How To Fail At Puzzle Games
Vložit
- čas přidán 3. 11. 2023
- Everyone loves a classic puzzle game, but not everyone can fail at making one, don't worry, I'll tell you how. :)
You can join my discord server if you want, people post stuff there sometimes: / discord
Twitter(x): / theartindi
itch.io: artindi.itch.io/
Music:
Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: filmmusic.io/standard-license - Zábava
I love you keeping on saying on "It's technically still a puzzle game."
well.. it is.
...technically.
@@Artindi_technally_
When player spend more than 2 seconds on the puzzle, their character should be like "Hmmm, that key might need to go there to let the water raise to trigger the switch that opens the door."
Ha ha. I might need to make a part two now so I can steal your joke. :)
There's a completely opposite but way more frustrating thing than really convoluted puzzles.
Puzzles which are ridiculously easy to *solve* but the solution is insanely hard to *execute* .
Like, imagine you had a chamber with three stone disks, each so large they can cover a doorway, but they have an opening you could walk through.
Now, you have to move them so that the doors line up, opening the path.
The trick is, you have to use levers that take long to reset, and if you move them in the wrong order (which is revealed through trial and error), the doors reset.
Oh, you finally did it?
Well, the next room has this, but 5 times!
The solution:
mad easy. In fact I just came up with that ^^
The execution?
Might take you hours.
The actual puzzle in the First Four Presidents's Favorite Color puzzle is to figure out you need to jump cause you didn't say you had to do it beforehand.
That would be how it goes for sure. Lol :)
yellow paint
to make it a real puzzle game , make figuring the mechanics itself a puzzle , and also the goal , and the controls , and how to advance , and make the last level impossible , so that the puzzle is figuring out its actually impossible , this way we maximise the play time.
That's what I'm talk'n 'bout!
maybe the true puzzle game here was the friends we made along the way
I hope we don't fail at that! :)
Yeah, cause it's a puzzle how we still have any friends after making this game.
Aaaand you just created hello neighbor 3! Congratulations!!!
1:44 is why Chambers 6 and 7 exist in the original "Portal" game. The devs had planned to introduce the energy orb mechanic with the acid, but decided to make a few buffer chambers to add the mechanics more slowly.
While this advice is important for the puzzles themselves, i have a few other important things to mention.
Make everything tedious. That way you can increase play time. Make movement slow, put a pointlessly long distance between each puzzle aspect, force the player to close and re open the game to reset the puzzle (if you must make a reastart button then just make it as slow as possible) and have the mechanics slow you down.
Additionally, make sure that the solutions to the puzzles are inconsistent and difficult to execute, and make each step in the puzzle require the previous one to even see it.
Also, it is vital that every mistake made by the player should force them to restart the level.
Just make it unfun to actually beat it.
On this sort of topic, this is why I love how the Talos Principle gives you a ridiculously fast sprint by puzzle game standards. Makes doing parts of puzzles you know how to do a lot more enjoyable.
Oh, here's one, there's one puzzle I remember being absolutely horrible, made you travel between different worlds to see if you were correct. But now add that you need to do it 4 times in a row or more and your puzzle will be absolutely horrible! Enjoy!
There are lots of videos and articles about puzzle design, so if you actually want to be good at it, I advise watching and reading as much as you can. Also, try using a level editor like from portal 2 or even creative Minecraft, to practice making puzzles for your friends to try. Just like with anything, practice makes perfect!
Suggestion: do "how to fail at accessibility" next. It would include stuff like "never add settings to your game" or "make the game as loud as possible, make cutscenes unskipable, cuz you really worked on that, you can't allow people to straight up skip that" and "most importantly, don't make important parts of gameplay stand out from decoration, as it would remove the realism, the player has to be as confused as possible"
@@AlehzeySpidwagonovich Sounds like a good idea. :)
this video was gold. wow.
so many videos out there 10x longer fail to teach, entertain and amaze you all at the same time
this was incredible, when you said "it's still technically a puzzle game" and the bg music kinda "looped" and changed rythm omg thats art man
Thanks! Glad you liked it and my efforts where not in vain. :)
@@Artindi I guarantee you they were not, i will be watching the other videos as soon as I can, really liked it man keep it up
There was background music? I need to turn the volume up...
That outro is gold :) I still haven't solved the puzzle of how to sufficiently ensmarten myself to be capable of making the games I want to make.
Truly one of the hardest puzzles of them all. :)
Every game is a puzzle game if you just throw random tiles at a canvas
this is what the garten of banban dev's watched to develop there game
I just found this series, and I love it. It reminds me of "Terrible Writing Advice."
You know "I Wanna Lockpick" ? The best thing about this game is not the mechanics, the cool sprites and the nice level progression. It's the fact that you are always opening doors but with slightly more steps every time.
the look on Aliensrock face would be epic if he realized that
You should always make sure to include "memorize this sequence of symbols and input them somewhere". It's the most fun type of puzzle, especially if the symbols are _just_ complicated or alien enough to make them hard to memorize!
