Creating Puzzles - Training.

[FlawlessHappiness]

Usually at school or the bathroom (yes I know I'm a weird kid) I usually talk to myself either in my mind (School), or as if I'm talking to someone in real life (Bathroom) and then snap! I got some new ideas.

Hmm, worth the try... I can't take long baths, since the water gets cold quickly.
I'll see what me and I can figure out.

[Ghieri]

1. Have a main objective.
2. Give them a primary obstacle and solution.
3. Build the map.
4. Playtest and reiterate, adding/ changing things to weed out unexpected and unwanted solutions.

You can get more complex by having multiple objective-obstacle scenarios in one map.

[Wapez]

As long as you have a base story to work around, the puzzles often comes naturally. A good mindset for coming up with puzzle ideas is to not think about how to create a good puzzle, but how to create a bad situation for the player, and then implementing options for the player to get out of / solve the situation.

A good example of this is the Amnesia: TDD puzzle where you have to create an antidote to be able to proceed through the poisoned air in the tunnels. Ideas like this comes from creating a problem in the story, and then just providing the player with one or several ways of solving it.

Idea 1: The player cannot proceed through the tunnels...
Idea 2: ... because there's poisoned air there...
Idea 3: ... but there is an antidote to get past it...
Idea 4: ... and the antidote can be acquired like this!

[FlawlessHappiness]

Ah! That's a great on there Wapez!
Problems! Of course.
Thank you. I'll be looking more into that.

[Wapez]

Let me know if you come up with some good ideas that isn't too spoiler-ish!

[FlawlessHappiness]

Let me know if you come up with some good ideas that isn't too spoiler-ish!

Oh, it's not gonna be in ATTD.
I'm actually trying to create an "unrealistic" puzzle in portal 2.
A puzzle where you have to discover the logic, before you're able to solve it.

[Wapez]

Oh, it's not gonna be in ATTD.
I'm actually trying to create an "unrealistic" puzzle in portal 2.
A puzzle where you have to discover the logic, before you're able to solve it.

Haha yeah, I saw you wrote that. Still curious what you come up with though!

[FlawlessHappiness]

Ok, this is what I came up with.
It a movement-puzzle. Simply, I guess we've all been through it, but it makes great sense in the story.

So you walk through these halls.
The pink lines are where flying lights are patroling.
If you step into the light, you will be teleported back to the red dot.
The green dot and line is a button and a door. Just to add some difficulty to the level.

[Wapez]

Ok, this is what I came up with.
It a movement-puzzle. Simply, I guess we've all been through it, but it makes great sense in the story.

So you walk through these halls.
The pink lines are where flying lights are patroling.
If you step into the light, you will be teleported back to the red dot.
The green dot and line is a button and a door. Just to add some difficulty to the level.

Awesome! I like it!

[Ghieri]

My criticism is that it just looks like series of hallways. Maybe not everything is on the layout, but if that's the case it's hard to criticize. But going just on the drawing I'd say you'd need more interesting architecture.

Like this area:


Could look like thisQuick mock-up; UDK)

Spoiler below!

I took some liberties with the design. First, I added a barrier that only the enemy can pass, which means the player has to go against the enemy. Second, the player has to go to the second level to reach the lever, which is more interesting than just going through a corridor. Going back down will be easier because the player can sneak behind the enemy, unless you want to change it up by reversing the enemy's path. Unless you really want that part to be a standard corridor. Your choice, of course.

There could be some balancing issues, because the enemy has a shorter path to the next hiding spot which means the player would have to be faster. But the general idea is there.