Puzzles

I've been thinking about the format of video games lately. At their basest form, video games are essentially puzzles. Almost any game can be boiled down to interpreting what needs to be done, and then doing that to move on. This has become apparent to me largely by my going back and playing NES games, where the experience is stripped down to a state that is much more bare than in modern games. The approach to Zelda for example was to basically throw the pieces of the puzzle on the table and leave you to figure it out. You're missing the top of the box with the picture on it and all you really know is that the puzzle is square. Burning every bush to look for secret entrances is like checking every piece for every empty slot. I think I've over-explained the idea here, but whatever.

Okay, so I've established that a game like Zelda that is based around puzzle solving is, in fact, like a puzzle, but what about other games? What about Mario? It's not really a puzzle if the solution is "go right," is it? A game like that is still about problem solving. Your goal is to go right, but you have to understand the enemies patterns, your jumping ability, and the how the platforms work in order to progress. While games do require you to have the physical ability to carry out actions, which is not really an element of puzzles, figuring out what actions need to be carried out is a puzzle.

I think it is this problem solving element that makes video games interesting. Of course, this isn't the only thing that makes video games what they are. The aesthetic, music, story, and art are all things that can draw people in. For example, I appreciate the puzzle-like solving of how to beat a Megaman level/boss more than the art design, but I appreciate the art design of a Silent Hill more than figuring out how to beat an enemy to death with a plank of wood.

Competitive games are a different beast entirely. A good one is like chess, but a bad one is like rock-paper-scissors. I would compare a lot of fighting games to high-speed versions of the former, and I would compare a lot of shooters to high-speed versions of the latter. Obviously, there are a good and bad examples of both genres, but I digress.

The idea of logical problem solving in games make it all the more fascinating when a game is illogical. A lot of times this is accidental and just the result of poor design, but in some cases it is done on purpose to mess with expectations. I love it when a game designer thinks to do something that makes to player do something that runs counter to what the game has already established as proper. The hidden pit in front of an energy tank in Metroid works because you had just walked through a room that looks exactly the same and there was no pit in there. Sure, it's a dick move, but it shows that designers are anticipating the psychology of the people playing and designing against it, and that is something you can't get in many other places.

Hideo Kojima has made a career out of making games that require the player to think outside the box (or on it). As crazy as video game puzzle solving can get, there is usually a logic to it. Good video games are engaging because they require not just input from the player, but considered input.