8 Game Designers Who Hated Their Own Creations

Classic point 'n' click adventure games are notorious at the best of times for their often logic defying puzzles, stumping frustrated players until they're forced to look the solution up, giving rise to decidedly it's-simple-now-you-say-it moments involving inflated rubber ducks on railroad tracks (not made up). But this infamous brainteaser, from Revolution's otherwise outstanding Broken Sword, really was kidding.

The wretched goat of Lochmarne has gained such a reputation for being an impassable evil that it's even earned its own Wikipedia page. The task at hand - having protagonist George Stobbart make it from one side of the screen to another whilst evading said goat - is seemingly simple, but it's rendered a million times harder than necessary thanks to a solution entirely inconsistent with the rest of the game. Rather than use George's inventory to distract the goat or manipulate its environment, the player must direct the American down a tortuous route, causing the troublesome ungulate's tether to snag. Many hours wasted, many discs snapped, many hairs descalped in frustration.

At 2014's European GDC, the game's designer Charles Cecil was finally put on trial for his Crime Against Adventure Game Design. During a postmortem of his most beloved title, a member of the audience ironically shouted, "that f*cking goat!" With nowhere to hide - and nearly twenty years of reflection - Cecil admitted that it was "very unfair, absolutely bewildering." The veteran designer revealed the goat had earned him an ignoble reputation; on one occasion, upon learning he'd designed Broken Sword, a taxi driver exclaimed, "so you're the one responsible for the goat!"