Jesse Schell - "The Art of Game Design" (2008)
Puzzles are wonderful mechanisms that form key parts of many games.
- They make the player stop and think
The Puzzles of Puzzles
Chris Crawford - "that puzzles are not even nearly interactive, since they do no actively respond to the play particular puzzles in video games".
Emily Dickenson - "the riddle we can guess we speedily despise - not anything is stale so long as yesterdays' surprise".
Puzzles are not repayable.
Games are repayable because of their dynamic elements which generate new sets of problems to solve.
Game that have dominating strategies are bad - unless the point of that game is to fine the dominating strategy.
- "A puzzle is a game with a dominant strategy"
Aren't Puzzles Dead?
Modern games have Incorporated puzzles within the game environment.
Good Puzzles:
Puzzle Principle #1: Make the goal easily understood.
- To get people interested in you puzzle at all they have to know what they are supposed to do straight away.
If players aren't sure what they have to do they will quickly loose interest unless figuring out what to do is actually fun.
Puzzle Principle #2: Make it easy to get started.
- Once a player understands the goal of your puzzle then they need to get started solving it.
Scott Kim "To design a good puzzle, first build a good toy".
Lens #45: The Lens of Accessibility:
- When you present a puzzle to players (or a game of any kind), they should be able to clearly visualise what their first few steps would be.
Ask yourself these questions:
- How will players know how to begin solving my puzzle or playing my game? Do I need to explain it, or is it self-evident?
- Does my puzzle or game act like something they have seen before? If it does, how can I draw attention to that similarity. If it does not, how can I make them understand how it does behave?
- Does my puzzle or game draw people in and make them want to touch it and manipulate it? If not, how can I change it so that does?
Puzzle Principle #3: Give a sense of progress
- Riddle vs Puzzle, difference is progression
- Riddle: A riddle is just a question that demands an answer.
- Puzzle: A puzzle also demands an answer, but frequently involves manipulating something so that you can see or feel yourself getting closer to the solution, bit by bit. - Players like these sense of progress - it gives them hope that they may actually arrive at an answer.
Turning a riddle into a puzzle - "Twenty Questions".
One player thinks of a thing or person, and the other player gets to ask twenty yes/no question in an attempt to learn what the first player is thinking of.
Lens #49: The Lens of Visible Progress
- Players read to see that they are making progress when solving a difficult problem.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What does it mean to make progress in my game or puzzle?
- Is there enough progress in my game? Is there a way I can add more interim steps of progressive success?
- What progress is visible, and what progress is hidden? Can I find a way to reveal what is hidden?
Puzzle Principle #4: Give a sense of Solvability
Puzzle Principle #5: Increase Difficulty Gradually
Jigsaw sequence:
- Flip all the pieces so that the picture side is up (mindlessly easy)
- Find the corner pieces (very easy)
- Find the edge pieces (easy)
- Connect the edge pieces into a frame
- Sort the remaining pieces by colour (easy)
- Stat assembling section that are obviously near each other.
- Assemble the pieces that could go anywhere
Give players control over the order of steps to your puzzle.
Puzzle Principle #6: Parallelism - Let the player rest.
- Puzzles make a player stop and think.
- Give players multiple puzzles at once.
"A change is as good as a rest".
- More than one puzzle at a time
Lens #50: The Lends of Parallelism.
- Parallelism in your puzzle bring parallel benefits to the player experience.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Are there bottlenecks in any design where players are unable to proceed if they cannot solve a particular challenge? If so, can I add parallel challenges for a player to work on when this challenge stamps thin?
- If parallel challenges are too similar, the parallelism offers little benefit. Are my parallel challenges different enough from each other to give players the benefit of verity.
- Can my parallel challenges be connected somehow? Is there a way that making progress on one can make it easier to solve than other?
Puzzle Principle #7: Pyramid Structure Extends Interest.
(Jumble Scramble Word Game)
Lens #5.1 The Lens of the Pyramid
Puzzle Principle #8: Hints Extend Interest
Puzzle Principle #9: Give the Answer!
Why not consider saving your players the trouble and give them a way to find out the answers to your puzzles from within the game. Plants versus Zombies by PopCap has a good example of this puzzle principle.
Puzzle Principle #10: Perceptual Shifts are a Double Edged Sword
Perceptual Shift where you either get it or you don't.
Lens #52: The Lens of the Puzzle
- Puzzles make the player stop and think.
- What are the puzzles in my game?
- Should I have more puzzles or less, why?
- Which of the ten puzzle principles apply to each of my puzzles?
- Do I have any incongruous puzzles? How can I better integrate them into the game?
