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PUZZLES, SECRETS, AND MY BEEF WITH ZELDA
Posts
ubon
66
ubon
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CloseYeah, exactly. The process of solving the puzzle needs to be interesting, or else it might as well not be there in the first place. I've seen enough token "pick the correct option from this list" or "examine all the right objects" or "solve this third-grader's panel flipping puzzle"-s that seem to only be there for the sake of saying your game has puzzles in it.
(Hi, To the Moon.)
(Hi, To the Moon.)
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
My RMXP project has Zelda-like tools and I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with good puzzles, so this is a good topic.
Speaking from experience, I think you actually need to give the player a lot of different tools and powers to be able to make interesting puzzles in an RPG environment. You can only combine three tools so many ways. Especially since, because the puzzle has to be positioned in the dungeon in a way that makes sense, there's often not a lot of room to work with, so it can be very difficult to work more than a couple elements into a single puzzle. Some puzzles can span a large area, but a lot of them can't, due to other things that influence the dungeon's layout (like the placement of enemies). I had a previously puzzle-less room in one of my dungeons that needed a puzzle, but I had only about a third of the screen to work with, and only two tools. The end result is, uh, lackluster.
Maybe it's okay to have crappy puzzles like that though to prepare the player for harder ones, the same way that normal battles prepare the player for a boss? You don't want them to ever be totally devoid of any new configurations of elements, but the idea of trash puzzles and boss puzzles is sort of an interesting idea. Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess both sort of did that in a lot of their dungeons, with one bigass over-the-top puzzle that you spent a bunch of time on and could often see long before you could solve it, but I've never seen a game where it was actually a clear strict distinction the way boss battles are.
Speaking from experience, I think you actually need to give the player a lot of different tools and powers to be able to make interesting puzzles in an RPG environment. You can only combine three tools so many ways. Especially since, because the puzzle has to be positioned in the dungeon in a way that makes sense, there's often not a lot of room to work with, so it can be very difficult to work more than a couple elements into a single puzzle. Some puzzles can span a large area, but a lot of them can't, due to other things that influence the dungeon's layout (like the placement of enemies). I had a previously puzzle-less room in one of my dungeons that needed a puzzle, but I had only about a third of the screen to work with, and only two tools. The end result is, uh, lackluster.
Maybe it's okay to have crappy puzzles like that though to prepare the player for harder ones, the same way that normal battles prepare the player for a boss? You don't want them to ever be totally devoid of any new configurations of elements, but the idea of trash puzzles and boss puzzles is sort of an interesting idea. Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess both sort of did that in a lot of their dungeons, with one bigass over-the-top puzzle that you spent a bunch of time on and could often see long before you could solve it, but I've never seen a game where it was actually a clear strict distinction the way boss battles are.
ubon
66
Honestly, I'd like to see a game that presents bosses more like puzzles. I think that the idea of a segregated "boss room" has become largely grandfathered into game design, and I think it could be interesting to explore different methods of approaching the setup challenges a game designer has wrt boss monsters (which is mainly just a matter of giving the player fair warning, really). There aren't really any obvious solutions that pop out at me right away, but I think I'll try to give it a shot all the same.
And yeah, my beef with Golden Sun isn't the large number of powers, but the ridiculously rigid use cases for most of them. A game that took Golden Sun's design philosophy and put a lot of attention toward new combinations and alternate uses would be incredible, I think.
And yeah, my beef with Golden Sun isn't the large number of powers, but the ridiculously rigid use cases for most of them. A game that took Golden Sun's design philosophy and put a lot of attention toward new combinations and alternate uses would be incredible, I think.
Like anything else, with puzzles I'd bet the best progression is the "lesson -> homework - exam" idea: Teach a new mechanic, make the player practice it on easier situations and explore all its possibilities, then combine them all into a final huge challenge. I think you're right LockeZ, most Zelda games do this - the last puzzles in a dungeon are usually harder versions of the first, and the final dungeons tend to exercise all of your toolbelt. You could probably do throwaway puzzles the same way we use throwaway enemies too, to establish player comfort ("Ha, these ones are easy now").
