If there’s one episode of this show that
I’ve wanted to make, but have never had the guts to actually attempt, it’s this
one: puzzle design. Because I love puzzle games - like the time-travelling
platformer Braid, the comedy sci-fi gem Portal, and the cult hit Stephen’s Sausage Roll
- but I have no idea what actually goes in to making one of the puzzles for these games. How do you make something that leaves a player
stumped and scratching their head, and then makes them feel very smart when they finally
figure out the answer? What makes a puzzle too hard, or too easy? And so that’s what I’ve been trying to
figure out these past few months. I’ve been talking to the creators of great puzzle games,
tried making my own puzzles in different editors, revisited my video on Jonathan Blow’s puzzle
design philosophy, and have analysed loads and loads of different levels from different
games. And in this episode, I’m going to share
what I’ve found out. So this is Game Maker’s Toolkit, I’m Mark Brown, and here’s what
I think makes a good puzzle. Part One: The Mechanics Every puzzle game starts with its mechanics:
a set of ironclad rules that govern how the game works. So in a game like Cosmic Express, you can
draw train tracks on a grid - but you can’t cross over the tracks. One alien can jump
into each train car, and then hop out into the first box of the same colour they pass
by. These rules, and perhaps more importantly
these limitations, are used to create puzzles. The fact that you can’t cross over tracks,
for example, might stop you getting back through a tight gap - forcing you to find a different
approach. The overall… let’s say, cleverness, of
the main mechanic will ultimately decide the number and difficulty of the puzzles in the
game. And so this favours outlandish concepts like time travel and wormholes - as well as
funky movement controls like those found in Snakebird. The way these creatures move - how their body
follows their head, how they’re affected by gravity, the way eating fruit makes you
longer, which is both a blessing and a curse - all leads to creative puzzles. Of course, temporary tools can be used to
augment the main mechanic - like light bridges, coloured paint, and turrets in the Portal
games. And they can even be used in place of a main mechanic, as in a game like The
Talos Principle which generates all of its puzzles from external sources like jammers,
cubes, and repeaters. Mechanics that can combine together create even more possibilities. A puzzle game also needs a goal. This is usually
just an exit door, or some kind of collectible. The important thing is that it’s clear what
the player is trying to achieve. The player shouldn’t be figuring out what to do - just
how to do it. Okay. Now it’s time it’s time to actually
make a puzzle. Part Two: The Catch So I think a good puzzle is often built around
a catch. Which is a logical contradiction, where two things are seemingly in direct conflict
with one another. Here’s the absolutely most basic version
of that idea, just to help explain what I mean. There’s a door and a button. Standing
on the button opens the door, but when you walk to the door the button raises back up
and the door shuts. You need to stand on the button. And you need
to walk to the door. But you can’t do both, because doing one makes the other impossible. The solution, of course, is to put a box on
the button. So that’s a really crappy example, but I think you can find some version of this
conflict at the heart of every good puzzle. Here’s an example from The Talos Principle,
where, at this point in the game, we’re using these tripods to route coloured light
beams from these orbs, to these panels - which makes nearby doors open. So, after a bit of messing around we’ve
got the puzzle like this. Two tripods are being used to get blue light to this panel,
and open a door. And one tripod is being used to get red light to this panel, and open another
door. But, unfortunately, we need to put one of
those tripods on this pressure sensitive switch. Now the plan actually seems quite simple.
Send red light to panel C to open this door, and then use the opening to send blue light
to A with just one tripod, instead of two. Except... here’s that catch. You can’t get red light to panel C, without
already having blue light in panel A. So if you remove either of these tripods, this door
will shut and put a stop to your plan. Now, resolving a conflict like this can come
in many forms. Sometimes it’s about changing the sequence of events that led up to the
conflict. Other times it’s about rethinking your spacial position, perhaps starting the
puzzle from a different location. But there’s another way, that I think is the gold standard
that every puzzle designer should be shooting for. Part Three: The Revelation. So, the solution to that puzzle in The Talos
Principle is to make this tripod connect to the other tripod, and panel A - even though
the door is in the way. Because when you then open the door with the red beam, the connection
is made and you can remove the second tripod without breaking the link. This puzzle is incredibly simple once you
know the answer - and it’s effortless to actually execute the solution, which is always
a plus in my book. But it’s still really challenging. And that’s because it asks
you to think outside the box, reconsider how the game works, and approach the concept
in a lateral manner. And, beyond that, it also reveals a non-obvious
- but also totally logical consequence of the game’s rules that now becomes a part
of your toolbox going forward. And, in fact, this Talos Principle solution does crop up
in future puzzles as just one part of a larger conundrum. So solving the puzzle is like a revelation.
A discovery. An epiphany of some deeper understanding. And I think that’s, often, where those “eureka!”
moments come from. Now they can be quite significant revelations.
