Want to complain at me for solving a puzzle badly or not being clever enough to beat BABA IS YOU? Shoot me a hurtful message over at Patreon to guarantee I'll read it: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames I've got it! The solution to the great puzzle of how to fix Twitter! All you have to do is follow me and no-one else: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Our programming teacher assigned us creating a logic game as a final project. He rejected my team's game idea as "not logic enough" like an hour ago. Perfect timing!
It has to be a 3D, two-player online game. The idea was to create an Angry Birds "clone" in which one player would shoot the birds like normal, but the other one could stop time at any moment and change their direction (basically shooting them again, but from a different starting point). We had 2 variants to choose from, depending on how much time we would have - one where you destroy buildings, and one where birds bounce from the walls and you have to manouver them to get to the pigs directly.
A long time ago, I tried creating my own puzzle game, and I must say creating clever puzzles is anything but easy. Understanding what players will engage with the most is a puzzling task (pun intended), and it's even harder to be consistent with easy yet nonobvious conundrums. Thus, props to all the puzzle designers out there!
@@Ten_Thousand_Locusts It's really fking hard to make hard puzzles that still feel fair. I do quite a lot of puzzlehunts (and Czech puzzlehunts are notoriously non-hand-holding) and the difference between a "nice cipher we didn't crack" and "that one's so stoned, you gotta smoke the same shit as the organizer to have a shot at this" is HUGE. Both of them can be really hard. One of them feels very satisfying to crack and fair not to crack. The other feels meh to crack and bullshit not to crack.
Ahh man reminds me when I wanted to become developer with most of my focus on puzzle games. When I realized how difficult that is and you also had to find a way to get your games promoted I was like, no thanks...
Making you say "Oh, that was clever, I guess" instead of making you feel clever is how I would describe a lot of the puzzles in classic adventure games. Some designer came up with a really bizarre, needlessly convoluted set of steps that technically allows the plot to advance and then you have to somehow independently stumble onto the same set of steps. So even if you do figure it out-usually by accident-the result is less feeling like you thought outside the box and more that you finally found where some dumbass left his keys.
It's the difference between SOLVING a puzzle - using the tools given to achieve the goal set within the limitations framing the puzzle - and finding THE solution - figuring out the steps the game demands and just doing what it says because it won't allow anything else. Multiple solutions are awesome, like TotK shrines, because you're solving a problem yourself and the Devs just hint at a possible option. Portal is more limited, there's usually only one option but that's because the other solutions just don't work given the room layout or limited items around or whatever. Bad games only have one solution because they don't allow anything else, you just need to spot the (usually obvious) logic path and follow the instructions. The puzzle is solved but only because you did what you were told, you didn't solve it yourself
Even aside from the very generous and very lovely shout-out, this video was absolutely fantastic! I played a bit of The Witness again for that Flight Sim video and I remembered how my mind was similarly blown by the realisation of just how deep those puzzles went. I also had that panicked thought of NO I CAN'T DO THIS ALL OVER AGAIN But yeah, really loved this video and thanks again for the shout out!
There's also a certain beauty to a well designed puzzle, even if it doesn't involve anything that's revelatory to you. Even if it's just a hand crafted sudoku.
This was a really neat video! I always like puzzle games, and hearing about how they work! While I have a higher Eureka Overdose limit apparently, because I enjoyed Superliminal a fair bit right till the end, I do agree about how it didn't exactly get more challenging as the game progressed. That's the delicate balance of the genre I guess - we very rarely get gems like The Witness, after all. Great video in any case though! ^w^
I liked Superliminal, and seeking out collectibles using the game's mechanics is incredibly fun. Most games are really tedious to find secrets and collect things in, but I ended up pumping 20 hours into finding chess pieces and blue prints and such in Superliminal without even realizing it. As well as this, the challenge mode also helps if you want more meat on your puzzles.
Supraland has many of these moments. The best comes with returning to areas and using the same environment in ways you never knew was possible the first time through (similar to what you mentioned about the witness)
This is one of your best videos. Every single example you used, was absolutely perfect for the points you were making and you structured it in such an engaging way. Seriously good job
A very interesting video, and I can only wholeheartedly agree! As a scientist, it's incredibly interesting to see (and feel myself) the differences and similarities between puzzle games and actual scientific discovery. I love puzzle games because they lack something that is unfortunately prevalent in my own work: When solving a problem is followed up by an immediate crushing despair, because it actually changes the result in a way that throws your expectations completely overboard. Learning to live with that, and focus on accurate over pretty results is a key skill one has to master in this profession - but it will never be easy or pleasant. Which makes puzzle games a welcome respite, offering the joy of discovery with none of the risks I might see in real life.
yeah i got spoilered a bit, bit also mindblown which felt nice. but i guess it takes a bit magic when i finish the game. but its been out for a couple of years so... but nice video none the less
Yeah, I really wish he would put spoiler warnings in the video or description. That way I'd know if I can watch the video or not since I don't want solutions to puzzles spoiled for me.
I think a core part of the enjoyment of puzzle is how dependent they are on players. Unlike games like shooters, where you engage with NPCs or other players, puzzle games like Portal make the player the sole person capable of changing the environment. Sure, the plot has Glados and there's self-aware turrets, but once you're inside a room, you're the only "independent" variable, so to speak. From jigsaw puzzles to Portal, you're essentially given a set of parametres and a promise of cause-and-effect that entices you to play around within that system and figure out solutions. Gimmicks and unclear puzzles undermine this by making the player's agency pointless or needlessly frustrating, taking away the sense of being the one to change things. Portal, meanwhile, won't always give you answers, but makes it clear that you have everything you need in the room, and that you just need to figure out how to connect the dots. Puzzle games don't inherently benefit by being cryptic or overly "clever", they benefit from reinforcing the player's role as a vital and satisfying part of progressing forward.
I get frustrated with most puzzle games that have one solution to their puzzles, they are basically impossible to balance since they'll almost always be a bit to easy or hard for some portion of players, and if you're struggling it can be quite disheartening. This is why I loved Opus Magnum so much, if you don't care about score you can brute force any level with a little trial and error but the more you want to optimise your solution the harder it gets. There is no one right answer, you just do whatever you think is fun (fastest, smallest, cheapest, most visually pleasing, most convoluted etc.)
