FIRST ATTEMPT AT PUZZLES

        Over the past week, I have been taught the basics of puzzle design. From these lectures, it was clear that this information was to be utilised in the next assignment. However, before this assignment was set, we were tasked to create two puzzles in groups of two that were themed around a newspaper article, and rescuing hostages.The first of the two themes was the hostage puzzle. 

    We had the freedom to adopt any type of puzzle or even a combinations of puzzle types in order to successfully reflect the them of the puzzle. From this freedom, I and David designed a maze puzzle that followed a selection of three riddles. Unfortunately the riddles where not saved, however the maze was - his maze is below. Once again, I could not rotate the image no matter what software I used.

 

    This puzzle had two steps - the riddles and the maze. Both of which were governed by a timer. The aim of the puzzle was to save three hostages, with each hostage being saved by each of the three riddles. The solver would start by attempting to solve three riddles. Each time a riddle was successfully solved the solver had released one hostage. Once all riddles had been attempted, the solver had to get the released hostages out of the maze before the timer ran out - on intervals of 5 seconds the solver would lose a hostage. When the solver loses all hopstages they fail the puzzle.

    As you can see from the image above, the maze was fairly simple. The challenge was ensuring it was difficult enough to cause panic but not difficult enough to become impossible. The actual path is also shown int eh image above, however players simply could not solve the maze. This was a result of the lined paper used, confusing player into thinking entrances where actually obstacles. Understandability in a puzzle is key and considering the presentation facilitates this understandability, it was clear the lined paper was an issue. However, once solvers understood the maze, we often gained comments such as "Yep, it was pretty fun", indicating the puzzle had been a success.


        The second of the two puzzles was themed around any newspaper article we could find. From this article, we had to devlop a puzzle that represented that story. After 10 minutes we found an article we liked - delays at airports cost the airports £500. From this article, we realized a timer could be utilized again to represent the deadlines the airports face and that finding the way to the airport could also be represented by a maze. Three key points of the story would be part of the puzzle, the planes, the customers and the money. From this we developed two parts to the puzzle, a maze and a customer queue (both shown below).

 

     The idea is that the solver had to get the plain to the airport (the maze) before both terminals had been filled. Each 10 seconds meant that one more customer joined the queue. When each terminal had been filled, the solver lost $500. When the solver lost £1000, the solver failed the puzzle.

    This meant a timer had to be implemented, and in doing so, it translated the panic airports would face and the financial ramifications they would face if they failed their jobs. The puzzle perfectly translated the story in the article, the question is whether it would be too difficult to work as a puzzle. Below are the two results of the play tests sessions.

 

      In the first of the above play test sessions, the solver managed to solve the maze before they lost all of the money, however they only had 10 seconds to spare. From this session, we realised that even though the player felt great reward when they just managed to beat the maze, in future scenarios, solvers may take a different route, waste more time and therefore fail the puzzle. Because of this, the time limit was raised to 3 minutes instead of 2, giving future players ample time to complete the maze. However, regardless of this change you can see from the second session the player went in the wrong direction. Even with this increased time limit, the solver failed the puzzles by at least 1 minute, therefore the time limit was increased yet again to cater for both scenarios demonstrated by both play test sessions - the solvers now had 4 minutes to solve the maze.

   All in all, the two lectures not only taught me the design aspects of puzzles, but it gave me the experience I needed to make them successfully. Which proved invaluable when it came to the third assignment - making three puzzles.

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