This is the start of a series of articles that has no end date. The content and conclusions I'm going to cover here are the result of a lot of research and the tireless hours of discussions about thinky game design.
Thinky games are games that focus on cognitive challenges that stimulate players' minds. They vary in genre and form, including puzzle games, investigation and deduction games, strategy games, knowledge-based games, etc.
In these first articles I'm going to focus on the type of thinky game I have the most experience with, puzzles. And there's no better way to start than at the beginning, so we can start exploring with a simple question: What is a puzzle?
A couple of years ago, I started studying puzzle games, and the more I researched, the more confused and difficult it became to define the boundaries of what a puzzle is.
What I didn't understand at the time was that each definition has its own purpose and perspective, and that depending on the context, one definition is better than the other. A simple example of this is the Cambridge Dictionary's definition of the word puzzle:
<aside> <img src="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/874a5d1a-6d41-4438-a81e-918057e616ef/3dd09f89-de91-4220-bd40-8eccef580965/cambridge.png" alt="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/874a5d1a-6d41-4438-a81e-918057e616ef/3dd09f89-de91-4220-bd40-8eccef580965/cambridge.png" width="40px" /> Puzzle
Noun
Verb
Look at how many different definitions there are, and in the end they're all correct in the right context, but none of them are very useful for game design. So here I'm going to present three definitions created by game designers, elaborating on their perspectives and objectives.
This first definition was written by Jesse Schell in the 12th chapter of his book, The Art of Game Design, called "Game Mechanics Support Puzzles".
A puzzle is a game with a dominant strategy. Jesse Schell
This definition was created to justify why the classification "puzzle" exists within games, highlighting the main difference between puzzle games and other types of games: puzzles have a dominant strategy.
A dominant strategy is the strategy that will always bring the best possible outcome, so the player has no reason to adopt another strategy. In the context of a puzzle, this means that once the player has found the solution (the dominant strategy) they will always be able to solve the puzzle. This differs from other types of games where execution, randomness, the large number of possibilities, or the time limit make it impossible to create a 100% dominant strategy.
The second definition is provided by Elyot Grant, a puzzle designer with years of experience, CEO of Lunarch Studios and game designer of the games Jelly is Sticky and Island of Insights, in the extended version of his GDC talk, *30 Puzzle Design Lessons* .
A puzzle is anything that conceals a Eureka moment. Elyot Grant
Elyot's definition focuses on praising the greatest quality of a good puzzle, the moment of epiphany (aka: the "Aha" moment, the Eureka moment or the revelation), framing as a puzzle any problem-solving activity that carries a moment of epiphany.
But to be honest, although these definitions are interesting and help us understand what a puzzle is, I prefer a less broad definition. When we start focusing on thinky games as a whole, these definitions can end up including many different kinds of problem-solving experiences. That’s why I’m going to propose a different definition of what a puzzle is—one that focuses on determining the essential characteristics of a puzzle, clearly defining the place of puzzles within the entire spectrum of thinky games.
A puzzle is any playful cognitive challenge, usually with only one solution, where all changes of state are either controlled, or can be deduced by the player. Enezio Filho
Elaborating a little on my definition, "cognitive challenge" means that solving a puzzle is a task that requires mainly mental effort, any other skill takes a back seat, usually only being used for the basic manipulation of the objects that make up the puzzle.
"Playful" means that even if a problem you encounter in everyday life meets all the other characteristics of the definition of a puzzle, it is still just a problem. For a problem to be considered a puzzle, it needs to have fun above any other purpose. Puzzles are still games, after all.
<aside> <img src="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/874a5d1a-6d41-4438-a81e-918057e616ef/3dd09f89-de91-4220-bd40-8eccef580965/cambridge.png" alt="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/874a5d1a-6d41-4438-a81e-918057e616ef/3dd09f89-de91-4220-bd40-8eccef580965/cambridge.png" width="40px" /> Playful
Done as a form of play.
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The phrase "usually with only one solution " narrows the scope of what a puzzle is, because a problem-solving activity with many different solutions tips the balance towards sandbox games, where the player creates their own solution rather than trying to find the right one.
