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PUZZLES, SECRETS, AND MY BEEF WITH ZELDA
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CloseSo I've been thinking a lot about puzzles in games recently. Mainly, their purpose, how they add to a game's experience, and how to design them to be fun and not frustrating. To clarify really quick, I am talking specifically about puzzles in RPGs and Adventure games, and not puzzle games like Tetris or Bejeweled. I'm talking about the ones with blocks and switches.
I'm curious to know what people think of puzzles in Zelda, such as the oh-so-familiar block-pushing puzzles. All too often these blocks lie in an obvious path on the ground, and there's not much left to figure out - you push the block and a path is opened. You know the answer already, but now you gotta do the work, and pushing a block is not my idea of a good time. There's no threat and no challenge. This is my core problem with many Zelda puzzles - they pretend to be mind-bending obstacles, but they really just slow you down a little bit.
However there are some bits of genius in the Zelda games as well, especially the handheld games. As an example: in Link's Awakening, if you're on the bottom floor of a dungeon and you fall into a pit, you lose a heart and pop up at a doorway. If you're on a higher floor, however, you fall directly to the floor below. This is used to reach some a ledge with a chest that is only accessible by falling down onto them. You can see the ledge and the chest but no obvious way to reach it - the puzzle is obvious, but the solution requires some critical thinking, and when you finally figure it out you feel brilliant.
My other quandary is about secrets and the design thereof. If a puzzle is an obvious problem with a tricky solution, a secret is a not-so-obvious problem with an easy solution. Once you know a secret exists, it shouldn't be hard to reach. Zelda, too, has always been big on secrets. However, you can measure Zelda's growth from too secret to not secret enough. For example, in the first Zelda, destructible trees had literally zero indication that they were such. Your job was to try and bomb every wall in hopes of finding a door - a completely inane and mentally dull task. However, nowadays said walls are clearly marked by cracks, which might as well say "Place Bomb Here". At this point it's really not a secret at all - it's not a puzzle either, since it requires no thought.
---
I don't mean to throw Zelda under the bus - very few games even get that far with their puzzles and secrets. However, I can't help but wonder - what are we asking of players with our puzzles? What do we want from them? How does it add to the experience of our dungeons and our worlds when we add puzzles and secrets? How secret is secret enough?
Related: one idea I've been considering is designing puzzles necessary to the main quest to be solvable by two means - cleverness or attrition. The cleverness solution involves solving the puzzle logically using what hints you are given. The attrition solution involves solving the puzzle via brute force - spending valuable resources (HP, gold, items) to solve the puzzle.
For example, take a room with four chests and one locked door. Each chest is a different color. One has a key, the other three explode when opened. Now, if the player has been paying attention, he'll notice that, say, the colors of the flowers in the dungeon match one of the chests. However, the puzzle is also solvable the "dumb" way - open every chest and eat the damage. This puzzle doesn't prevent a player's progress completely, but does reward him for critical thinking and observation.
What are your thoughts on puzzle design? Do you have any tips or tricks you use? How do your puzzles improve your game? Do you bother with secrets? Share your thoughts and ideas! And thanks for listening :D
EDIT: I hope this makes sense and I didn't ramble too much...
I'm curious to know what people think of puzzles in Zelda, such as the oh-so-familiar block-pushing puzzles. All too often these blocks lie in an obvious path on the ground, and there's not much left to figure out - you push the block and a path is opened. You know the answer already, but now you gotta do the work, and pushing a block is not my idea of a good time. There's no threat and no challenge. This is my core problem with many Zelda puzzles - they pretend to be mind-bending obstacles, but they really just slow you down a little bit.
However there are some bits of genius in the Zelda games as well, especially the handheld games. As an example: in Link's Awakening, if you're on the bottom floor of a dungeon and you fall into a pit, you lose a heart and pop up at a doorway. If you're on a higher floor, however, you fall directly to the floor below. This is used to reach some a ledge with a chest that is only accessible by falling down onto them. You can see the ledge and the chest but no obvious way to reach it - the puzzle is obvious, but the solution requires some critical thinking, and when you finally figure it out you feel brilliant.
