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I am not so much an expert at getting unstuck in adventure games as I am expert in getting stuck in them. If there’s a trap laid in a game, I’m sure to fall prey to it. If there’s a wrong choice to make, I’ll make it. If there’s something, anything, to be missed, I’ll miss it. My skill at getting stumped in adventure games is only exceeded by my expertise at choosing the longest checkout line at a supermarket. 

However, I’m also very stubborn. This, frankly, is a bad combination when it comes to making it through an adventure game. Ineptitude and muleheadedness. There are times I don’t make it past the opening credits and the main menu. What? I’m supposed to use the arrow keys to navigate for my selection? How was I supposed to know that? That’s unfair!

Anyone with half a brain knows that the simplest and smartest way to get unstuck in an adventure (and I am limiting my discussion here to graphic adventures; text adventures are a godless entity unto themselves, requiring, it seems to me, nothing short of extra sensory perception to progress through; I’m supposed to think of the one verb out of the entire goldarn English language to get this ogre to swallow the geranium? Hey, here’s a text “command” for you, Infocom: “Give money back to sucker”). Where was I? Jeez, I got stuck in my own dang essay. Oh, right.

Everyone knows that the best way to get past a snag in an adventure is to refer to a walkthrough. These invaluable guides, almost always available free of charge over the internet, are a godsend to all real people: folks with important jobs, loving families and a firm grip on reality. When these players get stuck in a game they slap their knee and say, “Well, you got me there!” They then consult the walkthrough and only minutes later are breezing along in the game once again. Not a single qualm in their heads. Amazing. It must be swell to be a well-adjusted human. Then there’s the rest of us.

There has been exactly one time that I have checked a walkthrough and not gone into a volcanic rage over my utter, unfathomable blindness and stupidity. A walkthrough is like some sort of magical mirror, a portal into one’s own idiocy. We all of us blithely go through life thinking we’re pretty darn smart. Because, who among our acquaintances is so cruel as to tell us the truth? No, this is a pain that has largely been spared the human race for the first ten thousand years or so of organized society. It took the computer, the adventure game and finally the walkthrough — the trifecta of infamy — to permit mankind a window into his own stupidity.

When I first started playing adventure games I was unaware that there was such a thing as a walkthrough. The first several times I got severely stumped I just kept plugging away, clicking madly, retracing and retracing my steps, until finally I blindly stumbled over the answer. This strangely gave me a sense of accomplishment. I don’t know why. (I think it’s really just relief but that I tell myself it’s an accomplishment to assuage my ego.) Then I got an internet connection and discovered the walkthrough. My first impression was: “Why, this is a wonderful tool for the adventurer.” How naïve can you get?

My self-unawareness at this point was still pristinely intact. I imagined the reason I was getting stuck in adventure games was that, of course, the problems I was encountering were tricky ones. Here’s what really happened. I’d get stuck. I’d check the walkthrough. I’d discover that the solution is as follows: “Turn around and push the big bright red button clearly labeled ‘PUSH ME!’” I couldn’t believe it. Really. Until that moment I had had no clue that I was that fallible. How could anyone, anything, that calls itself a sentient being miss something that obvious? It simply did not compute. And then it happened again, and again, and again. Question: “How do I open this door?” Answer: “Try turning the knob.” My pride was being whittled down to a toothpick. So I had to swear off walkthroughs, in a desperate stab at salvaging what crumbs of self-esteem I had left.

What the rational being would also have done at this point is swear off adventure games too. But not me. I like adventure games. I think they’re fun! So I went back to sheer plugging away. The only concession I made was to give up on the game if I was still stuck after several days. My adventuring became a do or die prospect. Either I would beat the game or the game would beat me. Of course, I hate to abandon a game that I’ve put so much sweat and time into. But I avoid the titanic rages. I can still look myself in the mirror.

Plus, there’s always the possibility that, someday, I’ll think of the solution. (Thank God we can still take refuge in our self-deluded fantasies.) Also, a game that remains unfinished is a game that can still be played. My first attempts at reinstalling and revisiting games I’d abandoned did not go well. It seemed that once I was really stuck, that was it. Lately, however, I’ve been having some limited success.

Anyway, this new policy almost always produces a suspenseful period in new games where I’m stuck but have not yet given up. This is when what brain I do have goes into overdrive. This is the moment of truth. Am I going to finish the game or is it going to finish me? Like a fish on a hook I’m going to give it my all to get loose. Obviously this has led to some serious thought on my part on just how to get unstuck. This is the point where I’d really like to read an article on this subject by Steve Meretzky or Jane Jensen. But, since that’s unavailable I am thrown back once again on my own meager mental resources.

So this is how I go about trying to get unstuck in adventure games. Proceed at your own peril.

