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My thoughts on the puzzle games
By Cowpattybill | July 10, 2008
One of the best Clue Chaser players, mrsmathteacher, commented on the previous games. She said the puzzles in game 1 were much harder than those in game 2. I was going to reply to her but instead I decided to write a post.
I agree with her. The ease of the puzzles in game 2 happened because of 2 things. One good, one bad.
The bad reason is because in game 1, puzzle 3 caused a lot of problems. It seems I made it too difficult. Getting to the parts needed for the answer was fine but taking the letters to form the puzzle’s answer is where the problem was.
What to me seemed like a reasonable leap of logic apparently wasn’t so with all the players. Even after the answer was figured out (after MUCH hinting by me) it still didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to others. I felt like it might have left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. I decided not to make the puzzles that difficult again.
The good reason is, I feel like I have a really good story to tell. I would like to share it with as many people as possible. My experience from game 1 told me that there is only a small group of people who are willing to push their way through all the puzzles. Especially when it starts out with a cypher puzzle (Evidently the majority of people don’t like cyphers). Lots of potential players saw the first puzzle and left, never to return. In order to get as many people involved as possible I decided to make the puzzles easier. Especially the first one. Unfortunately I underestimated the brain power of my faithful players and you busted it out in less than 4 days. Big sock to my ego.
Side note- Puzzle 3, once again seemed to be the most difficult. Most players didn’t understand the clues and once they got the answer they didn’t seem to understand how they got there. Seems there’s a pattern of the third puzzle being the most difficult. I wonder if that will repeat in game 3? Hmmm…..
Back to what I was saying, once again I learned a lot. Game 3, I feel, is a good mix of puzzles. It will definetly be harder than game 2 but probably not as difficult as game 1. Much of the storyline will be revealed in game 3. It is much different than game 2 and is alot more like how I originally planned the games to be.
Topics: Puzzle Blog |
One Response to “My thoughts on the puzzle games”
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July 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I like the way Cowpattybill is thinking of taking things but I also know that we are in a unique position to communicate with the puzzle designer.
If he’ll let us use the message board to solve them, it seems he’s also willing to let us comment on the process.
I would rather put in my two-bits even if there’s only a small chance it’s useful or that others would agree.