@@dj_koen1265 yeah thats what I did for the earlier levels but at some point I just accepted my less than optimal solutions. The story was pretty cool too, some quite well written characters imo.
Hell TotK's shrines are like that. There's usually at least one solution you can see being suggested or hinted at, but you're free to do whatever the hell you want so long as it's possible in the engine and however you reach the goal is a perfectly valid answer. Just spotting the Dev's clues to the only allowed actions is boring, it's just instruction following
This video isway better than I thought it would be, lots of things to think about, thanks. There are a few other good videos about puzzle design but most are pretty superficial, yours is definitely in the first category, even if you only count mentioning the learning fatigue and showing bad examples.
I'm pretty upset at the spoilers, especially for The Witness, a game I've been considering getting for a long time. It's one thing to give a solution for one puzzle example, such as you do for Portal 2, quite another to spoil major "Eureka" moments for the unsuspecting player. Please warn the viewer beforehand! Didn't dare finish the video after that. Thank you kindly.
I literally finished playing Thimbleweed Park yesterday! I liked it a lot but yes, eventually you end up completely ignoring actually useful items lying around because you figure they'll just clog up your inventory like the garbage from the beginning.
I think you nailed my feeling on Superliminal. I didn't get to realize it until watching the video, but it's true, it goes so fast and wants to do and misdirect in so many ways it can get frustrating. I remember finishing the game and saying "That was it?", it felt like it wanted to have a narrative but it never started or consolidated itself. Superliminal was more interested in exploring it's own thesis on perspective, narrated at the end by Dr. Glenn Pierce, than to let the player experience and understand it. The Labyrinth section is one of my favorites, just because of how dreamlike and surreal it feels, like the game went all out in challenging the perspective of the player, but it absolutely missed the mark on either conveying what it meant for the character we were playing as, and fully making its rules understandable to progress, the most evident one being that puzzle where you have to look to the wrong side but walk towards the correct side, a puzzle that I later learned the devs had to fix because it was too unintuitive to be understood or reasonably reach to the solution if only by trial and error. In the end, Superliminal is a game I really enjoyed but rapidly fell into pure spectacle and new mechanics being introduced rather than refining them or building something more meaningful by the end of it.
Many time I've asked myself "what do I enjoy and why?" and kept reaching the conclusion that I enjoy a learning experience and using the learning experience to progress in some way (programing, video games, additional learning, etc.) like using critical thinking and analysis to solve problems. This video has many parallels to when I try answering the above question, almost like my own thoughts in video form. INSTANT THUMBS UP!
Puzzle games have this extremely delicate balancing act they need to do where on one side they need to set deliberate parameters and on the other give just enough wiggle room (with appropriately subtle direction) to allow the player to discover the solution for themselves. Obviously we can find many failed attempts, but it's simply one of the most satisfying feelings in the world to experience well-crafted puzzles for the first time. Super easy to try, but only so many succeed. In addition, my favorite types of games incorporate a 4th wall element, or in other words, the manipulation of the magic circle. This is also extremely difficult to pull off properly. On one hand, too little or too subtle and it can seem like an accident or confusing/directionless. On the other hand, too much and it becomes desensitizing or unimpactful or worse, distasteful. I think your cirtiques of superliminal and the witness are probably justified, but as for me I enjoyed them quite thoroughly. It's likely because I can't get enough of discovering such massive reality-altering mechanics that I can allow more mistakes. I'm just so happy when I see any game studio take a shot at the unlimited potential and magic that is possible within the virtual medium.
Surprised not to see any references to Myst in here. That game (and all the good entries in the series) was excellent - its lore and plot are intriguing enough that exploring the areas that are empty of progression are still interesting (and often not as empty as you might think - lore and puzzle hints get woven together a lot), and its puzzles were quite challenging to figure out. They do tend to be more in the vein of "find the clue, then figure out how to use it" rather than relying on pure understanding of physics or logic statements or some other principle, but I still quite enjoyed them. I also highly recommend the series "The Room" - they're originally mobile games that have you exploring a game space and trying to work out how to progress, as well as encountering lore along the way - similar vein to myst, though a lot more eldritchy and unsettling in its themes.
It's worth noting that eureka literally means "I've found (it)". And it's related to the Modern Greek verb "vrisko", which also means "to find". (My Greek major actually served some purpose. It's finally my time to shine!)
Red herrings within puzzles are also very valid, though. Whilst I know you're talking specifically about game design, if we look more broadly at the philosophy of puzzles, it's about not being given the tools to solve a puzzle but learning to solve them through logic. What we like about Sherlock Holmes, for example, is that he is given the same information as the reader and yet makes links that the reader wouldn't typically see unless they can see things from his perspective. The conundrum where he and the detectives discover "Rache" written on a wall leaves the detectives thinking someone tried to write "Rachel" until Sherlock suggests it's actually German, for "revenge". Now, this puzzle utilises knowledge that you either know or you don't, which incidentally is MOST puzzles in the real world, so how do we overcome "not knowing something"?. Currently, I'm working through a cryptic puzzle book called Journal 29, sometimes I'll see a puzzle and go "that looks like Morse code" and the solve is easy because I know what Morse code looks like. Then I'll hit on something I can't work out and for that, there is a community led hint forum. This is how we overcome not knowing something, community. The basis for puzzles, as you said, is historically in the teaching and transmission of ideas and knowledge. This is why puzzle games struggle to puzzle, because if you are taught all the steps, not given red herrings and assume that everything within the puzzle applies to the puzzle, then you are not gaining anything or stretching yourself. Therefore, I feel, the best puzzle games are the ones that force communities to form and discuss. Which also links to another anthropological reasons for why puzzles are so important, they rely on the human need for society, collaboration and working together. Why do red herrings exist? To teach you that your reliance on solving a puzzle should not be the puzzle, but other people.
A bit out of left field, but I was recently playing Space Exploration mod for Factorio. The mod creator has made a devilish puzzle for the alternate victory condition and a few of us collaborated to find an answer. I truly believe none of us would have gotten to it on our own. There are some that have done it, but my way of thinking wouldn't have been enough in a vacuum. I love getting new perspectives on things like that.
I found portal's signaling of which elements you could interact with a bit too strong during the parts right after whetley takes control. It felt like I was just looking for the only portal surface and then shooting it. My girlfriend was watching over my shoulder and thought it looked like incredibly quick puzzle solving (with neat flying through the air bits) while I found it to be a linear progression of obvious steps. Luckily, the game got back to puzzle rooms after not too long.
