Recently I was helping a friend with an outline for a video game. She asked me to make a list of my favourite puzzles.
I started to read the walkthrough for Grim Fandango to make the list. I remember the puzzles in it were excellent. The thing is the best puzzles can’t just be stuck in. It’s like good writing. The reason that the puzzles in Grim Fandango are so good is that they have been made in the context of the story. They are still absurd enough to not be obvious but they are tailored from the stuff of the story itself.
Even Grim Fandango is a series of locks and keys. But with Grim Fandango it’s never literally a lock and never literally a key. And often both the lock and the key are made up of a number of parts you would never expect to go together.
A comprehensive fan site
http://www.grimfandango.net/
