I tend to consider stuff like Picross as puzzle games too, but now that I think about it, while they have a single “solved” state, they don’t imply much thinking, relying much more on going through motions and patterns in an almost automatic state once you have figured or been taught said motions and patterns.
It seems the term “puzzle” grasps such a large range of opposite concept. I don’t know what I think anymore!
I don’t actually know those games, but I’ve seen people post animated images of their Opus Magnum solutions and have other people respond with things like “I never thought of doing it that way!” Or, as @geggis puts it:
Which is kind of an oxymoron given my definition! Puzzles with wide solution spaces? How can such a thing exist??? That’s one of the things about discussing any field with lots of creative people making stuff. Someone is bound to make something that screws up someone else’s attempt to categorize everything into tidy boxes. :)
-Tom
I do not see how you apply the definition above and then conclude the chess and go must be puzzles.
If you over generalize to the extent of that the end-goal in chess is to capture the king is the final solution, then you can call everything a puzzle.
No, if the end state was an exact specification of where every piece on the board had to be when the game was won, then that would be a puzzle, not a game. However, in chess and in go, you have no such requirements. Notice the word distinct in the definition. That implies uniqueness to the solution. If there is one, and only way to get to the win state in the “game”, then it is a puzzle. The involves the entire arena in the win state, not just the final result.
Unfortunately, like most genre terms in common use, “puzzle game” is a blend of mechanics, history, and convention, and visual appearance.
Most “puzzle games”, thing like bejeweled, puzzle fighter, etc, are so-called because they descend more or less from Tetris: grids of falling blocks, etc. Tetris pieces do, more or less, go together more or less like jigsaw puzzle pieces, thus: puzzle-game. So, anything that “looks kind of like Tetris” became a puzzle game.
Picross, meanwhile, gets categorised because of it’s general similarities to crossword puzzles, etc. The generic term for picross (nonogram) hints at an alternative world’s naming convention, where crossword puzzles could be like, hinto-grams or something.
This depends upon your approach. RPG’s especially can be very puzzle-like depending on how you play them. Min-Max meta-game. Filling in all the pieces / completing all quests/acheivements. Opening up every corner of the map etc.
For me, the puzzle-like elements of a game of any genre’s will hold my attention the most. Overcoming a difficult obstacle through planning, rather than developing twitch skills, is what holds my interest.
I would go so far to say that puzzle elements are required for any game. Without some sort of goal, even if it is just a high-score, there really isn’t any game there.
Just some general thoughts on this which I too have spent considerable time puzzling over. :)
At a fundamental level a Game has a rule set which defines how “actors” or “elements” interact. So Rules and Actors are fundamental characteristics. Rules can also extend to things like “win” conditions. But a game does not have to have a win condition.
A puzzle is a sub set of games with a win condition where there are often but not necessarily by definition, limited dominant strategies to arrange the elements/actors into configurations according to the “rule set” which satisfy the the win condition.
That’s a good approach, once the dominant strategy is discovered the particular puzzle the strategy applies to stops being interesting since it’s solved. The process of solving a specific puzzle is discovering one of those dominant strategies. But puzzles (specific puzzles, not puzzly systems of rules) are “consumed” once the strategy becomes obvious to the player.
Or the Chick parabola, really.
Just to expand my earlier definition: in a game you have an opponent, whether human or mechanical. In a puzzle you don’t. And I think a lot of the disagreements over “Is this a game?” are actually disagreements over “Is there an opponent?”
So for instance the “puzzle-like” parts of a game are actually the parts without noticeable opposition. A chess puzzle is a puzzle, because you have to play both sides. Other edge cases, like some solo boardgames, have very simple mechanisms that may or may not be perceived as the actions of an opponent.
That was exactly the point. The definition was overbroad because it even encompassed chess.
I notice the word distinct is absent. :)
But anyway, you have a defined win position in Chinese Checkers and Backgammon, yet both are widely considered games.
There are many ways to solve a Rubik’s cube or Sudoku. Both are widely considered puzzles.