"Not clear what parts of the game are part of the puzzle" That's basically my problem with myst, which I recently bought for vr. It pretty much flat out tells you the solution to some of the harder puzzles (if you bother to read some obscure passage in a book you didn't know you could read) but never bothers to give you clues to solve it on your own, or denies you crucial information that is required to solve others expecting that you'll just get frustrated enough to start doing illogical things and you're never sure which is which. In contrast to the room:a dark matter (which still failed to communicate some intractable parts of some of the puzzles in the templar section) in which I never once felt like I didn't have all the information at hand in order to solve a puzzle
I really liked superminial, but less as a puzzle game and more as an very interesting commentary of the way us humans interact and observe with things around and understand reality, which is funny to think about if people find the puzzle aspects you highlight here are on the weaker side. And yeah they got me with the Diet one, granted, I'm not a main english speaking person so i had never seen it before >-
a game i adore called Crosscode is one of the best i've ever played. it's a spin on the zelda formula in which you collect power ups through your journey in order to complete puzzle filled dungeons, but unlike zelda, every powerup also becomes an essential part of the combat system. the puzzles that the player have to face often test comprehension of each power and how they interact with new and old mechanics, as well as each other. it's a true gem of a game.
I love this video, but the gigantic unwarned spoilers for the Witness and the end of Portal 2 were uncalled for :( A simple spoiler warning goes a long way.
Probably anticipating some kind of reward for completion. Figuring stuff out seems almost instinctual on some level, imagine being a primate and trying to find a way to some fruit you see on a branch, you start solving the puzzle and the reward is usually food. It increases fitness.
Fun fact: εὕρεκα is not just some random expression Archimedes shouted in this little story, but is in fact the perfect of the verb εὑρίσκω [heu̯.rís.kɔː] "to find out", so the expression εὕρεκα literally translates to "i got it!" This is the first time I've used my knowledge of ancient greek outside an academic context, dont get a classics degree, kids.
Antichamber was not fun. It revelled in claiming it was about thinking about the box but then set up contained puzzle boxes so you couldn't break one puzzle by smuggling in bits of another. That kind of chafed.
16:23 Ah, don't worry, that was a difficult one, specially after you accidentally build yourself into a corner. It's still not game over. You need to take as much of the transportation network and switch it into electric, and minimizing it's size since a lot of it is unnecesary. Try moving infrastructure closer so you can use shared transportation more, and switching the power production to solar and Thorium mini-nuclear. Go as local as possible since distances will force you to use oil and make you lose electric efficiency on the network. Put more green zones in cities and buildings and you'll make them cleaner and better to live in, this will help a little to make pops happier and you want them as much as possible, conflictive as they are will just get you looooots of problems. Now you might think that can't be done since you dont have enough materials, and here's the puzzle trick: This one is supposed to teach you to grow vertically, thus that's why the resources you need are out of planet. You were supposed to start harvesting them from the moon several decades prior, but since it's not propery signaled, most players ignored it and went back to the planet. You gotta go up there again and take the aluminium, titanium and other tech materials you need to make the infrastructure. The oil righs you have there worth nothing? You can use them to launch rockets since due to pop growth near cities is a no-no. You don't actually need to change dietary habits of the pops, you can feed the livestock with the veg surplus you're throwing to the trash. Of course, this is only one of the exits. The puzzle in this point gets hard as heck, and the comunity can't agree on one fits all solution, so you might as well try anything that moves you forward. Also, you can reliably shave 10 seconds off the run if you change all controls to Metric. No way you can compete in speedrunning without that. Note: I'm not an engenieer or anything, I'm just asrepulling a joke, please don't open a climate debate on me, I don't know jack.
Great video as usual! I have found puzzle games could draw non-gamers towards the gaming world and couldn't exactly pinpoint why that is until I watched this so thanks :-D We have been taught at school the "Eureka" moment of Archimedes, although it's highly unlikely he said that, as you mentioned. Frankly, I would appreciate it a lot if the teacher just told us that most discoveries and inventions come from hard work and endless hours of mental/physical work. I can't possibly fathom thinkers from all over the spectrum of science just experiencing an "Aha!" moment by sheer luck. Anyway, could someone tell me which game is on 15:04?
I haven't seen any footage fron Filament in this (very cool) video, so I'm gonna assume you haven't played it and take this opportunity to recommended it to you and whoever reads this comment. It's a very nice puzzler, technically open-world, with especially good storytelling where you get to piece together the story as you collect logs as rewards for solving the puzzles. There's cool mechanics, it's pretty challenging and also environmental puzzles. One of the best titles in puzzle games in my opinion. Doesn't feel right to me that so few people have played it! So yeah play Filament
The moment I heard the _boom_ when I first clicked on an environmental puzzle in the Witness, I knew that something was up and I needed to revisit every part of the island. Something I've been curious about for a while is how "puzzle game" seems to have 2 distinct and fairly unrelated meanings. The kind of puzzle game focused on in this video is the one I vastly prefer. The other encompasses the likes of Tetris, Puyo Puyo, and many mobile tile-matching games. Those games have much more in common with each other than either does with the various games covered in this video, but they're still called "puzzle games." What I would really like to know is how these two seemingly unrelated genres ended up with the same name. I suspect it's a similar story to western RPGs vs JRPGs where they have a common origin, but branched off from each other a long time ago and have each grown in different ways.
I remember seeing some puzzles in Witness and I thought I understood what they were about and how to solve them...but actually I didn't and then I hit a very frustrating wall with that. I could have gone somewhere else, but I just stopped playing completely.
Thanks for the channel tip but I subbed to writing on games a long time ago same the game makers tool kit and AI in games, they are all great channels about my favourite pass time games. 😊👍
I really love Writing on Games. Hamish really gives a different look on games, a more "literary" (is this a word?) take. And this always feels like a breath of fresh air next to the classical critique makers (Mandalore, Raycevick...etc). Aaaand that's why I love GMTK (he is more like an engineer of game design) and of course AoG (and he is more of a research scientist of video games)
My favorite puzzle in recent memory was the color puzzle from Celeste. I spent several nights just lying in bed, piecing together what exactly it was asking of me, before I eventually solved it.
