So I’ve got some core mechanics for my game, and I want to know how to turn them into puzzles. I recognize that the puzzle will be hard to gauge by myself, because it will be obvious to me. So how can I come up with interesting puzzles and know that they are not to easy or hard?
EDIT: After some research, I have realized that good puzzle games have a variety of categories of puzzles, some logic, some trickery. Maybe all good puzzle game level designers could put forward their favourite ideas, and we could come up with a list of puzzle “design routes” that could all be put into a game? What do ya say, Unity Community?
Some things that could help in thinking about this are (from my view):
Since you want to create puzzles,where did you get this idea?
If from a particular game or game genre, how did the ones you’ve already played do it?
You could emulate them to some degree, though not copy them.
Are your puzzles (or a particular puzzle) just a puzzle for a puzzle’s sake or does it drive the storyline?
Why not create some simple and some harder.
Simple (open cabinet to retrieve a paper that has some clues on another, harder puzzle) or
harder (doing something in a sequence that could have clues to the solution or even just the answer to the solution that the player has to find by exploring the level).
If those things fit your game type.
What is your game going to be like?
Kind of realistic real world to some degree or maybe a platformer just moving through levels of geometry?
I’m working on a puzzle adventure game in the (from my perspective) mood of the MYST series (though true fans may not find it so).
I want my puzzles to have some relevance to the storyline and for the player to have to solve the puzzles to move on in the level and to other levels,
and for the storyline to be forwarded by engaging in the puzzle to some degree, though it could be more or less per puzzle.
You could also do some study on the people who made the games you desire to emulate or just puzzle making in general.
Brain-storm, if you don’t like a puzzle you are creating, what don’t you like about it?
You could move it in a different direction or drop it altogether.
What I am getting at with this line of reasoning is, get started, start building SOMETHING,
something on your own, don’t rely on others’ ideas for anything other than inspiration, then your puzzle’s will be unique.
Okay, new question. What defines a puzzle? Is it the complexity? That would make long division a puzzle though… A good, philosophical definition for puzzle could help give puzzle designers a goal when designing levels.
The best way to keep your user engaged is to provide them with a challenge that is within their reach. You don’t start a two year old out on advanced geometry, you give them simple stuff at first, then ramp it up. Try to imagine you are learning the game as you go along… The player doesn’t know what is going to happen, so hold their hand a little bit, then throw them in the deep end of what you have just shown them.
This is why games like angry birds are so popular: short and simple to learn, hard to master later on.
The way my scripts are set up is every action produced by a player: start 2D or 3D animation, clicking an object, using an object on another object,
dragging a slider, moving a dial, or anything that requires putting together clues before enabling one of the aforementioned actions is considered a puzzle that needs to be solved. Once solved actions, sounds, movies are played or prepared to play (solving has satisfied the prerequisite for another puzzle to be solved). So, everything that “works” is a puzzle.
I’ve done a ton of searching around on google for help with puzzles, but I’m drawing a blank. There’s a lot about adventure game puzzles. like point and click games, but nothing about pure puzzle games like Blox Forever or Portal: The Flash Version.
What kinds of mechanics are required to make a good puzzle?
A good puzzle game level requires you to choose between multiple paths of action. Their should be many possible paths, to avoid making the solution obvious, but their should be mechanisms in place to prevent the player from “guessing and checking”, so that the player must think. How would you take the mechanics of a game like Portal TFV, and make a good puzzling level? What sort of mechanics should be used in a puzzle game? Keys and doors are not a good mechanic, because there is still only one possible path of action to the end of the level, and it is obvious. (Come to red door, find red key. Obviously, no challenge there.)
Come on guys, there’s got to be something out there!
MTS, our puzzles are one-way, but while they appear large, they are really 4 or 5 smaller puzzles which combine to the larger puzzle. This lets the player find out little solutions where they think, “OK, I understand that part of the puzzle…” as opposed to making the solution entirely dependent on some keystone after which everything falls into place.
I have made a couple of small puzzle games (you can see 3 of them below) and one way to design levels was to start with a solution and then ‘hide it’ in a way from the player. Obviously with a rubik’s cube, this is the way to go, but this technique was also applied in the other 2 games to generate puzzles.
These are of course simple games, the game that I am currently working on is an FPS puzzle type of game similar to portal. Designing the levels is quite a bitch it turns out and it seems impossible to find people who would be able to help even if I offered payment.
Anyway, I will share my experience with puzzle level design when I finish the game.
