I have another poll to make In one of my upcoming games (temporarily called "The Hospital", with sci-fi setting) the writer wanted to add some logic-based puzzles. Stuff like binary/hex code, schemes and so on.

I was wondering what people think of them? if are fun, or if they would skip them completely (we would in any case offer an option to skip them) and so on. So I get a feedback of what people want, obviously if nobody is interested I wouldn't probably want the writer to spend time on that instead of the plot

Among the charms of the Vera Blanc games (in addition to Vera and Eva) are the mini-games. I say include mini-games and puzzles, but add a 'skip' feature for those people who don't like such things.

The problem with most of these kinds of puzzles is that we have almost always seen them before. The get-across-the-river puzzle in SOTW was cute because it was tailored to the game and had funny dialogue to go with it. If that's the kind of puzzle, I can live with it. If it's just straight up solve-this-random-puzzle-to-proceed, I probably can't be bothered, because been there, done that. Unless they're exceedingly clever puzzles, but I wouldn't really expect that to be the case.

I'm not the best to judge the puzzles quality honestly. I think they're very clever but might be wrong. Anyway writer lurks the forums so maybe he could post an example of it

I was worried also because the only game where I put minigames before was Vera Blanc and we all know how poorly that went but probably the minigames aren't the reason of it.

Among the charms of the Vera Blanc games (in addition to Vera and Eva) are the mini-games. I say include min-games and puzzles, but add a 'skip' feature for those people who don't like such things.

I agree with Fleetp! You can put the puzzles/mini-games in, but add a skip feature for those who aren't good with it. I like the idea, and I feel different things can keep a game fresh and interesting.

Hello all. I am the lurking writer jack1974 mentionned.



What I wanted to do was fairly simple: At first, I had more of a "minigame" idea in mind but I quickly moved toward a true puzzle concept that would be satisfying and not repetitive to play. I want the player to feel like he is really interacting with a game that challenges him to think.



Without spoiling anything: the player character in this game interacts with computer systems in a very up-close and personal fashion. I want puzzles that reflect that. The player may need to hack a software lock, break into an archive, take over a system, decrypt a password etc.



I had three types of puzzles I wanted to use and if I want to make things more complex, they can be intertwined with one another. Note that ALL puzzles come with tutorials and/or tools/references so the player is never left alone to deal with something impossible to guess. I provide the tools, it's up to you to use them.



-Simpler puzzles: BIN to HEX (and vice-versa) conversions. Not much to say there. The computer tells you 0110 0101 1100 1111 1010 1110 1011 1000, give the solution in HEX. If all else fails, Google is your friend.



-Reasoning puzzles: Logic gates. Using concepts like OR/AND/NOT etc, the game provides a schematic of logic gates and gives the entry values. The player must use these values to follow through the gates and determine the output. This is by far the hardest to understand without a proper example but I don't want to give too much info just yet. Bonus: Why limit ourselves to already existing logic gates? I can invent more interesting ones for the game and make things a bit different.



-Complex puzzles: Decryption, plain and simple. I provide you with hashed text, a cypher and a set of rules to use them. It can be as easy as "the computer displays <SDFGTH>, replace the letters with their corresponding numeric values" to more complex and interesting encryption algorithms.





This is just me probing the water. Nothing in there is set in stone, I'm just looking for feedback and opinions. I look forward to writing this game for you all.

-Simpler puzzles: BIN to HEX (and vice-versa) conversions. Not much to say there. The computer tells you 0110 0101 1100 1111 1010 1110 1011 1000, give the solution in HEX. If all else fails, Google is your friend.

65CFAEB8?

I think a lot of it is about setting the right expectations. If you have 20,000 words of story and then suddenly have a giant logic puzzle that can take a long time to figure out before you can continue with the story, people might get upset. If the puzzles are quick or interspersed more frequently, then I think it might go over better.



