Building comparison
head to head
Sally FacevsTales of Monkey Island
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Sally Face
Optimization · Systems & Chaos
Piecing together a dark mystery through light fixed puzzles.
Tales of Monkey Island
Optimization · Pure Optimization
Telltale's episodic comedy adventure sending Guybrush Threepwood after a pox plaguing the Caribbean.
Sally Face leans Optimization (Systems & Chaos); Tales of Monkey Island leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Sally FaceTales of Monkey Island
Axis by axis
Execution1 vs 0
Sally Face leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Sally Face
Walking and clicking with no dexterity demands
Tales of Monkey Island
Click-driven; no physical demands.
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Sally Face
Story characters follow a fixed script
Tales of Monkey Island
LeChuck and pirates are pure script.
Variance3 vs 2
Sally Face leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Sally Face
Mystery beats are hidden information until revealed
Tales of Monkey Island
Modern design telegraphs most puzzle information.
Optimization5 vs 5
Same score on optimization - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Sally Face
Light puzzle logic and clue-piecing is the only system
Tales of Monkey Island
Episodic inventory puzzles each have one intended solution.
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.