Dungeon puzzles

[Kurisu]

Hello. Do you think that puzzles are a necessary addition in RPG games?

Graphics and story aside, dungeons are just series of rooms and corridors. Puzzles are one way to make exploration more interesting. It is definitely a challenge to come up with an interesting and balanced puzzle (there are whole companies designing puzzles for game developers) but thing is, do people actually enjoy solving them?

I might be alone on this, but when playing a game and stumbling upon a typical puzzle (push the blocks, align the symbols etc.) I often feel like it's an unnecessary chore, an obstacle that doesn't add anything to the game.

Another problem is, they don't always fit the place they're in. I'd like to have some puzzles in my project, but at the same time I don't want them to feel forced and out of place. Perhaps sometimes it's better to scrap the idea and focus on the other aspects of gameplay?

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere]

Puzzles are definitely cool. I'm making a puzzle game right now. There are entire games based on puzzles. But like anything unless they are well-designed they will not be fun. Puzzles in RPGs are typically not fun because they are either not the developer's forte or have not been thought through well enough in order for it to be a developed idea. I believe it is also important that puzzles build a certain puzzle logic in order for the player to have a consistency with the puzzles. I mean look at Legend of Zelda, it's filled with amazing puzzles. Puzzles can work in an RPG Maker game, you just have to know how to work them.

 

[Kes]

I think one of the problems with puzzles in dungeons is that they haven't been thought through enough in terms of how they fit into the structure and theme of the dungeon.  Here is a link to what is, imo, an excellent article which gives lots of really useful advice on this whole area.  http://rpgmaker.net/users/The%20Real%20Brickroad/articles/

 

[FlamingWolf - Zezaph]

I'm not a big fan of puzzles. Sure, sometimes they are a cool addition to a game, but sometimes they make a dungeon frustrating ( pokemon comes to mind, when you have to move rocks inside caves and have enough patience for all the random fights ). Also, if they are too many, they become repetitive, which makes your game predictable.

I think puzzles are best when they actually make sense. For example, to unlock a secret ( "do the xyz ritual to summon..." ) or when you need to unlock a door ( "3 buttons must be pressed at the same time, but you are alone, so you need to move statues..." ).

If you have Fallout 3, download the mod Cube Experimental: it's a series of puzzles, but they are very enjoyable and it doesn't get repetitive.

 

[orochii]

Puzzle + random encounters = annoyance (most of the time). Finally! You're solving this puzzle, can even be an enjoyable puzzle, and you put all of your wit on it. BAM! A battle. You put all your concentration at winning. Battle finalizes, what was I doing? I know people aren't that forgetful, but still, random battles sure can ruin the moment. Also it's unnecesary to put that "extra element" on top of the already working puzzle. I think TheRealBrickroad wrote something on this subject... xD.

When I think about puzzles on RPGs, I always remember Lufia2, that's all I want to say,

Orochii Zouveleki

 

[Matseb2611]

The way I see it is that puzzles change the pace a bit. If you don't have puzzles in an RPG, then it becomes simply a random-encounter-fest. You go through rooms and corridors only fighting monsters just to get to the next town, rinse and repeat. That kind of gameplay will become repetitive fast. Puzzles (and minigames too for that matter) add something new for player to do so that they don't get bored. Of course, as mentioned above, the puzzle really needs to fit the setting of the game and the dungeon. It shouldn't be there just because. Likewise, it's nice when a puzzle is not your typical rehashed idea. It's nice when it adds something new, something we either haven't done before in other games, or maybe we have done it before but this time it has a different twist. 

Also, as Muramasa pointed out, it's a good idea to not have any random encounters in the area where you're solving a puzzle, because they can REALLY annoy you. If it's maybe a puzzle you need to pull a couple of switches to unlock the doors ahead, then that's fine, but if it's a puzzle where you need to move around a lot, push objects, do trial and error, etc, then it's best to just let the player do it without any interruption. 

Another thing is, and this is purely my opinion, puzzles need to have logical and intuitive solutions. I cannot stand puzzles that take forever to solve or do not give good enough clues and hints as to what needs to be doing.  

