> While I'm at it, why don't these games have a Help button that tells you what you should be doing next? It's very frustrating when playing these games and you don't know what you are supposed to be doing. Clicking HELP would analyze your position in the game and tell you what you need to do to advance further (for example, the Help system might say, "Go to the forest area - you need to find a larger weapon"). This narrows down what you need to do.

For me, the most frustrating area is when the solution you need is somewhere that's not logical. For instance, if there's a nasty goblin blocking a bridge, and he says he won't let you pass until you give him something nice, you know that you need to either look for a weapon so you can force the goblin to leave or a treasure you can give to him. If there's different areas where those things are likely (For instance, you earlier passed an abandoned blacksmith and a gold mine), then you know what to do. But if there's a gold bracelet hidden in a hole in a tree, then it's frustrating because you have no logical way to know where it is; you just need to look everywhere until you stumble across it. That's when it gets frustrating. Now, of course, some of the fun of games is to find gold bracelets in trees and fairies in mailboxes; it's fantasy, and things aren't supposed to make complete sense. But, if you wanted to prevent frustration without a hint box, then all you would need to do is just make sure all solutions are fairly straightforward.