I mean its a bad example, but not the only example of obtuse puzzles in games preventing forward progress in game. Dead ends and not being able to finish if messed up a previous steps were real problems. This was a bigger issue when the internet wasn't available to help out. I like adventure games, but even still they can be difficult and frustrating (although maybe I'm not great at them)
Puzzle Dependency charts in game design help this (from Ron Gilbert/ Monkey Island etc...).
Sierra's early catalog was basically a large collection of dead-man-walking situations. A key item for the endgame of Space Quest 1 stops being available 5 minutes into the game. Kings Quest II has a bridge that can breaks down every time you cross it, and you must do the right thing on every single crossing, as one superfluous crossing alone will end the game. Even as far as 1991 they were still making games where you could put yourself in an unwinnable scenario by missing an item hours before, sometimes in what you thought was a non-interactive cutscene!
Very few modern adventure games bring any of that back.
A lot of early adventure games were Cruel - requiring the user to replay the game over and over because they got something wrong was a cheap way to extend play time without having to add more content. Thankfully, most modern developers have realized that players hate having to do that.
I remember playing Space Quest IV and we got to a part where we were completely blocked. We got parents permission to call Sierra's 1-900 hint line (who knows how much that cost) to find out that the game won't process until you stand on a certain pixel in the back of the arcade. There was no reason to go there, so while we had walked around the arcade many times apparently we never stepped on that precise pixel.
I was stuck on that puzzle for years, let a friend borrow it, and he confidently announces the solution a couple days later. He swore he had uncovered it through trial and error, but I didn’t believe him. Still don’t. You weren’t running a BBS in the 90s, were you?
Back then as a kid, I made dozens of attempts at SQ5, the best I managed before giving up was dying in some ventilation shaft towards finale. This was my first point and click adventure, but hostile game design decisions really put me off other Sierra games, the only one I finished was SQ1 VGA. Arbitrary actions you have to take with consequences hours later are such BS.
Puzzle Dependency charts in game design help this (from Ron Gilbert/ Monkey Island etc...).
https://grumpygamer.com/puzzle_dependency_charts/