Figuring out the solution to a particularly diabolical problem can shoot a player's dopamine levels to the high heavens, but equally, a puzzle with no solution or progress in sight can dump players in puzzle purgatory. While there are plenty of high-quality guides available online, many players prefer to stick to it or quit. To prevent players from ditching their games out of frustration, many developers implement hint systems as guiding lights to put players back on the righteous path.

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Unfortunately, simply giving players the answers does not make for a good puzzle experience, and in recent decades, many players have voiced frustrations about the hint systems themselves. However, a few studios have discovered a middle path when it comes to helping the player reach enlightenment, at least when it comes to teasing out the solution to their most punishing headscratchers.

Return To Monkey Island (Monkey Island)

Burying The Treasure Map To Preserve A Treasured Experience

• The series has evolved in its capacity to give players help since the days of having to call hotlines for game help
• Monkey Island has used a variety of hint tactics, including timed help and a dedicated hint book option that features staggered suggestions

The most famous point-and-click adventure game series in video games, Monkey Island,has been around long before the internet, although at one point, LucasArts did provide players a paid hotline for hints. After game forums and guides became widely available, LucasArts (then later Telltale) would need to find a compromise for those frustrated players. In Tales of Monkey Island, the intrepid, wannabe-pirate protagonist, Guybrush, will produce clues for the player if they haven't made progress in a lengthy amount of time.

This takes the pressure off players who may be sweating about whether they should consult a guide and keeps the story moving onward. Conversely, Return to Monkey Island offers players the choice directly. Guybrush is given a "Book of Hints" and explicitly told only to use it when he is unsure of the way forward, with a warning that "to know too much diminishes the voyage." The Secrets of Monkey Island remake (the Special Edition) included a built-in hint system with an achievement for players who could finish the game without it.

Link's Awakening (The Legend Of Zelda)

Finding The Next Link On The Wire

• For the overworld, Link's Awakening gives the player the option to catch up and figure out where on the map to go next
• Dungeons also feature a dedicated item, the stone beak, that grants hints to those who can find its counterpart stone owl

While punctuated by eight dungeons and the occasional mini-dungeon, Koholint Island from Link's Awakening could be considered one large puzzle piece held together by a string of quests. It's easy to get the order tangled up, which is why the telephone booths exist. These helpful tree houses provide Link a line to Old Man Ulrira. Despite having a shy personality in person, Ulrira will enthusiastically point the player to their next destination if they get lost.

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This mechanic is introduced right at the start of the game and is an excellent optional recourse to players who may have returned after a long time away or those who are stuck for ideas. It would be hard to get any reception in a deep, dark dungeon, but thankfully, if Link gets stuck down in one of them, he can call on stone owls for clues on how to proceed, provided he can find the statue and its corresponding stone beak.

LA Noire

Intuition Points The Way Forward

• To help ease players into the role of the detective, LA Noir gives players "intuition points" that the player can spend to help solve tricky cases
• These points are refunded when the player attains a new rank but are not refunded after they master the game's mechanics and hit the rank cap

While the facial animation technology took the immersive experience of police interview and interrogation to a new level, there's one thing that no amount of gameplay innovations can truly simulate: a seasoned detective's intuition. The blockbuster crime thriller LA Noir translates the concept of the "gut feeling" into "intuition points." The player can then use these points to scrub wrong answers from an interview or highlight crucial clues.

Intuition points are entirely optional skip tools; confident players can choose to ignore them. These points are only refunded when the player reaches a new rank, with the top rank being 20. Players who have advanced quickly, thanks to their natural sleuthing skills, will not feel their loss too much, while those who are slower on the uptake can rely on them until they finally get the hang of police work.

The Shadow Of The Templars (Broken Sword)

Offering Incremental Player Help

• In the remake of the first game, players could switch on an optional, context-sensitive hint delivery system
• Later games in the series expanded on hints by offering gradual clues that became more explicit with each request

As a pure point-and-click adventure game, the Broken Sword series has always relied on players being able to figure out a clue, path, or puzzle to progress the story. Since the remaster of the first game in the series, The Shadow of the Templars, each game released has featured a diary to help the player keep track of clues and a context-sensitive hint system, which can be turned off or on at the player's discretion.

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However, in Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse, progression clues are not simply given once from the objective, but hints can be accessed several times, with each offering more detailed suggestions and then explanations on how to complete it. This gradient approach to hint-giving doesn't completely remove the satisfaction of overcoming a particularly strenuous problem and allows for a flexible difficulty curve.

The Ocarina Of Time (The Legend Of Zelda)

A Portable Navigation System And Beastary

• Link's two fairy partners are seamlessly woven into the game, and both bring advice after enough time has elapsed
• The fairies also offer hints on how to take down monsters and will occasionally focus on important contextual objects

Back when the N64 Legend of Zelda games were considered "huge open worlds," players were offered a handy navigation buddy to aid them in their travels across Hyrule and Termina. Navi in The Ocarina of Time and Tatl in Majora's Mask are organically inserted into the story as hint-givers that few players would even regard as such. After long stretches of time, either fairy will chime in to drop some useful information about a certain location or give a clue about who they should talk to next.

It's up to the player if they want to heed their advice or ignore it outright. The same goes for combatting enemies, as players can learn about a foe while targetting them by listening to the fairy's advice. Even more subtly, both Navi (known during development as "Fairy Navigation System") and Tatl (a tattletale) will occasionally fly to points of interest, such as a door mechanism, ocarina-sensitive spot, or block, to help Link make the first connection to the puzzle.

A Plague Tale: Requiem (A Plague Tale)

Offering The Courtesy Of Choice

• While many modern action games with puzzle elements tend to force answers on the player, Requiem gives the player the choice
• The frequency of hints the player sees can be increased, reduced, or switched off entirely

Video games have become more cinematic (and expensive) over the last couple of years, and keeping the visuals and screenshot-worthy gameplay flowing has become more of a priority for AAA studios, who are averse to the player potentially feeling a moment of friction and, therefore, disinterest. As a result, hints during puzzle segments can come flying in before the player even has had a chance to assess the problem, whether it be through text or a sidekick's sideline commentary.

The hint system in the harrowing A Plague Tale: Requiem stands out more because of its contemporaries' deficiencies. After thoughtfully implementing hints to help out the player through their journey, the studio also coded in an option for the player to customize the frequency of the in-game help, from normal or never to short and long breaks between suggestions. This simple implementation is cost-effective and player-friendly, as nobody needs to feel frustrated from getting stuck or from constant condescending puzzle spoilers.

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