I still do not understand how Meryl wanting to breed with Snake ( while being mind controlled by a mantis ) has to do with her codec radio signal being in the guide book I threw away .
Bonus points if you have two characters that you switch between, who have at no point been established to have any kind of telepathic link nor walkie-talkies or any way of communicating with each other, yet the player is expected to see information with one character and then input it using the other.
What's a fourth wall, anyway? =O
@@hazukichanx408Batman Arkham Knight am I right?
When you introduce a new mechanic, make sure to have the big subversion of it be in the first level that uses it.
Even better yet, *introduce* it with the subversion! Then only show them the way it usually works later!
You could use some "fluff" and additional elements over the main puzzle in a level to stop players from growing too complacent and actually think about the puzzle elements they have in hand. But that would not be failing at puzzle games so don't do that!
Honestly, I'd consider puzzle games as being the hardest to design correctly. Graphics are typically very simple, coding the mechanics is also usually simple... But coming up with unique puzzle mechanics that provide very interesting challenges, making full use of these, and coming up with puzzles that are the perfect level of difficulty and are solvable only through logic solving skills and not through luck or cheesing, that is no easy feat.
Heck, there's a Sudoku variant channel I watch, and while the solvers are impressive, I find the Sudoku makers to be even more impressive: they carefully craft each sudoku so that solvers will always need to figure out specific tricks to progress through, and somehow the whole thing really ends into a unique solution. Even if it looks stupid or lazy (writing stuff with hints, or 100% empty grid), it still somehow ends up being a perfectly challenging puzzle, and I don't think I'll ever understand how they manage to pull this off.
Puzzle-crafting is actually a separate skillset from puzzle-solving. It can be an overlapping interest, but generally requires its own practice & intentionality. Like, do you want to make a "comfortable" puzzle, or a puzzle-set rewarding patience & growing familiarity? Or perhaps one that challenges the conventions of its genre to create a new genre (e.g. acrostics vs cryptics vs "normal" crosswords)?
It's really similar to game-dev in that respect - you need to understand your target audience, and settle in your head what it is that you want to accomplish. And then practice, practice, practice 😄 No one hits the bulls' eye the first time - give it a try, and see how far you can go!
When it takes longer to execute the solution than think of it, you've created the PERFECT puzzle. (excl intro/tutorials ofc)
I totally won't just skip the chamber if there's a lot of that.
Question and ehat about how to make a good mmo.
1. Grind
2. An op weapon getting you to the end game
Etc
I would for sure need to learn more about MMO's and what makes them count as one, but I'm sure there are plenty of ways to fail at making those, :) (but to be honest I don't know how soon I would make a video about one as an MMO is not typically made by an indie developer.)
How to fail at making an MMO:
1. Be an indie developer.
2. Don't research server infrastructure
3. Use the phrase "realistic science based dragons" in your pitch statement
sounds like you played a lot of mini games in hidden object games on bigfish
if not: the puzzle most often comes from figuring out the controls, the rules and the goal. so they're technically threefold puzzles. wheeeeeeeee... x_x
this video was very puzzling
Technically, every game is a role playing game. You play the role of a hapless test subject, an immortal political leader, a disembodied spirit that moves blocks around in the air as they fall...
Whats really puzzling is the fact that you dont have as many subs as you deserve ❤
Thats true He is speaking to the whole gaming Community basically everyone IS Adresse with a cute Animation
Of course, when I get back to work on my puzzle game, this gets uploaded. 😅
Silly Artindi, Get out of my walls!
No! I mean... what walls? I don't know what you're talking about.
Thanks for another video in this series man, they are pretty entertaining and it helps give me some more motivation to work on my game. Which is good since I kind of fell out of it for a week. Back to the grind
Actually it can be good to take a few days or even a few weeks off, as long as you come back to it, I've always found I'm more motivated and get a lot done when I do that. :)
@@Artindi Thanks man it's appreciated :3
discovered your channel, you're underrated as hell, keep going bro
I for sure will. Thanks! :D
Finaly another how to fail video, I was having withdrawals.
It's only been two weeks. :) I used to put them out ever few months. lol.
What happens when you run out of genres?
1:08 "...you can just have buttons and boxes and keys..."
this line hurt really bad
"thats for someone else to figure out... figure out...? i think i just made a puzzle game."
Same energy as "this is the gorbinos quest of real life."
I love how his knowledge of video game design allows him to be so funny in the ways he instructs people to fail.
This is educational and un-educational at the same time!
I will fail gracefully then! Love these videos man:)
Guess the game:
The eyes in the statue follow your sword movement. Therefore, the right solution is moving your sword in a circle, then the eyes would get confused and for some reason decide would open the door. The eye following a sword or moving the sword in different patterns never appeared in the game before or after that instance.
Long time no see, thank you for the video. Now I can fail my game successfully!