I think I agree with you about Superliminal. Overall I still like it, but that enjoyment diminished greatly near the end. It did have some clever puzzles and impressive programming, though.
I love the video, but I would also love a spoiler alert at the beginning. I play the Witness right now and didn't want to get spoiled because I love that "eureka-moment". And thats why I stopped watching when I was half way through. I'll continue when I finished the Witness.
I hate that there are SO MANY spoilers for games referenced, which could completely take away the eureka moment of those games. Fortunately I played most of them... most.
My favourite game for giving you a bunch of mechanics and then a problem you have to solve, that makes you feel like a genius no matter how you do it, is probably Trine.
Witness - "the horrible audio-based puzzles" You might be interested to know that for some people they are the easiest of all. I saw the audio ones in some let's plays, before even trying the game for myself, and they were immediately obvious for me, literally no puzzle there at all for me. Audio cue played, and I knew the solution. Because my almost-synesthesis meant that I have already naturally percieved/interpreted sounds visually the same way which those audio puzzles are based on. The principle they use is absolutely natural for me. Then I went to play the game, and it was all the other ones that made me stop trying to finish it.
You missed the point of Archimedes’ discovery. It wasn’t about being able to calculate an object’s volume, since that was something you could measure, but rather how *dense* it was.
To be even more pedantic it's about how much it weights. Steel is much denser than water but ships float because they displace more water than the ship weights.
Y'know, I was had a guy actually argue at me that puzzles don't count as games... imagine that? That one of the most basic concepts of a game doesn't count anymore
A puzzle is a challenge that CLICKS. I wa thinking about this very question last night, after doing a Christmas jigsaw puzzle with my children. It's not called a "game" or a "challenge" or a "messed up picture" or a "frustrating jumble", though it could be called those. Its a puzzle. The distinction between PUZZLES and other kinds of games and challenges, is that a puzzle CLICKS. 💡
11:06 Wait, what? The sea is a map? Whut trickery is this?!? I played this game soooo much, solved every fucking puzzle (some with help though) and I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT?!?
Man, I love the casual World of Goo drop. That was such a neat game for its time. Its atmosphere still sticks with me to this day. Thanks for all of your content. Keep on being awesome!
Hey man, loved the video like every other one lol! But I was just wondering why you put a badge in every thumbnail of yours. I can tell it motivates me to click on it more but is it just stylistic choice or conscious viewer recognition?
If someone wants to play a game like Portal, Qube 2 is amazing (didn't play the first). It doesn't have the great story that Portal has, but the puzzles are very entertaining! Got it free on Epic Games a while ago
The parallel with science is no accident! According to the most influential historian and philosopher of science of all time, Thomas Kuhn, science IS puzzle solving!
I got stuck on the same puzzle in Maquette and I just glitched the pink stone out of the house. Pretty sure that wasn't the correct response but I was so confused what to do
A Portal-esque game that I really enjoyed was "Lightmatter", while it's not perfect, it has some puzzles with poor communication & the constant references to Portal quickly became tiresome, overall I really enjoyed both the puzzles and narrative, it also has a really fun gimmick with having to manipulate light & shadow because you die if you step in shadow. It's a good game.
one thing ive never understood about the arkimedes thing is that, isnt volume unrelated to density? if i make an object out of silver with the exact shape of an object made of gold they would both displace the same amount of water wouldnt they?
I’d be curious to see any thought you have about “The Fall” It’s a fairly short game with some issues, but it caused me to think about game design and storytelling in general
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Want to complain at me for solving a puzzle badly or not being clever enough to beat BABA IS YOU? Shoot me a hurtful message over at Patreon to guarantee I'll read it: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
I've got it! The solution to the great puzzle of how to fix Twitter! All you have to do is follow me and no-one else: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Is it because we would be a patreon, or bc that it would've hurt your feelings? I'd feel bad :(
@@Iwatoda_Dorm both probably
Don't worry, We all had to look up the solution to "The return of scenic pond".
Brah, the patreon link in the description isn't working properly. Just saying.
@@Skyfox94 should be fixed! not sure what was happening there
Our programming teacher assigned us creating a logic game as a final project. He rejected my team's game idea as "not logic enough" like an hour ago. Perfect timing!
Shit teacher then
You a boss
What was the idea?
This sounds like the backstory of a puzzle game called "Not Logic Enough" that goes on to become a huge success.
@@henrycrabs3497 or you know, the game might be shit
It has to be a 3D, two-player online game. The idea was to create an Angry Birds "clone" in which one player would shoot the birds like normal, but the other one could stop time at any moment and change their direction (basically shooting them again, but from a different starting point). We had 2 variants to choose from, depending on how much time we would have - one where you destroy buildings, and one where birds bounce from the walls and you have to manouver them to get to the pigs directly.
A long time ago, I tried creating my own puzzle game, and I must say creating clever puzzles is anything but easy. Understanding what players will engage with the most is a puzzling task (pun intended), and it's even harder to be consistent with easy yet nonobvious conundrums. Thus, props to all the puzzle designers out there!
It's easy to make hard puzzles and it's easy to make easy puzzles, but everything that comes in between is really fucking hard.
@@Ten_Thousand_Locusts It's really fking hard to make hard puzzles that still feel fair. I do quite a lot of puzzlehunts (and Czech puzzlehunts are notoriously non-hand-holding) and the difference between a "nice cipher we didn't crack" and "that one's so stoned, you gotta smoke the same shit as the organizer to have a shot at this" is HUGE. Both of them can be really hard. One of them feels very satisfying to crack and fair not to crack. The other feels meh to crack and bullshit not to crack.
Ahh man reminds me when I wanted to become developer with most of my focus on puzzle games. When I realized how difficult that is and you also had to find a way to get your games promoted I was like, no thanks...
Making you say "Oh, that was clever, I guess" instead of making you feel clever is how I would describe a lot of the puzzles in classic adventure games. Some designer came up with a really bizarre, needlessly convoluted set of steps that technically allows the plot to advance and then you have to somehow independently stumble onto the same set of steps. So even if you do figure it out-usually by accident-the result is less feeling like you thought outside the box and more that you finally found where some dumbass left his keys.
This is a really accurate comment.
It's the difference between SOLVING a puzzle - using the tools given to achieve the goal set within the limitations framing the puzzle - and finding THE solution - figuring out the steps the game demands and just doing what it says because it won't allow anything else.
