@metlslime, yeah I read you response as a couple of good things and then the rest as bad. I certainly don't think you are dumping on my map for the fun of it, I just did not expect what you said within the context of the Q3 engine.

I totall agree that people bring their gaming experience baggage with them while playing any map. I saw people (in the demos) randomly shooting stuff after they worked out what the buttons look like. Hardly anyone was looking up or observing what is going on around them. Some people were running around at break neck speeds that even I could not see what they were looking at or doing.

But I do need to stress that this map is not a MOD, it is just a map that can be run with the vanilla Q3 engine. This is the root of the problem when it comes to how complex and interesting the puzzles are. This map relies on what the default engine offers and does not create any new entity types or engine features. I am simply using what the engine offers and trying to see if anything interesting can be made from it.

In hindsight trying to twist the Q3 engine to create puzzles was probably a bad idea. The engine is just a skeleton of functionality that on countless occasion squashed my ideas for machinery. I wanted machines that could rotate, twist, open, build, develop, have GUIs and proper player interaction. None of this is going to happen, which why there will not be anymore to this series. It is just a once only experiment that taught me a lot of interesting points about puzzles.

* Always try to contain puzzles to a small area so people don't spend alot of time running around trying to figure what is going on. When people get frustrated they wander off and try to find if something else is missing.

* Use prefabs for all working components and teach the player about them gradually. For example the two switches in the first room and the door was locked so that the player finds them, recognises them and if they see them again knows what to do.

* Always put interactive information at player height because no one is going to look up or down. I really hoped that game minded people would be different, but everyone is the same. Nobody stares at the top of a building while trying to find the front door! :P

* Try to hint at what is going on with strong visual colours that stand out from their surroundings. Originally I had the working parts of the machines painted in subdued colours, but no one knew what to look at and frustration set in really quickly. 

http://www.4shared.com/file/237525207/3108c2d7/RSmith_GDC09_PuzzlesAsUI_ForWe.html 

What technical problems were you running into? I thought the whole point of q3a was to show that 'scripting' was basically turing complete?

Re: players don't look up or try to understand the puzzles... watch my demo. :)

I had a hard time with puzzle 1, because the 'active electricity' effect was too subtle for me to suggest different states.

too bad there's the 1024 entities limit, or it would be awesome to write a simple scripting language -> logic gates compiler 

cool presentation. Very interesting to read 

It's nothing new, but it fills in all the gaps. 

sock, have you considered taking this map into DP to get access to q1 progs entities? 

Editor : http://www.simonoc.com/images/design/maps_q3/moteof_source3l.jpg
Web : http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/maps_q3/moteof_source.htm

The map source file is very large (10Mb) because I have included 200+ ASE files with relevant map files and a few of those are linked together to form other files. The ASE naming convention is a bit strange but the level was developered over 8 months with 156 map versions so some stuff will probably be in the wrong place. I recommend you turn on camera clipping in the editor, otherwise you will not be able to move the camera around.

The map is compressed into a small space in the editor so that the light grid has a better density on surfaces. I have included map compile options in the readme file and it works fine with q3map2 version 2.16. All the Q3A logic stuff is high above the map and is colour coded via textures to show the different functions used. Once I get a free moment I will sit down and go through some of the logic stuff because unless you are into scripting or coding it will be very difficult to follow. 

@necros, just use the source files I have just released.

@ijed, that is a nice presentation, thanks for the link. :) I liked the examples he showed for puzzles (portal/thief3).

@megaman, Q3 is just a skeleton of functions and it is really hard to do anything but DM stuff with it. You got 1024 entity limit across the map, 255 brush entity limit (doors, buttons). Two state movers that cannot toggle and rotating objects that don't stop moving and draw regardless of portals. A sound system with no volume control, no channel support or priority on sounds playing. No message HUD/text system besides center print. There is a good start! :p 

Would it be theoretically possible to spawn a bot in a cage outside the playing field and push him around with doors and platforms (possibly clones of existing machines) in order to create additional puzzle setups? For example, I could imagine a dial-like puzzle - you know, like those games where you have to turn several dials in opposite directions to move a ball or chip around. Something along these lines. 

i don't really know anything about q3 mapping or dp, i only mentioned it to see if you were interested. :S

the puzzles were a mixed bag for me. i understand that q3 has an extremely limited selection of scripting entities but it was still disappointing at times that some puzzles were easier to solve by just randomly hitting buttons.

also, just thought i'd mention this map looks absolutely fantastic. :) 

Was already in the Sock "fan club" but I like what I've read about all the comments on the idea of this map. 

