I NEED IDEAS ON HOW TO STRUCTURE A NON-LINEAR PUZZLE GAME

Hey everyone. I'm making a puzzle game called Account Mu, and it's a really minimalist piece with a lot of deterministic puzzles contained in a non-linear format. However, I'm really looking to push the idea that these puzzles can be attempted in any order. Do you guys have any past experience with puzzle games that have done this well? I have played lots of non-linear RPGs (roguelikes mostly) but I want to know if there are good puzzle games that have done the whole non-linear thing well and how they did it, and how I can apply that to my game possibly.

One of my inspirations is Wine & Roses, not because of the combat, but because you could attempt the battles in relatively any order, improve your skills, and finish the final boss by the end. But the thing that stopped you from just going straight to the final boss in Wine & Roses is that she was way too strong for you to finish off right away, and you had to train on the little guys first before you could beat her.

I'm wondering if I could teach a little puzzle mechanic one at a time, so that the person can come back to the final puzzle and defeat it, only after having learned certain skills. I want your ideas though.

Thanks!

Oh yes. I actually said "relatively any order" because I want something stopping you from going and finishing the final puzzle and winning. I want to stray away from using tools to unlock areas, because that just gives it the appearance of being non linear when actually the unlock path is a very straightforward progression.

I actually really like the idea of having a sort of "MP" for puzzle abilities. That way the player can learn to unlock complicated areas by using their skills in really creative ways.

But I was thinking about how you can make a non linear puzzle game make sense as well. For example, what is the purpose of going to different locations? In non-linear RPGs, they often use quests and exploration and mobs to attract players to these locations. I was wondering what incentives a puzzle game could use, because RPGs can just give XP and gold. But what can a puzzle game possibly give as reward other than just "job well done"?

Thanks for the ideas.

How can I best let the player know: "you don't need to complete this to continue, you can do other puzzles then come back to this one once you have the skills to" without explicitly telling them?

author=LockeZ
I think just having other options to choose from would automatically accomplish that. If the player can choose between ten puzzles to attempt, they're obviously not gonna think that they need to do #3 immediately, right?

I would have thought so, but testing proved otherwise. Players tended to try the puzzles all in order even though it was possible to skip ahead and come back later. Even though I deliberately made some of the early puzzles super hard to deter them. They tend to just perceive it as the difficulty curve having a random spike, and proceed to spend a long time trying to figure it out before going on to the next section which is remarkably easier.

To keep the player from banging their heads against the wall trying to figure out a solution when they lack the tools, maybe have a time limit for each puzzle. If they don't solve it within the time limit, bump the player back to the stage select screen. Don't give them a "retry" option or put them back at the spot where they can redo the same thing again, make sure you send them to the top of the stage select screen. This is a clue to the player to try something else instead of retrying the same thing again.

That could be a possible alternative. However one of the design principles I used in this game is that I want the feedback loop to be really quick. To support this, I made the player be able to reset the puzzle at any point, and this resets all the positions of the objects to their initial state. But if they have to go through the menu every single time, that would be really cumbersome. Plus I don't want to have a different eventuality for the time running out, and them having to reset the puzzle because they pushed the blocks in the wrong order. I'd rather the reset be the same.

I was thinking I would create an artificial blockage for them. Such as a puzzle element that is pretty near impossible to solve unless you have some prior knowledge about it. For example, a block that has a circular arrow on it. In order to continue in the puzzle, you have to walk around the block, otherwise you will be transported back to the beginning. The player won't know why they are transported back to the beginning, unless they were taught that skill later on in the game. Then when they come back to this spot, they'll know what that block means.

So I'm thinking of using several "knowledge" blockages like that, where you have to know a certain thing about the block and how it behaves, which you'll probably be taught by some other puzzle. What are your thoughts about this?

I think I should actually give an example of what my game's structure is like, because it's probably not lining up with how you see it.



Here's a playthrough of Indrah playing the game. She gets frustrated because she enters a puzzle that's too hard for her, even though I made it deliberately hard so that you can skip it and come back later. I think it's because she already has all the tools she needs to finish that level. But she didn't get any indicator or hint that she wasn't supposed to finish this level. She just assumed that she needed to in order to continue, got frustrated and then quit. She said that it's "not her type of game", but honestly I want anyone to be able to play without ragequitting, I felt like the difficulty spiked way too quickly.

