IF Puzzles IF PuzzlesThis is a fledging project for cataloguing types of puzzles in works of interactive fiction. It's little more than an idea at this point. The first step, I think, is to research what people have written about IF puzzles, and then try to come up with a working definition of a puzzle, at least as far as IF is concerned. I'm not certain a definition is quite what I need to go forward with this, so I will also read up a little on semantics and meaning as well. This page will look rather messy at first.
— David Welbourn
I'm researching/brainstorming puzzle categories. I'll list them here in a clump and see what I end up with. Several of these will probably overlap in awkward ways or be ill-defined initially.
A puzzle is anything that impedes a player's progress towards a goal. One element of a "good" IF game is puzzles that seem integrated into the plot; if the player finds either the puzzles or the prose too difficult to wade through, the gaming experience suffers.
Puzzles are often solved by manipulating items in the inventory, figuring out how a simulated machine works, or performing some task to defeat or befriend an NPC. Puzzles are sometimes solvable only by blind experimentation (see [[babel fish puzzle]]), and some poor puzzles make no sense (see [[soup cans]]). Usually lateral thinking is required and puzzles are layered on top of each other, getting harder as the game proceeds. Clues for solving puzzles are usually given in the game, but hints are available online. Puzzles are sometimes unsolvable or make no sense.
A puzzle may be considered solved when the player is given a reward. Rewards can be in many forms, for example: a new inventory object, new important information, a new skill, the removal of a barrier or dangerous object, or transportation to a new area.
In games with a complex plot, a puzzle may provide motivation for the PC, or it may be the means by which the designer divides the story up into separate sections.
I sometimes try to define 'puzzle' when teaching Kuhn, and give something like this (possibly incomplete or wrong) definition: a non-trivial obstacle that can be solved by a competent solver within a clear system of rules.
It's not a puzzle if it's too easy; if it's not stopping you from proceeding; if you literally cannot solve it; if you could only solve it in a way nobody could think up (like typing, with no motivation, the letters hasjkdhb); or if you have to do a deep memory hack, or somesuch.
I know that the topic of "What constitutes a puzzle" has been done to death but every time it has come up I've wanted to say something on the subject because I have very strong opinions about what is and isn't a puzzle but have never been able to properly articulate it.
However, while pondering how to phrase an issue I want to discuss [see my next post] the idea of what is and isn't a puzzle to me sort of clarified itself in my mind and I thought I'd share and see what you think. Okay here it goes.
When someone asks me to name a game I think is puzzleless three titles jump immediately to mind: Deadline, Suspect and Witness. Now, those are odd choices because afterall they are all Who Done It style murder mysteries and seem to be puzzles by their very nature. But, it was at this point that I realised the distinction between a puzzle and a problem. All fiction contains problems, more literarily refered to as conflict. Deadline contains the PROBLEM of solving a murder but solving a murder isn't a puzzle.
To illustate my idea of a problem vs. a puzzle in a game context I will give examples of using a jigsaw puzzle in three cases. The first is a puzzelless instance, the second is borderline and the third case I would definitely call a puzzle.
Case I: Consider a murder mystery game where the murderer tears up a photograph and the player, acting as the detective, finds it and puts it back together again. This to me is a puzzleless use of a jigsaw puzzle (sounds contradictory I know but bare with me). It is puzzleless because this is a perfectly reasonable thing for the murder to do. He is not tearing up the picture as some kind of clever battle of wits between himself and the detective but rather to obliterate evidence. In fact the killer would prefer it if the picture was not found at all. The puzzleless nature of this scenario would be enahanced if the player didn't HAVE to assemble the photo to complete the story. Assembling the photo might lead to a swifter solution or just enhance understanding of the story. The player might be able to learn the contents of the photo in an alternative method, perhaps by asking someone else who saw the photo before it was torn up.