Some other things to consider:

- Perhaps making solving all of them not necessary, as long as the player solves "enough". Magical Diary is a good example, there are magic tests but you can fail a few and still get the good endings based on your other decisions in the story.

- A similar idea is to have various levels of "success" on the puzzle. Maybe someone can ace it, maybe someone gets most of the solution, maybe someone fails - but instead of stopping the story, have the result affect the narrative.

- Have the difficulty of the game affect the difficulty of the puzzles. Easy would be designed for people that mostly just want to read the story. Hard/Nightmare for people that want a challenge.

- The length of the puzzle also affects the pacing of the story. I'm more likely to find some way to skip an hour-long puzzle in the middle of an action scene just to get back to the story than if it was in a quieter moment or if it was the focus of the scene.

We were thinking to have an Easy mode that would let player skip completely the puzzles, since might not be everyone's cup of tea

Of the examples provided, the only one I would be interested in solving, would be the reasoning puzzle. But that's just me, a fish in the ocean. BIN to HEX is something I let a calculator solve and decryption is a perfect example of overused puzzles.



I'm more interested in the setting/story right now though.

Of the examples provided, the only one I would be interested in solving, would be the reasoning puzzle. But that's just me, a fish in the ocean. BIN to HEX is something I let a calculator solve and decryption is a perfect example of overused puzzles.



I'm more interested in the setting/story right now though.

I agree with all of this. The logic puzzle sounds interesting, but the other two don't. And the setting/story sounds interesting, too.



I also agree with the comment that Magical Diary did it right with levels of success beyond straight succeed/fail.



As far as puzzle mechanics go, please make them solvable within the interface of the game. Taking the decryption puzzle as an example - many developers just get lazy and make people use something outside of the game to solve it (pen and paper, etc.) and then just type in the answer. Have something where people can choose their letter replacements on screen and the game shows you what the decrypted message would be using the players letter replacements. There is nothing more immersion breaking than having to leave the game to solve a puzzle.

Thanks for the feedback guys

And yes, the setting of this game is great, I love it. It's like Bionic Heart but better. I am going to use PSCD artist to do the art for it

-Simpler puzzles: BIN to HEX (and vice-versa) conversions. Not much to say there. The computer tells you 0110 0101 1100 1111 1010 1110 1011 1000, give the solution in HEX. If all else fails, Google is your friend.

65CFAEB8?

That solution is correct!





Thank you for the comments and the feedback so far.



The idea of puzzles first came from a need to regulate how fast the player would access different levels of the lore/codex I intend to write. Jack and I had this discussion and it felt a bit silly to just give subsequent layers of access to the player as the story progressed "just because". So having them locked behind logic gates makes sense, the player needs to unlock access to the goodies.



This brings me to the idea of optional puzzles. Lore and codex entries are not mandatory to the story and the game progress, they are only there for those who want to learn more about the game world around the characters so to "finish the game" in the traditional sense, you could skip those entirely.



I do want to place a few puzzles along the main game, but not many of them. As Jack explained, there could be an "easy mode" where you can skip puzzles altogether. The "normal" gameplay would feature reasonable puzzles and a "hard" mode could allow me to go crazy with more complex puzzles.



As for the nature of the puzzles themselves: HEX/BIN conversion would hardly be a worthy puzzle by itself but it could be a part of harder puzzles. I intend to use the logic gates as the core component of my puzzles. The decryption puzzle was originally meant as a standalone, optional thing near the end of the game to access major lore/story spoilers. It would have been a pretty hard puzzle by itself as it uses a real encryption method that is still used these days. Though it can be done without any tools or outside help once you completely understand the encryption algorithm, I'm afraid it would require some work outside of the game for most players. If this idea is displeasing to the majority, I will re-think my plans.





As for the context and story, I will not spoil anything. I'll just say that I'm having a great time creating this universe and I want to make it interesting and expandable to allow future projects. Jack asked me "something sci-fi" but not "space travel sci-fi", something closer to our era and reality. So far, I think he likes and I hope that so will you guys!