I wonder if there's some potential in using the same puzzle base several times, but making each tool interact with it differently. Say the puzzle is "Get this ball in this hole" and you have glove that pushes the ball around. Later on you get a gun that knocks the ball back in a different way, or teleports it or something. So, you basically see the same puzzle over and over again, but the challenge is always different. Braid did that with some of its puzzle rooms - it would present almost identical clones, but since you had a different time power, you had to solve it differently.
Man, the more I think about it, designing unique puzzles is a lot harder than unique bosses or weapons or something... geez. I wonder if there's any way I'll be able to incorporate them into a randomly-generated dungeon.
I wonder if there's some potential in using the same puzzle base several times, but making each tool interact with it differently. Say the puzzle is "Get this ball in this hole" and you have glove that pushes the ball around. Later on you get a gun that knocks the ball back in a different way, or teleports it or something. So, you basically see the same puzzle over and over again, but the challenge is always different. Braid did that with some of its puzzle rooms - it would present almost identical clones, but since you had a different time power, you had to solve it differently.
Man, the more I think about it, designing unique puzzles is a lot harder than unique bosses or weapons or something... geez. I wonder if there's any way I'll be able to incorporate them into a randomly-generated dungeon.
As a side note, what do you guys think of hidden option choice puzzles? Something like FF8 Bahamut, where they ask you a series of questions (possibly with battles or other stuff in between), and you're given a bunch of sort of logic or social questions. Then the last is either a list of three or four options, like:
Because I want to
Because it's awesome
Because you suck!
Because there's actually a fourth blank option off the page
or outright canceling? Or something where the instructions tell you to pick a number, and either no answer works in which case you have to cancel, or it's a number outside the range they tell you to pick (i.e. pick a number from 1 to 10 that divides into 121, and you have to pick 11). Or a password puzzle where ... is the answer.
Are these interesting? Or annoying?
Because I want to
Because it's awesome
Because you suck!
Because there's actually a fourth blank option off the page
or outright canceling? Or something where the instructions tell you to pick a number, and either no answer works in which case you have to cancel, or it's a number outside the range they tell you to pick (i.e. pick a number from 1 to 10 that divides into 121, and you have to pick 11). Or a password puzzle where ... is the answer.
Are these interesting? Or annoying?
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
annoying
when you have hidden passages in walls, at least they're all over the entire game so the player is trained to look for them
all you're doing there with the dialogue tree is breaking your own rules for the sake of making sure the player gets punished for knowing how the game works
when you have hidden passages in walls, at least they're all over the entire game so the player is trained to look for them
all you're doing there with the dialogue tree is breaking your own rules for the sake of making sure the player gets punished for knowing how the game works
The first type can be funny but should not be tied to any major rewards IMO, at least not if it's a one-shot deal. If you do it a few times and the correct answer is obvious (say the questioner is easily offended, etc.) then maybe, but that depends on your game's theming as well. I remember Mario RPG has a scene where you can choose to let a guy get tortured or surrender yourself. Eventually you have to surrender, but if you let him get tortured first it affects a minor reward later.
A logic puzzle like the number one is straight up unfair because the puzzle pretty explicitly states that 11 is wrong when it says the number has to be between 1 and 10 (also, you could use 1).
However, I think you're on to something: I like the idea of a puzzle with answers besides the clearly-presented options. A simplistic example would be in Spec Ops, where you have the option of killing two hostages or not killing them, which provokes their captors to kill them. However, the game doesn't tell you that you can actually shoot the hostage's ropes and free them. Spec Ops doesn't do that all too often, but I would love to see more games offer the player chances to think critically like that.
Again, I imagine doing this well would be really damn hard.