My other quandary is about secrets and the design thereof. If a puzzle is an obvious problem with a tricky solution, a secret is a not-so-obvious problem with an easy solution. Once you know a secret exists, it shouldn't be hard to reach. Zelda, too, has always been big on secrets. However, you can measure Zelda's growth from too secret to not secret enough. For example, in the first Zelda, destructible trees had literally zero indication that they were such. Your job was to try and bomb every wall in hopes of finding a door - a completely inane and mentally dull task. However, nowadays said walls are clearly marked by cracks, which might as well say "Place Bomb Here". At this point it's really not a secret at all - it's not a puzzle either, since it requires no thought.
---
I don't mean to throw Zelda under the bus - very few games even get that far with their puzzles and secrets. However, I can't help but wonder - what are we asking of players with our puzzles? What do we want from them? How does it add to the experience of our dungeons and our worlds when we add puzzles and secrets? How secret is secret enough?
Related: one idea I've been considering is designing puzzles necessary to the main quest to be solvable by two means - cleverness or attrition. The cleverness solution involves solving the puzzle logically using what hints you are given. The attrition solution involves solving the puzzle via brute force - spending valuable resources (HP, gold, items) to solve the puzzle.
For example, take a room with four chests and one locked door. Each chest is a different color. One has a key, the other three explode when opened. Now, if the player has been paying attention, he'll notice that, say, the colors of the flowers in the dungeon match one of the chests. However, the puzzle is also solvable the "dumb" way - open every chest and eat the damage. This puzzle doesn't prevent a player's progress completely, but does reward him for critical thinking and observation.
What are your thoughts on puzzle design? Do you have any tips or tricks you use? How do your puzzles improve your game? Do you bother with secrets? Share your thoughts and ideas! And thanks for listening :D
EDIT: I hope this makes sense and I didn't ramble too much...
Jalex
979
I don't think that Zelda's puzzles were necessarily meant to be mind-bendingly difficult so much as provide something that isn't combat. Link to the Past, however, managed to streamline puzzles and combat almost seamlessly for its dungeons, and the result was beautiful (and your example of the pit puzzle in Link's Awakening sounds like* it follows the same idea). Ocarina of Time and later games didn't integrate puzzles and combat together as well because of the way Z-Targeting worked; you had to engage the enemy and drop whatever else you were doing.
In the context of RPG Maker, puzzles face a similar dilemma because combat usually takes place in another scene entirely. Unless you're making an action RPG, puzzle/combat integration in the vein of LttP is most likely impossible.
*Sadly, I have never played any of the Gameboy Zelda titles
In the context of RPG Maker, puzzles face a similar dilemma because combat usually takes place in another scene entirely. Unless you're making an action RPG, puzzle/combat integration in the vein of LttP is most likely impossible.
*Sadly, I have never played any of the Gameboy Zelda titles
Animus
39
I can understand what you mean; I'm not really fond of pushing blocks either, but I do love puzzles and especially logic-based ones.
In my own game I plan on subverting some really obvious ones to include a twist, like a slippery floor puzzle with a twist involving mirrors. Puzzles don't have to be the same thing that's been done many times before, sometimes it pays just to add a little more to it, and gradually make things more and more difficult.
In my own game I plan on subverting some really obvious ones to include a twist, like a slippery floor puzzle with a twist involving mirrors. Puzzles don't have to be the same thing that's been done many times before, sometimes it pays just to add a little more to it, and gradually make things more and more difficult.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
The block-pushing puzzles in Zelda made me think and work through the puzzle, the first time I played a Zelda game. When "you know the answer already," that's not a fault of the puzzle, it's just your own genre savvy. The level of genius and critical thinking inherent in the puzzle is there just as strongly - you just did it fifteen years ago and remember the answer.
I think one obvious goal when making puzzles should be to not reuse puzzles you've seen before. Zelda puts the same puzzles in multiple games. Every Zelda game has a hookshot, boomerang, bombs, and bow. Unfortunately, when they try to change things up even as subtly as changing the hookshot to a clawshot so you can hang from things you connect to, fans complain endlessly that it's "not Zelda any more." Because they are stupid and don't understand what it was about the old games that made them love those games. (Spoiler: It wasn't the exact appearance and mechanics of the hookshot tool. It was figuring out cool stuff to do with it.)
