Puzzle games: are they needed in 2020??

Today we will try to answer this and other questions.

Let’s first look at what we want to know about this difficult genre.

Let’s start the discussion:

As you know, games of this genre originate from board games. Rubik’s cube, crosswords, tag – all this served as the origin of the genre "puzzle".

The first puzzles appeared in the eighties (Q*bert and Boulder Dash), and then other developers came who wanted to join the genre. It’s nice that one of the most famous Tetris puzzles was created by a Russian developer Alexey Pajitnov. The game was released in 1984, when Pajitnov worked at the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In the early 1990s, games such as Lemmings and The Lost Vikings, revived the puzzle genre. The emergence of three-dimensional graphics contributed to the development of the genre on game consoles. Relatively cheap to produce games have found their niche on portable gaming systems.

We’ve sorted out the history of its appearance a little, now let’s move on to the second question:

POPULARITY.

How popular are these games?? Some statistics from mobile gaming:

The diagram shows how https://bevegascasino.co.uk/ many games of one direction or another were in the chart of the five hundred most profitable games on the App Store and Google Play in April 2018.

As we can see, the puzzle genre occupies 13.9%

In comparison with other games, this is a very good indicator, it is ahead of RPGs, simulators, and Arcades.

But these are all mobile games, and it is logical that it is on phones that puzzles are captivating due to their ease of perception, lack of a deep plot and “time-killing” gameplay.

But what is there on personal computers??

But here everything is more complicated:

There is no pure class of puzzles here; they usually differ in “larger” genres, so it is impossible to give an exact answer to this question.

HOW MANY CHALLENGES DO YOU NEED TO ENGAGE A PLAYER??

This is also a very controversial question, everyone has different tastes, some like to quickly run through the plot (the meaning of which we will analyze a little later) and others want to solve more and more difficult problems. But let’s turn to games known for their mental challenges.

We will explore this and the following topics using four examples:

stopgame rating "commendable"

HOW MANY? This game has quite a large number of different tasks, all of them are both similar and different at the same time. But due to their huge number, not all players will be able to complete 100% of the passage, but is this necessary in such a “relaxing game”?

COMPLEXITY. The level of difficulty in the game increases, all riddles go from easy and primitive to complex and thought-provoking. The best solution when creating puzzle games.

PLOT. It exists, but it doesn’t lend itself directly, “everyone should understand the game in their own way,” but because of this move, many did not understand it at all. It turns out that The witness-a long game, with an amazing atmosphere, with puzzles for everyone, but for a narrow circle of people who love to spend hours solving riddles and piecing together the story, accompanied by beautiful views and relaxing music

PORTAL 1-2stopgame rating "amazing"

HOW MANY? We can say about this game that it learns from its mistakes, because the first part of the portal was very short and very unsaid, fortunately the second part corrected all this and the game now has a long passage, and co-op, and if you didn’t have enough, then cameras from other players for both one and two.

COMPLEXITY. Of course, there is a downside here, although the game can be completed without watching let’s plays, new mechanics appear gradually, but sometimes rooms appear where you can sit for hours, thinking “how to get through this”. But this depends on your IQ and understanding of the situation, because for someone the same problems can be solved by running in a minute while drinking tea.

PLOT. This is of course 10 cakes out of 10, although the first part showed us only the beginning of the story, the second filled it to the brim, the plot is presented in dialogues, monologues, and additional. comics. Separately, I would like to note the humor that makes you play through the game, both in the first part and in the second.

ABOUT! how majestically she soars in the air, like an eagle… in a hot air balloon.

///////GLaDOS///////