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Weekly Dev Log 3 - Choosing Horror game Puzzles

Puzzles are a staple within Horror games, but also provide a massive challenge for the developers to get right. When designing puzzles in general, you have to ensure it is somewhat challenging, yet also completely solvable, and this requires a lot of tweaking, playtesting and player feedback.

With horror games, this becomes even harder. Your puzzle must meet this criteria, but also not take away from the horror atmosphere. A puzzle too challenging removes you from the tense state horror games aim to keep, and a puzzle too easy just feels like a waste of time. In this weeks dev log, we will showcase some of the accepted (and scrapped) puzzle concepts, aiming to bring depth and challenge to an otherwise purely story based genre...

One puzzle found in the game "Madison", gives (in our opinion) a perfect example of this balance. In this puzzle, the player is presented with 6 switches, and from left to right, must flick each switch either up, or down. The player can only move onto the next switch if they put the previous one in the correct position. If the player flicks a switch in the wrong direction, the puzzle resets. This means the puzzle is both entirely luck based, yet also skill based at the same time. Most players wont guess the combination correct first time, however upon failing, instantly know how to solve the puzzle up until where they failed. It does a great job at building tension, keeping you within the setting, being easy to understand, but not a breeze to solve.

Some further puzzles we are a fan of, and are implementing in some shape or form:

Each of these puzzles are easy to understand, but not just a pushover to complete, a recipe vital for puzzle design!

Another equally important component of puzzle design is the way the puzzle interfaces with the player. How does the player know what to interact with, how do they know they have a puzzle in front of them? The lever and computer placed below are both puzzle assets within our horror game, but you wouldn't know this without being told?

This is a much deeper question which cannot be covered within one blog, but ultimately comes down to how you teach the player during the early stages, and also comes stems from how UI is presented and how lighting is used too- both subconscious ways to reinforce player learning.

Its safe to say that puzzle design is much more complex than what gamers experience whilst playing! If your puzzle feels unnecessarily frustrating, the game designer has messed up.

The best way to keep on top of everything Azalea, is certainly through our discord. That and all other Azalea links can all be found in one place -Azalea Interactive Linktree

Thanks for taking the time to read, and we look forward to seeing you within our fantastic community!

- Azalea