designing puzzles for video games

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi

Puzzles�Videogame Design and Programming


Readings

•  Jesse Schell. The Art of Game Design (2nd Edition) Morgan Kaufmann 2015

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puzzles are wonderful mechanisms that form key parts of many games


sometimes they are visible

sometimes they are enmeshed into the gameplay that become invisible


how to make good puzzles? what are the best ways incorporate

puzzles into games


are puzzles really games?

jigsaw puzzle? Rubik’s cube?


“A puzzle is fun, and has a right answer.” Scott Kim


once you figure out the best strategy, you can solve the puzzle every time, and it is no longer fun

when a single strategy will always defeat a game we say that the game has “dominant strategy”

“dominant strategies” should be generally avoided

as they reduce the replayability of a game


a puzzle is a game with a dominant strategy


Puzzles

•  A puzzle is anything that makes you stop and think, and mental challenges can add significant variety to an action-based game

•  In earlier games, puzzles required the players to stop completely and sometimes appeared incongruous within the game environment

§  7th Guest has several puzzles like a giant chessboard, etc.

•  Then, as gameplay became more fluid, puzzles became less explicit and more woven into the gameplay

§  Tombraider

§  Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

§  The Witness by Jonathan Blow


Puzzle Principle #1: Make the Goal Easily Understood

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Puzzle Principle #2: Make It Easy to Get Started

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•  Once players understood what is the goal of the puzzle they should be be able to start solving it right away

•  With some puzzles (like Sam Loyd’s 15) it is very easy to start although a winning strategy is far from being obvious

•  With other puzzles, the goal is very clear (e.g., identify what digit each letter represents) but players might be disoriented to start solving it


“To design a good puzzle, first build a good toy.” Scott Kim


Players should be drawn toward manipulating the puzzle

Even people who don’t want to “solve”

the Rubik’s cube wants to touch it, hold it, and twist it.


Puzzle Principle #3: Give a Sense of Progress

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•  Riddles are questions that demand an answer

•  Puzzles also demand an answer but typically involve manipulating something toward the solution

•  In puzzles, the players feel that they are getting near to the solution and this sense of progress gives hope that they will arrive to the solution

•  Early adventure games had riddles that created “stone

walls”

•  Riddles can be turned into puzzles using an approach similar to 20 questions

•  Rubik’s cube provides this sense of progress (first solve one side, then another one, etc.)


Puzzle Principle #4: Give a Sense of Solvability

When players suspect that your puzzle is not solvable, they become afraid that they are wasting their time and give up

You need to convince players that your puzzle is solvable

Rubik’s cube was sold in its solved state J


Puzzle Principle #5: Increase Difficulty Gradually

Difficulty in games should increase gradually and puzzles should follow the same principle

How can puzzles increase in difficulty?

They are actually solved or not solved…

Puzzles require a series of actions that are small step toward the solution

These actions should be increase in difficulty (e.g. in jigsaw puzzle

one first looks for the corners, then the borders, etc.)

Giving players the control over the order of actions is one way to ensure that the difficulty can gradually increase


Puzzle Principle #6: Parallelism Lets the Player Rest

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•  Puzzles make a player stop and think

•  What if players cannot solve the puzzle and they are unable to make progress in the game? They might abandon the game.

•  A way to safeguard against this is to provide several related puzzles at once. This way players can move between puzzles and rest.

•  “A change is as good as a rest”

§  Crossword and Sudoku do this naturally

§  Video games do this explicitly, it is rare that a player has only one challenge to solve at once


Puzzle Principle #7: Pyramid Structure Extends Interest

A series of small puzzles each giving some kind of clue to a larger puzzle

Thus combining short-term (the easier puzzles) with

long-term goal (the overall puzzle)


Puzzle Principle #8: Hints Extends Interest

When players are about to give up on a puzzle in frustration, a well-timed hint can renew their hope and their curiosity


Puzzle Principle #9: Give Away the Answer!

You might consider saving your players the trouble of solving the puzzle, and give them a way to find out the answers from

within your game, if they are truly stumped


Puzzle Principle #10: Perceptual Shifts are a Double-Edged Sword


Puzzle Principle #10: Perceptual Shifts are a Double-Edged Sword •  “Can you arrange six matchsticks so they form four

equilateral triangles?”

•  Puzzles that requires a perceptual shift are double-edged sword (either you get it or you don’t)

•  When players can make the perceptual shift, they receive a great deal of pleasure and solve the puzzle

•  When they fail they, they get nothing

•  These puzzles have almost no possibility of progress or gradual increase in difficulty

•  They are basically riddles and should be rarely used when players should make continual progress

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designing puzzles for video games

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