Open-Ended Puzzle Design at Zachtronics
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- čas přidán 7. 07. 2019
- In this 2019 GDC talk, podcaster Drew Messinger-Michaels talks to Zachtronics founder and creative director Zach Barth about the studio's puzzle design process, from the initial foundation to the basic mechanics, to the way story is integrated.
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It's so cool, when you can print out documentation for shenzhen i/o and play with pokerface, while others at home think you're doing some actual work
It works. Can confirm.
"Your question has to be one sentence" is a fantastic idea. I wish more speakers implemented that rule. "Hi, big fan of your games, I've been playing since..."
Very on-brand too, optimisations and such
Dunno how much I learned about designing open-ended puzzles... but as a comedy show, I enjoyed that a lot :D
I took this away from the talk:
1. Make tools and proccesses not puzzles,
2. dont arbitrailily constrain the tools to teach them,
3. make targets as puzzles _not_ constrained scenarios
4. use metrics to watch for bounce rate on puzzels
I was literally gonna say something similar. It was good to listen to while cleaning the garage. 😅
Is GDC not a workshop. If you read his zack-like book you'll get a better insight on how he designs his games, but ultimately design is all about self experimentation.
"If it took 2 hours to solve it was probably too hard" ...
haha hahaha...
Some puzzles in SpaceChem or TIS-100 took me... way more than 2 hours.
That's why I couldn't play SpaceChem past the first few puzzles.
As much as i love Zachtronics games, i typically quit about 1/3 or halfway through when most of the game time is spent staring at the screen slowly debugging things
@@PGMT22 same for me, except for exapunks
I think I've got a couple HUNDRED hours in spacechem.
@@PGMT22 same, but on the middle-late part. Puzzles are exponentially difficult, and last ones are a total bs. Like afterending of Opus Magnum, with walls and stuff, or all second half of the Infinifactory.
Zach optimizes even when talking, he speaks very fast
Thanks for having this talk, any insight into the design of Zachtronics games is a treasure.
Thanks for the talk Zach! And thanks gdc
Their process is almost the opposite of the ""usual"" way of making puzzle games 😮
A very meandering talk, but enjoyable to listen to and sprinkled with interesting bits.
Double checks that playback speed is set to normal
It must be a great system to work out your personal goals and business.
Abstract enough, open-ended enough, restricted, tested.
I love these games.
"instead of teaching them harder we just made it easier to use" if only chip makers could make new masks to do that.
If only the education industry didn't force harder teaching on everybody just so they can make a quick buck.
I deeply admire this guy.
And I don't say such thing often.
very inspiring
A very very underrated game developer. Thumbs up for Zach and Jonathan Blow to create a game together.
I'm not sure it would work out, since they have such an opposite approach to making puzzles
I freakin' love Spacechem >_
36:32 through 46:22 is supremely good
This just in from zach: the Riemann hypothesis must have lots of solutions, cuz we don't know what the solution is!
Why can't crafting be skills based?
Crafting more often than not is inventory management and fetch quests, both tedious systems.
the thumbnail of your video looks very cool. what game ist that?
EXAPUNKS
This talk was rather confusing, it was more the podcaster talking and putting words in Zach's mouth.
I actually thought it was one of the most informative GDC talks I've listened to.
@Bobo That's what they mentioned at the beginning, but it still wasn't very good.
Besides a handful of bulletpoints about how the story was integrated with the puzzles, it sounded like two friends gushing over old times.
I found "Game Maker's Toolkit
" 6 minute long video (czcams.com/video/w1_zmx-wU0U/video.html) more informative and insightful than this hour long video.
honestly I think the designer is just not good at giving talks or doesn't like doing so, and this was the solution
Paper FTW. Imagine an infinitely resizable tactile monitor at print resolution which you can put in your pocket.
Evidently Cool Dad is basically Hot Dad with more (?) vaping.
I literally confused Cool Dad and Hot Dad.
First question: did Zach start the session by taking a big swig of milk from a carton? 🤔
I've seen those cartons in a few different talks.
Water also comes in cartons so it might be that. "Boxed water is better" or "Just water" are a few brands you might see at stores. The goal is to cut back on making more plastic bottles....or maybe they just like cartons. Who knows.
Why can't crafting be skills based?
Zach optimizes even when talking, he speaks very fast
Zach optimizes even when talking, he speaks very fast
I get the feeling Zach Barth and Elon Musk need to connect. Both appear to be trying to translate their own really complicated thought processes to mere humans.
I wish he included anti trump messages in exapunks.
Lolwut?
Why though? I can't say that I'm a fan of Trump, but injecting concrete political messages into your game will only result in alienating half of your potential playerbase just because you don't agree with their worldview. That's as ignorant and childish as it is stupid.
But why though? Exapunks is already political, most cyberpunk stories are, it just not THAT explicit about it.
no
@@Hoichael You assume half of zach's playerbase wouldn't agree with an anti-trump message, which I doubt.
As for why someone would do something like that, it's because sometimes it's worth taking a stand for what you believe in, even if you don't necessarily benefit financially from it. It's not childish at all.