In the previous blog some problems with puzzles in adventure games where discussed. It was also mentioned that a major culprit in all of these where that many adventure games do not have a coherent system for doing interactions, like for example a Super Mario game. A nice way of solving this and still allowing a varied set of possible actions might seem to be physics.
Horror Tip: Elevated
This is a pretty unknown short film from the guy that made Cube (one of my favorite horror movies) and it has a lot in common with that movie. Both films are based on a fear of the unknown, have tense psychological drama and feature a very limited set.
Blog layout updated
I just made the blog a little wider and hopefully this will make it more readable than before.
Puzzles in horror games Part 2: Common problems with adventure game puzzles
Before continuing to dig deeper into the world of puzzles, I would like to clarify a thing from the last puzzle post: When I said that I thought puzzles were the best way to have as core gameplay in a horror game, I did not mean that it excluded all other kinds of gameplay. I rather meant that the basic design was based on puzzles and that other mechanisms are there as extras.
Horror Tip: Dear Esther
This horror tip is quite fitting with last post’s discussion on what makes a game. Dear Esther is pretty much a first person game without any gameplay and only based an a fragmented narrative.
Puzzles in horror games Part 1: Why are puzzles so suited for horror games?
This post will be the first in a series concentrating on puzzles in games, with special focus on horror games. To start this up I would like to discuss why puzzles are needed at all. Is it really necessary to have puzzles in game when it might detract from story, immersion, etc?
Horror Tip: The Awakening
Time for another work of interactive fiction and this time there are some puzzles to be solved as well. The game is pretty simple though and also comes with a nice help system making it a good beginner game.
Briefly Being Frictional
In this blog post I am going to give a very brief overview of our “business model”. Hopefully it will be interesting to see how we run the company and how we manage to pay salaries and such.
