Rehasing Puzzleless Conversation
Jesse Burneko
I know that the topic of "What constitutes a puzzle" has been done to
death but every time it has come up I've wanted to say something on the
subject because I have very strong opinions about what is and isn't a
puzzle but have never been able to properly articulate it.
However, while pondering how to phrase an issue I want to discuss [see my
next post] the idea of what is and isn't a puzzle to me sort of clarified
itself in my mind and I thought I'd share and see what you think. Okay
here it goes.
When someone asks me to name a game I think is puzzleless three titles
jump immediately to mind: Deadline, Suspect and Witness. Now, those are
odd choices because afterall they are all Who Done It style murder
mysteries and seem to be puzzles by their very nature. But, it was at
this point that I realised the distinction between a puzzle and a problem.
All fiction contains problems, more literarily refered to as conflict.
Deadline contains the PROBLEM of solving a murder but solving a murder
isn't a puzzle.
To illustate my idea of a problem vs. a puzzle in a game context I will
give examples of using a jigsaw puzzle in three cases. The first is a
puzzelless instance, the second is borderline and the third case I would
definitely call a puzzle.
Case I: Consider a murder mystery game where the murderer tears up a
photograph and the player, acting as the detective, finds it and puts it
back together again. This to me is a puzzleless use of a jigsaw puzzle
(sounds contradictory I know but bare with me). It is puzzleless because
this is a perfectly reasonable thing for the murder to do. He is not
tearing up the picture as some kind of clever battle of wits between
himself and the detective but rather to obliterate evidence. In fact the
killer would prefer it if the picture was not found at all. The
puzzleless nature of this scenario would be enahanced if the player didn't
HAVE to assemble the photo to complete the story. Assembling the photo
might lead to a swifter solution or just enhance understanding of the
story. The player might be able to learn the contents of the photo in an
alternative method, perhaps by asking someone else who saw the photo
before it was torn up.
Case II: A dying man writes the name of a killer on a pre-existing jigsaw
puzzle and then breaks up the puzzle to hopefully better insure it falling
into the right hands. This is a borderline case because as above the
character creating the problem has good motivation to do so. However, it
"feels" like a challenge if not from the character in the context of the
story (however, I would feel like the dying man was leaving a challenge
for the police) then from the author of the story. So this is a tough
call for me. Depending on my mood I might call it puzzeless because its
well motivated and believable as a real world scenario. On the other hand
I might call it a puzzle because it just feels to much like a direct
challenge of wits either between my character and the dying man or myself
as the player and the author.
Case III: Consider a time machine that operates by placing jigsaw puzzle
pieces together, each piece representing a different time period. Now, I
know this example is a bit contrived and NO ONE would ever do this,
(Cough, Cough) but here the jigsaw puzzle is used in a pure puzzle form.
It is there for no other reason than as a challenge to the player to
complete it. Artistically it might be a clever idea. I have no problem
with it's artistic use and it even fits into the context of the story.
But still it is a jigsaw puzzle, placed as a puzzle for the player to
solve.
So, I like puzzleless IF. I like IF where I am faced with PROBLEMS to
overcome but prefer to overcome those problems in a PUZZLELESS manner. So
anyway, that's my contribution (a bit late) to the whole puzzle vs.
non-puzzle debate.
Jesse Burneko
Jesse Burneko
> rely on common knowledge techniques. Puzzles feature limited or even false
> information and tend to require an innovative or fanciful use of that
> information. The intuitiveness of the solution is the key and complexity has
> very little bearing.
Yes, thank you, this is what I've been trying to say in such a wordy way.
Also the availability of alternatives. In everyday problems not only are
the solutions intuitive but often there are MANY intuitive solutions that
will all work.
Jesse Burneko
Jesse Burneko
> Let me add a question to the mix then.
>
> What about a scenario where the IF player is asked to choose one of
> three answers to a question. The player would obviously have learned
> more about the topic through the interaction of the game, but can
> also rely on their real-world experience and intuition. Would you
> classify that as a puzzle, problem or something else?
