A Good Puzzle Game Is Hard To Build

I love puzzle games. But it s not beating them that s the exciting part: it s understanding them.

Whether mulling over a cryptic crossword or somersaulting through Portal s portals, there s a moment of epiphany which, for me, pretty much transcends all other moments in gaming. But how do you design a puzzle to best provoke that eureka moment? What gives a puzzle its aesthetic, its pace and texture? Why does one puzzle feel thrilling while another feels like a flat mental grind?

I ve asked three of my favourite puzzle game designers to demystify their dark magicks: Jonathan Blow, best known for the puzzle-platformer The Witness; Alan “Draknek” Hazelden, creator of Sokoban-inspired sequential-logic games, including Mirror Isles and the forthcoming Jonathan Whiting, a programmer on Traal, whose visit site to read more>