Talk Title: System-Centric Puzzle Design in 'Patrick's Parabox'
- Joaquin De Losada
- Jan 13
- 3 min read
Effective talk: System based puzzles
Year of Talk: 2024
What is System-Centric?
A system that’s interesting and worth sharing
Players are motivated to try out the new systems and see how they interact with each other.
Goal for the game:
Being able to have approachable difficulty.
Could easily communicate what systems where in use and how they might interact with each other.
This helped broaden the audience of who could play.
Approach to creating the puzzles:
Giving extra space in each level so there could be errors.
Simplifying the puzzle by removing certain complexity while still demonstrating mechanics.
Removing certain steps in the solution process.
How easy to easy?
Sometimes, simplifying a puzzle can cause players not to get a chance to fully grasp the mechanics or not feel like they have been challenged correctly.
An example of the process for oversimplification might be to; reduce the amount of puzzles to teach a level, and then some of the more complicated levels get turned into side levels the player can do as extra challenges.
The dev created an internal tool that would allow them to easily move around and define where different might appear and how many levels would appear in a single mission area.
This helped simplify testing and allowed iteration of what levels would mesh together the best to teach certain mechanics.
Testing:
Having testers record and narrate their thoughts out loud helps them understand what someone will think when playing the game.
But most people don't normally talk through what they are thinking when solving puzzles.
Video lets the devs see exactly what the player is trying and how many attempts it might take. Players can rewatch videos as much as possible.
Voice narration helps to see if people are realizing how things work as the devs intended or if more help is needed.
Having new playtesters each time lets people experience things for the first time each playthrough. Helps validate that previous levels work and people understand them.
Getting playtesters with little puzzle experience helps make sure that people with little experience can still solve it. Or at least go through a larger portion of the game.
Determining the mental models people were making and what needed to change to help create the correct models.
Certain players might see a small bump but it can become a bigger problem for other people in the future.
Having the testers play through the whole game and take a lot of notes before changing anything. This made sure that the devs could determine if players where able to notice patterns or mechanics and how their understanding of the game evolved.
Making levels:
Trying to find different interactions and then having them be requirements in levels helps players learn each individual mechanic better.
This type of level requires just playing around with the mechanics and seeing what types of levels feel right or not.
Making a larger level with various of the mechanics implemented helps to see how players might use the mechanics alone or together.
Groupings of mechanics and trying to determine how they work together. This works to make unique levels as you need to plan out different ideas better and how they fit in.
Creating “Show levels” where there is only one solution to the puzzle and work so show off the mechanics. Helps demonstrate how your meant to use said mechanic.
At times it might be worth trying to change mechanics slightly to see how they might feel if different. Can lead to new mechanics or level ideas.
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