What is the line between Puzzle and Strategy?

[Juan_Raigada]

We had this thread a while back:

Puzzle vs game?

Okay, let’s establish this up front: the first person to cite a dictionary definition or Wikipedia entry or Ian Bogost essay or some such thing will incur a 100 point penalty! I’m interested in hearing your opinions on your own personal distinction between the terms puzzle and game. What’s the difference between the two terms? Is there even one? Or is one a subset of the other? When you characterize gameplay as a “puzzle”, or when you hear someone else characterize it as “puzzle”, do you co…

My take it’s that the line is pretty subjective/perceptual:

@Juan_Raigada

Puzzle represent the extreme of mechanical constraints (at least from my point of view) that leave nothing to chance or skill for the average player. Imprecision in input and unknowns create the need to react to something you can’t predict when interacting with a non-puzzle.

Note that for a non average player that’s not true. A kid would not perceive a puzzle the same way we do (can’t predict outcomes and thus interacts with it as with a more reactive experience) , and a savant could take something we call a game-but-not-a-puzzle and perceive it as a puzzle (since pretty much anything that requires input and runs on a computer has one “optimal solution” only it’s normally too complex to see) .