Puzzle Game Magic Secrets
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- Опубліковано 11 січ 2022
- In this 2019 GDC session, My Dog Zorro’s Brett Taylor approaches the art and science of puzzle game design through the unstoppably cool lens of human cognition.
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For those who don't know, a ten second break like what he does in this video will help you rest AND remember his lesson.
Spacing is a technique to learn anything faster. While studying or consuming content, giving yourself a ten second break where you focus your mind on something else will give your mind time to quickly reinforce the knowledge so you can better store it in long term memory.
A break, a joke, a transition, a restatement as a metaphor... there are many ways to add these breaks in naturally or do them yourself while studying (like looking away from a video and scrolling the comments).
Some people do this naturally every couple minutes, and most of everyone else struggles to remember things.
I was not ready for the level of charisma the speaker possesses
He even makes the "awkward pauses" seem amusing.
If you close your eyes, he sounds like he could be the uber cool brother of Gabe from the Office, who Gabe often tries and fails to emulate. +3 to charisma 👏
I play a lot of puzzlers, indies, and platformers. Linelight is one of the most dazzling and fun games I've ever played. This game made me feel emotions for those little colored lines. The piano music in the game is fascinating too.
So many puzzle games fall victim to so many of the problems listed in this talk. Thank you for pointing out the limits of human cognition. Also, water is the best!
Amazing talk and presentation. A mature blend of: being informed, personal, and abstract enough to be applicable both in puzzles and game design in general. One word of caution on “Thinking Fast and Slow” is that a couple of the early chapters aren’t statistically generalizable (at or blow 50%, with priming being the least reliable). A shortcoming that Kahenman himself has acknowledged. That said, I’ve found a lot of pre 2011 research that has failed to replicate...is STILL interesting and useful in game design.
Woah this guy loves metaphors
Seriously great talk, wish I'd watched this before I started making puzzle games but at least now I'll have it for future ones!
poor sudoku got such a bad reputation. handcrafted sudokus - especially those with extra rules - are quite interesting
Yeah they can be a ton of fun. I'm currently addicted to the UA-cam channel Cracking the Cryptic.
@@MikeCampo THERE ARE DOZENS OF US :) Recently got into it as well.
The Witness brought me to witness Cracking The Cryptic! Haven’t watched in weeks though
I thought the same, and am also a big CtC fan. But to be fair, sudokus have come a huge way since 2019 when he gave this talk. The procedural ones were all mostly anyone knew about.
@@indubio1 fair point. to be honest, i kinda was the same back then, i guess. it's interesting how "new solving tools" get discovered now, even though subjectively _the_ sudoku hype is over for quite some time
30:00 Another solution is to prime the player by having him make that exact jump in a corridor at the very start of the level. He will do the jump (not other path, only way to go), without even thinking about it. Then he will see that the other jump is the same and will do it, without even noticing he was primed. Priming is a really good tool and it can make people feel really clever while part of the solution was given to them.
In Super Metroid and Metroid Dread, they lock player in areas using skills they don't have yet and also created loops to funnel the player. So, when the player explore, he has a lot of chances to land on the desired path, unless he is tacking extra steps not to. Also, it foster a sentiment of being lost and being able to fin his way. There is one human on Earth, though, who is immune to hint and won't shoot ceilings 🤣 (Even when the game design push you to do so)
Good approach.
For the 10min version of the talk, jump to 50:00 for the recap.
Here's a recap of the 7 lessons:
* Simplify (remove noise)
* Cut pointless levels
* You (the designer) are an expert player (so if players say the puzzle is "too hard", listen)
* Keep 'action' and 'puzzle' separate
* Make solutions unambiguous (avoid solutions not feeling right, avoid trial-and-error, and make impossible actions unambiguously impossible)
* Player Trust (by default, players expect that they don't need agility to solve puzzles; if one puzzle requires agility, players will assume many puzzles require agility)
* Exhaustive Design vs Fun (consciously decide whether you are exploring every possible iteration of the mechanics -or- focusing on the fun levels that grow from mechanical interactions)
I've got to say, I love the pause for side note on mediocrity. It can be hard to remember you can be critical on your past work while still being compassionate enough to keep creating.
This is the best talk in GDC. Thank you!
정말 좋은 강연 감사합니다. 강연의 내용뿐만 아니라 구성 까지도 듣는이를 고려하여 준비한 티가 나네요. 마치 퍼즐게임을 푸는듯한 발표였습니다.
