SO I COMPLETELY HATE PUZZLES.

author=kentona link=topic=2834.msg54305#msg54305 date=1231288827
The thing is, most adventure games are lame and boring! And they can get really stupid and unintuitive (like using tape to trap cat hairs as the cat chases a mouse to make a fake moustache - why wouldn't you just go to the dollar store?)

shutupshutupshutupsh-fffffffffffffffffffff

Now I've got that in my head again. Thanks Kentona >:(

author=Feldschlacht IV link=topic=2834.msg54269#msg54269 date=1231278471
Yeah but pull switches and find slots and all that bullshit just seems like shit the creator put in the game to cover up for his inability to make interesting dungeons. Hey guess what kids; there are more ways to spice up a dungeon besides arbituary bullshit puzzles that nobody asked for.

I agree, although I would have been nicer about it. I usually groan when I see a switch puzzle. And RM'ers aren't the only culprits; I was playing Prince of Persia last night and sure enough, open the sluice gates in the right combination.

If your game has mind-numingly boring encounters, especially if they're random, then you really should go back and redesign your monsters. Having terrible monster design would put me off much quicker than a lack of puzzles (again, especially if they are random).

Strongly agree. Sure, bad battle design doesn't justify throw-away puzzles, but if your battles are boring, I don't think any amount of puzzle-solving will save the game.

Can we establish a definition for puzzles?

I don't think the occasional switch, crate, or cruel trick qualify as a puzzle, per se, and I don't mind running into that kinda stuff. I like some of the ideas given; build the puzzle (or challenge if you think puzzle has a more strict definition) around the atmosphere; the location, the plot, how long ago was the passage traveled, by whom, and what technology did they have.

As a side note, I was always more forgiving about doing long and involved puzzles if there were no battles to worry about. I actually think it's refreshing to feel like I'm making progress without fighting. Whether the battle system is fun or not, it will always get tiresome at some point.

Walk, fight dungeons are in almost every RPG. They are almost all guilty of this, but some find ways to disguise this so things at least play slightly different, which I think is important. It's also important to do this because RPGs can be pretty long, so there needs to be some way to switch things up other than making your dungeon look different (this time you go to a sewer instead of a cave!).

author=Craze link=topic=2834.msg54320#msg54320 date=1231292534
Also, Lufia 2 masters the stereotypical kinds of puzzles (push push push) really well. FF4 has interesting dungeons that fit the theme (Brick has an article on this site covering that).

Lufia 2 is probably one of the first RPG games to have some good puzzles (you can find the ridiculous ones on youtube). And Wild Arms is pretty much a mild version of that game. It's also no secret that some of these games even steal ideas from other ones, but you can't blame them. It's pretty difficult coming up with unique puzzles. But overall I think those two games, as well as Golden Sun, give you a pretty good idea on how not to make them suck.

Yeah and no battles when figuring one out, unless the puzzle is done gradually throughout the whole dungeon. If it is just one room though, it doesn't make sense to have battles because they take the focus away from the task at hand.

Gah, puzzles. One reason my game is taking so long is because I don't want my puzzles to be lame or boring.

A large part of the puzzles in my game are these ability orbs, which you can only carry one at a time and give you a certain ability. So for example, one orb might let you jump small gaps, and another lets you go through heat, or walk on ice that would normally make you slide. So you have to learn to juggle the orbs in order to progress. It is difficult to do while making sure that they are not breakable (i.e you get stuck and cannot access the orb you need to continue), but I am finding ways around that.

Also, simple environmental puzzles. A river blocking your path? Create a dam further upstream. A lot of these use the orbs, as well as items you can find (a larger stick to move a boulder to block the river).


So yeah, my head has been swimming with puzzles lately and I hope they are interesting! I tried to not do stuff that is overdone (push blocks, flip switches) and I do think there is room for innovation and creativity for this kind of stuff.

author=S. F. LaValle link=topic=2834.msg54347#msg54347 date=1231300410
If you think about it, "challenge" is presented in a number of ways. Battles is one, and puzzle solving is another; just like how in a platformer, Mega Man for example, one challenge is combating enemies and another is actually platforming. In an RPG, anything that doesn't involve battling could be considered a puzzle. Thinking about it this way, is there truly another gameplay element that can be substituted?

That's what I was trying to find out. But I'm not sure there are any.

I am not really good at making puzzles and so at this stage of my career I have been coming up with other kinds of non-battle gameplay (see EtG) to replace them. Earlier on in my game making history I made a lot of puzzles but I never felt any of them were very good. Often players would get stuck.

Kinetic Cypher is the only RPG Maker game RPG I've played that does this exceptionally well. In that game every dungeon is a puzzle and every puzzle is a dungeon like in Legend of Zelda. Unfortunately, Kinetic Cypher has very dull battles.

I had made a game with a mix of puzzles (without enemy battles) and random enemy encounters. People hated it because the puzzles totally killed the pace, kind of like people were intollerant of them and just wanted to plod through the game.

Meanwhile, the people that liked the puzzles just wanted to do them and not battle random enemies. It made me sad.