Normally in those game's booklets/manuals/online help a big hint was to take anything that wasn't nailed down, use everything with everything, and use everything in sight. Pixel hunting obviously being an exception......but to otherwise not heed this advice when playing such games and then being mad at the puzzles/games themselves for what amounts basically to one's own stupidity garners no sympathy from me. :P

:)

Couldn't agree more, designed purely so that the user didn't feel ripped off if they completed the game too quickly. LucasArts games still managed to be quite tough and yet they didn't have any of the BS of the Sierra games (except Maniac Mansion and maybe Zak McKracken).

That doesn't quite work though, since here Arkose is saying he DID try using objects on everything but the game lets him him use the object on the wrong thing. How is that anything to do with stupidity?

I have no mouth and I must scream

It could also be Manhunter: New York, iirc. There was a clue to it earlier on in the game, but it was very subtle and you had to be paying a lot of attention. On the whole, tho, it was a good game.

I see there is a lot of hate for Sierra! I think that they made excellent games, its just that they were a lot less forgiving than, say, LucasArts adventure games were. But you came to expect that and changed your playing style to suit.
Police Quest had some really stupid/funny/pointless puzzles. For instance, at one point in one of the games you had to press a traffic light in order to cross the road without getting run over. I don't think it added much to the game. But, then again, the point of those games was to have as much attention to detail as possible, and in that regard it all made sense.
Also GK1 had some really hard puzzles (in fact, they were basically impossible without looking at a walkthrough)

UFO's: joint + platypus puzzle. If it wasn't for my sister, i'd still be trying to figure that one out, probably.

I replied to him but I was speaking in general, about those who forget to pick something up or do everything with everything when those games basically told people to do so back then.

Allow me to ask the opposite question though:
There are adventure games aplenty with illogical or barely hinted at puzzles which drive people mad.
I suck at adventure games in general. Hasn't gotten better with the years, I like them but I just don't have the stamina to figure out all the puzzles in there and how the developer wanted it solved. (do the exact same thing which yielded nothing, but on the fifth time it will. Talk to that person _after_ you've done something completely unrelated, visit a location you don't see why you'd visit but at this point in the game there'll be an event there). Most of my playing Gabriel knight was being utterly confused and unsure what to do. "Oh you just happen to wander into the square now and suddenly there's something important"

But on the other hand. I'm playing through the Back to the Future games by Telltale. I can pass through most of the episodes without any trouble, because solutions are intuitive and hinted at what to do most of the time. And yet...I feel a bit disappointed. The story is (in my opinion) good, but I'd hoped for more challenge.

So I'd want challenge, e.g. non self-explanatory puzzles, but at the same time I don't want puzzles I can't see coming (e.g. non self-explanatory puzzles). What's a developer to do? Go the way of Castle of Dr. Brain on people? Usually puzzles there are Puzzles, problem presented, rules for this puzzle presented, you win when you find the solution. No creative thinking outside the box required (No you don't use that breadstick you found earlier to add another barrier to the puzzle about damming off a stream of water etc etc)

What is it we really want?

The best puzzles, IMO, are those that are integrated in the game world and that make sense, but are not solved simply by clicking on everything. You have played the first GK: consider the cemetery message puzzle. That was brilliant. Perfectly logical and making complete sense, requiring some thought on the player's part and putting two and two together. (Unlike, for example, one of the first puzzles in the game with the clock in GK's grandmother's attic, which makes sense in retrospect, but not much when you encounter it.) For me personally, the single greatest puzzle I remember is the Le Serpent rouge sequence in GK3 (yes, the same GK3). That was pure joy to solve. Jane Jensen can do this stuff amazingly well when she tries.

You are right that puzzles that lack creativity are boring, but puzzles that are too creative are frustrating. I think the trick is in being consistent with the world, and creating a world that allows for wackier things to happen. Some actions in the Goblins series are downright insane, but once you understand the world's logic, they are not all that difficult to figure out (it was Woodruff who took that too far), while still providing a challenge, because the solutions are not immediately apparent. Sam and Max Hit the Road or The Day of the Tentacle are other good examples of that. It's much more difficult to design a solid puzzle for adventure games that have a serious, real life setting -- which is why the cat moustache thing was ridiculed so much, I suppose, or the rubber duck insanity in The Longest Journey. And it's also one of the reasons why the puzzle design in the two Syberias is so atrocious.

I don't really like the Myst / Dr. Brain way of doing puzzles. It's fine to throw in a traditional puzzle like that every now and then, but designing an entire game around that feels sort of cheap and rather gimmicky. Unless you are a very creative puzzlemaker and your name happens to be Cliff Johnson.

The Feeble Files. Dear god.

Baking cookies in Still Life... I mean, come on!

There are also those games that rely on you picking up everything but don't allow it at all times. If you missed something but can stil solve the puzzle by having a closer look around, that's ok. But what if you don't have access to the area anymore where you were supposed to pick something up when it comes to solving the puzzle you need it for? That's just an annoyingly bad design choice, regardless if the manual warned you or not. Things like that could happen to anyone, even if they know the manual in and out.

I also hate when objects only appear as usable after you've reached a certain point in the game. You've already examined them and noticed you can't do anything with them (no hotspot or a clear message that it is of no use), then suddenly you have to run back and use them in a certain situation but chances are you've already forgotten about them since you couldn't pick them up yet (for no other reason than that you didn't need them at the time, even if picking up random items you don't have any use for yet is part of the gameplay...). I think that happened to me once or twice in Syberia. Seemed like a lame workaround, trying to prevent the player from using it on something else or solving a puzzle before it fit into the story.

Worst are those puzzles where the actual solution is less logical than what the players would have come up with in-game or in real life (unless the logic is in tune with a weird game world). Or those where you know exactly what to do but fail because of the controls and/or the twisted and unclear way the game wants you to do it.

The first Discworld game was evilly obscure. I got through the 2nd one and Noir without too much difficulty but the first one was filled with insane puzzles that were beyond lateral thinking.
"That doesn't work."

That seems to be the infamous prime example - even I have heard of that one, despite never having played Still Life. :D

OH MY GOD. That's what the custard pie was for?

I never finished that game. =(

I figured out that particular puzzle by trial and error, so it's not really that hard (you don't have a lot of items at that point). It is rather illogical though (nothing to suggest that's the right way).

You're stuck of course if you ate the pie, or if you give the pie away, which you may do because the other food item is easy to miss...

I generally found the inn to be the worst part (and everything connected to it, like the cat).