasants would not understand my plight!" You simply gave us nothing to go on to have a discussion. I tried to contribute to it the bet I could, but all I got in return from you was basically "that's not the kind of games I meant". Well, excuuuuuuuuuuse me, princess.

I think what I wanted to say there is that the game has a lot more puzzles compared to story but it came out wrong. But you are right Talos do have great story. Playing the DLC atm and I love all these text mini games!

As for the Myst (Riven and Exile) - actually the game has none of the negatives you mentioned. There is no pixel hunting as far as I remember(its been a while) and there is no traditional inventory with items. It is all about puzzles solving. Quern does have items though but the island indeed is not that big so walking is not gonna be an issue I think ^^

We can't really relate to your problem if you don't share details with us. If the puzzle design is the problem we really need to see/have played these puzzles to be able to express proper opinion. What you tell is just your pont of view and I see not even a way to argue back with you on these puzzles because all I have is your information and I have no source on my own which would be the game itself. That is why we need the games names. Not because they are important but because we need our own point of view on the puzzles in question.

And don't get me wrong I don't want you to go" I knew, I shouldn't have create this thread". I love puzzle games so this topic is interesting for me.

Ah, no worries, I understood absolutely how you meant it. =)
It's just - the conversations with Milton were so unexpected and enjoyable... well generally the entire writing in the game was excellent... that I instabought the game to show support when it actually appeared here on GoG. (I discovered it on steam and couldn't imagine it one day appearing here.)
That's how much of an impact that game had on me. =)

But Milton, Elohim are more part of the worldbuilding than story. The entire story of Talos could be summed up in 2 sentences! ;D

But your post does/did bring up some interesting points:

1.) The ''story'' in Talos was enough for me. But you're saying Quern is even more story focused!?

2.) Are there even puzzle-games with little to no story nowadays? Even Portal that came out 17 years ago had a rudimentary one. And some people even appreciate that game more for it's vague, show, don't tell approach more than for it's puzzles!

Some, such as Deliver Us The Moon or The Swapper (to name only 2 of who-knows how many!) even have ''story rich'' as one main tag; or otherwise advertise the games more as ''adventures with puzzle elements'' than ''puzzle game with good story''.

...

As I was writing this I realised - there are actually games (I'm tired of listing them! :''D) that do have heavy focus on different types of puzzles (as opposed to Portal or Talos where you have to use a set of tools to always achieve the same goal.)

...

Wow. This genre has very, very distinct and varied branches.

I said Quern is puzzle focused, not story ^^. There is story but it is quite small. The Witness is a game that have no story at all - its just puzzles. There are such games but sadly most of them are on steam. I mentioned the Room series, Patrick's Parabox is another good one and more recent

One confusing thing is that there are adventure games that have what are often called "puzzles", but which really only work in adventure games, not puzzle games.

In an adventure game, everything is scripted. For example, you might find an area with a river. If you have a raft, you can cross it by using the raft in such a location. Of course, getting the raft might require getting other items by various means and somehow combining them. Each of these tasks is scripted. Or you could have a locked door that needs a specific key (which might not even look like a key!) to unlock. These sorts of puzzles are what I call "adventure game puzzles", and a game filled with them is an adventure game, not a puzzle game.

To qualify as a puzzle game, the puzzles would need to have a specific set of rules that govern the way the game works. For example, in Baba Is You, if at any point, on the same square, there's an object that's "YOU" and an object that's "WIN", you've just cleared the level. It doesn't matter how you make this happen; if you do, then you've just completed the level. (Actually accomplishing this isn't always that easy!) Or you have a game like Bejeweled, where if there's 3 of the same jewel in a row, they disappear, causing other jewels to fall, and where a move that doesn't result in 3 in a row is an illegal move. Those rules hold throughout the game. and are not scripted.

In particular, what are usually called point-and-click games are adventure games, not puzzle games.