So in the time travelling puzzler P B Winterbottom, you’ve got this conundrum where you need
to record a clone to help you pick up pies in numerical order - but picking up pie three
cuts off access to pie four. After a lot of messing about, you’ll eventually
realise that clones loop when they reach the end of the recording. So if you have the clone
start at pie number four, it will appear there when it finishes its recording and loops back
around. Boom. Revelation. But often they’re just tiny, subtle things
that you might not even think of as being important lessons. Like, in Snakebird, where
you need to understand that the bird can change shape and fall in the same turn, to create
shapes that protect you from spikes. Now, this is actually a very delicate balance
to hit. Because when you’re asking the player to think outside the box and do things that
are perhaps not obvious, or not entirely intuitive, you could leave the player thinking “oh,
I literally didn’t even know I could do that”. Often after looking up the answer in a walkthrough. Here’s an example of that from Braid, which
largely has excellent puzzles but there’s one that stumps a lot of people. So in the
puzzle you essentially need to have an enemy bounce off your clone’s head, and then you
can bounce off the enemy to jump up very high. Ultimately, yes, it makes sense. It is a natural
consequence of a game where characters bounce up when they kill other characters. But for
many, it felt more like a trick than a revelation. And it really didn’t help that there’s
only one specific moment when it can happen, meaning players couldn’t easily experiment. So. Anyway. Lemme give one more example of
a puzzle with a catch, and a revelation. In Lara Croft GO, there are tiles that crumble
when you first stand on them - and then break if you stand on them again. And you can use
that to deal with lizards that chase after you - just lead one over a crumbling wall
tile, and it will fall to the floor below. That happens in this puzzle too, but if you
go to break the tile, the lizard will kill you before you can get back. That’s the
catch. The solution is to pre-break the tile once, then go taunt the lizard, and actually
use the tile’s falling effect to make Lara fall down, not the lizard. That’s the revelation. But here’s something else interesting about
that puzzle. This other lizard. It’s not really part of the solution. You could actually
remove all of these elements and the puzzle would still make sense. So what’s the point?
Is it just something to waste your time? No, I don’t think so. Part Four: The Assumption The first lizard is actually there, I think,
to trick you into making the wrong assumption about how the puzzle works. Because you will use the ol’ walk over a
tile trick to defeat the first lizard, and most players will assume that they need to
do the same on the second - which leads to failure. It’s only when they break that
assumption and start thinking about other avenues, that the solution can be found. And you can find this sort of cheeky misdirection
all over the place. Take this puzzle from Stephen’s Sausage
Roll. The goal of this game is to roll sausages over grills to cook them on both sides, and
like Snakebird, the weirdo movement controls leads to many tricky levels. So this puzzle, The Clover, looks really easy.
The player assumes that they can just roll the three sausages onto their closest grills
and finish the stage. But actually, no, because doing that means they cannot then manoeuvre
themselves onto the exit. The developer, Stephen Lavelle, has used an
assumption to walk the player right into the puzzle’s central catch. And it almost feels
like a joke at your expense, with this moment being a cruel punchline. But setting up the puzzle in such a way that
the player will make these wrong assumptions, actually offers some key benefits. One is that the player is not completely overwhelmed
when they start the puzzle. Luring the player into thinking they know how to solve the puzzle
gives them a starting point. And then, two, while they’re working on
this wrong assumption they’re actually seeing how the puzzle works and they get to build
a mental model of how this conundrum is put together. Three is that it largely ensures that the
player will fail the puzzle their first time. They’re not going to just waltz into the
solution, but will be carefully led astray to create that feeling of being stumped. And four is that it really focuses the player’s
attention on the catch at the heart of the puzzle. That Talos Principle puzzle isn’t
really about “how do I get to the collectible”, but it’s “how do I get these two doors
open simultaneously”. You want the player to be thinking critically
and logically about the situation. And getting them to walk themselves into the puzzle’s
catch is a good way to achieve this. So here’s an example of the assumption,
the catch, and the revelation working wonderfully together, in Snakebird level 10. So, to finish the level, you need to eat these
two fruits. You’re too short to get the bottom one, so the assumption is that you
should get the one on the left, go down, get the bottom one, and then turn around and come
back... except... You’re now too long to turn around. So that’s the assumption. Which focuses
us on the catch: that you’re either too short or too long to get the bottom fruit.