1. Do the Stuff You Should Have Done at the Start

Like almost everybody, I jump right into the game as soon it has successfully installed. Oh, sure, I flip through the manual and look at the pretty pictures when I first crack the jewel case. But it’s not until I get stuck that I realize that, gee, there might actually have been some useful information in there somewhere. Often, of course, there isn’t. Often, it’s only chockful of colorful advertisements for the company’s other games. But here’s the crucial point — when you’re stuck, facing that garbled text in the manual becomes at long last an attractive prospect. There might, after all, be a useful clue in there somewhere. Usually, at this point, I devour the entire contents. I even read the huge block of legal fineprint on the last page, just in case.

Where a manual becomes most useful is when it tells you of a key combination or other game command that you were unaware of. You might not have realized that clicking control-M brings up a very handy map, for instance. Or that you can actually have a conversation with the game’s inanimate objects. Or whatever. Every now and then you can even divine a clue from studying the images and in-game screenshots — in not only the manual but on the game box. Never throw away the game box until you’ve finished the game. I have honestly gotten more than one valuable clue off the box back, end flaps and sides.

The other thing you should do, but I never do, is check the manufacturer’s website for any game patches. If the game installs okay and plays okay initially, I never think to do this. Never. (Hmm, perhaps this lack of thoroughness explains why I tend to get stuck in the first place. What do you think, doctor?) Again, when you’re stuck, when you’re desperate, you will gladly do even this. On rare occasions (this tends to be truer of older games), there are even two competing versions of the same game. I actually bought a Mac and a Windows version of a couple of games in the hopes that I’d have better luck with the other one. This, though, is going too far. Don’t do this. I only bring it up in the name of full disclosure.

2. Click on Every Pixel on Every Screen in the Game

Yes, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. If there is one granddaddy of a reason for getting stuck in a game, this is it. You know this. You’re just, like me, not willing to face up to it. You cannot believe that there is anything in that game that you have not found. You have passed your mouse over every square millimeter of screen space. You have clicked on every object no matter how small or insignificant. You have tried to walk left, right, north and south out of every room. You have checked every possible place for a door or portal to some other game area.

Well, the most productive thing you can do is — do it all over again. In my own experience (and yours too, I’ll bet), missing an object, hotspot or exit has accounted for at least 80 percent of my sticking points.

The real trick to getting unstuck, I suspect, is abandoning your preconceptions. You know, maybe that door really is just decoration. Maybe that ladder really isn’t supposed to be climbed. Maybe that stethoscope in your inventory is totally superfluous. This is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way from doing crossword puzzles. No matter how absolutely positive you are about that one word, if nothing else links up to it, the odds are it’s the problem. Take it out and try something else.

One thing that works well in crosswords, doesn’t seem to help much in adventure games. That’s getting away from the game for a while. Think of something else. Stop obsessing. Come back later with a cleared mind and renewed interest. Still worth trying, though. You’re loved ones, at least, will be glad to have you back for a while.

3. I Didn’t Know You Could Do That

This one harks back to my earlier point about reading the manual. I honestly think getting stuck in adventure games boils down to one of two possibilities: Missing an object or exit, as I explained above, and not being aware of some game “function.” We all know we’re supposed to try to combine inventory objects with each other. We all know the basic trick of trying every inventory object on every hotspot, and vice versa. But sometimes there’s something you can do to your inventory objects other than just look at them and change your cursor into them. Again, check that manual. I once was stuck for days in a game simply because I’d thought to do everything to an object in my inventory except “feel” it.

Nor does this apply only to inventory objects. One thing I do, regardless of what the manual has said, is try hitting every key on the computer keyboard. Try right clicking, try control-you-name-it. Probably won’t work, but doesn’t take long either. Most often you’ll simply turn the sound off and toggle speech and text, but it makes you feel like you’re doing something.

Action gamers think that all adventure games are alike. Actually, it’s action games that are all alike. In adventure games, there’s a fair amount of variation. Some games are made up of stand-alone puzzles, some have conversation trees that rival the Amazon basin’s. Some — well, you get the idea. Are you sure you can’t go back and talk to that milkmaid again? In some games, progress is only triggered when you’ve done something else. In Gabriel Knight 3 I still don’t know what the heck I did to trigger about half of those time advances. (And, no, I don’t like to consult walkthroughs even after I’ve finished a game, because I often find things I missed anyway.)

4. Try to Get Into the Heads of the Game Designers

Now we’re starting to get into the more New Agey types of tricks. From here on, the advice is for hardcore masochists. I mean, just face up to it and look at the walkthrough already, will you? You’re ruining our marriage over a stupid game!

Is that significant other finally asleep? Okay, here goes. As hard as it is to believe sometimes, the game’s designers are trying to clue you in. How often have you noticed the clue to a puzzle only after you’ve solved the puzzle? Try to find the “genuine” clues in the game. If you’re stuck, there’s likely to be one or more. In other words, don’t search for the answer for the puzzle, search for the clue instead. Of course, this process tends to lead to the opposite problem — overthinking.