Multiple solutions are awesome, like TotK shrines, because you're solving a problem yourself and the Devs just hint at a possible option. Portal is more limited, there's usually only one option but that's because the other solutions just don't work given the room layout or limited items around or whatever.
Bad games only have one solution because they don't allow anything else, you just need to spot the (usually obvious) logic path and follow the instructions. The puzzle is solved but only because you did what you were told, you didn't solve it yourself
Even aside from the very generous and very lovely shout-out, this video was absolutely fantastic! I played a bit of The Witness again for that Flight Sim video and I remembered how my mind was similarly blown by the realisation of just how deep those puzzles went. I also had that panicked thought of NO I CAN'T DO THIS ALL OVER AGAIN
But yeah, really loved this video and thanks again for the shout out!
Hello random verified youtuber!
13:45 Paying tribute to one of the greatest memes of mankind. Rest in peace, Doge.
Apparently, he’s been revived, and has found a new job leading the Horny Police
And long live Doge Vandire.
Doge is still being used, has been for like years
the doge meme isnt deqd, though it took on a new wackier and more uncharacteristic form
Fun fact: Memes never die.
They just wait... ;D
There's also a certain beauty to a well designed puzzle, even if it doesn't involve anything that's revelatory to you. Even if it's just a hand crafted sudoku.
Hand crafted sudokus are the JAM though
@@call_me_va True - I probably should have put just in warning quotes.
This was a really neat video! I always like puzzle games, and hearing about how they work! While I have a higher Eureka Overdose limit apparently, because I enjoyed Superliminal a fair bit right till the end, I do agree about how it didn't exactly get more challenging as the game progressed. That's the delicate balance of the genre I guess - we very rarely get gems like The Witness, after all. Great video in any case though! ^w^
Yeah i felt the same way. Once it was over, i felt that in retrospect the level design was a bit lacking.
A perfect video to pair with this would be gmtk's "what makes a good puzzle" I love this stuff.
I love the Yahoo easter egg(s) at 1:25 great video as always!
What's the deal with Yahoo? I saw that and thought, "How much is Yahoo paying you Adam?" Lol
@@Jackenn_Cooper look closer the fact he is using yahoo is not the joke
@@porkch0p227 It is impossible to see it unless you change the video quality to 1080p. Even at 720p the tabs are blurry.
I liked Superliminal, and seeking out collectibles using the game's mechanics is incredibly fun. Most games are really tedious to find secrets and collect things in, but I ended up pumping 20 hours into finding chess pieces and blue prints and such in Superliminal without even realizing it. As well as this, the challenge mode also helps if you want more meat on your puzzles.
Supraland has many of these moments. The best comes with returning to areas and using the same environment in ways you never knew was possible the first time through (similar to what you mentioned about the witness)
I never really understood why Superliminal stopped being fun for me until this video. Great take!
This is one of your best videos. Every single example you used, was absolutely perfect for the points you were making and you structured it in such an engaging way. Seriously good job
A very interesting video, and I can only wholeheartedly agree!
As a scientist, it's incredibly interesting to see (and feel myself) the differences and similarities between puzzle games and actual scientific discovery.
I love puzzle games because they lack something that is unfortunately prevalent in my own work:
When solving a problem is followed up by an immediate crushing despair, because it actually changes the result in a way that throws your expectations completely overboard.
Learning to live with that, and focus on accurate over pretty results is a key skill one has to master in this profession - but it will never be easy or pleasant.
Which makes puzzle games a welcome respite, offering the joy of discovery with none of the risks I might see in real life.
HUGE spoiler for The Witness early on in the video. For a video about eureka moments, you could perhaps include some spoiler warnings...
yeah i got spoilered a bit, bit also mindblown which felt nice. but i guess it takes a bit magic when i finish the game. but its been out for a couple of years so...
but nice video none the less
Yeah, I really wish he would put spoiler warnings in the video or description. That way I'd know if I can watch the video or not since I don't want solutions to puzzles spoiled for me.
Is like me trying to avoid spoilers for hollow knight until it is in discount for m eto buy
@@eroelser Game just came out for free on PS; definitely going to have a resurgence.
Glad my ADHD made it so I didn't even notice it lmao
Always good to see someone paying tribute to Antichamber, it's held it's position in my top few puzzle games of all time for a long, long time.
I think a core part of the enjoyment of puzzle is how dependent they are on players. Unlike games like shooters, where you engage with NPCs or other players, puzzle games like Portal make the player the sole person capable of changing the environment. Sure, the plot has Glados and there's self-aware turrets, but once you're inside a room, you're the only "independent" variable, so to speak.
From jigsaw puzzles to Portal, you're essentially given a set of parametres and a promise of cause-and-effect that entices you to play around within that system and figure out solutions. Gimmicks and unclear puzzles undermine this by making the player's agency pointless or needlessly frustrating, taking away the sense of being the one to change things. Portal, meanwhile, won't always give you answers, but makes it clear that you have everything you need in the room, and that you just need to figure out how to connect the dots. Puzzle games don't inherently benefit by being cryptic or overly "clever", they benefit from reinforcing the player's role as a vital and satisfying part of progressing forward.
One of the best videos so far. Its crazy how you always break the ceiling and go farther!
Portal is one giant tutorial, done right.
I get frustrated with most puzzle games that have one solution to their puzzles, they are basically impossible to balance since they'll almost always be a bit to easy or hard for some portion of players, and if you're struggling it can be quite disheartening. This is why I loved Opus Magnum so much, if you don't care about score you can brute force any level with a little trial and error but the more you want to optimise your solution the harder it gets. There is no one right answer, you just do whatever you think is fun (fastest, smallest, cheapest, most visually pleasing, most convoluted etc.)
I love that game
Never beat it though
I was too preconceived with creating the perfect solution to every level that i never got to the end
@@dj_koen1265 yeah thats what I did for the earlier levels but at some point I just accepted my less than optimal solutions. The story was pretty cool too, some quite well written characters imo.
@@Bruno-cb5gk still worth getting or naw?
Hell TotK's shrines are like that. There's usually at least one solution you can see being suggested or hinted at, but you're free to do whatever the hell you want so long as it's possible in the engine and however you reach the goal is a perfectly valid answer.
