From the material spatiality of a Sokoban to the crazy ideas that works like Antichamber can bring to the genre, puzzles are one of the largest and most heterogeneous groupings that we find in our environment. Today we want to talk about them and discern what makes the best puzzle-based video games great.
The aptly named puzzles are one of the games that have been accompanying humanity the longest, with records throughout its history throughout different parts of the world and complete collections thousands of years old. The human being has always enjoyed the satisfaction of solving a problem , even if it was expressly created to be solved. But we don’t have to go that far in time to understand why we like these kinds of challenges.
Without leaving the world of video games, we can see how the puzzle genre is still today one of the most prolific in the medium, sheltering under it authentic masterpieces such as the well-known Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov, or seeing as still in full 2020 the genre exudes life and good ideas with works such as the surprising Baba Is You (2019) or Helltaker (2020). We can say without any fear that players like puzzles; But are we able to say why we like them? What motivates us to enjoy these kinds of experiences?
This question, and the difficulty in investigating its answer, have been the bait that has led me to write the text that you are reading right now, in which, as if it were a puzzle in itself, I have tried to reel off the best possible way what are the keys to puzzle-based games .
The satisfaction of feeling smarter
Bridge Constructor Portal.
To address the question with which we have opened this text, a good starting point would be to consider answering the question of why a puzzle can seem funny to us . Human beings, by their very nature, tend to look for the simplest solution to every problem; not because we are lazy by nature, but because we are inclined to deal with problems in the most comfortable way possible. Which is why we don’t usually put our body -or our mind- to work for free; we always work for a specific purpose. That’s why it’s hard to think of puzzles as fun in the first place. Why should we strive in something that, in itself, leads us nowhere?
Puzzles are problems made to be solvedEach Cuphead Final Boss is a puzzle of skill unto itself.
Fortunately for puzzles and puzzles, this natural inclination to tackle problems easily is often accompanied by a general sense of satisfaction when the problem in question is over, so we not only like to tackle things easily, but that we also like to finalize those problems that we believe we can address. These challenges are one of the most typical natural sources of fun that we find in a video game. When a new boss introduces himself in Cuphead , this is a challenge to be solved. In the same way, when Bridge Constructor Portal presents us with a new room, this is also a challenge ready to be solved. Both examples featurechallenges as your main foothold to generate fun, with the only difference that one is a skill challenge and the other a mental challenge. That’s where the intent of the puzzles comes in: to offer problems that pose a challenge, but that when push comes to shove are made to be solved . If they are not challenging enough we can perceive them as an annoying obstacle towards the end of a title, but if we are not able to solve it they will become directly an impediment to it. In this way, they generate in us that satisfying feeling of having overcome a challenge.
The foundations of a good challenge
Tetris
Ideally, a good puzzle will be a challenge only because of how it is posed , without external elements such as not knowing the rules that govern it intercede in the puzzle itself. Of course, one way to ensure that every player knows the mechanics behind a puzzle is to say them directly, but this does not ensure that they understand them. The way to communicate information and have a player assimilate it, as we discussed earlier in our text on good tutorials , is one of the most determining keys to any puzzle.
‘The presentation’ is the main didactic tool of a developer in this genreIn the same way, a good puzzle must be honest with its contestants and must not unnecessarily obscure information, or be excessively complex at points that do not add anything to the final experience. We call these two concepts the presentation of the information and the quality of the information in a puzzle, and they are the bases of all good puzzles. The presentation of a puzzle is the method used by the developers to serve as a first contactfor a challenge, its rules and its peculiarities. As a general rule, the clearer the presentation, the better a player will assimilate the mechanical bases of a puzzle and the more facilities he will have to solve the problems presented. Games like the fantastic Tetris have it very easy to present their information, because everything that happens on the screen can be seen in full at any time, and the rules that govern this work can be assimilated from our second game. However, titles like Superliminal , with their spatial puzzles, do not have it so easy to make sure that their players understand the image completely and incur the problem of not showing all its pieces.
In this type of case, what is known as a “Staggered Presentation” is carried out , which is nothing more than the exploration of a single mechanic from different points of view before moving on to the next one. An example that I love of this type of approach is that of the aforementioned Baba is You. In Arvi Teikari’s work, we are the players who set the rules of his world, but it is in this task where the puzzle is found. To introduce this idea, Teikari begins by locating the main elements of the game – these rules – before giving us control over Baba. Solving this first puzzle is trivial, however, for the next level we are forced to start playing with the rules in order to complete it, so that for the third and fourth levels we have already understood that the resolution does not depend on space, but on the rules and our access to them.
More than a handful of pieces
Tools such as the Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC of Portal 2 show us how difficult it is to pose a puzzle with quality information.
After commenting on the presentation of the information, it is the turn of its quality , a somewhat more technical issue, but one of the two bases that we have highlighted within every title of the genre; Let’s start by framing the term.
The quality of a puzzle is crucial for the player to feel satisfied when solving itThe puzzles are usually divided into four states : starting point, movement, deadlock and resolution, the first being the moment in which the information is presented and our first contact with a specific puzzle. The resolution, as many of you can imagine, is the final state of every puzzle, when we have already solved it and we can move on to the next one. Although it has the peculiarity that it does not have to be unique, there are puzzles with several possible resolutions. Movement is the player’s actions to reach a conclusion. Ultimately, the deadlock is a state in which we cannot move forward. A manual Game Over in every puzzle game. Generally, the more statesof movement and the more possible deadlocks a puzzle has until its resolution, the more difficult it will be and the greater challenge it will pose. Something that we have already said that does not necessarily have to be positive within a video game of this genre. If a puzzle has many unnecessary movements or possible deadlock states that do not contribute to the challenge, but rather make it artificially difficult, we are talking about a puzzle with low quality information; since it is more difficult to read it and, therefore, more difficult to reach the solution naturally – by our own ability – rather than by chance.
Stephen’s Sausage Roll.
Ideally, developers will opt for puzzles with a good quality of information, in which each movement that we make as players is clearly defined and has its consequences. Works like Stephen’s Sausage Roll – I strongly urge you to play it if you don’t know this game and are a fan of the genre – make it very clear at all times what the player is capable of doing and the number of movements that are necessary to solve each problem; while works like Human Fall Flat, while fun in company, create too much friction as a conventional puzzle title.
There are thousands of ways to pose a puzzle within our environment and, consequently, there are millions of ways to interpret how they should be solved. For me, after finishing this text, what separates a good puzzle game from a less competent one , at least on a mechanical level, is its intentionality, the quality of its information and the way it is presented. I hope the text has been to your liking.
