Okay, I’m programming a science fiction game right now, and I have a question about if a puzzle is unfair or not.
During the game, the player gets in a gantry to get in the superrocket which leads into space. In this process, he gets a gantry keycard, but a small earthquake occurs and knocks him over and he drops the keycard through the hole of the gantry. The elevator stops working as well. The only way down it to examine the gantry itself and then enter “climb out gantry”, which will cause the player to get to the ground and be able to pick up the keycard, then requiring them to enter “climb up gantry” to get back in, successfully solving a puzzle. They have about 10 turns to figure this out before the timer runs out and the superrocket takes off. Does this seem like a common sense puzzle? It’s bothering me and I want to make sure people will guess it.
Though I’m personally fond of timers, I agree they’re not the best idea in IF.
Alternatively you could set up the idea of timed bonuses, such that you get bonus points for completing the action within ten turns, but there’s no actual game-over timer per se.
On second thought the bonus doesn’t have to be just points, maybe you could put some kind of easter egg in for players that finish the action within the time limit.
And to answer your question, I think the puzzle is fair, but ten turns might be tight if look and examine take up turns.
If you are going to do ‘climb out’ then perhaps ‘climb in’ would be more appropriate. Or both, with consideration for ‘climb down gantry’, ‘enter gantry’, and ‘exit gantry’.