You're remembering things in Link to the Past that weren't really there. There were a few enemies that were integrated into puzzles, but it was pretty rare. Lots of enemies interacted with the environment and you had to deal with them while navigating the room's traps, but that's true in every Zelda game (except maybe the first one) as well as any good action/adventure game or platformer.
I think one obvious goal when making puzzles should be to not reuse puzzles you've seen before. Zelda puts the same puzzles in multiple games. Every Zelda game has a hookshot, boomerang, bombs, and bow. Unfortunately, when they try to change things up even as subtly as changing the hookshot to a clawshot so you can hang from things you connect to, fans complain endlessly that it's "not Zelda any more." Because they are stupid and don't understand what it was about the old games that made them love those games. (Spoiler: It wasn't the exact appearance and mechanics of the hookshot tool. It was figuring out cool stuff to do with it.)
author=AlexanderXCIII
Link to the Past, however, managed to streamline puzzles and combat almost seamlessly for its dungeons, and the result was beautiful. Ocarina of Time and later games didn't integrate puzzles and combat together as well because of the way Z-Targeting worked; you had to engage the enemy and drop whatever else you were doing.
You're remembering things in Link to the Past that weren't really there. There were a few enemies that were integrated into puzzles, but it was pretty rare. Lots of enemies interacted with the environment and you had to deal with them while navigating the room's traps, but that's true in every Zelda game (except maybe the first one) as well as any good action/adventure game or platformer.
I remember one really good puzzle in Link's Awakening recently. It got me thinking, as it was an example of the series taking an old idea and reincorporating it in a novel way rather than just it being a straight rehash:
In Key Cavern, there's this room where there's two modes of entry: Via a corridor which takes you to the left side of the room, and the main hall that goes down the right side. The only way to access the left side is with the dungeon item to break down the barricades there.
Here's the thing: The skeletons on the right side just seem like regular old monsters when you barge up and down the corridor as one who gets lost is wont to do. But there's also a tiny slime guy on the left side. The trick is to kill the skeletons on one side. Go down about 2 screens to where the corridor up begins and head up that to kill the slime. THEN the chest appears. Because that's what happens in Zelda when you kill all the enemies sometimes. It's just in this instance they actually were pretty sneaky about it.
I like those kinds of puzzles. Take knowledge the player already knows about the game and put a spin on it to make them stop and use a bit of ye old noodle. Rather than "Insert Slot A into Tab B." AKA block pushing. But to be fair, the block pushing in the original game was just a very roundabout key rather than a puzzle. Zelda 1 = Poking Around; The Game.
In Key Cavern, there's this room where there's two modes of entry: Via a corridor which takes you to the left side of the room, and the main hall that goes down the right side. The only way to access the left side is with the dungeon item to break down the barricades there.
Here's the thing: The skeletons on the right side just seem like regular old monsters when you barge up and down the corridor as one who gets lost is wont to do. But there's also a tiny slime guy on the left side. The trick is to kill the skeletons on one side. Go down about 2 screens to where the corridor up begins and head up that to kill the slime. THEN the chest appears. Because that's what happens in Zelda when you kill all the enemies sometimes. It's just in this instance they actually were pretty sneaky about it.
I like those kinds of puzzles. Take knowledge the player already knows about the game and put a spin on it to make them stop and use a bit of ye old noodle. Rather than "Insert Slot A into Tab B." AKA block pushing. But to be fair, the block pushing in the original game was just a very roundabout key rather than a puzzle. Zelda 1 = Poking Around; The Game.
Jalex
979
author=LockeZ
You're remembering things in Link to the Past that weren't really there. There were a few enemies that were integrated into puzzles, but it was pretty rare. Lots of enemies interacted with the environment and you had to deal with them while navigating the room's traps, but that's true in every Zelda game (except maybe the first one) as well as any good action/adventure game or platformer.
It's not that enemies were part of the puzzles themselves so much as the puzzles and enemies coexisted in the same environment. There was no transition between the combat and the dungeon crawling, which was (supposed to be) my original point.
I wouldn't be too hard on Zelda. Let's use Link to the Past as an example. The game started with super simple puzzles, pulling levers, handling enemies, and learning to use the tools given. In the later game, you had to learn to use tools in conjunction to produce an effect, like tossing blocks and then firing arrows before the blocks go off. From there, you go from slightly tricky tool puzzles to Phantom Hourglass with everything from logic puzzles (the town where you have to figure out the truth and who's lying), to a puzzle that involves actually closing the lid of your console, and another that involves blowing to make a gust of wind.