That slideshow sums up a lot of what i would suggest to improve the puzzle design. Given the technical limitations of Q3 the puzzle mechanisms may not be able to change, so the best avenues of improvement are visual -- call attention to important things, limit distractions, improve feedback, emphasize state, represent identical function with consistent visual design, etc. -- and layout -- restricting player movement to focus their attention on a single room/puzzle at a time.

(many of these principles are already present in the level, e.g. consistent use of lights on switches, consistent use of the portcullis-needs-two-triggers mechanism, the only question is could they be pushed even further.) 

They seemed pretty good to me. The one that arrqf gur gvzvat gb punetr gur onggrel hc threw me for a while, as V jnf ybbxvat sbe n guveq fjvgpu naq qvqa'g guvax gb gel gur svefg fjvgpu ntnva... so that took me a few minutes. It was during this time that I noticed that gur fjvgpurf yvtug hc jura gurl orpbzr npgvir, which would've helped with the one that causes it to crash for me. It might just be my computer that has issues with that area. Strange...

I don't know why... but I expected it to be longer. I would've liked something that was twice the length, or more. But given how this place reacts to puzzles (this map and 768_negke), it was some way beyond your audience...

I look forward to the sequel. Even if no-one else here does... 

Loved your work, Sock. I'm not a MP guy, subsequently not a q3a guy, so just the concept of SP q3a is a winner, by me.

The Looks are absolutely gorgeous, as you know, and puzzles, well, apporachable, I think. Beside that, you provided LOTS more hints than anyone else here does on their own maps as how to beat the sucker.

Great job. 

and not for the sweet visuals alone ;) I enjoyed the puzzles, too -- I especially liked how the triggers/switches went inactive after they were completed -- but a few of the skull and target placements were a bit tough to find.

Great job all around, Sock! 

Nice way of doing spoilers on this board! Good job!

...course, if we could get some kind of spoiler tag, that would be even better (and save the few seconds it takes to translate). Hint. Nudge.

It could be as simple as automating a [SPOILER] prompt before the text in said tags, and then setting the text in question to the background color to force the reader to highlight...

Also, I don't know why the morons hate the puzzles either. 

There's even a Firefox plugin that will translate it for you... 

it would have been nice if you made the whole paragraph rot13 though...

http://operawiki.info/BookMarklets has a nifty bookmarklet for it. :)

pjw:



! :-) 

Also, I don't know why the morons hate the puzzles either.

Read this:

http://www.4shared.com/file/237525207/3108c2d7/RSmith_GDC09_PuzzlesAsUI_ForWe.html

:) 

I know the ins and outs of the engine, i was wondering what specifically you ran into. You got quite far with it, that's why I just expected more. After reading q3w, I'm quite interested, a writeup of the problems you ran into and the rebuilds you did would be quite interesting. 

I made the whole map in about one hour. This map is really great, I loved it ! :-)

Can't wait for the sequel. When will it be released ? 

You posted:

Read this:

http://www.4shared.com/file/237525207/3108c2d7/RSmith_GDC09_PuzzlesAsUI_ForWe.html

Yeah, I read it the first time you posted it. It's pretty well-written and makes some good points. Are you Randy Smith?

I don't want to get too deep into it, partly because I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek with my "moron" restatement. I'm pretty confident that no one here is a moron. Probably. But also because this thread is about sock's map, not the theory of puzzle design. That said, I can't resist making a few quick remarks. Sorry sock...

�Exhaustive searching� is a player behavior that I interpret at design failure � if your players have to search exhaustively, then clearly they don�t really know what to do and you need to improve the design.