 

[Andar]

it depends on what you define as "puzzles".

Adding several dozen basically primitive mechanical puzzle (slide blocks) to open a door to get off a mountain that was supposed to be inhabitat several centuries ago, but has neither place for people nor place to grow food - and a big question why the only regular way off the mountain was blocked from the inside without leaving hints of graves or skeletons...

Bad choice

Making the puzzle collecting or buying different parts for a machine that is a central story point (perhaps to the option that you can gain more parts than needed, allowing you a choice on what to do) - that could be an interesting puzzle

 

[Deep Thought]

One of my greatest frustrations in video games (of any kind) is being locked in a room and being forced to solve some sort of abstract puzzle. (I'm looking at you, Dusty Desert!) Out-of-place puzzles kill player immersion. That said, a dungeon with nothing but bad guys gets pretty boring after a while. (Mt. Moon, anyone?). 

Fortunately, there are a couple of real-life "puzzle" templates that fit well within the context of video games: assembling a jigsaw puzzle and cracking a safe.

• Assembling a jigsaw puzzle requires analysis and steady work until all the pieces fit together into a cohesive whole. As you fit the pieces together, you must periodically check for inconsistencies and rearrange as necessary. In video games, these take many forms. They can range from action-oriented dungeoneering (escorting a hammer-wielding golem statue through The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess's Temple of Time) to clue-based sleuthing (every LucasArts adventure game ever).
• Cracking a safe, meanwhile, is a singular high-pressure, high-stress puzzle. It requires fast thinking and situational awareness. In frustratingly many cases, there is additional pressure due to outside interference (interrupting baddies, stealth, time limits, the entrance locking behind you). If you get caught or can't solve it in time, then off to the hoosegow with you! Of course, the contents of the safe are (ideally) worth it. These have many iterations as well, ranging from the classic RAGE-inducing "block puzzle" (Pokemon's Strength puzzles) to interrogating suspects (Sam and Max, Phoenix Wright) to actual safe-cracking (the entirety of Thief, the bomb-defusing puzzles in the ill-starred Dead to Rights).

Which one is better? Both. Add a mix of both to your dungeons. The first is great for differentiating between what would--without puzzles--simply be hallways full of monsters, with the only difference between them being tilesets and enemy distribution. The second is good for singular set-pieces, especially if they factor in to a larger contextual puzzle. Both should fit into the greater context of the dungeon involved, and not simply be fetch quests to do the thing with that thing that you need to do the thing that you forgot how to do while you were trying to solve those &*$#ing puzzles. Design the puzzles around the context, and not vice-versa.

(Of course, make sure to have a few all-action segments here and there so the player can stop thinking for a bit and relax. If you're feeling mean, you can also feature a dungeon or two with nothing but ridiculous widget puzzles.)

 

[kerbonklin]

Another genius idea is adding dungeon puzzles that effect the eventual boss fight you have to face.  In Golden Sun 2, there was a cave with a giant Serpent boss and trying to fight it head-on was close to impossible. Instead you learn that the boss is weak to sunlight so you go through the branching cave paths to do more puzzles to weaken the boss beforehand, by shining sunlight on him. It was completely optional but you usually had to do all 4 sunlight sources to stand a chance against the boss.

 

[Silent Darkness]

My opinion on puzzles in RPG games is that there needs to be a firm balance. A puzzle should not take so long that i'm getting mobbed a hundred times over by a wave of enemies trying to get through it, but not so short as to give speedrunners something to laugh at.

It also should not involve the player to think so hard and for so long that he gets caught flat-footed by enemy x and y, and either isn't fully in the game and gets battered hard by the enemies that, under all circumstances, the player should be able to handle(seriously, that's not good), or loses track of what he or she was doing with the puzzle.

And, they should definitely not be repetitive, I thinks. Nothing spoils my gaming mood like the same stupid puzzle repeated ad nauseum.

Also, scale the puzzle difficulty properly. Early-game shouldn't have a very hard puzzle. You don't hand a 5-year old a rubix cube, why hand a novice RPG player a ridiculously over the top puzzle?

