How to Build a Better Puzzle

[VitaliaDi]

For my first game I tried to incorporate a lot of mild game type "puzzles" like Hide and Seek, search for the items, input the code you found earlier.
But after getting some feedback I'm noticing that the puzzles I made are more of a test your luck or trial and error type "puzzle" and I feel that's completely missing the point of a puzzle game. I think the closest I got to a well-build puzzle was a boulder puzzle and riddles.
There should be some hints, mind-stretching, puzzles should be intuitive but I found that most of mine were not. (This wasn't for lack of research, I have a whole list of puzzle type I've found in games so I could look at that again to help me out.)

One problem I ran into while trying to make the puzzles intuitive was that I mostly use events since I don't know how to program. That doesn't explain everything of course, it has to do with how the puzzles were designed as well. But I did find myself being limited by the eventing process, whether it was lack of knowledge in that area or the nature eventing itself.

So, with all of this in mind, can I have some tips on how to build a better puzzle? Particularly with eventing in mind. My next game is going to have puzzles too.

 

[Milennin]

I don't see how events limit the kind of puzzles you can make. There's plenty you can do with events that work well for basic puzzles.

If you want intuitive puzzles, you need good visual indicators for what is going on and what needs to be done to complete the puzzle. For me, I like to look at the environment the puzzle takes place, and then work with that. Like, I had a squirrel mini-boss in one of my games, so the puzzle that came before the encounter involved picking up fallen acorns in the correct order to progress. Solvable in seconds if you saw the intent of the puzzle from the start.

 

[gstv87]

I like puzzles that make sense in context, like a combination lock on a safe box, or things that can be transformed into puzzles, like fixing the wiring of a circuit board.
I spent a good two hours trying to figure out the grandfather clock puzzle from Silent Hill 2..... and that's just the first one of the whole game!

One problem I ran into while trying to make the puzzles intuitive was that I mostly use events since I don't know how to program

you don't necessarily need to know programming to work out the logic of a puzzle, but knowing it would enable you to add complexity to it.
in the end, the solution to a puzzle always boils down to "get things, together, here".
more or less things, sooner or later in the game, is just flavor.

 

[Heirukichi]

I agree with what has been said about events: how do they limit the kind of puzzle you can make? Of course, having a lot of events is most likely going to slow down your game, but you can solve that by splitting your puzzle in smaller puzzles to have smaller maps and limit the amount of events in each map.

However, I think there is one thing you should keep in mind when designing something like a puzzle: what is intuitive for somebody might not be intuitive for somebody else. People are different, their brains are different, their personalities are different; the way they react to the input you give them is different as well. This does not mean there is no work around though.

Our brain elaborates external input based on our personality and past experiences. You cannot do much about personality, that is something - well, this might sound obvious - personal, but a very good way to make a puzzle as intuitive as possible is to base it on experiences that your players get from the game. If you do it that way, the "past experiences" part is the same for everybody, because it is something players experienced inside your game, and this is a great way to make the puzzle intuitive for every player.

In the end, there are other things you can add to your puzzles to make them more (or less) intuitive, but building them based on in-game knowledge is a good starting point. It can also somewhat make your players more prone to get involved with your story setting if they know that they can gain something from it. Just avoid forcing them to read each hidden piece of information in your game world to be able to solve even the most dumb-looking puzzle in the game, that is no different from grinding and can be very annoying.

 

[Starbird_Resources]

there are plugins specifically for expanding your options for creating puzzles. here's one: https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/galvs-puzzle-functions.67978/

i think i've seen others around as well. regardless, between vanilla eventing and the plugins, you should be able to do quite a lot. you can do just about anything if you learn a bit of js.

 

[VitaliaDi]

@Heirukichi That's a really good point on how everyone's brains are different. Some puzzles are harder or easier for different people. Unfortunately you can't challenge everyone the same way. I guess that's one reason, other than adding interest, that using different types of puzzles is good

 

[Kuro DCupu]

I don't think you should be fixated on how hard it needs to be...
Think of it like this :
What's the purpose of the puzzle?

To kill some time (diversive). Exist for the player to take a breather. Works well as a transition between stages or map. It just need to be simple and could be done eventually. It could be annoying if it's wrongly placed. The point of this type of puzzle is to make player spend some time on it without making them realizing that this is worth to be called a puzzle.

To challenge player (intuitive). Unless it's the essence of the game, this type of puzzle should be put separately from the main game. That way, it's safe (though not necessary) to make it as hard as possible. Don't forget to reward the player accordingly.