A logic puzzle like the number one is straight up unfair because the puzzle pretty explicitly states that 11 is wrong when it says the number has to be between 1 and 10 (also, you could use 1).
However, I think you're on to something: I like the idea of a puzzle with answers besides the clearly-presented options. A simplistic example would be in Spec Ops, where you have the option of killing two hostages or not killing them, which provokes their captors to kill them. However, the game doesn't tell you that you can actually shoot the hostage's ropes and free them. Spec Ops doesn't do that all too often, but I would love to see more games offer the player chances to think critically like that.
Again, I imagine doing this well would be really damn hard.
Shoobinator
662
author=LockeZ
My RMXP project has Zelda-like tools and I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with good puzzles, so this is a good topic.
Speaking from experience, I think you actually need to give the player a lot of different tools and powers to be able to make interesting puzzles in an RPG environment. You can only combine three tools so many ways. Especially since, because the puzzle has to be positioned in the dungeon in a way that makes sense, there's often not a lot of room to work with, so it can be very difficult to work more than a couple elements into a single puzzle. Some puzzles can span a large area, but a lot of them can't, due to other things that influence the dungeon's layout (like the placement of enemies). I had a previously puzzle-less room in one of my dungeons that needed a puzzle, but I had only about a third of the screen to work with, and only two tools. The end result is, uh, lackluster.
Maybe it's okay to have crappy puzzles like that though to prepare the player for harder ones, the same way that normal battles prepare the player for a boss? You don't want them to ever be totally devoid of any new configurations of elements, but the idea of trash puzzles and boss puzzles is sort of an interesting idea. Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess both sort of did that in a lot of their dungeons, with one bigass over-the-top puzzle that you spent a bunch of time on and could often see long before you could solve it, but I've never seen a game where it was actually a clear strict distinction the way boss battles are.
This may have more to do with teaching how to use a tool more so than puzzle design (although this is a puzzle albeit a real simple one). ANYWAYS, I distinctly remember the room in the Deku Tree in Ocarina of Time where you get the slingshot, and you must immediately use it to solve the puzzle in the room whereby you must lower a ladder to reach the door that you just came from. I've played a lot of games that do something similar to this. Another one is Metroid Prime: you get the Heat Vision visor or whatever, and immediately the lights in the room go off and you must use it to fight some more space pirates. Actually, Metroid has tons of these types of situations where you must immediately use your newly acquired gadget/tool.
Shoobinator
662
author=slashphoenix
However, I think you're on to something: I like the idea of a puzzle with answers besides the clearly-presented options. A simplistic example would be in Spec Ops, where you have the option of killing two hostages or not killing them, which provokes their captors to kill them. However, the game doesn't tell you that you can actually shoot the hostage's ropes and free them. Spec Ops doesn't do that all too often, but I would love to see more games offer the player chances to think critically like that.
Again, I imagine doing this well would be really damn hard.
I think this kind of critical thinking is really cool, but I agree. It really is very hard to make a lot of these kinds of puzzles, especially since something like this doesn't rely on a core mechanic like tool-based puzzles do. It's easier to build puzzles from core mechanics than coming up with something brand new every time.
I remember one puzzle from Phantom Hourglass where it was like solve the puzzles around the center one, then draw and hourglass in the center (the other puzzles somehow hinted at the center, but being that it was a timed puzzle, I think I skipped to the center).
Since you can't really draw in rpgmaker without serious plugins/scripts, having a themed word puzzle (with the other puzzles either word or some other type), might be okay. I think I saw a similar thing in Super Mario RPG, with a deep sea puzzle involving 6 other puzzles to get the solution (Pearls). This was also a feature in Deltora Quest book. So, yea, we have tool puzzles, logic puzzles, alternate thinking puzzles (what TvTropes calls "moon logic"), and the complex puzzle.
The key point of a complex puzzle is that it must have some or all of it skippable, that is, it is typically skippable straight to the point, or if it isn't, it's for an optional item and doesn't need to be solved.