Phantom Hourglass is awesome.
Still, a better puzzle game is Lufia II. You get the impossible moving block puzzle, and the lava drop puzzle. The point is, puzzles related to the main plot should be moderately hard, but solvable. Secrets on the other hand, should take real thought. Although, some of the secrets were more fun to solve than the actual treasure was worth.
Phantom Hourglass is awesome.
Still, a better puzzle game is Lufia II. You get the impossible moving block puzzle, and the lava drop puzzle. The point is, puzzles related to the main plot should be moderately hard, but solvable. Secrets on the other hand, should take real thought. Although, some of the secrets were more fun to solve than the actual treasure was worth.
It's possible that I'm just too used to Zelda puzzles. It sucks, but as soon as you start seeing little wooden targets everywhere you know you're gonna get a Hookshot soon. Puzzle solved. Same with the cracked walls - once you have played a Zelda before, cracked walls are just another locked door where bombs are the key.
@Is: I remember that one! I think it's Key Cavern too, actually, where they use a cracked wall to interesting effect. There's one point where you're on an elevated ledge and looking down, you see a room with no doors, but a cracked wall. If you continue further on the ledge, you can look down and see the other side of the wall has no cracks, but it's a room with a chest that you've probably already opened. The ledge dead ends and actually serves no real purpose - except to reveal that one of the walls is cracked. The only way to get into the walled-off room and see the cracked wall is to follow the ledge and be observant - something I remember stumping me for a while.
(You can only see one of those rooms at a time, and the first time you enter the room with the compass chest on the ground floor there is no hint that the wall is cracked at all.)
---
I mostly brought up this topic because I'm doing paper design for exploration in a roguelike, and I'm pondering puzzle design. I want to add puzzles, and due to my game's design they are optional puzzles - they never impede progress - but I don't know how difficult is too difficult. Also, the game is randomly generated... I'm wondering if it's even possible to randomly generate puzzles that don't get banal quickly.
EDIT: I thought of something, what about this: Take, say, 20 different puzzle types. Block-pushing, hold-down-4-buttons, activate-faraway-switch, etc. Now randomize the elements of those every time. Depending on how you did it, it might be fairly possible to generate a lot of different puzzles, without having to rely on the same one or two "types" of puzzle. If each replay has one or two puzzles, the player is unlikely to get the same puzzle type two times in a row, and even if she does it will look different. Randomness within randomness!
@Is: I remember that one! I think it's Key Cavern too, actually, where they use a cracked wall to interesting effect. There's one point where you're on an elevated ledge and looking down, you see a room with no doors, but a cracked wall. If you continue further on the ledge, you can look down and see the other side of the wall has no cracks, but it's a room with a chest that you've probably already opened. The ledge dead ends and actually serves no real purpose - except to reveal that one of the walls is cracked. The only way to get into the walled-off room and see the cracked wall is to follow the ledge and be observant - something I remember stumping me for a while.
(You can only see one of those rooms at a time, and the first time you enter the room with the compass chest on the ground floor there is no hint that the wall is cracked at all.)
---
I mostly brought up this topic because I'm doing paper design for exploration in a roguelike, and I'm pondering puzzle design. I want to add puzzles, and due to my game's design they are optional puzzles - they never impede progress - but I don't know how difficult is too difficult. Also, the game is randomly generated... I'm wondering if it's even possible to randomly generate puzzles that don't get banal quickly.
EDIT: I thought of something, what about this: Take, say, 20 different puzzle types. Block-pushing, hold-down-4-buttons, activate-faraway-switch, etc. Now randomize the elements of those every time. Depending on how you did it, it might be fairly possible to generate a lot of different puzzles, without having to rely on the same one or two "types" of puzzle. If each replay has one or two puzzles, the player is unlikely to get the same puzzle type two times in a row, and even if she does it will look different. Randomness within randomness!