To express something (dynamic). It's part of the story and you gonna miss something without it. Like telling a story through puzzles. It could be easy or hard but with a good (story wise) reason. Often appears in horror games.

This is a puzzle game. Basically declare that puzzles are the essence of this game. It could be fully dynamic or partly intuitive.

 

[Heirukichi]

Unfortunately you can't challenge everyone the same way.

And you should not try to do it. I have already wrote something similar in other threads in this forum, but I firmly believe that we should design the game for our audience. If you try to design it for everyone, the final product will most likely be something sub-optimal for each kind of player.

Talking about puzzles, if you design puzzles that are a bit harder than what the average player can solve, you are doing something that might be frustrating (or annoying) to many people, but at the same time is still not challenging for hardcore or very smart players. On the contrary, if you design something that is challenging and fun for hardcore or smart players, your final product will most likely be frustrating for the average player.

Puzzles are some kind of borderline mechanic that can easily discourage players. However, you might include different solutions to your puzzles, each one requiring a different strategy. You could even reward the player with something different based on how difficult (or effective) the chosen strategy was. This way you can create "hidden difficulty levels" that can easily reward the player, making he/she feel smart, regardless of the real puzzle difficulty.

 

[Soryuju]

One way you can design puzzles that feel more intuitive and meaningful is to have a series of similar, but increasingly complex puzzles spaced throughout an area. You can start with an extremely simple version of the puzzle which basically just serves to demonstrate the mechanics at play, and then progressively step up the difficulty to build upon what the player learned from each previous step. Done well, this allows you to build up to relatively difficult puzzles with much less risk of frustrating your player.

For example, let’s say you make a puzzle mechanic where standing on a pressure plate opens a locked door. In the first room of the area, maybe you’ve just got a single (distinctive-looking) pressure plate positioned right next to the door with nothing else to distract the player. It’s a safe bet that pretty much everyone will figure this out, and now you’ve taught your player the first “rule” of the puzzle series. In the next room, maybe there are different colored plates corresponding to different colored doors, or maybe pressing a plate opens one door, but also locks another one (which is also immediately visible on the map, preferably). Then maybe in the next room, the solution involves the player doubling back to press the same plate multiple times as they open new sections of the path forward.

While each of these mechanics is basic when considered alone, when you put these handful of gimmicks together, you can make some satisfying puzzles which you know your player is more or less equipped to tackle. Having many puzzles of the same type throughout a location also lends character to that area of your game, and you can even mix these mechanics into future puzzles to spice things up later.

Other miscellaneous puzzle tips:

It’s often best not to have complicated puzzles in areas with random encounters enabled. Players may spend a lot of time milling around as they work toward the solution, and they won’t appreciate regular interruptions from monsters. Similar rules apply for on-map encounters, but you can be smart about how you place these to keep interruptions minimal.

If you want to make a puzzle which is significantly more difficult than average, place it as an obstacle on a clearly optional path, perhaps with a nice reward for players at the end (money, equipment, bonus lore/cutscenes, secret mini-bosses, whatever). Make sure that players have the option to give up and still keep moving on with the game if they just aren’t getting it, and that it won’t severely impact them later.

If you’re still concerned players will get stuck, you could design alternate paths through an area with different challenges to test players. If someone has no patience for puzzles, maybe they can take the path filled with monsters instead, or can pay a toll to take a safe, direct route. This probably isn’t something you want to lean on regularly, though, since designing all those options for the sake of players takes up dev time you could be spending on other things.

And lastly, as several others here have said, puzzles aren’t for every game. Consider the main appeal of your game (if it’s not a puzzle game) and how much time puzzles should be taking away from that. If your game is drawing in players because of its killer battle system, then having lots of complex puzzles (no matter how clever) is just keeping players from the part of the game they enjoy most. It’s really tempting to try to “have it all” when you’re making an RPG and remembering all the games that inspired you, but you can sometimes end up diluting your game’s appeal if you get too greedy.

In the case of puzzles, I’d consider committing to them if my game had a big focus on exploration, with lots of treasure and secret areas hidden off the beaten path. Otherwise, I’d want to review my concept carefully before investing myself in making anything too intricate.

 

[Heirukichi]

It’s often best not to have complicated puzzles in areas with random encounters enabled

Sometimes having puzzles in a place where there are no encounters at all might prove to be a good solution as well. Being interrupted when thinking of possible solutions is not something players enjoy and is rarely a good idea.