Regarding the minigames of "The Hospital", I have written a new document but since it contains tables and images, it's a pain in the ish to post on a forum.



So if you guys want to sample my minigame, please visit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KUeodwbqeW886P9d0PE8SpsjSM79nqLRTQHm1_Wr30k/edit?usp=sharing



I will be extremely grateful for your time and your comments. This is your chance to help me make this game how you want it.

Hmm I read through it a few times to make sure I got it right, and I like it is a logic puzzle although some of us unused to coding might need the tutorial to use less technical terms. I did not understand the starting phrasing at all but I did understand the pictures AND/OR conundrums.



I might also say for longer puzzles needing a chart. The joy of most puzzles is a way to track your work, often in a grid to make it easier.

You say puzzles and I start drooling and say "Layton" in a voice filled with a voracious greed equal to that of Larfleeze in an Eggo factory.So yes,I would be interested in puzzles being included.

Like the others I think the Logic gate puzzles sound the most interesting,and a decryption puzzle or two would be nice if they are well placed.It sounds like this is what you are planning is just about right in line with how I would want to play it.But I think I would prefer there to be just one difficulty level. With the optional puzzles getting progressively harder the deeper you read into the lore.

And then just make every puzzle skippable, for people who just want to read the story, and because if someone who wants to do the puzzle is frustrated enough to WANT to skip it then they will just find the answer online anyway so why not just make an easy way for them to skip it.

Looking at your examples, this is not for me. I am just barely able to follow the examples, anything harder would probably kick my ass. It's a foreign language to me, and learning a new one at my age is challenging. Maybe if it was more visual, I could work with geometric shapes or something like that. I mean, I can see it's simply flagging TRUE/FALSE in binary, but my mind rebels anyway.



In all fairness I'm not very fond of crosswords or sudoku either. I always want to fill those out with anything that pops into my mind. Must be the poet in me.

Just wanted to add that the puzzles can be optional, so if you don't like them but only want to read the story, we'll automatically skip. Probably a "VN Mode" or something even for this game

@kadakithis: I will make sure to carefully explain in the game and yes, I will provide means to take systematic notes as puzzles become larger and more complex.



@OhHaiMe: I really love Layton as well but as I said before, after what... 3-4 Layton games? The puzzles ate getting a bit recycled. With some 100 puzzles per game, everything has been done. Maybe if I REALLY put my mind to it I could come up with two, maybe three interesting puzzles but no more.



I really like my logic gate thing because on a story level, it really meshes well with the game I am writing. The puzzles are planned to get more complex the deeper in the codex you go. As for difficulty levels, how about this:



-VN mode: no puzzles, ever.

-Normal mode: you can skip a puzzle if you like.

-Puzzle mode: puzzle are not skippable.



Difficulty levels do not change the difficulty of puzzles, just the possibility of skipping them.



As for decryption, I don't know yet. So far I only plan one that would unlock juicy bits of background story but it is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than the logic gates, I could put a few more, easier ones but I don't personally feel they would be very fun.



@Franka: I am at loss here. The puzzles clearly appeal to my geek side but as a writer, I also have an artistic side that empathises with you. I'd be open to an option of more visual type puzzles as well because you're probably not the only person with such preference. The player could be offered to pick either the visual type or the logic gates. However, I have no idea where to start and whatever I come up with, it needs to be relatively painless to code since Jack has enough work as it is.



Match 3D shapes? Match complex 2D shapes to emulate a sort of "find the proper gate? https://www.google.ca/search?q=idea+for+visual+puzzle&espv=2&biw=1680&bih=925&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif2YDOgcDKAhWGOj4KHWlgDlgQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=tangram sort of puzzle with a computer flavor behind?



Throw your ideas at me people, my body is ready.

Hey, just wanna say that I actually love this kind of puzzle. Match shapes as in try to find the combined form of 2 shapes or the opposite?