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Let's discuss puzzle design.

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by ImAldu, Sep 28, 2016.

  1. ImAldu

    ImAldu

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    In searching for inspiration among the millions of mobile games, one genre keeps standing out to me: puzzle games. Games like Blackbar, The Guides, anything by Simogo, etc.

    What do you guys think goes into good puzzle design? Refrain from obvious things like "Not simple to finish!" as that's hardly productive.
     
  2. neoshaman

    neoshaman

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  3. JessieK

    JessieK

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    I suppose (and this will sound cheap) the best sort of puzzles are one you can reuse over and over easily.
    It's why match 3 caught on so quickly because with very little changes to the design you can create a verity of challenges without changing the base of the game play.

    If you can reuse a puzzle over and over without your players really even noticing THATS clever puzzle design.

    Look at the original portal, with a very limited selection of mechanics it was able to create a massive amount of puzzles.
     
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  4. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    Replayability. Not only does it need to be solveable without being too easy but almost equally as importantly it needs to have replayability.

    The puzzles need clear, consistent rules that are explained to the player or that the player can deduce from the feedback available within the game. If the puzzle is a perfect information one then it needs to be rigorous & mathematically stable. If the puzzle has a random element then the player needs to feel they are largely in control. Determine whether the randomness happens at the start of the player turn (I.e. Something happens & they deal with it the best they can e.g. Draw a card then play it, draw a puzzle piece & place it etc) or at the end (e.g. They strategically move their pieces into the best position & then fail a dice roll & lose to one of the weakest pieces on the board).
     
  5. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    Puzzle is one of the most popular mobile genres, and most popular with women.

    In general I believe puzzles are to do with perception. You have to go through some kind of perceptual shift in order to see things differently in order to 'see' the answer. So the puzzle has to start out by deceiving you, based on appearances, and based on how you would normally experience things. They conceal something or hide or obscure some information or make it seem like something is one thing when in fact it's something else. So now you appear to have a 'problem', something you don't understand, something that doesn't make sense yet. Then to solve it you need to find a different vantage point or become aware of some new information or open up awareness to see things from some kind of different creative angle - a new light, in which things become clearer and you finally realize what's *really* going on. I suppose you could also say a puzzle puts some distance between you and clarity/answer/goals? It's basically a matter of getting the mind to see through 'illusions' and unravel mysteries and come to realize that there really isn't a problem there. Problems only seem to be problems while you perceive them AS problems, and once you solve them they no longer look like a problem - problem solved. Its a cognitive shift that's required.
     
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  6. absolute_disgrace

    absolute_disgrace

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    Something that tickles me as a lover of puzzle games is simplicity and its ability to make me feel like i'm both an idiot and the smartest man alive. Here is how the best games do this to me:
    1. "Ooo this is a simple idea. I do this thing and voila, puzzle is done"
    2. "Wait... i can't do this because of that. hmm how do i? Ohhhh got this one out too"
    3. "This ones impossible there is no answer to this one.. why can't i solve it?"
    4. "Still can't solve it. I'm just not seeing it. I'm so dumb"
    5. "Wait.. that there and this here.... omg i've solved it! I'm the greatest!"
     
  7. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    Yah, interesting contrast between intensely stuck and finding freedom/reward. It's not just the presence of the puzzle that's important, it's how it interplays with the absence of the puzzle.. the 'negative space' of the puzzle. Ok too many buzzwords.
     
  8. absolute_disgrace

    absolute_disgrace

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    Mobile gaming has also opened up an interesting idea of randomness within puzzle games. Take candy crush, to win a level you still need to make moves, but there is winning moveset that a player can find. The player has to make the moves they think are best and the randomization of what new moves appear (based on spawned candy) will affect whether you can win the level or not. As a player plays, they learn what moves get them closer to winning, but there is no clear "Do X and win"

    Randomness in skill based games has the benefit of giving players of lower skill the feeling of having a chance of success. One of the draw backs of puzzle games is often that when you are stuck, unless you get a walk-through, you can't progress and you might put the game down never to come back.
     
  9. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    Yah managing the difficulty is always a challenge, if you shut the door too tightly people may just turn around and leave. Difficulty is also perceptual, something happening in the person's mind, so we have to be careful to 'manage' or be sensitive to that. There are some games I've played that could be good games but suddenly they do something dumb which is suddenly a bit too hard or something and it totally puts me off and I quit.
     
  10. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    One of the other ways to make puzzles is to start with the solution and then do something to it to obscure it - take away things, hide things, rearrange things etc. Then the player has to reverse your actions.
     
  11. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    I'm not to sure how random those match 3 games are, unless they have a blocked state where you lose. I've been playing a popular match 3 for a long time & I've noticed that since an update 2 updates a go I am getting the 'you win' graphics while the enemy still has masses of health & I've only just matched 3, I then watch as new gems drop from the top creating new combos & effects & explosions etc for over 10seconds before the enemies health is reduced to 0.
     
  12. MaxxRafen

    MaxxRafen

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    One thing I always find in good puzzle games (Portal / Talos Principle) is that all the pieces to solve it are in front of you from the start. Typically the problem and the tools to solve it are both easy for your mind to digest. From there you're just missing the critical "aha" moment that is so rewarding in puzzle games.
     
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  13. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    Right. Because really the puzzle only exists IN YOUR MIND. It's a perceptual issue. Any assumptions you make in your mind, any ways your mind filters out obviousness, any ways that you read into things etc... THAT is where the puzzle is. The game just manipulates that to 'present' the puzzle to you... which really means, the game shows you a scenario which your mind currently is confused by and doesn't understand. A cognitive shift has to happen in your mind in order to shift your perspective, to see the situation differently, in order to 'see' the solution... and then it's obvious to you, and it was right there all along.

    One thing I think a lot of developers don't understand is that the game is never in the game itself, it's in the player's mind, and the game just offers inputs to the mind and the mind reacts to ITS OWN perceptions and projections. It reacts to the meaning that it itself has given to the appearance of the game. So the game is really neutral, it's nothing. If it weren't possible to play with people's minds and emotions there would be no game.

    Antichamber comes to mind... a game where you walk down a corridor in a loop and you think there is no way out, because you assumed you had already just been where you came from (ie behind you), but not until you turn around and go back that way does the corridor suddenly change to reveal an exit. So the game just made use of the fact that the player had an assumptive behavior going on in their mind, in their perception, and the player had to challenge their own perception in their own mind in order to see differently, otherwise they could not 'solve the puzzle'.

    The puzzle therefore is the player's own delusions, confusions, assumptions, blind spots, biases, normal ways of thinking, thought processes, meanings that the player has about things, etc which 'block' awareness. Solving the puzzle means becoming more aware. It's actually quite a spiritual thing that way. The game itself is really just an empty mirror reflecting back the user's own 'self' (collection of ideas, mental concepts, personality, human instinct etc) which gets in the way of the solution. You have to 'solve yourself', effectively, to progress.

    You are the puzzle.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2016
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  14. MaxxRafen

    MaxxRafen

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