However, what @Soryuju said is important: remember to reward the player for completing puzzles, especially hard ones. If you create two different paths (one filled with monsters, the other being a puzzle), even if the puzzle one is faster it should reward the player skill for being able to complete it.

Fighting enemies leads to increased experience and interesting loots, on top of it, at least in a combat-based game, it is something players do without sweating too much since the whole system is based on fighting enemies. If players have to go out of their way to experience something that is not something they trained for during the whole game, it should not only cover for the experience/currency/items loss, it should also feel rewarding somehow. Otherwise, why taking a route that requires you to think if there are no benefits? The brain-dead "kill 'em all" option would prove to be much better - and fun.

 

[Diretooth]

Like with everything, TV Tropes has indexes for everything, including stock puzzles. I add this mainly so that it can be referenced.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockVideoGamePuzzle

Puzzles in games are an interesting topic for me. Usually, I don't mind them too much, as long as they are reasonably solvable and are justified within the context of the game. An ancient ruin having a puzzle to challenge the intellect of a player, or their cunning, etc does make some sense. Having to spell 'Shy gypsy, slyly, spryly tryst by my crypt' with a bunch of soup cans, however, doesn't really make much sense, even in context. (Looking at you, 7th Guest) And some puzzles require solutions that are at least tangentially sound if you ignore logic. (Using a monkey as a 'monkey' wrench in Monkey Island, for instance.)
For me, a puzzle must be reasonably solvable by the average player, especially if it's required to progress. Having a much more difficult puzzle blocking optional content, like better weapons, is perfectly fine. Just remember that 'eventually solvable' is not the same as reasonably difficult.

 

[Wavelength]

I don't believe I represent the majority on this one, but I for one hate whenever I am forced to solve a puzzle in an RPG (or platformer or any genre besides "puzzle game") in order to progress further in the game or narrative. I didn't come for the puzzles, and it just feels like an odious obstacle that I either have to solve against my will or look up in a guide (the ultimate sign of bad design).

Therefore, I voted 'No' to the poll. With that said, I don't mind puzzles that are not mandatory to solve. A few ways you could do this in an RPG include:

• Force the player to try the puzzle, but allow the player to fail it and move on in the game or plot (missing out on some sort of reward or opportunity they would have gotten for solving it)
• Make the puzzle optional, so that the player never needs to even try it if they don't want to (one example given in this thread was a clearly-optional path in a dungeon)
• Have the puzzle be one approach to a problem you must overcome, with other approaches being things that are more traditional RPG fixtures (for example, if there's a huge monster blocking your path, and solving the puzzle would do something to distract/clear that monster, then other approaches might include battling and killing that monster, running through a long tunnel infested by foes to get around the huge monster, or using the crafting interface to create something that will distract or repel the monster)
• Have party members give the player hints as the player spends more time with it, to the point where after several hints the puzzle becomes trivial (again, perhaps give a better reward for completing it with fewer hints)

Since you mentioned difficulty and "intuitiveness" as considerations you are making as you design puzzles, I strongly recommend checking out this thread which discusses that in detail.

 

[Aesica]

I enjoy puzzles, but I know not everyone does so my approach to implementing them is basically this:

• Simple, easy-to-solve puzzles as part of the main quest/dungeon flow, so the player gets familiar with say, pushing blocks onto switches or walking across tiles without touching the same tile twice.
• Add harder puzzles with these same mechanics as optional treasure gates. Since the player is now familiar with the mechanics, they might be more inclined to try them, but if they can't get it, they can just leave it and continue with the rest of the dungeon.

That said, I'm aware that the general fate of trickier puzzles in dungeons involves players who dislike solving them looking up the answers on google or youtube, and that's fine. I'll probably even have one of the party members suggest that very solution (in an ingame way) at some point.

 

[Diretooth]

A small thought: What if there was an in-game hint/solution system. For instance, you have a book that can answer any question, but when you get the prize, the book has siphoned off its power, making it weaker. So, using a hint, that megalixir turns into a high potion, and if it gives you the solution, it just becomes a measly potion.
Of course, a system like this would be easily abused if you have a standard saving system, even just having a save crystal in front of the dungeon all it would take is saving, using the hint book, and going back to a previous save to solve it as though you never used the book in the first place. Potential solutions could be static switches across the board that, when triggered, remain triggered (a la Undertale remembering certain things after you load a save, for example.) or having the game be saved after solving the puzzle, whether it's by the book or through legitimate hard work.