Puzzle Mechanics Research

Puzzle games have existed for decades, and puzzle elements feature in many games, even where the main mechanic of the game relies on a different skill set. Puzzles can be used in a variety of ways, mainly to provide a challenge for the player, but when done right, can induce an element of tension that is comparable to games where you are constantly under a hail of gunfire.

Puzzles in first person games, normally take the form of activating objects (usually switches) in the correct order, standing on specific parts of the floor in a correct sequence or remembering information and answering questions posed by some sort of machine or character. As we hope that our environment will be interesting enough for the player to explore, we simply want puzzles in the game just to give it some more depth.


Portal

Portal  is perhaps the most famous and successful example of a puzzle game in recent years. The unique portal gun mechanics made for interesting and challenging puzzles that could often be solved in a number of ways. It also featured a quirky storyline, as well as snippets of information available to the player, if they went looking for them. The puzzle's themselves are great, but in a way, just glorified switch puzzles where the switch could potentially be any part of the game world (in this case, the testing chambers). Portal's success shows that even in this contemporary age of visceral first person shooter action, slower paced puzzle games can still be great and played by a large audience.

The puzzle design in Portal is inspirational to me as a puzzle designer, as when I played through, I never got bored despite all I was doing was shooting the portal (switch) gun at the correct part of the level. If I can design puzzles that are even 25% as fun as the ones in portal I would consider it a success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWj781LiMtc



Tomb Raider Series

This series had long been associated with puzzle solving combined with a smattering of platforming as well as gunplay. The nature of these puzzles being in ancient temples/tombs is a helpful inspiration to our project as we feature similar themes in our environment. The puzzles herein feature the ever present switch mechanic along with timing. The timing is the main thing that brings any sense of tension to these puzzles as often the player won't have long after having pressed the first switch to move on to the second. It really makes me think, how much focus testing is done when companies have these elements withing their games, how many people test to see what the average or lowest possible time would be for completing each puzzle. This will be an interesting point to remember in future and something we will probably have to look into when we design our final project in the third year (not because we don't want to do this now, but because two months doesn't really allow a great deal of time for things like this, especially as I am learning almost from scratch how to use UDK to create puzzles).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P3PQ0YAkKU


Amnesia

Back to the ever present source of inspiration that is Amnesia then. Amnesia features the exact switch mechanics that I intend to use when developing my puzzles for this game. Matching symbols and icons to the correct switch, pushing them in a specific order, these are the kind of simple yet effective puzzle designs that have been used for decades and are proven to work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_fJJqgptQg