Talking through a Puzzle

Creating a game as if the designer and the player became a team and talked to each other.

Can we tell the story we want to tell through the puzzle? 

This is a game design process where we can develop based on the player’s immediate feedback in a casual puzzle game without verbal elements. Creating puzzle games with board game materials and an open-source tool called PuzzleScript.

Puzzle entails the meaning of “stop and think.” A “puzzle” with this meaning can be found in any game. Even in first-person shooters, also known as FPS games, you have to “stop and think” about how you can hit other enemies while avoiding the ones that are aiming at you. The process of stopping and thinking is given to the player at every deciding moment, and the player stops and thinks at each critical moment repeatedly. As such, using a puzzle in game mechanics means repeating it so that the player can understand the puzzle through repetition.

The game above shows a puzzle game with the simple goal that three people must be able to sleep in one bed. This shows that a puzzle game with a simple theme with a puzzle mechanic combined can create a puzzle game. If a puzzle has a mechanical fun factor that can synergize with the new ideas like themes, the satisfaction of the game can be greater. In order to experiment with how to combine puzzles with various game ideas, we played puzzles and create puzzle mechanics.

We shared the game ideas we each wanted to make, and decided to make a simple board game to figure out how to realize these ideas into puzzle elements.

Seven teams were formed based on their interests or puzzle mechanics.

Pangyo Delivery : A game in which the player has to deliver a package to customers in a timely manner using the stairs and elevators of the apartment.

Bridge 2 (Way Home) : A game in which two players, A and B, compete against each other to reach the target house.

Recycling Master : A board game to master recycling trash.

Collecting Rainwater : A cute puzzle game with a little calculation where the player avenges the landlord who would not fix the leaking roof.

The Dog and I : A post-apocalyptic situation where the zombie virus spread. A game where the player and the player’s dog alone must avoid danger and find a safe place.

Come Back Doggy! (Come Back Home) : A game in which the player has to stop the dog from leaving the house.

Item Combination : A game in which the player has to come up with items that can help the depressed protagonist go home through keyword combinations.

* For detailed rules on board game prototyping by team, please refer to the board game prototyping result link.

The puzzle has the basic principle of reaching the goal of the puzzle through the repetition of “obstacles and - solving obstacles.” As the game level increases, the obstacles are added respectively. With these basic principles, one must also consider how to visualize the puzzle. The visual expression method can vary completely based on game concepts. We also discussed some concerns about visual expression that can express game concepts created by each team most effectively that differs from existing stereotypes.