Puzzle, Obstacle, and Level Design

Blog 3: Physical Puzzle By Payton Grady The Puzzle      In my puzzle, I created an unusual take on a maze. Rather than simply searching for the correct way out, the player is looking at an entirely enclosed box. In this situation, the player is supposed to think outside the box by folding corners to find a proper start point and end point, and finally draw a path between the two. This combines several different puzzle types into one model: unusual use of an object, sequence, and preparing the way. Avoiding Poor Design        According to Bates, bad puzzle design involves restore puzzles, arbitrary puzzles, binary puzzles, and designer puzzles. Restore puzzles are bad designs because they immediately punish the player before giving them a chance to study their puzzle environment. I avoided this problem by excluding any sort of punishment for players who don't make the right guess the first time. I feel as if my puzzle got close to being an arbitrary ...

Blog 1: The Door Problem  By Payton Grady The Reading After reading the Gamasutra article, "'The Door Problem' of Game Design", I learned some interesting perspectives about game design. There are many factors to consider such as utility vs aesthetic, locking and unlocking, and differentiating types of player and non-player interaction. Despite being such a common item, there are several complex decisions made. There needs to be a way to tell whether a door is locked, unlocked, open, openable, or permanently closed. As an example, colors might be used for this. But there are other practical factors that need to be accounted for such as how many players can enter a door, when certain players can enter, whether or not enemies can spawn, what allows the door to close, and when the door can close. In general, doors can have several distinguishing features. The Sketches While brainstorming door ideas, I considered how different games handle doors. Skyrim, for example, has ...