For me it would depend on the context of question being asked but here's
my initial knee-jerk answer. If the question had a single one right
answer that player HAD to answer to progress the game it's a puzzle. If
the question had different affects on the story for each answer or if
there was one right answer but answering incorrectly only means the story
goes in a different direction than if the player got it right, then it's
puzzleless.
I guess to some extent my definition of puzzle vs problem has to do with
both alternative solutions and alternative outcomes. A puzzle has ONE
right answer and ONE right outcome, or maybe MANY right answers but
generally ONE right outcome. The puzzle serves as a one-way blockade.
Most problems have multiple intuitive solutions and whether I over come it
or not merely sends the story in a different direction, not bring it to
dead halt.
Jesse Burneko
Ron Moore
rely on common knowledge techniques. Puzzles feature limited or even false
information and tend to require an innovative or fanciful use of that
information. The intuitiveness of the solution is the key and complexity has
very little bearing.
The real world is full of problems - making breakfast, going to work, planning
finances etc. Fortunately, the world is not overburdened with puzzles else
little would ever get accomplished and we would all be using Rube Goldberg
contraptions to butter our toast.
Pax,
Ron
GraceWorks
Jesse Burneko <jbur...@nunki.usc.edu> wrote:
> > My take it on is problems have solutions with easily accessible
information and
> > rely on common knowledge techniques. Puzzles feature limited or
even false
> > information and tend to require an innovative or fanciful use of
that
> > information. The intuitiveness of the solution is the key and
complexity has
> > very little bearing.
>
way.
> Also the availability of alternatives. In everyday problems not only
are
> the solutions intuitive but often there are MANY intuitive solutions
that
> will all work.
>
> Jesse Burneko
Let me add a question to the mix then.
What about a scenario where the IF player is asked to choose one of
three answers to a question. The player would obviously have learned
more about the topic through the interaction of the game, but can
also rely on their real-world experience and intuition. Would you
classify that as a puzzle, problem or something else?
Thanks in advance for your time.
---------------------------------------------
Tim Emmerich grace...@my-deja.com
GraceWorks http://www.bigfoot.com/~GraceWorks
---------------------------------------------
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
GraceWorks
>> Let me add a question to the mix then.
>>
>> What about a scenario where the IF player is asked to choose one of
>> three answers to a question. The player would obviously have
learned
>> more about the topic through the interaction of the game, but can
>> also rely on their real-world experience and intuition. Would you
>> classify that as a puzzle, problem or something else?
>
> For me it would depend on the context of question being asked but
here's
> my initial knee-jerk answer. If the question had a single one right
> answer that player HAD to answer to progress the game it's a puzzle.
If
> the question had different affects on the story for each answer or if
> there was one right answer but answering incorrectly only means the
story
> goes in a different direction than if the player got it right, then
it's
> puzzleless.
>
> I guess to some extent my definition of puzzle vs problem has to do
with
> both alternative solutions and alternative outcomes. A puzzle has ONE
> right answer and ONE right outcome, or maybe MANY right answers but
> generally ONE right outcome. The puzzle serves as a one-way blockade.
> Most problems have multiple intuitive solutions and whether I over
come it
> or not merely sends the story in a different direction, not bring it
to
> dead halt.
>
> Jesse Burneko
Thanks for your answer Jesse. I'm getting a clearer picture of
your definitions.
What I'm actually working on is where each of those decisions will
yield whether you get one of 7 objectives. I won't end the game if
a wrong choice is made, the player can continue on (but just missed
that objective). I will have to work at incorporating a missed
objective into the remaining part of the game (if you know a good
way of doing so, please suggest away!).
So, you could call what I'm doing more of a "Choose your own
Adventure" and it has some of those aspects to it. But hopefully
it will be much more interactive than the passive book counterparts.
I hope I didn't sidetrack your discussion too much. It seems
that there is an audience for both puzzle-based IF works and puzzleless
IF works (but the audience may be mutually exclusive?).
Has anyone added up the IF works that have been made in recent
years and compared how many contained puzzles to how many didn't?
Another question, the game I'm working on is told in the third person.
Does anyone have any statistics on the percentage of games that have
been third person instead of the dominant first person?
Thanks for reading.
Tim