And this forces us to reassess what we know, and come at the puzzle from a very different
angle - and do this. Yeah. Not only is it a clever solution, but
it’s also subtly revelatory as it it teaches you important stuff about how Snakebirds move,
which you can use in future puzzles. Part Five: Presentation. Now all of this stuff we’ve learnt so far
can fall apart if you don’t present the puzzle properly. Check this out. There’s this really cool puzzle in Portal
2 where a laser beam powers up an elevator, and a button opens the exit door. It has a
small assumption, where you might think that you can just release the laser beam, and then
place the cube on the button. But then you’ll realise that the elevator has gone up without
you - revealing the catch. You need to use this cube to weigh down the
button. But you also need to use it to temporarily block the laser beam. Huh! Now the solution is pretty clever. You need
to place the cube on a light bridge so that it blocks the laser. Then stand on the elevator
and remove the bridge so the cube falls down, releases the laser, and lands on the button
- simultaneously lifting the elevator and opening the exit door. I really liked this puzzle. It had that revelatory
moment of being like “yeah - I can use gravity to move blocks from afar”. And while it’s
a very simple puzzle with very few moving parts, the lateral thinking needed meant it
took me a good few minutes to figure out the answer. It definitely took me longer than when I encountered,
essentially, the exact same puzzle in another game, called The Turing Test. Now it’s not
because I remembered the solution from Portal 2. I played the games like five years apart
and didn’t recognise the set-up at all when I first played The Turing Test. No, the reason it’s so much easier in the
second game is because of how the puzzles are laid out. So in The Turing Test, the light bridge is
already over the button. You just have to remove it. Whereas in Portal, you have to
both make and remove the light bridge yourself. Also in The Turing Test, the button serves
two purposes: it opens one door and shuts the other. So it’s a lot more obvious that
you need to press it when you’re in between the two doors. In Portal, you’ve got to
juggle both a laser and the button. And finally, Portal requires a bit of manoeuvring
to get the cube up on the light bridge, whereas The Turing Test makes it obvious and effortless. So you’ve got two puzzles with almost the
exact same concept, but Portal’s presentation is just so much more effective than The Turing
Test. I mean, you could make Portal 2 even harder
if you wanted. The puzzle is actually full of pretty obvious hints like how the cube
starts off being in front of the laser, showing that you can use it to block the beam. The
only wall you can place a portal on will make a bridge right over the button. And when you
stand on the semi-transparent bridge, you’ll immediately see the button right below you.
But, hey, not every game needs to be as hard as Stephen’s Sausage Roll. So. Some other presentation tips. I think
a good puzzle is pretty minimalist, with almost no extraneous elements. If you ask me, the
best puzzles are those that are so small, with so few moving parts, that you can’t
believe that it’s not more simple to figure out. A puzzle with too many elements is either
too complicated, or - more likely - most of those elements aren’t actually part of the
core puzzle and are just busy work that will frustrate you when you need to reset the level. A puzzle’s presentation should also provide
clear feedback. Portal has lines running from buttons to doors, which change colour when
powered up, to clearly explain how the room is put together. The puzzle is not, after
all, just figuring out how the level is rigged up. But feedback is also really important when working
with assumptions. There’s a puzzle in Rise of the Tomb Raider where you make a platform
rise up and then run to the exit - but the platform drops before you get there. You definitely don’t want to make it look
like Lara could make it in time if she was just a bit quicker. Instead, the platform
is positioned significantly far away so it’s clearly impossible to get there in time - and
the player immediately knows to break this assumption and try a different approach. Part Six: The Curve No puzzle is given to the player in isolation.
Every conundrum is designed to build on top of the puzzles that came before. Because if you randomly jumbled up all the
levels in, say, Portal, the game would be practically impossible for a new player to
get into it. For one, puzzles use all of the stuff you’ve
learnt so far. From stuff that’s explained in clear tutorials, to the subtle revelatory
moments I discussed earlier. And secondly, puzzles should generally ramp up in difficulty
from one to the other. There are lots of ways to establish a puzzle’s
difficulty, but at Square Enix Montreal, where they make the GO games, they use four criteria.
The number of possible solutions - the more there are, the easier the puzzle is. The number
of steps required - more is more difficult, but too many is tedious. The number of options
the player can choose from at each moment. And which mechanics the player needs to be
familiar with beforehand. Those criteria help put the puzzles in a sensible
order - but that’s not to mention some heavy play testing - puzzle games perhaps need more
playtesting than most other genres, according to the devs I talked to So that’s what I learned. I think a good puzzle is derived from the
game’s rules, and has a catch that makes the puzzle seem impossible to finish at first
glance. The player can be made to stumble upon that catch, if the developer exploits
an assumption that the player will make. To overcome the catch, and resolve the conflict,
the best puzzles ask the player to think laterally, and uncover a hidden nugget of knowledge about
the game’s rules. Does every puzzle need to be exactly like
this? No, probably not. But I think you’ll find that any puzzle worth its salt will have
some version of this stuff. And puzzles that feel lacking are probably
missing a key aspect. Maybe they have a conflict that’s too easy to resolve. Maybe it’s
missing the assumption, so many players just stumble into the right answer. Maybe the puzzle
doesn’t offer enough of a revelation, and just feels like busywork. The main thing I’ve learned is that puzzle
design is a very difficult craft, and the very best examples of the genre require years
of design, iteration, playtesting, and ruthless cutting. If you’re a developer watching
and you want to make a puzzle game, be prepared to put in some hard work. Hey thanks for watching. And a huge thank
you to indie puzzle maker Alan Hazelden, Pierre Mongrain and Etienne Jauvin from Square Enix
Montreal, and some puzzle making Patrons of mine, who all took time to answer my questions
about making puzzles.