What I think is this games normally suffer the same thing as graphic adventures, not at the same level, but for example: I love Monkey Island Games and Day of Tentacle, but I have to wait years to forget how it was, otherwise there isn't challenge enough and you go just go clicking for all the answers you already now, probably the reason they are a forgotten genre for most of the audience.
That just recently happen to me with OoT, I wasn't having fun as the other 4 times I played it (yeah, it sucks ;-;) because I already know how to pass through a dungeon, not that I remember all but as you say, there is a chest a sign of hookshot, the target thing, even skyward sword bug was a huge cheat weapon in my opinion, so the logic is pretty linear.
So the mysteries sometimes are only 1 use, and more when zelda follows the same pattern, so in terms of secrets, once its revealed there isn't one until you forget it, but when we talk about puzzles, I would say is more the challenge than how much in makes you think. The block puzzles once you have experience is a piece of a cake and it is not fun anymore, so the developer will have to create something new and refreshing like blowing at the screen or close the ds, but that's also getting old once you know the trick.
That's my favorite thing about the first Pikmin (haven't bought the second one) and because of that very same reason with time it got to be my favorite game. I already know how to finish the game, I have played it 7 times already so the secrets are pretty much all disappeared, but I always have fun fighting against the day time, the monsters, distribute time, even in the 7th time I got challenge, not the biggest challenge but an entertaining one, I still sometimes get killed a lot of pikmins so I reset the day,
And thats also one cool thing about the Majoras Mask, with the 3 important mask the game combine with a platformer game, and you are always struggling with time (wich when you are outsides of dungeons it becomes something annoying other than entertaining), or Mario games, even when you go from 2D to 3D the sensation is very similar and it's always fun since the game is challenging despite knowing the secrets.
That just recently happen to me with OoT, I wasn't having fun as the other 4 times I played it (yeah, it sucks ;-;) because I already know how to pass through a dungeon, not that I remember all but as you say, there is a chest a sign of hookshot, the target thing, even skyward sword bug was a huge cheat weapon in my opinion, so the logic is pretty linear.
So the mysteries sometimes are only 1 use, and more when zelda follows the same pattern, so in terms of secrets, once its revealed there isn't one until you forget it, but when we talk about puzzles, I would say is more the challenge than how much in makes you think. The block puzzles once you have experience is a piece of a cake and it is not fun anymore, so the developer will have to create something new and refreshing like blowing at the screen or close the ds, but that's also getting old once you know the trick.
That's my favorite thing about the first Pikmin (haven't bought the second one) and because of that very same reason with time it got to be my favorite game. I already know how to finish the game, I have played it 7 times already so the secrets are pretty much all disappeared, but I always have fun fighting against the day time, the monsters, distribute time, even in the 7th time I got challenge, not the biggest challenge but an entertaining one, I still sometimes get killed a lot of pikmins so I reset the day,
And thats also one cool thing about the Majoras Mask, with the 3 important mask the game combine with a platformer game, and you are always struggling with time (wich when you are outsides of dungeons it becomes something annoying other than entertaining), or Mario games, even when you go from 2D to 3D the sensation is very similar and it's always fun since the game is challenging despite knowing the secrets.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well, what's even worse for that "I already know the answer" feeling than reusing puzzles from games everyone has played is reusing puzzles from earlier in the same game. Target -> hookshot. Cracked wall -> bomb. That's, uh, that's a meaningful puzzle once. The fifteenth time, not so much.
You've gotta have multiple elements to puzzles, and they've got to keep combining them in new ways. As stupid a tool as the Lens of Truth was in Ocarina of Time, using it to reveal the hookshot points in that one room in the Shadow Temple was pretty good. The the first time you had to use the hookshot in specific trajectories to pass through midair silver crystals that opened the door was also clever. But the second time wasn't clever at all, because you'd already figured it out (though I think it was slightly vindicated by making you aim at one from a moving platform, which at least added something).
You've gotta have multiple elements to puzzles, and they've got to keep combining them in new ways. As stupid a tool as the Lens of Truth was in Ocarina of Time, using it to reveal the hookshot points in that one room in the Shadow Temple was pretty good. The the first time you had to use the hookshot in specific trajectories to pass through midair silver crystals that opened the door was also clever. But the second time wasn't clever at all, because you'd already figured it out (though I think it was slightly vindicated by making you aim at one from a moving platform, which at least added something).