Case II: A dying man writes the name of a killer on a pre-existing jigsaw puzzle and then breaks up the puzzle to hopefully better insure it falling into the right hands. This is a borderline case because as above the character creating the problem has good motivation to do so. However, it "feels" like a challenge if not from the character in the context of the story (however, I would feel like the dying man was leaving a challenge for the police) then from the author of the story. So this is a tough call for me. Depending on my mood I might call it puzzeless because its well motivated and believable as a real world scenario. On the other hand I might call it a puzzle because it just feels to much like a direct challenge of wits either between my character and the dying man or myself as the player and the author.
Case III: Consider a time machine that operates by placing jigsaw puzzle pieces together, each piece representing a different time period. Now, I know this example is a bit contrived and NO ONE would ever do this, (Cough, Cough) but here the jigsaw puzzle is used in a pure puzzle form. It is there for no other reason than as a challenge to the player to complete it. Artistically it might be a clever idea. I have no problem with it's artistic use and it even fits into the context of the story. But still it is a jigsaw puzzle, placed as a puzzle for the player to solve.
So, I like puzzleless IF. I like IF where I am faced with PROBLEMS to overcome but prefer to overcome those problems in a PUZZLELESS manner. So anyway, that's my contribution (a bit late) to the whole puzzle vs. non-puzzle debate.
My take it on is problems have solutions with easily accessible information and rely on common knowledge techniques. Puzzles feature limited or even false information and tend to require an innovative or fanciful use of that information. The intuitiveness of the solution is the key and complexity has very little bearing.
Yes, thank you, this is what I've been trying to say in such a wordy way. Also the availability of alternatives. In everyday problems not only are the solutions intuitive but often there are MANY intuitive solutions that will all work.
Doe:
Working on my example for the IF Art Show (Scenery). Have felt I have "flirted" with puzzles in a few instances. Or maybe not. (Rules say no puzzles so my example must have no puzzles as well.)
Started me thinking about when is a puzzle a puzzle. And when it is not.
This difference between puzzle and non-puzzle, I am finding, may not be as clear cut as one might think.
L. Ross Raszewski:
No kidding.
I tend to have about the most liberal definition of "puzzle" possible: A puzzle is a point at which the player's actions directly affect the progression of the narritive. This basically means that just abotu everything except wandering around is a puzzle (wandering around is a puzzle if the wandering affects the narrative; if being at point A at time B makes the game go differently than being at point C at time D, then wandering is part of the puzzle)
The easiest way for me to identify puzzles is to imagine I have an infinately stupid betatester (fortunately, I do not.). Any question which my infinitely stupid betatester asks me is a puzzle.
Of course, this means that "Puzzleless Interactive Fiction" is well-neigh impossible, by my definition. This makes it a pretty poor definition for the purpose of weeding things out of your art show, but I do find it useful for identifying places where the player can get "stuck", or for finding cases which I have to handle -- it's easy to overlook the fact that the "solution" to the "Okay, what do I do now?" puzzle is fairly random if you don't count "Okay, what do I do now?" as a puzzle. The other advantage of this system is that it's relatively easy to apply. Most other common distinctions have to do with subjective measures of difficulty -- If the answer to "How to I get the ring" is "unlock the box with the vorpal key then answer the three knight's riddles," then it would be a "puzzle", but if the answer is "Pick it up off the table", it's not, at least, not by common metrics.
Anyway, I probably haven't helped you with your ultimate goal of coming up with a definition of "puzzle" that you can require NOT be in your art, but I hope I've at least tossed otu something worth thinking about.
gregory:
To try and break the definition of 'puzzle' down:
On the basis of this definition, I would say: please, lift your restriction on puzzles! If an IF work has the smallest amount of puzzling, someone somewhere will take it and play it as a puzzle, trying to find all the possible responses, guessing at verb, and the like. But without some element of puzzle, IF loses interactivity, and becomes F.
surely, guidelines and careful judges will serve better than formal rules for your purpose
FemaleDeer:
Types of Puzzles
Mark Green:
What I'm looking for is some sort of catagorization or outline of different types of puzzles, as has been done with other IF
Well, I don't know if a categorisation would work, because the best puzzle is an original puzzle. But as a start:
[Note: some examples include spoilers, especially for Theatre, since that was the last major game I played.]