I hope so! or... I mean, I hope not? lol
god i love this youtube channel
Me too! ;D
maaan all these how to fail videos are so great!
i was hoping for a "you know what just literally make portal" joke and you actually had one :D
Working on a parkour/puzzle map in Minecraft that is only ever going to be played by me and this is actually helpful
This video reminds me of a puzzle... game.
There is one thing you might have missed.
"...and if you somehow run out of ideas, just make a Tetris clone, slap a random name on it to avoid getting sued, and call it a dau."
I hate this so much because if you make it beautiful enough, no one will ever assume it's a shit puzzle game.
(lovingly btw, not a hate comment)
I mean, you are not wrong. We seem to be susceptible to things that look good. What a weakness we all have. :)
do you mean "the witness"?
One thing to note on story’s in puzzle games is that i don’t think that puzzle games NEED a story. Yay, it can help to give context to the world and why you are even doing the puzzles in the first place but you can still make a good puzzle game without a story. As long as the puzzles are interesting and the mechanics are interesting and engaging. Unlike other genres puzzle games are mostly built on gameplay and there mechanics and not really about story and narrative.
Maybe the puzzle game is the friends we made along the way
this video makes me mad. not because i disagree with you, nothing like that
it's because you are actually correct and i hate that i can see myself doing some of these things
keep up the good work
lol, thanks for following the tutorial so closely, seems you knew what to do before I even pointed it out? ;)
You mean , Mario RPG forcing me to count boxes with a timer dead-line can count as a puzzle if I have a option to skip the level ?
Dang it! Now I've got to scrap all my puzzles... or I could just add a twist later... you know any good subversions of "move a box around a grid"?
Instructions unclear made portal
yay! new video on how to fail!
Yay! Another comment on my video on how to fail! ;)
'It's still a puzzle game"
Really great 👌 video
Technically it's still a underrated video 😅
Thanks! Technically a great comment! :)
@@Artindi thank you
Please make a “how to fail at making game art”
oh it's on the todo list. :)
Not to name names... but, I wanna lockpick...
instructions unclear combined rain world and portal 2
If you're worried that your players might be solving the puzzles too quickly, make sure to incorporate an hour long video that the players must witness- I mean, _sit through_ before solving the puzzle!
But dont make it *that* easy. They shouldn't actually watch the video, they should instead stare at the blank wall behind it, waiting for a specific orb of light to reach a specific point about 40 minutes into the video... :D
0:45 I see you sneeking that in
What? Huh? I have no idea what you are talking about. ;)
Accidently discover meaning of life, but mistake it as a puzzle game. Publish it on steam. 20 years later someone makes a youtube video about this old obscure game that might be secret genius holding the meaning of life but no one has ever heard of it.
looks like a guide on how to make Cicada 3301
Every game is a puzzle if you are stupid enough
Did anybody manage to find the unlocked Chalice on that medival game about a skeleton general who is trapped in a Playstation as he fights his way back to Valhalla ?
I mean it would technically still be a puzzle game
here before the blow up
boy I hope so. :)
just make a candy crush clone
i am currently trying to develop an indie puzzle game and i am not sure if i find your videos funny or depressing.
Take them as a quick way to see how others have failed, to help you avoid the same pitfalls. Of course everyone will fail at some point in indie game development, but this only helps us become better at it. Don't let the fear of failure hold you back, because after all, the best way to fail is to never try.
I do the exact opposite of this. So I make good puzzles right? right?
That's not how you follow a tutorial! ;)
Easy way to fail: put hello neighbor puzzles
It’s technically still a puzzle game
You are clever - for sure
Why thank you. :)
Are you joking of NastyMan?! Are you?!
Lets make it really cryptic hehee like darksouks
The Dark Souls of puzzle games, that sound brutal.
@@Artindi like I saw a game that was really cryptic like I dont know
Im sorry but what about dark souls is cryptic?
@@UgliusRodentia darksouls is hard
@@simonw.1223 I...guess so. the reputation is really badly exaggerated. it's not easy, that's for sure.
but you said it was cryptic, thats what I was asking about. what about dark souls is cryptic?
Also, puzzles should be needlessly complex instead of simple and straightforward. Instead of using the hammer on the nail, you should use the hammer to prop open a door, which lets you get the brick, which you throw over the wall to land on a pressure plate, opening another door, which then leads to a switch which collapses the roof onto the nail. And if the player tries to use the hammer on the nail, just give a generic vague message, like "I can't do that," or "I can't use that here," instead of actually explaining why that obvious interaction won't work for some reason.
You didnt have to drag outer wilds like this.
Keep trying, you can become a famous youtuber
I would be happy with just being a CZcamsr that can feed himself. :)
This comment is still technically a puzzle game.
If players can't solve your puzzles it isn't your fault, actually it's good because it means you are very smart and they are just stupid enough and can't figure out the solution.
"Logical steps" and "introducing mechanics" are just hints for babies that don't know how to solve a puzzle game.