Nowadays, it seems like players don't want to write things down. But I love how La Mulana requires you to write notes down and cross reference various notes in order to solve puzzles, it makes you feel like a real archaeologist! The problem is that many people will play the game with a guide or wiki, instead of using their brains.

What is the best way to encourage players to write things down without having them use a guide, or even just pressing Alt-F4? Should I look at the design of games like Myst?

The Myst games are the only games I've ever needed to write anything down, so yes look to those games.

Some tips:

• Randomize puzzles so that players cannot just look up the solution.
• Puzzles should be complex enough to require writing things down.
• Ideally the game should have a built-in way to take notes, so that it is not a burden on the player. Obduction (same developers as Myst) did this by allowing players to take screenshots of key information found in the world, and refer back to those. Outer Wilds has the game take “notes” for you by remembering information you have acquired.

Games to look at: Myst series, Obduction, Return of the Obra Dinn, Heaven's Vault, Outer Wilds, Quern Undying Thoughts.

...R said:
Nowadays, it seems like players don't want to write things down.

Tbh, i became one of them.

I think the solution is a more ‘modern’ replacement for taking notes. People don't wanna write, but they type a lot into their touchscreens. (Though, likely they replace this soon with speaking to an AI assistant, i'm afraid. Then writing only happens in schools until it dies out completely, and we'll all end up dumb…)

Anyway, imo we need a software replacement for taking notes. E.g. often it would be nice if we could take screenshots in the game, to remember codes or puzzle clues. Eventually the player can even scribble notes over the images like with the Windows snipping tool.
And if the player has to write down text notes, ofc. an in game notebook is better than loose pieces of paper on desk which we might loose until playing the game next time.

Aressera said:
Randomize puzzles so that players cannot just look up the solution.

Oh no, please don't. If players wanna cheat, no reason to stop them in single player games. Any attempt only causes frustration to them, i guess.

Btw, modern games have no cheat codes anymore. Which is one of those reasons why…

Writing a game that requires players to take notes is easy. Getting people to actually play it is hard. The more mental investment the game requires, the more compelling it has to be.