Just spotting the Dev's clues to the only allowed actions is boring, it's just instruction following
This video isway better than I thought it would be, lots of things to think about, thanks. There are a few other good videos about puzzle design but most are pretty superficial, yours is definitely in the first category, even if you only count mentioning the learning fatigue and showing bad examples.
I'm glad you told me about Writing on Games. It's always good to have more videos about game design stuff to watch.
I'm pretty upset at the spoilers, especially for The Witness, a game I've been considering getting for a long time. It's one thing to give a solution for one puzzle example, such as you do for Portal 2, quite another to spoil major "Eureka" moments for the unsuspecting player. Please warn the viewer beforehand! Didn't dare finish the video after that. Thank you kindly.
Seeing Adam Millard shout out Writing on Games is super cool! Very nice video, and thank you for bringing more puzzle games within my crosshair
Thimbleweed Park was definitely a good choice to illustrate a game where it's not clear what's part of a puzzle and what's not...
I literally finished playing Thimbleweed Park yesterday! I liked it a lot but yes, eventually you end up completely ignoring actually useful items lying around because you figure they'll just clog up your inventory like the garbage from the beginning.
I also love how puzzle games make you feel smart. Especially in Baba is You and Return of the Obra Dinn
I think you nailed my feeling on Superliminal. I didn't get to realize it until watching the video, but it's true, it goes so fast and wants to do and misdirect in so many ways it can get frustrating. I remember finishing the game and saying "That was it?", it felt like it wanted to have a narrative but it never started or consolidated itself. Superliminal was more interested in exploring it's own thesis on perspective, narrated at the end by Dr. Glenn Pierce, than to let the player experience and understand it.
The Labyrinth section is one of my favorites, just because of how dreamlike and surreal it feels, like the game went all out in challenging the perspective of the player, but it absolutely missed the mark on either conveying what it meant for the character we were playing as, and fully making its rules understandable to progress, the most evident one being that puzzle where you have to look to the wrong side but walk towards the correct side, a puzzle that I later learned the devs had to fix because it was too unintuitive to be understood or reasonably reach to the solution if only by trial and error.
In the end, Superliminal is a game I really enjoyed but rapidly fell into pure spectacle and new mechanics being introduced rather than refining them or building something more meaningful by the end of it.
A nice bit of Dorfromantik at the end. I swear, I've been playing that game a lot recently.
As a gamedev myself, Ur content is so compact and worthwhile. I'm quite sure Ur mind is very advanced. Phenomenal ❤❤❤
Yay! A new video! Love those man, keep em' up!
Many time I've asked myself "what do I enjoy and why?" and kept reaching the conclusion that I enjoy a learning experience and using the learning experience to progress in some way (programing, video games, additional learning, etc.) like using critical thinking and analysis to solve problems.
This video has many parallels to when I try answering the above question, almost like my own thoughts in video form.
INSTANT THUMBS UP!
Puzzle games have this extremely delicate balancing act they need to do where on one side they need to set deliberate parameters and on the other give just enough wiggle room (with appropriately subtle direction) to allow the player to discover the solution for themselves. Obviously we can find many failed attempts, but it's simply one of the most satisfying feelings in the world to experience well-crafted puzzles for the first time. Super easy to try, but only so many succeed.
In addition, my favorite types of games incorporate a 4th wall element, or in other words, the manipulation of the magic circle. This is also extremely difficult to pull off properly. On one hand, too little or too subtle and it can seem like an accident or confusing/directionless. On the other hand, too much and it becomes desensitizing or unimpactful or worse, distasteful.
I think your cirtiques of superliminal and the witness are probably justified, but as for me I enjoyed them quite thoroughly. It's likely because I can't get enough of discovering such massive reality-altering mechanics that I can allow more mistakes. I'm just so happy when I see any game studio take a shot at the unlimited potential and magic that is possible within the virtual medium.
Surprised not to see any references to Myst in here. That game (and all the good entries in the series) was excellent - its lore and plot are intriguing enough that exploring the areas that are empty of progression are still interesting (and often not as empty as you might think - lore and puzzle hints get woven together a lot), and its puzzles were quite challenging to figure out. They do tend to be more in the vein of "find the clue, then figure out how to use it" rather than relying on pure understanding of physics or logic statements or some other principle, but I still quite enjoyed them.
I also highly recommend the series "The Room" - they're originally mobile games that have you exploring a game space and trying to work out how to progress, as well as encountering lore along the way - similar vein to myst, though a lot more eldritchy and unsettling in its themes.
huge melons and gargantuan milkies had me laughing for a solid minute. Thank you Adam
It's worth noting that eureka literally means "I've found (it)". And it's related to the Modern Greek verb "vrisko", which also means "to find".
(My Greek major actually served some purpose. It's finally my time to shine!)
Red herrings within puzzles are also very valid, though. Whilst I know you're talking specifically about game design, if we look more broadly at the philosophy of puzzles, it's about not being given the tools to solve a puzzle but learning to solve them through logic. What we like about Sherlock Holmes, for example, is that he is given the same information as the reader and yet makes links that the reader wouldn't typically see unless they can see things from his perspective. The conundrum where he and the detectives discover "Rache" written on a wall leaves the detectives thinking someone tried to write "Rachel" until Sherlock suggests it's actually German, for "revenge". Now, this puzzle utilises knowledge that you either know or you don't, which incidentally is MOST puzzles in the real world, so how do we overcome "not knowing something"?. Currently, I'm working through a cryptic puzzle book called Journal 29, sometimes I'll see a puzzle and go "that looks like Morse code" and the solve is easy because I know what Morse code looks like. Then I'll hit on something I can't work out and for that, there is a community led hint forum. This is how we overcome not knowing something, community. The basis for puzzles, as you said, is historically in the teaching and transmission of ideas and knowledge. This is why puzzle games struggle to puzzle, because if you are taught all the steps, not given red herrings and assume that everything within the puzzle applies to the puzzle, then you are not gaining anything or stretching yourself. Therefore, I feel, the best puzzle games are the ones that force communities to form and discuss. Which also links to another anthropological reasons for why puzzles are so important, they rely on the human need for society, collaboration and working together.
Why do red herrings exist? To teach you that your reliance on solving a puzzle should not be the puzzle, but other people.
A bit out of left field, but I was recently playing Space Exploration mod for Factorio. The mod creator has made a devilish puzzle for the alternate victory condition and a few of us collaborated to find an answer. I truly believe none of us would have gotten to it on our own.
