Posts Tagged puzzle
Feeding Time is Coming!
Posted by The Management in projects on January 22, 2012
We’re making a small iOS puzzle game, let us know what you think!
The Elegance of Continuity
Posted by The Management in design, games on December 12, 2009
Every once in a while, I check out a batch of interesting-looking Flash games. Most of them lose their charm after a few minutes, but here and there an occasional gem crops up. Continuity is one of these gems.
The game’s gotten plenty of publicity so it doesn’t really need my attention, but I did want to talk a bit about its execution. Combining platforming with a tile sliding puzzle is a clever genre-mashup, but it’s Continuity’s overall package that grabbed my attention.
The first level contains only closed off tiles, with one tile cleverly serving as the controls layout, and the other taking the role of filler to keep the tile sliding mechanic consistent.
The visuals are sparse and abstract, but also very clean. Two music tracks accompany the action, one in the platforming section and one in the tile sliding section, and a quite a few sound effects are used for feedback. Level progression follows a nice, gradual curve, and every time a new concept is introduced (e.g., switching tiles in mid-jump or using multiple keys), the complexity of the layout is scaled back.
And then there’s the interface.
When I first saw screenshots of Continuity, I was half-dreading switching from keyboard controls to mouse controls every time I wanted to move one of the tiles. I pictured dragging the cursor to the appropriate square, clicking the mouse button (or worse yet, holding it and physically sliding the tile), watching the tile glide to its destination, moving the cursor back to the tile with my character, once again clicking the mouse button, and finally going back to the keyboard-controlled platforming.
The empty spot is in the center, and any of its 4 adjacent tiles can be slid into its position at the touch of a button.
But no, Continuity surprised me with yet another elegant design decision. The spacebar toggles between the platforming and the tile sliding, while the arrow keys control all movement. This includes the player avatar during the platforming sections, and the tile sliding during the puzzle sections.
The platforming is fairly straightforward with the left and right arrows dictating direction, and the up arrow serving as the jump button. Keys and doors are also picked up/activated automatically, removing the need for any extra input.
The tile puzzle uses the arrow keys as well, but in a slightly different fashion. At any one time, there are a maximum of 4 tiles that can slide into the single empty slot. If the player wants to fill the gap with a tile that’s underneath it, he simply presses up and the tile slides into its position. This creates a new empty gap, and the arrow keys get re-mapped to its adjacent tiles.
Some of the later levels employ rather complex tile-edges that make for numerous valid combinations.
It’s an interface that’s custom made for the requirements of the puzzle section, and it’s very intuitive. The player never has to select the tile he wants to manipulate either, which speeds things up quite considerably. This is especially important since Continuity’s gameplay requires lots of tile sliding.
I don’t think a lot of people take notice of such things, but that’s the way it should be; if it works well, it shouldn’t really stick out. It did for me, though, and it made me spend a lot more time with the game than I do with typical Flash offerings.
Then again Continuity has the polish and depth that many similar titles lack, so that shouldn’t be too surprising.
The Blight of Leaves
Posted by The Management in games on March 13, 2009
Leaf Blight is an turn-based puzzle game with a rather unique premise: prune a tree of its unhealthy leaves.
If you cared about nature, you'd save this tree.
Clicking the mouse on any leaf snips it off its branch, along with any adjacent, like-coloured leaves. All the various leaf-types have unique properties and different methods of spreading, so great care must be taken in the order in which they’re removed. Prune a tree so that only green leaves are left, and you move on to the next level.
The concept is a bit reminiscent of Go as the leaves can rapidly change colour and the player must visualize the consequences of all his actions. The execution, though, is a bit more casual-friendly due to the compartmentalized nature of the branches (leaves can’t spread from one branch to another).
There’s actually quite a lot of depth here, and the complexity of the levels is nicely layered. Each stage also introduces a new tree with its own branch-configuration (although this is mostly a visual change-up). Oftentimes there’s only one correct way to finish a level, so the score is based entirely on time bonuses. Later on in the game, the player must also keep in mind the tree’s overall health — remove too many leaves and the tree will die.
It’s a very clever game, and it’s much more fleshed out than many similar in-browser titles. Definitely worth checking out.
Deductive Puzzles
Posted by The Management in design on March 10, 2009
Adventure games are filled with their fair share of sleuthing, so why do they often turn into a parody of MacGyver?
Well, gameplay, of course. Browsing the scenery for usable objects — whether they can be picked up or not, and whether they can be used by themselves or in conjunction with other objects — is the interactive cause-and-effect bit.
Way too many designers have asked themselves that very question.
Considering how many adventure games revolve around solving mysteries, though, it’s surprising that so few of them rely on the player’s deductive skills. Instead, the audience is often stuck doing all sorts of illogical things, especially on a micro level. There’s usually a clear goal, but getting there is a matter of figuring out the logistics, not the mystery.
Now relying on the player’s deductive skills can be a big challenge. It’s not the most casual concept, it can be difficult to keep all the details of the “big picture” in one’s head, and even small discrepancies between the player’s conclusions and the designer’s intentions can result in an impasse.
Still, it’s not impossible.
About
Hi, my name’s Radek Koncewicz, and I'm the Creative Lead of Incubator Games, a small development studio I started with a few former coworkers.
I think a lot about videogames, and when I find the time, I post those thoughts here on this blog.
