puzzles/minigames in games

[canyonaz]

Of the examples provided, the only one I would be interested in solving, would be the reasoning puzzle. But that's just me, a fish in the ocean. BIN to HEX is something I let a calculator solve and decryption is a perfect example of overused puzzles.

I'm more interested in the setting/story right now though.

I agree with all of this. The logic puzzle sounds interesting, but the other two don't. And the setting/story sounds interesting, too.

I also agree with the comment that Magical Diary did it right with levels of success beyond straight succeed/fail.

As far as puzzle mechanics go, please make them solvable within the interface of the game. Taking the decryption puzzle as an example - many developers just get lazy and make people use something outside of the game to solve it (pen and paper, etc.) and then just type in the answer. Have something where people can choose their letter replacements on screen and the game shows you what the decrypted message would be using the players letter replacements. There is nothing more immersion breaking than having to leave the game to solve a puzzle.

[jack1974]

Thanks for the feedback guys
And yes, the setting of this game is great, I love it. It's like Bionic Heart but better. I am going to use PSCD artist to do the art for it

[aeroprism]

-Simpler puzzles: BIN to HEX (and vice-versa) conversions. Not much to say there. The computer tells you 0110 0101 1100 1111 1010 1110 1011 1000, give the solution in HEX. If all else fails, Google is your friend.

65CFAEB8?

That solution is correct!


Thank you for the comments and the feedback so far.

The idea of puzzles first came from a need to regulate how fast the player would access different levels of the lore/codex I intend to write. Jack and I had this discussion and it felt a bit silly to just give subsequent layers of access to the player as the story progressed "just because". So having them locked behind logic gates makes sense, the player needs to unlock access to the goodies.

This brings me to the idea of optional puzzles. Lore and codex entries are not mandatory to the story and the game progress, they are only there for those who want to learn more about the game world around the characters so to "finish the game" in the traditional sense, you could skip those entirely.

I do want to place a few puzzles along the main game, but not many of them. As Jack explained, there could be an "easy mode" where you can skip puzzles altogether. The "normal" gameplay would feature reasonable puzzles and a "hard" mode could allow me to go crazy with more complex puzzles.

As for the nature of the puzzles themselves: HEX/BIN conversion would hardly be a worthy puzzle by itself but it could be a part of harder puzzles. I intend to use the logic gates as the core component of my puzzles. The decryption puzzle was originally meant as a standalone, optional thing near the end of the game to access major lore/story spoilers. It would have been a pretty hard puzzle by itself as it uses a real encryption method that is still used these days. Though it can be done without any tools or outside help once you completely understand the encryption algorithm, I'm afraid it would require some work outside of the game for most players. If this idea is displeasing to the majority, I will re-think my plans.


As for the context and story, I will not spoil anything. I'll just say that I'm having a great time creating this universe and I want to make it interesting and expandable to allow future projects. Jack asked me "something sci-fi" but not "space travel sci-fi", something closer to our era and reality. So far, I think he likes and I hope that so will you guys!

[aeroprism]

Regarding the minigames of "The Hospital", I have written a new document but since it contains tables and images, it's a pain in the ish to post on a forum.

So if you guys want to sample my minigame, please visit the following document.

I will be extremely grateful for your time and your comments. This is your chance to help me make this game how you want it.

[kadakithis]

Hmm I read through it a few times to make sure I got it right, and I like it is a logic puzzle although some of us unused to coding might need the tutorial to use less technical terms. I did not understand the starting phrasing at all but I did understand the pictures AND/OR conundrums.

I might also say for longer puzzles needing a chart. The joy of most puzzles is a way to track your work, often in a grid to make it easier.

[OhHaiMe]

You say puzzles and I start drooling and say "Layton" in a voice filled with a voracious greed equal to that of Larfleeze in an Eggo factory.So yes,I would be interested in puzzles being included.
Like the others I think the Logic gate puzzles sound the most interesting,and a decryption puzzle or two would be nice if they are well placed.It sounds like this is what you are planning is just about right in line with how I would want to play it.But I think I would prefer there to be just one difficulty level. With the optional puzzles getting progressively harder the deeper you read into the lore.
And then just make every puzzle skippable, for people who just want to read the story, and because if someone who wants to do the puzzle is frustrated enough to WANT to skip it then they will just find the answer online anyway so why not just make an easy way for them to skip it.

[Franka]

Looking at your examples, this is not for me. I am just barely able to follow the examples, anything harder would probably kick my ass. It's a foreign language to me, and learning a new one at my age is challenging. Maybe if it was more visual, I could work with geometric shapes or something like that. I mean, I can see it's simply flagging TRUE/FALSE in binary, but my mind rebels anyway.

In all fairness I'm not very fond of crosswords or sudoku either. I always want to fill those out with anything that pops into my mind. Must be the poet in me.

[jack1974]

Just wanted to add that the puzzles can be optional, so if you don't like them but only want to read the story, we'll automatically skip. Probably a "VN Mode" or something even for this game

[aeroprism]

@kadakithis: I will make sure to carefully explain in the game and yes, I will provide means to take systematic notes as puzzles become larger and more complex.

@OhHaiMe: I really love Layton as well but as I said before, after what... 3-4 Layton games? The puzzles ate getting a bit recycled. With some 100 puzzles per game, everything has been done. Maybe if I REALLY put my mind to it I could come up with two, maybe three interesting puzzles but no more.

I really like my logic gate thing because on a story level, it really meshes well with the game I am writing. The puzzles are planned to get more complex the deeper in the codex you go. As for difficulty levels, how about this:

-VN mode: no puzzles, ever.
-Normal mode: you can skip a puzzle if you like.
-Puzzle mode: puzzle are not skippable.

Difficulty levels do not change the difficulty of puzzles, just the possibility of skipping them.

As for decryption, I don't know yet. So far I only plan one that would unlock juicy bits of background story but it is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than the logic gates, I could put a few more, easier ones but I don't personally feel they would be very fun.

@Franka: I am at loss here. The puzzles clearly appeal to my geek side but as a writer, I also have an artistic side that empathises with you. I'd be open to an option of more visual type puzzles as well because you're probably not the only person with such preference. The player could be offered to pick either the visual type or the logic gates. However, I have no idea where to start and whatever I come up with, it needs to be relatively painless to code since Jack has enough work as it is.

Match 3D shapes? Match complex 2D shapes to emulate a sort of "find the proper gate? Tangram sort of puzzle with a computer flavor behind?

Throw your ideas at me people, my body is ready.

[Zeta123]

Hey, just wanna say that I actually love this kind of puzzle. Match shapes as in try to find the combined form of 2 shapes or the opposite?