But what if exhaustive searching is what a particular puzzle is about? I enjoy searching! If the environment is an interesting one and I find interesting things, I'm the guy who takes twice as long to play some games as other people since I wander around and look in all the nooks and crannies. Is that weird? Well...yes, but there are other people who also enjoy exploring.

You could replace "exhaustive searching" with any game behavior (sneaking? shooting? hiding? solving puzzles?), and the statement would still be right in some cases, but very wrong as a blanket statement or general rule.

Slide 16: Are players dumb? No. <--Yes they are. Lots of people are dumb, and while gamers aren't necessarily a perfectly representational slice of the whole, I think it's still close enough. Call me cynical.

Hell, in the exhaustive analysis of the first room in Portal (slides 119-130), Randy points out that there are a couple of ways to get stumped on that puzzle, and I'm sure that a few people did. Those people probably shouldn't be playing puzzle games, and I'm sure as fuck not going to design puzzle games for them. Which brings us to:

Slide 28: the >99% rule Sorry, but I disagree completely with this. Are you going to tell me that >99% of Portal players solved every puzzle in that game? By themselves? Without looking at walkthroughs? Nope. Didn't happen. Hell, Randy himself (if that's not you) admits to getting stumped, and he's obviously a puzzle game kinda guy. Same with the Myst/Riven/etc. series. Same with any number of great puzzle games. I don't really think that it ruined those games' reputation for quality...

Sorry, I could say more, but this already ended up longer than I intended.

tl;dr - This map rocks, sock rocks, puzzles are cool, some people are dumb and/or not good at puzzles.

(also, Spirit, that's just mean--I was all excited there for a second) 

I think by search exhaustively he means 'but with no reward'. Empty rooms are kind of tedious unless you find odds and sods in them. Not the blue key, but small stuff. Could just be simple stuff to mess with, like the playgrounds at the start of HL2 - was a complete waste having them in plain view.

Lot's of people are dumb, but like you say, if they're playing a puzzle game then some idea of puzzle solving or expectancy can be assumed. On the other hand assuming that anyone playing your map is a retard who couldn't find their arse with an atlas isn't going allow you to make a good map for them. I think - might be completely missing the point.

That 99% rule is stupid, yes.

Still haven't reinstalled Q3, sorry for the double post thread hijack. 

http://www.quaddicted.com/temp/demo0000.dm_68
http://www.quaddicted.com/temp/demo0001.dm_68
http://www.quaddicted.com/temp/demo0003.dm_68

What I really loved about this map was that I did not know that the skulls were more than secrets. Finding them made me feel smarter than "the other players" thus leading to great gratification and happiness. Feeling smart is a huge factor in such games/maps, just look at Deus Ex or alike games (also Portal).

There could have been more different puzzles but hey, I had fun. Looks are bonerific. I missed saving, paused every now and then and I would have had more patience if I knew I could come back later. 

Awesome, I watched your three demo's and yes it is shame there is no save function but the engine is MP so no code! :P

A couple of things about your demo that I am curious about. Did you notice that the switches had lights on them? That when the switch was active the light behind is on and when it does nothing the light is off?

This is something I have noticed alot about most of the demo's I have seen. I don't think anyone is connecting the light clue. I played HL EP2 today and I noticed they used green and red on lights to show when something is on or off. I think only having a white as on and nothing as off does not register as different functions to anyone. I think everyone is expecting the red/green traffic combo.

I also noticed that you got frustrated with the metal chains and the yellow coil machine. After a while you just ran around randomly hit buttons in a circle to see if you could solve it. Was it confusing what each button was doing? Were you expecting the puzzle to be solved quickly? (I got the impression you were in a hurry to complete the map)

When you were doing the lower puzzles with the batteries, you spent a long time trying to use the central button again and it was locked down and the light was off. Did it look useable? Did you notice when you used it the first time the light went off and the switch got locked down?

I think this is something that everyone suffers from with puzzles and probably because of other games that buttons always have single function. It is rare to find a button in a game that can be used multiple times and I think this is why everyone is assuming there is a third button for puzzle 2.

@ijed, I can't believe you are pimping that puzzle presentation link and you have not even played my map yourself yet. :(