I really enjoy playing puzzle games. I find good puzzle games very engaging. It’s so thrilling when you solve the puzzle, and because you have to flex your mental muscles to progress, it feels like the hours spent playing the game kind of feel like they (possibly/hopefully) improved your mental capabilities. (Or at least that’s what I tell myself about my 16+ hours spent playing Sudoku over these past 2 weeks).
However, a bad puzzle game can be super frustrating and feel like a waste of time. And if the puzzle is only a component of a bigger game, it can drag the entire game down with it if it is done really badly. But what makes a puzzle or puzzle game good or bad? We discussed puzzles in class to some degree so I’m basing this post on a mix of what we discussed and what I’ve learned from some of the puzzle games I’ve played.
and I kind of obsessively play it now.
Very good game. Totally recommend.
The first game I will discuss in Sudoku. I LOVE Sudoku. I used to play it as child and I’ve recently picked it up again and wow it’s just such a fun game. I think Sudoku does a good job at being clear about the objective of the game is. It’s always the same; you need to fill very vertical and horizontal line as well as the smaller boxes with the numbers 1-9 with no repeats. The goal is very clear and straightforward to understand so player are never confused about “what to do” and instead spend their time contemplating “how to do it”. And the “how to do it” is a very worthy challenge. Depending on how hard the game, you can spend a long time finding the unique arrangement of numbers to solve the board. The replayablity factor of the game is also very easily achieved because as soon as you’ve created a new board, you’ve created a new game with the same rules but different challenges. These three qualities of Sudoku I feel make it a very fun game that one can pour hours into because each game is fresh and engaging with new challenges.
Shifting gears to a bad puzzle game, let’s discuss the puzzle game “Here.” The challenge of the game is to find the words “here” in each level, and each level has some crazy twist where things may be spelled in morse code or you have to shake the phone to reveal the “here.” When I was first playing this game, I did enjoy it. It was novel because it required usage of phone input the games don’t usually require (like shaking the phone) but once the novelty wore off, I kind of realized the game was not super fun to play. I thought the challenge of find the “here” was fun but each level was just completely new and weird that it was hard to figure out what I was supposed to do.
I would argue that the clarity and guidance of the game was lacking because even though I knew I was looking for here, not all levels gave a reasonable amounts of information as to how to find it. Like it sometimes felt like the connection between the solution and puzzle were not really there and the level did not seem to present enough information for you to conclude the solution. Trying to solve a puzzle when you don’t have all the start information you should have had is not fun.
Baba is so adorable. I just wanna protect ❤
A game on the contrary that I really liked that I felt did have good clarity and guidance is “Baba Is You.” “Baba Is You” is a puzzle game where you try to maneuver Baba towards a golden key, but there will be different obstacles blocking you and you must over come them by manipulating words in the scene to create the desired changes. When you form sentences using the words in the scene, those sentences become true and change the scene (e.g. if you combine the words “Baba Is Key,” Baba will turn into a key). This game did a really good job of gradually increasing the challenges of the game and teaching game mechanics well before flipping them on their head. As with the game “Here,” in “Baba Is You,” each level would have a new challenge with the same goal of “winning” by reaching the key. But in “Baba Is You” each level kind of builds on the previous ones because it’s always a matter of manipulating the words available to you to achieve the goal. And since words are slowly added, the challenge increase follows the players (hopeful) skillset increase. This is what I think was lacking with the game “Here.” Each level was unconnected so I did not feel like I was getting better although the challenges were getting harder.
“Baba Is You” also has great shifts of perspective. The players must learn to use old game components in a new way. Players must learn to challenge their previously established idea of a game component and think outside of the box to find a new (and still reasonable way according to the base game rules) to use it. This requires a good shift of perspective that makes each level pretty fun to play. The shift of perspective keeps the player engaged because not everything is essentially what it seems to be and players are constantly challenged to find a new way to do something.
I think there are a lot of things that can make or break a puzzle game. Some big factors are clarity, replayablity, challenge, guidance, and good shifts of perspective. And I don’t think a puzzle has to have all of these component to be a good puzzle, but I do feel like these components do really help.
^.^ 