Large
332
A game that I feel did it very well, integrating puzzles with some other mechanics was Golden Age 1 and 2. Yes, it usually was a "block" puzzle, but it involved the use of magic. And Magic could affect the puzzle in more than one way. Use Move to push a stalagmite and reveal a small hole, then use Dowse to fill the hole with water, then use Blizzard (Or something) to freeze the water into a block so you could jump on it and keep moving forward.
Or something.
Or something.
Zephyr
1241
author=LargeI think you meant the Golden Sun-series.
The use of psynergy there surely made the games more interesting. I've always preferred the approach to using items/magic at your disposal to solve puzzles.
In many games where you have things like magic, it perplexes me how they rarely are used for any other practical means that defeating enemies. You've got fire-magic? "Oh geez, how are we ever getting past this wooden door or patch of poison spore flowers?"
Alundra was much better than a lot of Zelda games just
for the puzzles. Though Alundra's puzzles were sometimes
mindnumbingly difficult to solve.
I don't know if I will remember the first Zelda for the puzzles
or for the 50+ times I died beating the game. A Link to the
Past was a great improvement over the first (Since we are
all going to pretend the second one dosen't exist...)
Zelda has become very familiar over the years. I found the
Ocarina of Time to have very familiar puzzles.
Anyone who hasn't played Alundra and owns a PS3
should download it. Its just that good.
Shoobinator
662
I think it would be good practice to not force sequential problem-solving in a game with lots of puzzles, especially one where exploration is supposed to be one of its facets. In other words, make puzzles in such a way that the player can choose to quit the current puzzle he is working on to do other ones in the meantime. Then, he can return to the first puzzle at a later time hopefully with a new perspective or perhaps new insight to finally solve it.
I also thought it was interesting that the fact that bombs were mentioned as knowing immediately what to do with them, and that automatically makes things boring.
Let's think about these in two ways, logic puzzles. And tool puzzles.
Tool puzzles are based upon the defined traits of a collected item. A bomb for instance...
1. Is usually limited by usage (in Okami, we have everything use renewable ink, but you cannot use more than one bomb at a time before upgrade)
2. Can often be placed in midair (Okami) or thrown (Zelda)
3. Causes concussive force that can defeat enemies and turn switches
4. Can break down walls
5. Delayed blast allows timing puzzles
6. Heat (and smoke)
Tools open up areas. This is one of their functions, and not related to puzzles. In Legend of Zelda I/II, you could explore much of the map with no tools at all, Zelda III made it so, with the Dark World at least, you couldn't even get to many portions until you had the tools from the first three or four dungeons.
The puzzle aspect of this comes in using this definition of abilities to find some means of defeating an enemy/solving a puzzle using the traits of the tool. Blowing a hole in a wall is not a puzzle. Opening a way past blocking tiles, and then disabling the tiles is. Heating a magnet (extreme heat disables magnetism by melting the magnet) stopping it from working would be a good puzzle. The reason such hasn't been done, is that you'd also be able to disable needed magnets, resulting in getting stuck.
Logic puzzles are different, since they generally don't need any tools more than the ability to move in certain ways, move blocks, and give verbal passwords. But given such combinations, you can run into originality problems. True, the block moving puzzle is overdone. Heck, even the pressure plate puzzle is way overdone. But there are plenty of things you can do anyway, and you can use these first puzzles as throwaway. Starting with a complicated (but predictable) first puzzle sets the bar for the rest of the game (compare a single moveable block in Zelda I, to this), then it's the creator's challenge to come up with suitable logic games that are unique.
Let's think about these in two ways, logic puzzles. And tool puzzles.
Tool puzzles are based upon the defined traits of a collected item. A bomb for instance...
1. Is usually limited by usage (in Okami, we have everything use renewable ink, but you cannot use more than one bomb at a time before upgrade)
2. Can often be placed in midair (Okami) or thrown (Zelda)
3. Causes concussive force that can defeat enemies and turn switches
4. Can break down walls
5. Delayed blast allows timing puzzles
6. Heat (and smoke)
Tools open up areas. This is one of their functions, and not related to puzzles. In Legend of Zelda I/II, you could explore much of the map with no tools at all, Zelda III made it so, with the Dark World at least, you couldn't even get to many portions until you had the tools from the first three or four dungeons.
