I really loved Patrick's Parabox because it wasn't a hardcore game. And you're exactly right, showcasing the system made it very exciting as a player that enjoys puzzle games, but not puzzle games that beat you up and take your lunch money.
this talk isn't just about puzzle design- it also applies more broadly to level design! i've been working on a precision platformer for over 4 years, and this is super similar to my own creative process. i would've loved to have seen this exact presentation when i was still figuring out how to string challenges together, and how to iterate and create new challenges. this process is how you take a handful of mechanics and ideas, and explore them in a full-scale level or world. playtesting is vital for this, too! excellent talk!
It's interesting how visible this design process ends up being in the game itself. Having played the game, it almost felt like I already knew half this talk going in. You can really feel just how deliberately the game was designed to make it feel smooth and intuitive despite the mind-bending subject matter.
I like puzzle games that are not "just" challenging, you can feel the enthusiasm of the creator in showing a feature or a concept in this video and it is how I see not so challenging puzzle game, enthusiasm sharing
Patrick made a really friendly game, and I commend him for it. It's one of the puzzle games I regularly come back to chisel at one or two puzzles a session as opposed to the hard puzzlers I love but permanently shelved like Stephen's Sausage Roll and Baba Is You.
Stephen's Sausage Roll in particular I think suffers from a type of difficulty that Patrick's Parabox deliberately avoids, as discussed in this talk. Patrick mentions the design principle where, once you figure out the big idea of the puzzle, the execution is straightforward to put that idea into practice and solve the puzzle. Meanwhile, Stephen's Sausage Roll felt like the execution was commonly harder than finding the core idea of the puzzle. You had to really carefully plan out every single move, and while that may be compelling to some players, I just found it extremely mentally exhausting in a way I wasn't used to from puzzle games. It wasn't so much that it was harder than other puzzle games, it was the specific way in which it was hard that didn't fit for me. It made me feel like I had to think like a computer if I wanted to solve a level. In that regard, I feel like even though Baba Is You is a hard game, I found it easier to get into because it leans more on that design principle that once you figure out the big idea, the puzzle is mostly solved.
I like puzzle games but I sometimes abandon them because of a tendency to make puzzles more and more complex, requiring dozens of steps and a thorough planification to even ascertain how to solve them. My mind gets lazy when I find really intricate and confusing puzzles. That's one of the reasons I love Patrick's Parabox. We don't get a huge level with 20 boxes of different types. We get a simple level that may require a clever idea to solve, and it is delightful.
The best part is that anyone could've come up with the idea for a puzzle game about pushing boxes around, but it takes this guy's ingenuity and dedication to make such a game charming and captivating!
While Patrick'sa Parabox might not be my favorite puzzle game, it's one of my most recommended ones, cause I feel most anyone can reach really mind bendy stuff so it's very easy to recommend
Excellent talk! Is it, in fact, obvious that mechanics which offer more possible puzzles are better? I can imagine in theory it might not be. Portal, for example, only really has about three puzzles arising from its mechanics, but people seem to have fun with it.
Portal is a bit of a different beast. It's an action/puzzler hybrid. You may get the solution easy enough, but then you have to execute it While I played it, most of the time I got stuck by my own inability to play fps games
I really loved Patrick's Parabox because it wasn't a hardcore game. And you're exactly right, showcasing the system made it very exciting as a player that enjoys puzzle games, but not puzzle games that beat you up and take your lunch money.
this talk isn't just about puzzle design- it also applies more broadly to level design!
i've been working on a precision platformer for over 4 years, and this is super similar to my own creative process. i would've loved to have seen this exact presentation when i was still figuring out how to string challenges together, and how to iterate and create new challenges.
this process is how you take a handful of mechanics and ideas, and explore them in a full-scale level or world. playtesting is vital for this, too!
excellent talk!
Hi domo lmaoooo
@@Dabestbro. heyo! it's always funny spotting someone you know out in the wild, haha
I am SO glad this guy is using his genius-ness to make fun games about boxes and not to take over the world!
It's interesting how visible this design process ends up being in the game itself. Having played the game, it almost felt like I already knew half this talk going in. You can really feel just how deliberately the game was designed to make it feel smooth and intuitive despite the mind-bending subject matter.
I like puzzle games that are not "just" challenging, you can feel the enthusiasm of the creator in showing a feature or a concept in this video and it is how I see not so challenging puzzle game, enthusiasm sharing
Patrick made a really friendly game, and I commend him for it. It's one of the puzzle games I regularly come back to chisel at one or two puzzles a session as opposed to the hard puzzlers I love but permanently shelved like Stephen's Sausage Roll and Baba Is You.
Stephen's Sausage Roll in particular I think suffers from a type of difficulty that Patrick's Parabox deliberately avoids, as discussed in this talk. Patrick mentions the design principle where, once you figure out the big idea of the puzzle, the execution is straightforward to put that idea into practice and solve the puzzle. Meanwhile, Stephen's Sausage Roll felt like the execution was commonly harder than finding the core idea of the puzzle. You had to really carefully plan out every single move, and while that may be compelling to some players, I just found it extremely mentally exhausting in a way I wasn't used to from puzzle games.
It wasn't so much that it was harder than other puzzle games, it was the specific way in which it was hard that didn't fit for me. It made me feel like I had to think like a computer if I wanted to solve a level. In that regard, I feel like even though Baba Is You is a hard game, I found it easier to get into because it leans more on that design principle that once you figure out the big idea, the puzzle is mostly solved.
I like puzzle games but I sometimes abandon them because of a tendency to make puzzles more and more complex, requiring dozens of steps and a thorough planification to even ascertain how to solve them. My mind gets lazy when I find really intricate and confusing puzzles.
That's one of the reasons I love Patrick's Parabox. We don't get a huge level with 20 boxes of different types. We get a simple level that may require a clever idea to solve, and it is delightful.
Aloha and mahalo for the info!
loved it, this is such a good tutorial on making an accessible puzzle game
The best part is that anyone could've come up with the idea for a puzzle game about pushing boxes around, but it takes this guy's ingenuity and dedication to make such a game charming and captivating!
Great game. My 8 year old nephew loved it too.
I love this game so much, enjoyed the talk
Very nice talk
Thanks for sharing!
looks like I still have a few areas to get to! I love this game and really need to get back into it.
While Patrick'sa Parabox might not be my favorite puzzle game, it's one of my most recommended ones, cause I feel most anyone can reach really mind bendy stuff so it's very easy to recommend
Fantastic talk
Nice talk! As expected from Patrick. :>
please upload the Chris Zukowski talk please
Excellent talk! Is it, in fact, obvious that mechanics which offer more possible puzzles are better? I can imagine in theory it might not be. Portal, for example, only really has about three puzzles arising from its mechanics, but people seem to have fun with it.
Portal is a bit of a different beast. It's an action/puzzler hybrid. You may get the solution easy enough, but then you have to execute it
While I played it, most of the time I got stuck by my own inability to play fps games
Like the Farnsworth Parabox from Futurama?
He did lots of design but I was still stuck in some level...😵💫
11:41 ROBLOX?
Clark Jeffrey Harris Karen Moore Dorothy
The real reason why Patrick's Parabox had great success is that there are so many easy levels. Just dumb down the difficulty. People will support.
That's kinda off-putting for me :/
The easy levels give you the building blocks to do the more challenging ones. There's plenty of those, in my opinion anyway.