감각으로만 익혀 왔던 레벨디자인 기법이 정돈되어 많은것을 배우게 되네요. 제가 들은 GDC강연중 최고였습니다.
Thank you so much for the great lecture. Not only the content of the lecture but also the composition of the lecture is obvious in consideration of the listener. It was a presentation as if solving a puzzle game. And I liked this person's humor.
Level design techniques that have been learned only by senses have been arranged and taught me a lot.
It was the best GDC lecture for me.
(I used a translator)
하이!
"Three Steps to Becoming a Better Artist Immediately"
Thanks for the tips, and thanks for giving hope! How a mortal human could have created the puzzles of a game like Baba Is You was mystifying. I guess the ingenuity was in creating the mechanics that then "thought" up the puzzles.
This was an amazing talk, very inspirational for me. Thank you!
I really like the concepts he explained regarding Working Memory. Its actually a concept that could be used to teach ppl about why practice makes perfect (6:55), especially within difficult games that have large learning curves.
Amazing talk, posted honestly right when I need to see it.
This was grand thank you :)
Very clarifying for a newer developer
This is a huge list of super valuable material. Wish I knew this when I was making puzzle games a few years ago, had to find most of it out on my own hah
Best talk on this channel. Really informative stuff and I love his humor.
Really love that point about noise.
It's something I do a little bit in my level design, but I couldn't properly articulate it.
Thanks!
Love the talk! Thanks! :)
This inspired me to drink more water.
That’s the real lesson of this talk.
Water is so fun!
@@TyperMarlinGames can't disagree
So many gems in here. Solid
"oh, I solved it?" and "was that right?" happened to me a few times with Baba is You. I actually ended up searching the solution on UA-cam for specific levels that I completed to see if I did it the "orthodox" way. Turns out there were tons of people saying "oh I pushed this thing over there, turned it into blah, took control, went through there, turned back into blah" and it worked as an alternate solution to the walkthrough. It did kinda ruin my trust in the game a little because I wasn't sure if I was taking away what the designer intended or just finding some weird exploit. Also made it feel like the game might not have been tested that thoroughly? Or maybe it was supposed to be open ended but you're not sure...
Finding new ways to solve puzzles is exactly how you're supposed to play Baba is You. In fact, the alternate levels were all inspired by playtesters who found new ways, and then the creator created a new version of the puzzle that either blocks it or forces it because they found it interesting.
23:38 "Knowing the solution and not being able to execute it" that's got to be the worse feeling in a puzzle game, that's basically what made me quit Angry birds back in the days. I would know how I'm supposed to be doing it, but with the bad mobile controls, I would miss like 1 of the 3 birds that I absolutely need to land then have to start over. It's the opposite of fun, like I know what I'm supposed to do, I just can't do it.
"Water is fun"
- This guy
Linelight is one of the game I love the most!
really enjoyed this talk, thanks!
great talk!
49:41 That depends on how your mechanics combines and if you want allow multiple solutions or not. That's where the "problem space" come into play.
I designed IQ Test items and more often than not, when the item is checked, shortcuts are found or there are confound and sometime, a second or third solution.
Obviously, in those item you are probing something very specific. Like the number sense, relative size perception, ability to isolate information or process multiple variables at the same time (hardest ones as you've to ensure people can't eliminate solutions using each variable in isolation, also the ones most people can't "read").
Related, The Witness and Metroid Dread lock players in some areas to limit the search space (subset of the problem space). In The Witness, it's gated by knowledge. In Metroid Dread, it's gated by abilities. And those things are mostly invisible to player and even relief it by reducing his search space a lot.
This guy is awesome!
Great thanks👍
Aside from the ums (which will fix itself with speaking experience), the content is wonderful. Glad a i watched.
lesson 7 really connects to one of the better lessons in that famous mark rosewater talk. interesting doesn't mean fun. having a design space doesn't mean everything in there is a functional possibility.
Great talk and great game! congrats man! not only good puzzles but you made us care for 4 lines at the end of it :-)
Just doing my job
I loved the “oh *sight* yeah….” On 3:50
Interesting point about The Witness and the exhaustive level design, I wonder which part he's referring to when he says Jon Blow exhausted the system design at the expense of fun... Maybe the part where you have to draw lines as they relate to sounds you hear in the world 😅
49:54 - "I haven't done a spit take yet... I'm not going to... next year, next year." 😐
I came here to say the same thing 😆
When he said that, I did a spit take.