The puzzle aspect of this comes in using this definition of abilities to find some means of defeating an enemy/solving a puzzle using the traits of the tool. Blowing a hole in a wall is not a puzzle. Opening a way past blocking tiles, and then disabling the tiles is. Heating a magnet (extreme heat disables magnetism by melting the magnet) stopping it from working would be a good puzzle. The reason such hasn't been done, is that you'd also be able to disable needed magnets, resulting in getting stuck.
Logic puzzles are different, since they generally don't need any tools more than the ability to move in certain ways, move blocks, and give verbal passwords. But given such combinations, you can run into originality problems. True, the block moving puzzle is overdone. Heck, even the pressure plate puzzle is way overdone. But there are plenty of things you can do anyway, and you can use these first puzzles as throwaway. Starting with a complicated (but predictable) first puzzle sets the bar for the rest of the game (compare a single moveable block in Zelda I, to this), then it's the creator's challenge to come up with suitable logic games that are unique.
I agreee, a lot of Zelda tools end up only as different keys to different locks instead of as tools for more complex puzzles, and that's when they start to disappoint. Blowing up a wall is simple, but having to set a series of bombs to explode in the correct order and getting to the right place in time is fun. I'm all for tools that are more freeform... like the Cane of Somaria, which summoned a block. You had to use it to solve fairly complex block puzzles along with what was already there, and it could be used in other ways too.
It would be interesting if they set up more puzzles with multiple solutions, and I think this might be possible with the newer Zelda's 3D gameplay and tools like hookshots, how we having worked on puzzles games I can say that implementing multiple solutions can be VERY hard.
It would be interesting if they set up more puzzles with multiple solutions, and I think this might be possible with the newer Zelda's 3D gameplay and tools like hookshots, how we having worked on puzzles games I can say that implementing multiple solutions can be VERY hard.
ubon
66
my favourite puzzle is the one where you need to push a key out of a keyhole onto a mat and slide it under a door
To be fair, Golden Sun is guilty of the same thing to a large extent. While psynergy's concept of on-map spellcasting has potential, in the games themselves the only spells with any kind of lasting utility were given to you near the start of the game, and largely just pertained to (oh, baby!) pushing blocks.
The majority of other powers largely exemplify a problem I have with Zelda-style puzzle-solving in general: Rather than tools, they're more like specialized keys you use on different-looking locks. You see a rope on a peg and you know to use the one telekinetic power out of your arsenal of dozens that specifically pertains to ropes on pegs. You have another power that's only used for smallish objects hanging slightly out of reach, a power for pounding pegs into the ground and nothing else, a power for lifting objects of a certain size, etc. The things that you can use these on are all very obviously defined, and the powers themselves rarely have any kind of auxiliary purpose -- that ropes-on-pegs power is going to tie a rope to a peg, and heaven help you if you want to experiment and see if any of these do anything different.
The result is an idiotic call-and-answer form of gameplay that mainly only exists to spend the player's time for them. You see a setpiece that says you need to use power X. You navigate through the menu to find power X, and use it on setpiece Y. You repeat this until the end of the dungeon, at which point you usually forget that power X exists completely and go back to mainlining Move and Telepathy because those are the only two powers in the game that get any consistent use. Saying that psynergy "could affect the puzzle in more than one way" is pretty much farcical, as every power has only an incredibly narrow scope of use and the game rarely combines these new "mechanics" with anything other than more block-pushing.
Setting up proper puzzles takes a lot of time and thought, and a lot of people seem to go into it unprepared. A good start, though, is looking at the tools you give the player to solve them and thinking "as this is currently implemented, could it be reskinned as an button marked 'SOLVE PUZZLE' without changing anything?"
If the answer is yes, you might want to rethink things a bit. Quality over quantity, yeah?
author=Zephyr
In many games where you have things like magic, it perplexes me how they rarely are used for any other practical means that defeating enemies. You've got fire-magic? "Oh geez, how are we ever getting past this wooden door or patch of poison spore flowers?"
To be fair, Golden Sun is guilty of the same thing to a large extent. While psynergy's concept of on-map spellcasting has potential, in the games themselves the only spells with any kind of lasting utility were given to you near the start of the game, and largely just pertained to (oh, baby!) pushing blocks.
