Talk about the design of puzzle games (I) : The three dimensions of the puzzle game

1. Mechanics

Mechanics are deciphers of the specific rules of the game. For example, Monument Valley uses the mechanics of optical illusions to design puzzles. The Little Crocodile Bath is designed through the interaction of digging earth and cutting rope. There are a lot of games that don't seem to have their own mechanics, such as Mecha and Galactic Adventure, just click to trigger events, we ca-n think of this as a common mechanism, such games generally use the "chain of events" to create puzzles.

The reason why a puzzle game is a puzzle game is that it has a mechanism. And mechanics are the carriers of gameplay. The joy of the game itself comes from the mechanics. The digging in the dirt, the cutting in the rope, the rotating perspective in Monum-ent Valley, when we're doing these things, we're manipulating the world, or the characters in the world, and we feel like we're "ac-tually playing the game."

2. The plot

The plot is the narrative part of the puzzle game.

The story and the game are actually very difficult to unify, and the unification needs to be carefully designed to happen, which is why Monument Valley is so amazing. Puzzle-solving in traditional RPGS can only be used as an aid to the narrative, and it often doesn't work as well as pure puzzle-solving games.

"Mechanical Labyrinth" is a typical story leading game, but also a very good one, it realizes the basic unity of the mechanism and the story. The mechanism of this game is "event chain", that is: in order to make one thing happen, we need to let other things happen first, as long as the interlock of these events is solved, these events can be smoothly promoted, so as to achieve the final-goal.

Many Hidden Object games, games that find hidden objects, are also such a method, but its main presentation form is to find a large number of unrelated items in a scene, for example: in a scene full of debris to find dozens of small objects, what keys, discs,

forks, and finally only get a small key props.

If the game is more focused on the story, then this weakness of the puzzle is acceptable, because there is a contradiction between the mechanism and the story. Therefore, Dream tour, Ghost Manor secret, such as the story of the hidden object game is relati-vely well known.

3. Levels

"Level" is not the same as "scene".

If it's about mechanics, it's about cards. We can define a level as the smallest unit in which mechanics work.

A lot of times a level is just a scene, like the traditional puzzle solving in Little Crocodile Bath. But in Monument Valley, there are many scenes in a chapter. Sometimes, in order to show a mysterious state, the creators arrange the player's experience, and after walking through the various scenes, they come back to where they started. Machineries has a lot of scenes, but there doesn't seem to be a clear level.

In Monument Valley, Ada pushed the button and went up to a higher position, which was a new level, because she couldn't go back. In Mech, the chain of events is more complex, but it can still be divided into tasks that can be done alone, which need to be put together, and who is who's condition. These tasks put together, considered as a level.