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Difficulty problems and possible solutions

It's come to my attention that this game in its current state is... shall we put it... way too hard and frustrating to be enjoyable for anyone who isn't both a hardcore puzzle fan and a masochist.

Though difficulty is something I was definitely going for, and not something I want to remove from the game, some of the puzzles (in particular the Path of Light ones) suffer from a lack of visibility and direction. I definitely want to fix those issues by adding a few easy Path of Light puzzles before the first one, and adding a map into each room where you can't see the entirety of the puzzle in one go. That should already help a lot.

But those aren't the only thing my puzzles suffer from. They are also just generally difficult to such a level that they are too frustrating to appeal.

I've been toying with several ideas on how to make the game less frustrating, without making it much more easy.

One possibility I thought up (and Liberty also came up with the same idea in her stream), is to add an optional hint system that will propose to help you solve the current puzzle after failing it five times. (breaking a boulder in the boulder pushing puzzles, ruling out certain entry paths in the path of light puzzles, adding another word in the word puzzles, allowing you to get hit once or twice without failing in the spike puzzles)

Another possibility would be moving the switches that advance the plot one or two puzzles forwards, leaving the 4th (and maybe the 3rd) puzzles as optional, really difficult puzzles that net some sort of reward but aren't required to beat the game.

I feel doing both might be handholding too much, but I'm not sure which of the two I want to go with.

Any suggestions or other ideas would be awesome!

Posts

Pages: 1
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
03/23/2016 08:16 PM
I think both ideas are good. Having the forth ones as bonuses is a really good idea, that way the hardcore people can still attempt them ^_^
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
03/23/2016 08:43 PM
I'm the kind of guy who prefers more subtle hints through clever design rather than text pop-ups that say what you've done wrong.

I agree with unity in regards to the "fourth puzzle" rooms, because as it stands, your puzzles are not only difficult, but they feel arduous because one seemingly impossible puzzle is immediately followed up by another of greater caliber, and you just can't help, as a player, to cry out "give me a break!" Lowering the amount of puzzles and their difficulty definitely helps.

The path of light puzzle suffered from more than just its lack of visibility and direction, it's the kind of puzzle that is not widely attempted by games compared to anything else in your project, so even its basic rules felt completely obtuse.

Not saying you can't keep this one, but of all puzzles I feel like it's probably in need of an overhaul in its progression and complexity.

Lastly, I'm tempted to say you just scrap the riddle room entirely and replace it with something else. The problem is that, because of the very nature of riddles, they are VERY reliant on the player's knowledge of various subjects that take place outside of the game, and not knowing the context of the clues you are given means that the player will often be forced to look for out-of-game help, which is what this project was criticized for.

EDIT: Or you know, I might take that back. This MAY be where hints would work. You already hinted the answer through limitations in text input, but if there was something in-game to give your riddles a bit more context, it might help alleviate its difficulty.
muddi1956
0
05/30/2016 08:55 AM
Hi i can't make out the word puzzle.
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