Overthinking is not something in real life I am often guilty of, but it happens a lot in adventure games. You get stuck, you know there’s a clue lurking around somewhere, so you start parsing every single little thing in the game. Is the number of stripes on the big lollipop important? Is the license plate on the cab an anagram? (Most likely it’s the name of the game designer’s kid.) Try to rein yourself in from going too far afield in your clue searching. Most of the time, the answer is staring you right in the face.

So why can’t I see it? This is a really interesting question. It must have something to do with the way the brain functions. We only think we see things as they are. But what we’re really seeing is our own mental picture of them. Why is it that when you put your TV remote down on the kitchen table you can’t find it? Because you’ve never in your life put it there before. When we “search” for things, we’re not searching the actual physical space, we’re searching our mental space. And if it’s not there, frankly, you’re screwed. Because now you’re going to have to search for it for real, and that means it could be anywhere. You will have to thoroughly search every possible place it could be.

The same thing happens in adventure games, it seems to me. When we’re breezing along in the game it’s when we’ve got all the connections in our head; everything’s adding up. But sometimes you drop the thread. You lose track of the next connection. Frankly, you missed something. But where? You’re going to have to search everywhere now. It’s the only way — other than checking the walkthrough, of course.

Randomness is the hardest puzzle. Give me any other problem to solve, please. Convert numbers from base 12 to base 4 then into base 10? Sure, glad to. Let me get my little pad. A maze? Not my favorite, but it will yield its secrets eventually. But sheer randomness? Infinite possibility? Forget it.  

5. Cheat

Hey, I won’t tell. But isn’t consulting a walkthrough cheating? Yes, of course. The problem with using a walkthrough is that it feels like cheating. That is, you feel defeated. What I’m talking about here is creative cheating. Cheating that doesn’t feel like cheating.

I’ve already mentioned that I think anything in the manual or on the game box is fair game. I’m not going to ignore a clue if it’s right there for all to see. Then there’s consulting “game hint” files. In theory, this is a great idea. I have no objection to a “good” hint. The trick is in finding a hint that doesn’t feel like a solution. I’ve found that the ones available on the web are too blatant. It’s very hard to give a good hint.

I tried the UHS and other hint systems, of course. Pretty much every time the answer was given away in the topic headings. Something like: “Section 6: Finding Your Way Into the Oil Rig.” There’s an oil rig in the game? Oh, yeah. I thought that was just decoration! Arrrrgggghhhh!! Why didn’t I think of that!! I’m soooo stupid . . . .

Where was I? Oh, yes. Cheating. There comes a point when I’m stuck, usually by the fourth day, when I’m so desperate I’ll gladly stretch my own virtual ethics. The first place I tried cheating was on Google. I tried to think of clever search terms that would return just the right information I needed. A fabricated example would be if, say, I needed to find a way to get rid of a gate guard. I’d punch the name of the game and “gate” and “guard” into the Google search field. Generally, I got back either gobbledygook or a blatant solution.

Ah, but now there’s Google Image Search. This is a different beast. I think of it as being akin to searching for clues on the game box. When you search for images of the game, you get back — images. Sometimes you’ll get back just the game screen that provides the vital clue you need. Aha! So it is possble to get into that garden! I’ll search for the entrance. Or, that pool can be drained? I didn’t know that. I’ll have to look for a way to do that.

So why does this feel less like a spoiler than a text solution? I don’t know. For me it just does. On the other hand, this method is quite a long shot. It works better for newer games, which tend to have more screenshots circulating on the web.

When I’m really desperate and really reluctant to give up on a game, I’ll open up the game disk in Explorer (I’m really a Mac person, but gaming has mostly confined me to the PC) and search through the game files and folders. Occasionally, a name there will tip me off about something. If there are images or media files on the disk that I can open up in a graphics program, I do that too.

6. It’s a Glitch, I Know It

Sadly, there are virtually no glitches in adventure gamedom. If the game is running okay on your system, no crashes or other obvious problems, the chances that your difficulty is the result of a computer glitch are practically zero. If it’s a real glitch, the game will stop running or some other obvious computer malfunction. If you want to put your mind more at rest, check the internet. If people are having similar problems, they’ll be complaining about it on one of those forums.

That said, every single time I get stuck in a game I am still always convinced that this time — this time — it really is a glitch. It has to be. What else could it be?

Sometimes I dream of being one of those super techies. Someone who can load the game source files into their compiler and bend it around like a paper clip. Subject it to my will. It has nothing to do with playing a game, but it probably feels fantastic.  

So there you have it. Still stuck? Yeah, me too. Oh well.