The majority of other powers largely exemplify a problem I have with Zelda-style puzzle-solving in general: Rather than tools, they're more like specialized keys you use on different-looking locks. You see a rope on a peg and you know to use the one telekinetic power out of your arsenal of dozens that specifically pertains to ropes on pegs. You have another power that's only used for smallish objects hanging slightly out of reach, a power for pounding pegs into the ground and nothing else, a power for lifting objects of a certain size, etc. The things that you can use these on are all very obviously defined, and the powers themselves rarely have any kind of auxiliary purpose -- that ropes-on-pegs power is going to tie a rope to a peg, and heaven help you if you want to experiment and see if any of these do anything different.
The result is an idiotic call-and-answer form of gameplay that mainly only exists to spend the player's time for them. You see a setpiece that says you need to use power X. You navigate through the menu to find power X, and use it on setpiece Y. You repeat this until the end of the dungeon, at which point you usually forget that power X exists completely and go back to mainlining Move and Telepathy because those are the only two powers in the game that get any consistent use. Saying that psynergy "could affect the puzzle in more than one way" is pretty much farcical, as every power has only an incredibly narrow scope of use and the game rarely combines these new "mechanics" with anything other than more block-pushing.
Setting up proper puzzles takes a lot of time and thought, and a lot of people seem to go into it unprepared. A good start, though, is looking at the tools you give the player to solve them and thinking "as this is currently implemented, could it be reskinned as an button marked 'SOLVE PUZZLE' without changing anything?"
If the answer is yes, you might want to rethink things a bit. Quality over quantity, yeah?
I think I'm okay with people seeing a room and going "Okay, this is a puzzle." That's not even too unrealistic, and people are going to metagame that stuff anyway - it's see a door up on a high ledge or a bunch of mirrors with light reflecting off them and not assume it's meant to be solved somehow, and knowing that it's probably irresponsible as a designer to add those things and make it impossible to solve.
The problem comes when people see something and know immediately what to do and more or less how to solve it, but then they have to slog through the chore of actually solving it. Cracked walls are an obvious example, and so is climbing up a bunch of ledges with a hookshot - although at least there's some visceral fun in that. When you see blocks and go, "dammit now it's time to push blocks for-fucking-ever"... that's a situation you've got to avoid.
I guess it's as people have said. Zelda has a tendency to repeat puzzles between series: block-pushing, mirror-flipping, hookshot-climbing, etc. and only occasionally injects some new flavor into those puzzles. Meanwhile, many similar games copy those puzzles wholesale from Zelda, so we suffer from constant rehashing.
While it would be poor design to introduce a mechanic once and then never expand on it, we should try and introduce new challenges each game, and evolve on them as the game progresses - as well as mixing and matching them with other mechanics. We should also try and introduce different skins and mechanics to our puzzles that haven't been overused. I doubt there's a limit to the types of puzzles we could invent if we get creative.
The problem comes when people see something and know immediately what to do and more or less how to solve it, but then they have to slog through the chore of actually solving it. Cracked walls are an obvious example, and so is climbing up a bunch of ledges with a hookshot - although at least there's some visceral fun in that. When you see blocks and go, "dammit now it's time to push blocks for-fucking-ever"... that's a situation you've got to avoid.
I guess it's as people have said. Zelda has a tendency to repeat puzzles between series: block-pushing, mirror-flipping, hookshot-climbing, etc. and only occasionally injects some new flavor into those puzzles. Meanwhile, many similar games copy those puzzles wholesale from Zelda, so we suffer from constant rehashing.
While it would be poor design to introduce a mechanic once and then never expand on it, we should try and introduce new challenges each game, and evolve on them as the game progresses - as well as mixing and matching them with other mechanics. We should also try and introduce different skins and mechanics to our puzzles that haven't been overused. I doubt there's a limit to the types of puzzles we could invent if we get creative.
Zephyr
1241
author=mawk
That's true. It's just a key-lock mechanic where most of the locks are easily defined once you've solved such a puzzle once before. Although I like the gameplay, the puzzles in the series are far from challenging.
Scribblenauts is somewhat similar. They just gave that 'key' many more possible locks to open(or break when trying).