There are some that have done it, but my way of thinking wouldn't have been enough in a vacuum. I love getting new perspectives on things like that.
I found portal's signaling of which elements you could interact with a bit too strong during the parts right after whetley takes control. It felt like I was just looking for the only portal surface and then shooting it. My girlfriend was watching over my shoulder and thought it looked like incredibly quick puzzle solving (with neat flying through the air bits) while I found it to be a linear progression of obvious steps. Luckily, the game got back to puzzle rooms after not too long.
"Not clear what parts of the game are part of the puzzle"
That's basically my problem with myst, which I recently bought for vr.
It pretty much flat out tells you the solution to some of the harder puzzles (if you bother to read some obscure passage in a book you didn't know you could read) but never bothers to give you clues to solve it on your own, or denies you crucial information that is required to solve others expecting that you'll just get frustrated enough to start doing illogical things and you're never sure which is which.
In contrast to the room:a dark matter (which still failed to communicate some intractable parts of some of the puzzles in the templar section) in which I never once felt like I didn't have all the information at hand in order to solve a puzzle
Well, I'm ALREADY a patron of Writing on Games, so I win this one! Finally got one in te column!
When I saw "Eureka" in the thumbnail, I immediately thought about the children's science museum in Halifax; that place was awesome
I really liked superminial, but less as a puzzle game and more as an very interesting commentary of the way us humans interact and observe with things around and understand reality, which is funny to think about if people find the puzzle aspects you highlight here are on the weaker side.
And yeah they got me with the Diet one, granted, I'm not a main english speaking person so i had never seen it before >-
Yeah, it was like a walking simulator with puzzle elements
Yeah, I loved Superliminal a lot too (for many reasons), but if the puzzles had been designed better it probably could have clicked for more people
a game i adore called Crosscode is one of the best i've ever played. it's a spin on the zelda formula in which you collect power ups through your journey in order to complete puzzle filled dungeons, but unlike zelda, every powerup also becomes an essential part of the combat system. the puzzles that the player have to face often test comprehension of each power and how they interact with new and old mechanics, as well as each other. it's a true gem of a game.
I love this video, but the gigantic unwarned spoilers for the Witness and the end of Portal 2 were uncalled for :(
A simple spoiler warning goes a long way.
0:37 bro that picross, you can immediately cross off the gaps around the edge 1's at the bottom few rows
This whole thing also reminds my why I loved the point and click adventure game called Submachine, and most point and clicks in general.
the portal music gives me too much nostalgia for real im crying now
Superliminal made me feel actually ill from the dizzying perspective changes
5:14 look at the cube as it falls through the air it hits nothing look at it in slow motion
Probably anticipating some kind of reward for completion. Figuring stuff out seems almost instinctual on some level, imagine being a primate and trying to find a way to some fruit you see on a branch, you start solving the puzzle and the reward is usually food. It increases fitness.
Fun fact:
εὕρεκα is not just some random expression Archimedes shouted in this little story, but is in fact the perfect of the verb εὑρίσκω [heu̯.rís.kɔː] "to find out", so the expression εὕρεκα literally translates to "i got it!"
This is the first time I've used my knowledge of ancient greek outside an academic context, dont get a classics degree, kids.
I loved the moon eureka in protal 2 "Hey gel with moon dust in it is portal conductive.... I bet I can hit that moon"
Antichamber was not fun. It revelled in claiming it was about thinking about the box but then set up contained puzzle boxes so you couldn't break one puzzle by smuggling in bits of another. That kind of chafed.
0:17 heck yess 5d chess with multiverse time travel!
I am so happy that you covered portal.
It is basically obligatory to cover portal when talking about puzzle games.
16:23 Ah, don't worry, that was a difficult one, specially after you accidentally build yourself into a corner.
It's still not game over. You need to take as much of the transportation network and switch it into electric, and minimizing it's size since a lot of it is unnecesary. Try moving infrastructure closer so you can use shared transportation more, and switching the power production to solar and Thorium mini-nuclear. Go as local as possible since distances will force you to use oil and make you lose electric efficiency on the network. Put more green zones in cities and buildings and you'll make them cleaner and better to live in, this will help a little to make pops happier and you want them as much as possible, conflictive as they are will just get you looooots of problems.
Now you might think that can't be done since you dont have enough materials, and here's the puzzle trick: This one is supposed to teach you to grow vertically, thus that's why the resources you need are out of planet. You were supposed to start harvesting them from the moon several decades prior, but since it's not propery signaled, most players ignored it and went back to the planet. You gotta go up there again and take the aluminium, titanium and other tech materials you need to make the infrastructure. The oil righs you have there worth nothing? You can use them to launch rockets since due to pop growth near cities is a no-no.
You don't actually need to change dietary habits of the pops, you can feed the livestock with the veg surplus you're throwing to the trash.
Of course, this is only one of the exits. The puzzle in this point gets hard as heck, and the comunity can't agree on one fits all solution, so you might as well try anything that moves you forward.
Also, you can reliably shave 10 seconds off the run if you change all controls to Metric. No way you can compete in speedrunning without that.
Note: I'm not an engenieer or anything, I'm just asrepulling a joke, please don't open a climate debate on me, I don't know jack.
Ha, I loved the audio puzzles in The Witness, starting to think I might be the only one...
Great video as usual! I have found puzzle games could draw non-gamers towards the gaming world and couldn't exactly pinpoint why that is until I watched this so thanks :-D
We have been taught at school the "Eureka" moment of Archimedes, although it's highly unlikely he said that, as you mentioned. Frankly, I would appreciate it a lot if the teacher just told us that most discoveries and inventions come from hard work and endless hours of mental/physical work. I can't possibly fathom thinkers from all over the spectrum of science just experiencing an "Aha!" moment by sheer luck.
Anyway, could someone tell me which game is on 15:04?
Great vid! Good work mate
17:15 You got me 😂 (look at upper right corner)
I like how the first background music in this video is "The Toy Car" from "Professor Layton and the Unwound Future".
I haven't seen any footage fron Filament in this (very cool) video, so I'm gonna assume you haven't played it and take this opportunity to recommended it to you and whoever reads this comment.
