Re: Making the ARG
Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:50 amI don't believe in making games where there is only one way to arrive at a solution. When you beat a puzzle cleverly, I don't think the label "sequence-breaking" applies, because you're not necessarily "supposed" to solve it a given way. Additional baby steps were built into some puzzles in case you needed them, which, in many cases, you didn't.
One time, I solved a puzzle in Portal by stacking chairs until I could get into a vent. My friend, watching me play, laughed uncontrollably as I did this... until it worked. I have no idea what the "real" solution is and I don't think it matters at all that I didn't use a portal gun. I still beat Portal.
I think game designers should deliberately build puzzles to have more than one way to arrive at a correct solution.
I refer to this principle as "multiple paths to victory". I have no idea what game design pros call it.
In case you would like an example of such an alternate path, I'd refer you to the final crypto-puzzle. An alternate path was overlooked, but glimpsed briefly. The letters in another font in hidden.pdf spelled, if I recall correctly, "image", "text", and "openstego", the name of the tool used to encode (and eventually decode) the image. Openstego was found without noticing this clue to use it--and that's totally fine with me.
One time, I solved a puzzle in Portal by stacking chairs until I could get into a vent. My friend, watching me play, laughed uncontrollably as I did this... until it worked. I have no idea what the "real" solution is and I don't think it matters at all that I didn't use a portal gun. I still beat Portal.
I think game designers should deliberately build puzzles to have more than one way to arrive at a correct solution.
I refer to this principle as "multiple paths to victory". I have no idea what game design pros call it.
In case you would like an example of such an alternate path, I'd refer you to the final crypto-puzzle. An alternate path was overlooked, but glimpsed briefly. The letters in another font in hidden.pdf spelled, if I recall correctly, "image", "text", and "openstego", the name of the tool used to encode (and eventually decode) the image. Openstego was found without noticing this clue to use it--and that's totally fine with me.