Puzzle answers design

[mlogan]

I'm trying to work out some mechanics of a puzzle game I am working on. The puzzle is centered around a legend of the civilization you are playing in. In the puzzle you have to use clues to figure out things like who to what artifact and where they took it.

What I'm trying to figure out is which features of solving to implement here. And I'm kind of thinking it through as I type this so forgive me if it's a little rambly.

If you were playing a puzzle like this, would you want automatic confirmation that you got a correct answer or would you want to wait until you got all the correct answers and the puzzle was solved? Another option is to make it a choice whether you confirm correct answers right away or not.

Also, if you choose to show correct answers right away, I've had two thoughts to do that. One is to change the color of the correct answer so that you know it is correct. Another thought I had was to reveal a bit more of the legend with each correct answer. For example if you correctly guess that the old lady took the magic sword or whatever, text would pop up telling a couple of sentences about the sword or something.

One problem with that is that if you chose the harder route, you would not get as much of the legend. That part could be solved by making all of those bits of story available after the puzzle was solved.

Okay, so hopefully this post is somewhat coherent. Thoughts?

 

[Cadh20000]

Sounds pretty good to me, though if I were the player I would prefer to know if I made a correct choice. Probably the legend pieces being revealed would be the best way to go in my opinion.

 

[Curia Chasea]

Hard to answer, since the question is missing important details to the nature of the puzzle.

However one major design rule is clarity. The player must be aware immediately what is happening. Unless the iteration time on the puzzle is very low, not telling the player what he did wrong till the very end will become frustrating. Especially if he was not told what he did wrong after doing all the work. 

Does this answer your question? 

Additionally, if this is supposed to be some sort of sidequest that players can notice and try to pursue without too much hand-holding, I think this episode of Extra Credits can shed some light on that matter. 

 

[mlogan]

Hard to answer, since the question is missing important details to the nature of the puzzle.

However one major design rule is clarity. The player must be aware immediately what is happening. Unless the iteration time on the puzzle is very low, not telling the player what he did wrong till the very end will become frustrating. Especially if he was not told what he did wrong after doing all the work. 

Does this answer your question? 

Please feel free to ask for any details you need. To be a bit more clear, it is this type of puzzle. Typically, these puzzles are done with pen and paper, and unless you cheat and look at the answer there is no immediate feedback. You have to complete the puzzle to see if everything lines up and therefore know that you have the correct answer. So really, providing something showing your answer is correct along the way would be making the puzzle easier than it normally would be.

And I don't think there is a clear absolute answer here, I'm really trying to get feedback on what players would like. I guess to clarify my question, I would ask "As a player, would you want the choice to make the puzzle easier with immediate feedback of correct answers? And if so, what type of confirmation would you like: Bits of the story revealed or a simple color change?"

Is that better?

 

[Curia Chasea]

That makes it much easier to understand. 

Although - I cannot tell which choice is better here. I guess you have to prepare a demo puzzle and give it to someone to solve. If the playtester cannot solve the puzze, you will iterate on ways of presenting it. 

 

[sbethune81]

I would go with the harder option to stay true to the form of that puzzle. It forces the player to tackle the logic, rather than letting them click all the spaces to see which ones are correct. They could completely ignore the clues in that case. Hope this helps.