It's a very nice puzzler, technically open-world, with especially good storytelling where you get to piece together the story as you collect logs as rewards for solving the puzzles. There's cool mechanics, it's pretty challenging and also environmental puzzles.
One of the best titles in puzzle games in my opinion. Doesn't feel right to me that so few people have played it!
So yeah play Filament
And thus spoke Adam Millard, in another video from the series of puzzlemania. For real tho I really love your videos about puzzles 👍
The moment I heard the _boom_ when I first clicked on an environmental puzzle in the Witness, I knew that something was up and I needed to revisit every part of the island.
Something I've been curious about for a while is how "puzzle game" seems to have 2 distinct and fairly unrelated meanings. The kind of puzzle game focused on in this video is the one I vastly prefer. The other encompasses the likes of Tetris, Puyo Puyo, and many mobile tile-matching games. Those games have much more in common with each other than either does with the various games covered in this video, but they're still called "puzzle games." What I would really like to know is how these two seemingly unrelated genres ended up with the same name. I suspect it's a similar story to western RPGs vs JRPGs where they have a common origin, but branched off from each other a long time ago and have each grown in different ways.
Kinda messed up how you explicitly spoiled The Witness's main draw.
I recently went back to The Time Warp of Dr Brain so this subject is fresh in my mind.
I remember seeing some puzzles in Witness and I thought I understood what they were about and how to solve them...but actually I didn't and then I hit a very frustrating wall with that. I could have gone somewhere else, but I just stopped playing completely.
Thanks for the channel tip but I subbed to writing on games a long time ago same the game makers tool kit and AI in games, they are all great channels about my favourite pass time games. 😊👍
I saw ultrakill in that opening and actually was surprised
I really love Writing on Games. Hamish really gives a different look on games, a more "literary" (is this a word?) take. And this always feels like a breath of fresh air next to the classical critique makers (Mandalore, Raycevick...etc). Aaaand that's why I love GMTK (he is more like an engineer of game design) and of course AoG (and he is more of a research scientist of video games)
My favorite puzzle in recent memory was the color puzzle from Celeste. I spent several nights just lying in bed, piecing together what exactly it was asking of me, before I eventually solved it.
I think I agree with you about Superliminal. Overall I still like it, but that enjoyment diminished greatly near the end.
It did have some clever puzzles and impressive programming, though.
I love the video, but I would also love a spoiler alert at the beginning. I play the Witness right now and didn't want to get spoiled because I love that "eureka-moment". And thats why I stopped watching when I was half way through.
I'll continue when I finished the Witness.
Talos and it's dlc is an amazing experience
The second you said Asura's Wrath I was immediately intrigued lol
I hate that there are SO MANY spoilers for games referenced, which could completely take away the eureka moment of those games.
Fortunately I played most of them... most.
My favourite game for giving you a bunch of mechanics and then a problem you have to solve, that makes you feel like a genius no matter how you do it, is probably Trine.
Witness - "the horrible audio-based puzzles"
You might be interested to know that for some people they are the easiest of all. I saw the audio ones in some let's plays, before even trying the game for myself, and they were immediately obvious for me, literally no puzzle there at all for me. Audio cue played, and I knew the solution. Because my almost-synesthesis meant that I have already naturally percieved/interpreted sounds visually the same way which those audio puzzles are based on. The principle they use is absolutely natural for me.
Then I went to play the game, and it was all the other ones that made me stop trying to finish it.
Mad respect for using Layton soundtrack
You missed the point of Archimedes’ discovery. It wasn’t about being able to calculate an object’s volume, since that was something you could measure, but rather how *dense* it was.
To be even more pedantic it's about how much it weights. Steel is much denser than water but ships float because they displace more water than the ship weights.
As a person who hasn’t finished portal 2 yet, Imma have to stop the video right here 3:58. I WILL BE BACK.
Y'know, I was had a guy actually argue at me that puzzles don't count as games... imagine that? That one of the most basic concepts of a game doesn't count anymore
I am glad none of this was spoilers for me. I think it is possible thus video will rob some people of their eurekas.
Great Video! As always
A puzzle is a challenge that CLICKS. I wa thinking about this very question last night, after doing a Christmas jigsaw puzzle with my children. It's not called a "game" or a "challenge" or a "messed up picture" or a "frustrating jumble", though it could be called those. Its a puzzle. The distinction between PUZZLES and other kinds of games and challenges, is that a puzzle CLICKS. 💡
11:06 Wait, what? The sea is a map? Whut trickery is this?!? I played this game soooo much, solved every fucking puzzle (some with help though) and I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT?!?
Man, I love the casual World of Goo drop.
That was such a neat game for its time.
Its atmosphere still sticks with me to this day.
Thanks for all of your content.
Keep on being awesome!
Hey man, loved the video like every other one lol! But I was just wondering why you put a badge in every thumbnail of yours. I can tell it motivates me to click on it more but is it just stylistic choice or conscious viewer recognition?
3:45 speedrunners disagree - place a portal under it and jump in, then crouch once you hit the box to break the glass and access the cube
Watching this video in the bath feels fitting.
If someone wants to play a game like Portal, Qube 2 is amazing (didn't play the first). It doesn't have the great story that Portal has, but the puzzles are very entertaining! Got it free on Epic Games a while ago
1:26 nice searches.
The parallel with science is no accident! According to the most influential historian and philosopher of science of all time, Thomas Kuhn, science IS puzzle solving!
ive always wondered, is there a reason why Chao is always at the end of the patron names
I was stuck on Platformer LoL. This video was my Eureka moment in baba is you, haahhaha
I got stuck on the same puzzle in Maquette and I just glitched the pink stone out of the house. Pretty sure that wasn't the correct response but I was so confused what to do
A Portal-esque game that I really enjoyed was "Lightmatter", while it's not perfect, it has some puzzles with poor communication & the constant references to Portal quickly became tiresome, overall I really enjoyed both the puzzles and narrative, it also has a really fun gimmick with having to manipulate light & shadow because you die if you step in shadow. It's a good game.
one thing ive never understood about the arkimedes thing is that, isnt volume unrelated to density? if i make an object out of silver with the exact shape of an object made of gold they would both displace the same amount of water wouldnt they?
0:30, why does this feel like an attack on Jerma985?
when the enemy spider is giant
I’d be curious to see any thought you have about “The Fall”
It’s a fairly short game with some issues, but it caused me to think about game design and storytelling in general