LogFAQs > #977211088

Inspired from Johnbobb's indie game topic.

There a bunch of puzzle games out there, and there's a lot of variation. What factors determine where a puzzle game falls on its difficulty scale? And how do you make the puzzles good no matter what its difficulty is?

I'll mention a few puzzle games I like in trying to start the conversation.

A HARD-DIFFICULTY PUZZLE GAME I THINK IS GREAT: The Witness. It has a simple concept, it trains you early on for what you need to do, the concepts keep expanding through different details, those details blend together in certain areas requiring a full understanding of its expectations, and with enough attention to detail it expands much further than it originally presents itself to become not just a puzzle game but a discovery/recognition game. It gets very hard repeatedly, but most sections start off easy enough to get the initial concept of the new mindset it wants you to adapt (plus you have a lot of flexibility in going to a different area if something is initially too hard).

A HARD-DIFFICULTY PUZZLE GAME I WANTED TO LIKE BETTER: Stephen's Sausage Roll. It's hard right off the bat, but its options are restricted and guided early enough to where it worked well for me anyway. I really liked this direction...until the difficulty spiked far beyond my ability to conceive answers. The meat tower-level is fairly early and it does not let you proceed without beating it, which felt like both a much longer level than the others up to this point and needing to learn several new approaches to problems I had not used or internalized yet. It also felt more open, which is good sometimes but also a lack of restrictions there was more confusing at that stage. I know the game gets much harder and a lot of content is ahead -- I would have liked to ease my way into its other puzzles ahead, but I couldn't handle that spike in difficulty.

A MEDIUM-DIFFICULTY PUZZLE GAME I THINK IS GREAT: Braid. Yeah, I think Jonathan Blow is terrific for puzzle games where you take a small gasp when you figure the puzzle out. Its hardest difficulty comes from optional content and the occasional end-of-world puzzle. That said, it is a much shorter game and its twelve-puzzle-pieces-per-world format do cement a certain number of easier puzzle pieces each world. It also has speed run options built into the game so it understands there are fast repeatable solutions available.

AN EASY-DIFFICULTY PUZZLE GAME I THINK IS GREAT: Puyo Puyo...or to me, better known as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. It's more of a multiplayer/high-score kind of puzzle game like Tetris and Bejeweled than a single-player journey against the game's individually-crafted puzzles. It's a different game every time but the concept is the same: make 4+ beans touch a bunch. It's hectic at any skill level, but it gets more strategic and has higher stakes as you up your understanding of how to better connect beans. Simple to learn, difficult to master.

Also, there are videos I like about designing around dungeons and Metroidvanias by Game Maker's Toolkit called Boss Keys. It's not the same thing as puzzle games, but there is puzzle-adjacent theory:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_ul4D6OChdWhsNsYY3NA5B2&si=7uw1TrHzMUtKeeZv

They also apparently have a playlist specifically on puzzle games I haven't watched before...will post that here too and watch them later:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_vvkHM_MUmyohwuM5oZ5APB&si=XYWKBDDagOhw82EM

Anyway, just opening conversation starters. What factors makes a puzzle game good for you?

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O P E R A T I O N O U S T : Nominate SHEIK!
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