Damn. That’s such an excellent point, I wish I’d thought of it kudos to you. Many people, including myself, have said puzzles had fixed solutions, and even @tomchick said he considered a game to have creative input from the player that puzzles don’t have. @geggis just provided a brilliant counter example. Kudos. I’m all the more jealous, cause I want Opus Magnum on Switch, so I haven’t played it.
I mentioned it on the post above his, but ok :P
Sorry, hadn’t seen it. Saw his because I was tagged in it.
You are missing my part about the end state being where all the pieces must be in some exact configuration / state. Also you are missing the part about the fact that there is one and only one solution. Both of these would qualify a Rubik’s cube or Sudoku as puzzles, not games.
So let’s take a chess puzzle (knight needs to take all pieces in x moves, for example) and posit that I build it allowing two paths for the knight so it can end up in two different squares (thus having more than one distinct valid end state). Does that make it a game and not a puzzle?
If this is still a puzzle, when do we get into games? 4 end states? 10? Is a DROD room a puzzle or a game (with hundreds of valid end states most of the time)?
If that’s all it take to call something a puzzle, then Chinese Checkers is a puzzle.
There are multiple solutions for a Rubik’s cube, even if all lead to the same end state. Just like there are multiple ways to win Chinese Checkers, and all lead to the same end state.
Perhaps you are using “solution” as a synonym for end state? But that doesn’t work either. There are classic puzzles with more than one end state. For example, the Eight Queens Puzzle has 92 possible end states.
It becomes a game when someone other than you starts moving pieces in order to achieve a different goal then yours.
The notion that a game relies on opposition even creeps into common language. When someone snaps “Don’t play games with me!”, it’s generally because someone else is enjoying being oppositional. Whereas when you describe something as “puzzling”, it implies a challenge but not opposition.
And then we get into solitaire games an eventually games against a computer (many computer games have no randomization in the AI). It’s not knowing the rules behind an algorithm (or not being able to comprehend them) enough to make a puzzle a game?
Note: I wholeheartedly agree that games rely on opposition. I even teach a course on AI for game designers in which I put complex AI (chess bots) and pure oppositional systems with no heuristics (the enemies in a tower defense game, for example, or the deck in Pandemic) in the same conceptual box, as systems that generate the opposing force necessary for the player to be satisfied in a non-multiplayer game.
It’s only that this opposition is perceived differently and it’s in its perception that a game shifts from game to puzzle. In some instances (a crossword, a chess bot) it’s clear, but there’s a gray area where different people are going to perceive the object as a game or as a puzzle. there´s no pure objective distinction, at some point it becomes a matter of subjectivity.
Normally you would say player agency or randomness takes away the puzzly nature, but then you also have obfuscation (a deterministic system the player doesn’t understand as such), and once you get there, it’s a matter of understanding the rules or not (and thus perception), not of fundamental qualities.
This is where I think perception plays a part. If you role play or otherwise imagine that the Night Elves are trying to destroy your base, then you will see it as a game.
If you feel the Night Elves as so utterly predictable that you are practically playing their side, then you will see it as a puzzle.
As a litmus test, when the AI takes unexpected advantage of you do you respond with “Damn it, I’m going to lose!” or “Fascinating, now the orcs cannot win!”? I can find examples of both approaches to the same game by different Let’s Players, streamers, etc, so it can definitely be subjective.
EDIT:
I think we were both writing at the same time! Basically, I agree.
Yep, a puzzle is a mental challenge with no perceived opposition (and probably no randomness, I don’t yet know exactly what I think about this) while a game (if you think a game is not a puzzle) has opposition. Things like single solution space, simple rules, etc… are not that important, imho.
However, because games become puzzles or puzzles become games as a matter of perception, they reveal themselves to be part of a continuum with no clear line but obvious extremes (the continuum would be interactive entertainment, if you want, although I prefer game to encompass both).
Why do you think there is no randomness?
For instance, Klondike (the classic solitaire card game) has random, hidden information: the face down deck you draw from. Yet I think it’s a good example of a puzzle.
Again, it’s perceptual. I think the human brain tends to perceive randomness as fate. A sort of weak opposition. A puzzle in which you have to roll dice will not be perceived by a puzzle except for those with a statistically inclined train of thought.
Fair enough. I never feel that dice are “against” me after bad rolls, but I know plenty of people who do feel that way!