This video just reminded me how many good puzzle games I have started but gave up in the middle because I took a long break from them and had absolutely no idea how to continue when I came back.
Also, I know I have said this before, but I really really appreciate how it feels like this series is a big celebration of games and their mechanics. In a time where it feels like more and more people, especially on Youtube, makes a career to point out how every game is the worst ever, it is nice to have a channel that just goes into game mechanics and how games work. You could easily spin this into something that just took the piss out of a lot of games and then showed "how it should be done", but instead it is more positive. I need more of that.
I really like GMTK because it takes the side of the developer. As in it will actually show you how to make good game design. I think this contructive look on things is nice compared to other channels that try to assess if a game has good design or not.
This is an outstanding video on the assessment of puzzles. I think it really gets at a lot of what makes a great puzzle great (not merely in video games but also the pencil-and-paper variety). Have a set of rules, have a concept that uses those rules in a weird way, and create enough of a diversion so that the weird way isn't obvious. Then, test to make sure there is no backdoor route around your weird pathway.
The creator doesn't talk about the big sins of puzzlemaking. But there are a few:
The puzzle explicitly breaks the rules instead of merely bending them. This is mostly rare but I do see it sometimes when I am playing user-created Contraption Maker levels where they take advantage of exploits.
The puzzle is too cluttered with nonsense that solving the puzzle becomes taxing.
The mechanics to solving the puzzle are so finicky that knowing how to solve the puzzle becomes less important than actually solving it. This is the one most bad puzzle games do. But I'd also say puzzles like Paint By Numbers also commit this sin by having an extraordinary number of boxes only to find out you've messed up the picture because one little box got accidentally scribbled in.
The "trick" to the puzzle is not so much a trick at all but some insanity never to be replicated in any other human's mind. Obligatory link to Old Man Murray.
There is no trick; the puzzle is merely to use the items as obviously intended. See every "puzzle" in practically every Zelda game.
The trick has an easy shortcut.
I've really gotten into puzzle games in recent years. The term "puzzle" has become abused a lot in games (like calling a shitty platform sequence in an action-FPS a "jumping puzzle" or looking at endless match-3 levels that just get unfair/impossible without buying upgrades via microtransactions). But "pure" puzzle games, that are all about their mechanics, have them all in plain sight and never repeat the same idea are an absolute joy. They're IMO the most direct connection between a game giving you a challenge and getting a kick out of solving that challenge.
I'll just dump a list of some highlights:
All of these are hard hard, but never unfair. And that's really the point, as the video points out. The moment a puzzle game becomes unfair, it's easy to tell and it's simply a design error.
If you're not into this yet, I'd say "start with something more accessible" but IMO it's not about that, it's more about putting yourself in a state of mind where you don't mind getting stuck and not looking up the solution (that's the equivalent of a spoiler for puzzle games and you might as well not play them). It makes every little thing you figure out much more rewarding!
The worst kind of puzzles are ones that break immersion, where you have to step outside the flow of the game and guess what developer was thinking when they made it. Where no matter how much you try to logically think it through, you can't find the solution because you lack a certain knowledge the game hasn't equipped you for.
If i play a puzzle then can't work it out, and look up the solution (sometimes a better thing to do than never play the game again), a good response is "oh of course, i could have worked that out eventually" vs. "that's bullshit, how could they expect anyone but themselves to work that out".
Jonathan Blow made a speech in which he describes the concept of creating expectations and breaking the pattern, which is very similar to the concepts of revelation/assumption presented in this video.
I thought it was really cool how this video came out right after Mathewmatosis' video about Zachtronics games but I was kind of surprised to not see any of those games discussed in this video. Of course Mark already has a video specifically about those games from about three years ago. Like Mathewmatosis he calls those games "problem solving games" and I guess he considers them distict enough that the design elements he's talking about don't apply to both styles.
What a great episode :)
I released a small puzzle game I'm pretty proud of a few years ago and did some of the things he talks about intuitively (and missed some entirely). Seeing it explained so elegantly was really fun.
Puzzle games are one of my favorite genres but I feel like it really has to have more than one hook to get me into it. He showed Hue in that video, which I got 3/4 through before putting down because I lost interest. He didn't show the Witness which is one of my all time favorite games and I sometimes get bummed when I realize there will never be/can never be another game like it.