Puzzle Design

Was reading a very interesting section of Jesse Schell's Art of Game Design, concerned with the design of puzzles within video games.

After a certain amount of analysis, the book cleverly defined puzzles to be 'games with a dominant strategy'. Stop and think about this for a moment. It is actually very true. Try to find an alternative definition for puzzles, and you will no doubt run into problems along the way...

The chapter moves on to detail ten principles for designers to consider when designing puzzles. While the majority of these are beyond the scope of a single, informal blog post, the final two caveats were particularly interesting.

 

A) Give the answer! 

This concept is counter-intuitive. Contrary to the belief of many, the pleasure of solving a puzzle lies in the seeing of the solution, rather than in the personal completion process of the puzzle. The book does not deny the fact that the player will enjoy actually solving the puzzle him/herself, but it certainly promotes the idea of including the solution to the puzzle within the game in some way, shape or form. The brain is primed for that rush of pleasure at even a subtle first hint of the answer, so it follows that presenting the solution would be beneficial.

B) Perceptual Shifts are a Double-Edged Sword

Jesse Schell illustrates this concept with a simple example. Consider the following puzzle: "Can you arrange six matchsticks so they form four equilateral triangles?"

Attempt this puzzle and you will either see the answer and feel satisfied at your accomplishment, or you will continuously churn over the problem in your head, and make little progress. You may be reminded of Primary (elementary) school problem solving/IQ tests (Recall the episode of The Simpsons 'Bart the Genius'), whereby you were presented with an inordinately complex and detailed scenario, and were asked some obscure, and often unrealistic question at the end. By the time you had gotten to the end of the scenario, you had forgotten the beginning! The truth is you probably had no idea where to even begin. You felt lost and ultimately got very frustrated. Strangely, computer programming is built upon perceptual shift problems, and the natural ability to retain a large amount of information in any one given scenario.

I have actually been trying to pin down the reason for the lack of learning within the computer programming discipline, and I feel perceptual shift problem solving is where the real problem lies...

Comments

[Catherine Czerkawska]

Interesting stuff and think you may be right!