The Nature of Puzzels

Browne

puzzles

@article{browne-gapd2015,
  author={Cameron Browne}, 
  title={Elegant Combat in War Games},
  journal={Game and Puzzle Design Journal},
  year=2015,
  volume=1,
  number=1,
  pages={23-34}
}

Puzzles are games between designer and solver.

• Designer not trying to win though, but provide experience.

Puzzle is "task that is fun and has a right answer."

Puzzle is a "question which challenges people to solve, requires some deduction based on its rules to win, and doesn't depend on chance or other people's actions."

Dependency: "Degree to which steps required to solve a given challenge are dependent on prior steps. A challenge in which progress can be immediately be made at many places on the board shows low dependency, while a challenge that only exposes enough information for the solver to make progress at one particular point shows high dependency."

Dependency as a metric for Sudoku difficulty.

Authorial Control: "Degree to which the setter can influence the solver's progress through a given challenge, and manage their moves in absentia."

Ziegarnik effect: Humans tend to fixate on problems until they are solved.

• Can thus hook players through cycles of challenge and reward.