> Let's say you're playing a game, and you explore a place thoroughly (or
> so you think). Then a few minutes later, you take a ship to another
> country, but then realize that you needed something back in the other
> country! Would you RATHER have a game not let you board the ship
> without a few things? (i.e. a message prints "You get the odd feeling
> you forgot something") Or would you rather be able to leave anyway, and
> later find out you forgot an item or two, and restore an older game?
Well, it really depends on what type of a game it is. And where in the
game. In a game called Demon's Tomb, the prologue consists of you
being an archeologist in a tomb that's on fire, and you have to save
all your stuff. The game itself tells you that he cannot be saved, and
that you have to save as much as you can (I thought I did, until I saw
that I had to go about slowing down the fire annother way). Whether or
not you save everything you can, the game goes on, whether it's
possible to finish the game or not.
However, there are other games (particularily "Enhanced") where it just
gets annoying after a while. My suggestion is to make puzzle's
solvable an additional way, and then have the game just go ahead anyway
(although this really depends on the puzzle. If you haven't gotten the
diamond of blah blah, and it states at the beggining that you have to
find this or that it could help, it would be reasonable to put a "You
have forgotten somthing" message.
Of course, this is all IMHO.