No, the idea of games having fair vs unfair puzzles was very much a thing at the time. For example, Sierra adventure games were infamous for having puzzles that made no sense (like using cat hair to make a false mustache, which nobody could have guessed was possible or needed), whereas LucasArts and Infocom puzzles were (in general) more reasonable.

Indeed, so famous it’s the subject of an entire OMM article (one of the guys behind OMM went on to write the script for Portal demonstrating he was a critic who could actually do the thing better than the people doing it). https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/78.html

The absolute pinnacle of this idiocy? The person you are disguising yourself as _doesn’t have a moustache_.

That was a just plot twist (play against another DK), not a badly designed puzzle. They are very different.

The author is complaining that because the game didn't warn him to change his strategy, he was unfairly beaten and forced to restart the level (and so wasting his valuable time and money). And indeed, you cannot break enemy walls in DK1, nor can they break yours, that's by design.

But this is just playing a 30 year old game with today's mindset. Now everything is faster, gamers have more limited time and even more limited attention spans and different expectations. Back then, you would just see it as a challenge, restart and beat the level, all without making any fuss about it.

It's like, did people in the middle ages complain that washing was hard and they needed washing machines to save time?

Probably not, but people today certainly would. It comes down to expectations.

I'm reminded of Graham Nelson's "Bill of Player's Rights" which neatly summarised the concerns of the time. https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.int-fiction/c/F_gosVUpd...