{"id":680,"date":"2011-03-17T14:38:44","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T18:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oztalay.com\/matt\/?p=680"},"modified":"2012-01-19T11:48:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T16:48:49","slug":"gdc-2011-notes-designing-limbos-puzzles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/gdc-2011-notes-designing-limbos-puzzles\/","title":{"rendered":"GDC 2011 Notes &#8211; Designing Limbo&#8217;s Puzzles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> <\/strong>Focus on gameplay<\/p>\n<p>Puzzle Design Principles in Limbo<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Challenging problem-solving<\/li>\n<li>There\u2019s  a difference between pretending to solve a puzzle (doing a  puzzle) vs.  actually solving a puzzle (thinking through, arriving at  conclusion,  executing)<\/li>\n<li>Easy and quickly-understandable mechanics<\/li>\n<li>As few elements as possible and simple elements<\/li>\n<li>Discourage brute-force trial and error, it ends with the player not getting enough of a sense of achievement<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t repeat puzzles, puzzles do not have replay value<\/li>\n<li>Solve complicated problems with simple explanation<\/li>\n<li>Do not challenge player through volume of STUFF<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"More...\" src=\"..\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Ideal play script<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Arrive at puzzle<\/li>\n<li>Attempt obvious solution<\/li>\n<li>Fail<\/li>\n<li>Learn by dying<\/li>\n<li>Player stops, analyzes situation and derives strategies<\/li>\n<li>Solve the problem<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The more the player struggles, the more rewarding the solution will be<\/p>\n<p>How can we predict the wrong strategies that players will attempt, and how can we let them know those strategies will be wrong?<\/p>\n<p>Anticipate how the player will solve your puzzle through:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Playtesting<\/li>\n<li>Thought exercises<\/li>\n<li>Scripting it out<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can always count on the player to press the button<\/p>\n<p>Intentionally mislead the player, which reveals some piece of information about the puzzle<\/p>\n<p>Player needs to know what to do when they arrive at the puzzle (get to point B)<\/p>\n<p>Two ways to think of player &#8211; you only want him to get stuck for a little bit<\/p>\n<p>Enemy<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Plant devious tricks and foils in the puzzle<\/li>\n<li>Deliberately Frustrate the player<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Friend<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Environment is accessible and readable quickly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What is the core idea of the puzzle, keep focused on that?<\/p>\n<p>Puzzle should be easy to execute. Once the player has figured it out, it should only take him one go to execute it.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t let the player think the puzzle is impossible<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Playdead\u2019s Editor<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Like a 2D unreal with kismet layered on top of it<\/li>\n<li>Play-in-editor<\/li>\n<li>Builder brushes<\/li>\n<li>Kismet nodes link directly to objects in world<\/li>\n<li>Joints and hinge actors<\/li>\n<li>Physics<\/li>\n<li>Prefabs (with scripts, particles, and \u201cmesh\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Encourages designers to keep puzzle simple by muddying their view with all their kismet linkages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Focus on gameplay Puzzle Design Principles in Limbo Challenging problem-solving There\u2019s a difference between pretending to solve a puzzle (doing a puzzle) vs. actually solving a puzzle (thinking through, arriving at conclusion, executing) Easy and quickly-understandable mechanics As few elements as possible and simple elements Discourage brute-force trial and error, it ends with the player [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[40,72,180,183,182,184],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-and-opinions","tag-design","tag-gdc","tag-gdc-2011","tag-limbo","tag-notes","tag-puzzles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oztalay.com\/matt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}