In one game peeking gets you positive points. In the next game peeking results in game over. I can't read the author's mind, and the results are ambiguous, so walkthroughs are necessary.
After so many games with choices that are completely nonsensical and random along with sandbox games that don't have any hints, I just started downloading every walkthrough.
I see them as a necessary evil - ideally a game provides enough context and clues to indicate to everything without being as heavy-handed as a walkthrough (after all, I choose games over other forms of medium for a reason), however I can't fault these small games and small designers not being able to pull it off all the time.
It sucks when I end up with a game that really doesn't do anything to signpost optional/missable-content or has some ill-concieved "puzzle" that forces me to pull up a walkthrough to continue, but I'd rather have the quantity of content that we do than much sparser content that meets this ideal.
In most of these games it's pretty obvious what choice leads to what. I used to install them, but i haven't used them in a long while.||
but i do use savegames, so I can always fix what i broke
Definitely a yay, especially in some of the older vns some of the specific stuff you had to do was crazy, i dunno how you would get that done without a walkthrough or days of trying
I think it depends a lot on the type of game. When there are only two paths, I don't think it's necessary, but when there are multiple endings and everything changes because of one or two choices, then I do think it's necessary.
I think walkthroughs takes moste of the fun out of a game. the whole reason by playing a game is to explore.
only when you have played thrugh a game, you can use walkthroughs to see if you missed something.
or if a game developer has made so many endings to a game and its hard to know if you have completed all endings.
I prefer to know ahead which option is better. It eliminates the need to constantly save before a choice and then go back and try them all. When there are a lot of choices, saving and reloading can waste a lot of time. Some games there isn't "better" or "correct" choices, and having a few branching paths where you can save and try different routes can be fun. Overall, I prefer to see as much content as possible in 1 playthrough.