Most people who love games have a favourite puzzle game and their attachment to it is usually of the highest levels of devotion. Mention the words 'Braid' or 'Portal' and many people glaze over with a warm affinity radiating from their person. People connect with a puzzle game in a unique way and it is a genre that could arguably be the most time-absorbing of all.
One of the most successful aspects of Portal, for me, was the occasional moment where you felt like you were botching your way through with an unscripted action that you just found worked for you. Then when you saw someone else play through the same stage you thought 'aah, why didn't I think of that' still unsure wether that was what the designers intended.
I find it boggling how people can come up with so many ingenious puzzles. I would like to see a game invent a situation with multiple unscripted solutions; much like Portal's accidental answers but with even greater variety. A puzzle where players with different mindsets would naturally gravitate towards different tactics. So, for example, one person who fancied themselves as a bit skillful might simply throw an object at the target, whereas somebody with a more 'Tetris' inclination might pile items up until it was possible to climb and reach it, or somebody else might fashion items into a device long enough to reach the object from the ground. This is perhaps a simplistic and not wholly brilliant example (that's why I'm in awe of people who devise these clever puzzles) but you get the point I'm making.
I think puzzles can be complicated if they are fashioned around familiar concepts and items. Gravity, light, shadow, liquids, gas, fire, reflections etc. are all things people recognise and understand. They have differing natural properties and they interact differently with other elements. Puzzles could involve factors that people have an understanding of outside of the laws set by a video game. When a 3 foot wall prevents you from progressing, suddenly you feel like your imagination isn't in control but instead you are simply being asked to understand the person setting the problem or the confines of the game. If you are presented with a problem in which you find yourself thinking 'this might work depending on how sturdy this item is, or maybe I could balance this long enough to do this' and make educated judgments on what you think should be possible before trial-ing it out, it would create a huge sense of achievement to feel like you have overcome something by finding your own solution rather than cracking what someone else intended.
The task of creating a problem without linear solutions would seem to be incredibly difficult. Getting the balance right between a pointlessly simple answer and a completely obtuse one, would be nigh-on impossible to judge if you are hoping players will find their own method of achievement. I guess there has to be some kind of limitation to maintain a healthy balance of difficulty with a puzzle game. It's the unscripted, accidental discoveries that I find particularly enjoyable in games. I like to see goals scored in a footy simulation that involve a deflected shot running through someone's feet before a defender clears the ball only to see it re-bound off the back of another players head and into his own net. Glorious! You can't program instances like that.
Or in some on-line games when teams of players formulate their own plan and cunningly capture their opponent by guiding them into a manufactured blockade. That kind of freedom and creativity adds an enormous sense of power to a playing experience. If a puzzle game could somehow encapsulate these different aspects, it would surely be something to behold. Unfortunately my feeble brain doesn't have enough muscle to flex in this direction, so I'll have to wait and see where the genre is taken next. Portal 2 should hopefully be a good start.
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