Since you can't really draw in rpgmaker without serious plugins/scripts, having a themed word puzzle (with the other puzzles either word or some other type), might be okay. I think I saw a similar thing in Super Mario RPG, with a deep sea puzzle involving 6 other puzzles to get the solution (Pearls). This was also a feature in Deltora Quest book. So, yea, we have tool puzzles, logic puzzles, alternate thinking puzzles (what TvTropes calls "moon logic"), and the complex puzzle.
The key point of a complex puzzle is that it must have some or all of it skippable, that is, it is typically skippable straight to the point, or if it isn't, it's for an optional item and doesn't need to be solved.
author=Shoobinator
I think this kind of critical thinking is really cool, but I agree. It really is very hard to make a lot of these kinds of puzzles, especially since something like this doesn't rely on a core mechanic like tool-based puzzles do. It's easier to build puzzles from core mechanics than coming up with something brand new every time.
Yea, I think if you were going to include outside-the-box thinking like that it would have to be a pretty part of the game, and you would have to lead people into thinking like that. It involves breaking a lot of standard game tropes and player assumptions.
Shoobinator
662
I'm planning on having the player use magic to solve certain puzzles in my game. I know the lock-and-key concept as something to be avoided has been mentioned. But what other advice would you guys have to offer for me that hasn't already been mentioned?
By the way, I've never played Golden Sun.
By the way, I've never played Golden Sun.
Everything ends up boiling down to a lock-and-key, the trick is that you want to make the unlocking as fun and interesting as possible. You could consider the portals in Portal the key to the lock that is the other end of the hallway, but it's the portalling and portal physics that everyone enjoys.
So, to make puzzles fun, you focus on one or two things:
1) Make the action fun - shooting portals, throwing bombs, hookshot-zipping around.
2) Make the process of solving the puzzle fun - Figuring out which way to slide an ice-block, or where to place a certain portal, etc.
Do both if at all possible. You can make the action more fun with both the controls (like the lob of a Zelda bomb) as well as satisfying sounds and animations (the "click" of a successful hookshot).
To make the process more fun... well, that's kind of tricky. I don't know how exactly to create cool logic puzzles. However, I do know that in most games, the puzzles build in complexity over time, compounding on what the player learned previously. There's an inherent satisfaction to learning, so try to create that feeling of, "Oh, I know this!" in the player's mind. With regards to puzzles... that's all I can say. I'm experimenting with this myself atm.
So, to make puzzles fun, you focus on one or two things:
1) Make the action fun - shooting portals, throwing bombs, hookshot-zipping around.
2) Make the process of solving the puzzle fun - Figuring out which way to slide an ice-block, or where to place a certain portal, etc.
Do both if at all possible. You can make the action more fun with both the controls (like the lob of a Zelda bomb) as well as satisfying sounds and animations (the "click" of a successful hookshot).
To make the process more fun... well, that's kind of tricky. I don't know how exactly to create cool logic puzzles. However, I do know that in most games, the puzzles build in complexity over time, compounding on what the player learned previously. There's an inherent satisfaction to learning, so try to create that feeling of, "Oh, I know this!" in the player's mind. With regards to puzzles... that's all I can say. I'm experimenting with this myself atm.
Shoobinator
662
Thanks, I'll be sure to keep this in mind.
Right now, I'm doing the bigger puzzles first because that is what is keeping me interested in making the game, but I planned on then going back and introducing the elements more slowly.
author=slashphoenix
However, I do know that in most games, the puzzles build in complexity over time, compounding on what the player learned previously. There's an inherent satisfaction to learning, so try to create that feeling of, "Oh, I know this!" in the player's mind. With regards to puzzles... that's all I can say. I'm experimenting with this myself atm.
Right now, I'm doing the bigger puzzles first because that is what is keeping me interested in making the game, but I planned on then going back and introducing the elements more slowly.
