Some Game Theory: Posted: 21 May 2004 First, heres some theories about story-puzzlemaking, not big news to anybody, but it might be nice to get it down on paper to better understand what needs to be looked at in the game. I want to talk a little bit about what I think about puzzles in adventure games, in general. Now, everybody knows that to play a point and click game all you have to do is pick up everything you can, say everything you can, and use each item with each other item until you win. One thing that keeps the player interested in the story is the idea that they are participating in it, creating it themselves, as opposed to being forced to push a bunch of buttons in order to get to the next scene. So, when a player actually gets to the point where they're using every item with every other item (a point i get to in pretty much every adventure game), they've really lost a sense of participation in the game. The perfect puzzle is one in which the player feels like they've created a clever idea themselves. One example of this is in monkey island, when you have to get by the pack of rabid poodles to access the govenor's mansion. When I played, i saw that there were poison flowers, and I ! had some meat, and a light bulb went off in my head. I felt like I had, myself, come up with a clever way of thwarting the dogs. Getting that light bulb is the best feeling you can have playing an adventure game. So the trick is to put ideas into the players head by laying clues as to how to solve the puzzles. Once you have enough clues in place that no puzzle is a mix-and-match, you can make the light bulb experience greater by crafting GOOD clues... A light bulb wont go off if the player feels like he is being instructed on exactly how to do something. So, the clues should have some deception about them. The best way to deliver a clue is to have the player think it pertains to something entirely different than it's actual purpose. If they do, they will not immediately think of it when they find out the task that needs it. When they chew on the task and realize that the object could work, its a nice bright light bulb. One way of avoiding the mix-and-match mindset is by keeping the player interested in moving forward, keeping up the momentum. By this, i mean the feeling that they are driving fast towards a goal. They should want to keep driving as fast as they can. A game 'stalls' when the player is either no longer interested in charging towards the next scene (they are bored or stuck), or when they don't have any idea what or where the next scene will be. To avoid this, a player should always understand (and care about) what they are trying to accomplish. You dont want to have a situation where the player is just wandering around randomly clicking things because they're not sure what they are supposed to be doing. By creating long-term puzzles or imminent-feeling story elements, and reinforcing their importance with dialog, you create a situation where the player is always looking for answers. They should always have something they want to be figuring out. To this end, another tactic is to make one or two inventory objects seem extremely useful or filled-with potential, so that the player always has one eye open for their use or aquisition. They either can't get an alluring object, like the chainsaw in Maniac Mansion. or have no idea where to use a bizzare object , like a Rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle. They will either obsess on getting the object in the first case, or are always looking to discover it's mystery, in the second. They will always be trying to figure out a way to use these objects, which keeps the momentum up. Ok thats it for theorizing, now to put it all to good use!