 

[kerbonklin]

Also, scale the puzzle difficulty properly. Early-game shouldn't have a very hard puzzle. You don't hand a 5-year old a rubix cube, why hand a novice RPG player a ridiculously over the top puzzle?

I was handed a Rubix cube at that age and I cheated by changing the stickers. I was such a genius!

 

[TroyZ]

I was handed a Rubix cube at that age and I cheated by changing the stickers. I was such a genius!

lol lol lol

anway, it depends on the type of the RPG itself. there are RPGs that is more likely a dungeon crawler, there are also a standard type of RPGs. for dungeon crawler type, the puzzles are must (my opinion actually), but on standard type of RPGs, the puzzles are just a decoration of the game actually, just to make the game more fun and challenging to be played

 

[Tai_MT]

My issue with puzzles in RPGs has always been "if this was a real world setting, this puzzle wouldn't exist at all".  If every time the big bad wizard wanted to get into his throne room he had to traipse around his trap-laden castle from one end to the other, pushing blocks, collecting keys, and aligning runes along a wall, he'd never actually be at home.

Typical security systems are never really more complicated than keys, locks, and button combinations.  Why?  If they were complicated and hard to learn/use or were too time consuming, nobody would ever use them and they'd fall by the wayside very quickly.

What's even worse is in a typical RPG, devs usually design some of the most weird and rudimentary puzzles that any 10 year old could solve...  And these puzzles are guarding the world-destroying super-weapon.  At that point, a player with any common sense will facepalm and wonder just how the heck nobody had ever managed to solve the puzzle before you got there, and how stupid the big bad must be to not have solved it him/herself as well.

That's not to say all puzzles in RPGs are bad or unwelcome by me either.  I've seen a few that were done pretty well and were good.  Puzzles that act as a sort of "locking mechanism", but also open up a much shorter path through the dungeon or castle make a lot more sense.  What's even better than a basic 10 key lock?  Combination locks that can open up different doors/paths depending on what you've pressed.  If you've got 5 doors in a room, why not link each one to a new "code" or "combination"?  If done in that way, then it's not about which combination opens the door to the end, but which combinations open which doors and what the logic behind the symbols might actually be!  Perhaps three random unmatching symbols always open up the doors to the east and west.  Meanwhile, two symbols of a specific type and a random third might open up the basement.  Maybe the two doors to the north each require 3 symbols in a specific order to open?  Such a puzzle would invite exploration of the puzzle itself and might mean an interesting challenge that doesn't break the immersion of the game at all.  The people who designed the puzzle of course know what to hit to open which doors.  However, you're doing some serious B&E, so you have no clue what these codes might be.  You know what could be even more fun?  Put a couple hints or slightly easier "teaching puzzles" earlier in the dungeon to teach you the concepts you will be using on the puzzle itself.

Want another great puzzle idea?  The place you're in is rundown and falling to pieces, so you have to figure out how to maneuver through the dungeon as well as open up paths just as a matter of traveling through the area.  It'd be easy to get to the door if that pile of rubble wasn't in the way, so how would you move it?  An explosive maybe?  Maybe by activating a trap that would crush or drop the rubble away?  Behind the door, there's a large chasm and no way to cross.  Maybe there's a way to get a pulley system active and working?  Maybe you could find a way to knock down some vines to get across?  Or, maybe, if you knock out a wall the chasm fills with water and you can just swim across?  Environmental puzzles are always interesting.

But, that's just my two cents.

 

[Markal Games]

One of my favorite examples of puzzles in an rpg are how they handle it in the Golden Sun Games.  In a game like Final Fantasy XIII you basically just walk from point a to point b being interrupted by battles and little story segments.  In Golden Sun exploring a map is a lot more involved and you can actually interact with the environment to solve puzzles and get around, which I think adds a lot.

 

[Stridah]

Personally i really dislike puzzles in RPG games! I play for the story & frustrating myself on a puzzle is just pure annoyance.

Now in my game when i do get up to this point in development their will be one castle that involves some puzzle elements because it fits the lore & villain you are trying to attack.