Perhaps you can give advice based on this video.

author=LockeZ
Yeah, ok, one big problem... specific order.

Oh, you're right. Because the puzzles are lined up like "1/2/3" then the player feels like they have to complete them all to continue. Like you suggest, perhaps if I move puzzle #3 further away from the other two, that will indicate that it's an optional extra.

Also, I just realized that straight away, I am enforcing the idea of "up is the linear way to go" from the get-go. So immediately they feel like they have to complete all the puzzles in a given area before continuing. But I probably have to wait until there are several directions you can go in before I start adding difficult puzzles that you come back to.

(also I solved that puzzle by 3:00 into the video, she sucks, it really isn't her type of game)

I do want my game to be able to played by people of all skill levels, though. That's not to say that skill won't be rewarded, but I just don't want the barrier of entry to be so super high.

~~~

Now in context of that video, what do you think would provide some good incentives for the player? In a sense, I don't want to corrupt the fact that this is all very objective puzzle-solving, and that I can't give any "power-ups" to make the character stronger because there aren't any enemies. I don't want to create tools that you have to acquire to pass certain gaps, because that's just a form of collecting a key and finding the hole to use it in... it doesn't require much strategy. What I'm thinking is that the player collects techniques to solve puzzles in their mind, so that when they come back to a puzzle they couldn't solve, then they can solve it this time because they've learned the right technique. But I must admit, I am having trouble structuring this entire thing because it's such a non-linear format and it could get so confusing for the player.

I have also debated the usage of NPCs in a world like this, because all they would provide is needless flavour, and the idea of the game is to strip a puzzle game down to its bare essentials. What do NPCs provide other than the most rudimentary of flavour speech? Quests, perhaps. And like you said, a reward of an "MP" bonus or healing fountain to use certain techniques could prove useful. For example, if a rotation of a block required 3 MP to complete, and there were 2 blocks, but you only had 5 MP, you'd have to search for a MP upgrade somewhere in the open world. But maybe if you were smart in that particular level, then you could do it using 4 MP, because rotation of a block = 3 MP + moving a block one square = 1 MP.

Brilliant! Have a puzzle count, say, on the top right, and then have numbers on doors that you can't unlock until you've completed those types of puzzles. Although they'll have to look different to the normally-numbered puzzles, though.

I've got a somewhat similar system at the moment, where you collect "pills" and use them to unlock "pill doors".

But... I'm just not sure that unlocking puzzles to complete more puzzles is a satisfying enough reward. Usually a game like this would have interesting environments to reward the player, and things like that. But this game deliberately avoids colour or interesting new landscapes like the plague.

I was thinking of placing story nodes at points throughout the game that could be experienced non-linearly. For example, altars that when you activate them, they would display memories of the life that your avatar used to live before "all this happened". That is, you're finding out what happened that caused the main character to be in this puzzle world.

I'm wondering if that has become a cliche by this point though, the whole "drop you off in a location by yourself and collect clues to find out who you are" thing.

Well, in my game, all puzzles are self-contained events, so that solves itself. I guess the distinction is this - I want it to be *possible* for the puzzles to be completed in any order, but due to mental blocks, I don't want it to actually *happen*. For example, there are a bunch of easy puzzles near the beginning, but then a really hard one that has techniques that you don't have enough information to solve (realistically). So you can skip that one, then come back later after you have learned the skills (techniques, not actual in-game skills) that are required to finish the level.

I was wondering if you had any ideas on how one could achieve this.

Also, a problem that I am having trouble with is still letting the player know that the puzzle is optional, other than just placing it in an off-branching path (which is a good idea, but it would be nice to have more), while at the same time making it still possible to finish the level, just not realistic.

I guess one of the ways I've thought of is to make the levels so simple and yet so unfinishable with your current knowledge that the player immediately knows he can't finish this puzzle without knowing what's going on.

That could be a possibility. The only problem I can see with that is that I do eventually want the player to return and try it, so marking it as optional might make them dismiss it altogether. The idea I have is that I want the player to have to complete about 75% of puzzles to finish the game and get a satisfactory ending, but 100% completion will get you the "true" ending.

Also, I'm planning to get a demo on this site for the "Revive the Dead" event. So you'll probably be able to play it soon!