At first look, making a puzzle game isn’t hard. Basically…<\/p>\n
1.) Write a bunch of simple rules that work for one level.
\n 2.) Write 20 more levels that use the same rules (no more coding necessary!)
\n 3.) ????
\n 4.) Profit!<\/p>\n
The problem is that trying to create levels that are difficult (but not impossible) is… well.. difficult.<\/p>\n
So far, the tactic has been:<\/p>\n
1.) Place a bunch of stuff randomly on the screen.
\n 2.) Try to (myself) solve the puzzle I just randomly created. If it takes me a few tries before I finally get it: awesome!
\n 3.) If I solve it right away, add some stuff to where I went to try to make it less obvious.
\n 4.) Continue this method of tweaking things until I break the level and make it impossible to finish.
\n 5.) Start over from scratch with a different random level.<\/p>\n
There has to be a better way (maybe there is some higher-level math that can use graph theory to create levels that have many possible routes, but very few “winning” routes). The worst part about this ad-hoc method is that it’s very possible I’ve made a level that is impossible to beat, and I WOULDN’T KNOW IT until it beats me many times. Also, I might have already thrown away a bunch of levels that I thought were impossible, but might have been really good candidates for some of the final levels.<\/p>\n
Part of me wants to build an AI that brute forces the level and gives me an idea of difficulty\/possibility of them. If this wasn’t for a 48-hour contest, I’d consider it. For now, I’ll just keep scrapping away.<\/p>\n
So yeah, in theory, a puzzle is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, the amount of time it will take to create levels for a puzzle game should NOT be underestimated.<\/p>","time":"April 27th, 2013 10:31 pm","title":"How hard is it to make a puzzle game for LD?"}