Procedural puzzles can have novel solutions.
Reminds me of Line Wobbler - Robin Baumgarten
Thank you for this explanation of working memory. It helped me better understand how ADHD impacts working memory. We're just less able to ignore the cues a neurotypical person (the expert in this case) wouldn't even consider, thus filling our ram with useless possibilities
That's a pretty apt comparison! And that's why we're tired all the time (stress/above the "flow" zone)
Accurate
@@SuperKirby_Gaming why I’m tired AND YET cannot succumb to sleep?
@@nintendude794 Body tired but brain still going too fast
@@SuperKirby_Gaming exactl’aye!
I'd actually like my puzzles to keep their liver.
Then go for kidneys first.
I just now found out about linelight, and despite having seen this video, I now realize that's the game being featured.
25:50 Every university test be like...
you're here for @46:00
"4. Keep action and puzzles separate"
* Portal entered the chat *
I think this is great advice and maybe Valve should have been a bit more alert to this. To me, the nice part about Portal was that it was just about all puzzle and no action. The few places where these did get mixed together, it ended up being very frustrating to me. Portal 2 mixed action and puzzles more than the original and as a result, I found it more frustrating to actually complete that one.
Water is fun :>
I think I can learn from this vid, but it has spoilers! I haven't completed The Witness yet. lol.
my plan was to make my whole game has puzzles and actions at the same time T_T
48:00 recap
water=fun
great talk! i would really like it if the speakers would try and record the conversations afterwards (if there are) where we can delve deeper into some of the topics than the restricted time on the talk allowed for. just for a suggestion ;)
Would make for a good series on NoClip, People Make Games, or Game Maker’s Toolkit
There's a finite amount of Sudoku Skills
That’s what he says too!
@@nintendude794 Yeah the sentence just somehow spoke to me
Great talk! This guy has a great understanding of how puzzle games work, works. He was very funny, but he could work on his delivery and speaking style a bit to seem more engaging and confident--he seemed dry and stiff and it impaired the jokes landing. And the images on the slides did a great job of expressing the ideas he was talking about.
just once I wish he'd say "life uh finds a way" or runs from a t-rex
Brett Taylor sounds extremely similar to Matt Frewer / Max Headroom. I wonder if he ever does lines from the show. He should be selling Coca-Cola.
This guy is really interesting. lol
47:00 "Moooooving on"....
There’s always chess boxing
Actually sudoku isn't infinte. There are a finate amount number of possibile sudokus. It's in the order of 10 to the 84 i think thought.
I imagine you can just make it larger and use a different number system. There are hexadecimal sudoku, and I don't see why other square number systems wouldn't work. So that's how you get infinite.
Halo: Infinite? Pfft.
Doom: Eternal? Nahhh.
Sudoku: Forever? Errydayyyyy
6:10 20% bar is bigger than half of the 40% bar :)
Very true
This dude going places, not GDC but places
𝓪𝓵𝓻𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽... 😏
This talk did incorporate informative points on puzzle games with some fitting examples. It is hard for me to give this criticism, as I love comedy, creativity, and trying new things. However, I feel Brett missed the mark consistently with this talk, turning the focal point away from puzzle game concepts, relevant anecdotes, and paraphrased or reinforced points, to repetitive tags that did not necessarily land. I was not there, so I cannot speak for the talk, but I did not hear too much laughing. When performing or speaking publicly, reading an audience is paramount.
Informative and important for game design, but I would say if giving this talk again, I would work some fine tuning.
First ✌️
Great talk about puzzles with a lot of excellent caveats.
Personally, the attempts at humour keep making me cringe. They're not funny so it just ends up awkward.
Humour releases tension. Since there is no build-up of tension, the attempts at humour don't land. Doing an eye-roll gesture or saying "Water is so fun" amounts to noise in the talk.
#CutTheNoise
I understand not wanting to take oneself too seriously. I don't think the presenter was taking this too seriously. The content isn't dry, either, so it doesn't really need spice to make it interesting. If anything could use some spice, the slides could be the thing to work on: less reading off slides and less bullet-point text.
the way he talks about sudoku has me convinced he does not understand sudoku