1 - The Generic Boring Sequence "Puzzle" aka Object Matching
Some hazard requires an object to pass. The object is hidden in another area of the game. The object has no other usage, and once you know about the existance of both the hazard and the object, the solution is blindingly obvious.
Note: This isn't really a puzzle at all, but tends to be used to ensure that the game is solved in a fixed order; hence Sequence Puzzle. These puzzles are dull but may be necessary.. but please don't include too many! Examples: Locked doors, or feedable monsters, are favourite.
2 - The Examine-Everything "Puzzle"
Something has a hidden object or similar, which is revealed by looking at/under/on/around it in a certain way.
Note: This, IMHO, is worse than type 1 if badly done. Just having to look at, around and under everything in sight is really dull. But if well done, it can be rather good.
Bad Example (IMHO): The chest under the bed in "Balances". Apart from the things-under-the-bed cliche there's no reason to do this.
Good Example (IMHO): The Secret Gallery door in "Theatre". A picture is the sort of thing you're going to look at and doing so gives you just enough of a clue.
3 - Usage of an object as something else with which it has something in common.
An innocent looking item is provided which has something in common with another object that would be useful. You have to use one as the other.
Examples:
(Curses) A dumbwaiter goes up and down between floors. So does a lift. So, use the dumbwaiter as a lift.
(Theatre) A chandelier swings from the ceiling; so could a rope. So, use the chandelier as a rope. A piano has a flat surface high up; so does a stepladder. So, use the piano as a stepladder.
4 - Violation of a percieved internal restraint.
A puzzle which is solved by doing something which, although technically possible irl, would not be the sort of thing one would actually do.. not sure about this.
Example: The snake in the locker. Conventionally most people would think to confront the snake somehow. In fact, the solution is to move the locker. Although irl, most lockers could be moved, it is not an acceptable thing to do, so quickly people develop a complex which means they don't immediately think to do it. (Probably).
Any typology of puzzles in Interactive Fiction will fail to convey the wide diversity that is found in actual games, so it is with this caveat that I will now speak about three types of puzzles.
First, there are puzzles of complexity. Here, the player has all the information needed to solve the problem; and in addition, she could, given enough time and determination, write down all the possible moves and thus arrive at the solution. The challenge comes from the complexity of the puzzle: because there are so many moves the player can take, simply brute forcing her way through it is impractical. Instead, she must, by a combination of systematic thought and intuition, figure out the path that leads to the solution. Chess problems are puzzles of complexity: one knows everything, one could write down all possible series of moves, and yet they can be extremely challenging. In Interactive Fiction, puzzles of complexity are more often found in graphical adventures than it text based games; the open-ended nature of parser based IF is perhaps not the best medium for presenting this type of puzzle.
Secondly, there are puzzles of association. Here, the player knows, in principle, everything she has to know in order to solve the puzzle; but she must make an associative connection between different things she has found in the game in order to solve the puzzle. You know you have a plastic tube you'd love to break; you know there is a heavy lawn roller in the garden; you know, of course, that anything that is a bit fragile breaks when you push a lawn roller over it - and all you have to do is make the association between these three bits of knowledge. Well, and hope that the author has implemented your solution, of course. Puzzles of association are extremely common in interactive fiction.
Finally, there are puzzles of exploration. Here, the main task of the player is to get enough information, by looking for it in the right places. If the information does not straightforwardly solve the problem, the player may have to use deductive or abductive reasoning to arrive at the sought-for answer. Puzzles of exploration are the heart and soul of the detective genre: by amassing clues, the detective slowly gets enough information to solve the murder. It is a kind of puzzle that is very appealing, but it is hard to implement interesting puzzles of exploration well in a piece of Interactive Fiction.
Mike Rozak:
I was just trying to think of the categories of puzzles for a writeup I want to do. I believe (maybe incorrectly) that I saw a list somewhere on the internet. Does anyone know where? Or, does anyone have any categories to add to my list?
Categories of puzzles that I've come up with so far (in no particular order):