[PATV] Extra Credits Season 3 Episode 22: Puzzle Games

Tube

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/puzzle-games

Henroid

Admittedly, I never gave puzzle games that much credit with regard to developing them. Now I know better.

RonTheDM

After playing Tetrisphere,

How could I not? Puzzle Games are great.

I didn't do the math but this is the kind of stuff I have had to deal with in even very elementary design concepts.

DaltonCarl

----

Zachary Amaranth

It still doesn't seem that deep to me.

Honestly, though, I think that's because a lot of the "math" you guys did is stuff I do reflexively. I do often think "Oh cool, I have 5,342 points until the next level." I can't help it. I'm not so much a math obsessive as a pattern obsessive. And RPGs probably didn't help, since the video game version usually ends with me having spent six hours going "Just one more level, just X more points to get there..."

I get the flip-side of the argument, that maybe this is harder to implement than to discern, but then you're leaving the territory of the argument in the first place and heading more towards why this specific set of mechanics works or doesn't work. I suspect a LARGE chunk of that is something hard to quantify, like explaining why art is visually pleasing or music sounds good.

Though if you guys want to take a swing at that, by all means....

Tofystedeth

Man, that was an excellent choice of pause music. Also good to see one of my favorite game genres getting some love.

Tleilaxu

"Oh, hey, Bejewled still exists."

An hour later...

God dammit!