It's useful for more than just puzzles too. Any time you need content in a game think of how various items or mechanics intersect to help come up with more ideas.
@@lederp42 Hell, I could see it in a fighting game. Comparing each element of two characters movesets together to see if some options are disproportionally advantageous.
This is how I make puzzle levels in Mario Maker. I pick two or three main gimmicks (depending on how big I want the level to be) and write down every novel interaction I can find between them.
Yeah same kind of thing here. I used to get overwhelmed and want to include everything in levels. But now I know that it's better to focus on a few things and really squeeze them out and make it interesting instead of complicated.
Does anyone else find the Developing intro/outro music super relaxing? It has this vibe of, “ok, we’ve got a lot of work before us, but let’s just take it one step at a time and we’ll get through it together”.
This is one of my absolute favorite series that you do. I really admire and appreciate your honesty going through the process of making a game. The "Oh God I wanna delete this and live in a cave" to "I can see the End" is really inspirational and something I think we can all relate to. Keep doing your best! You got this!
He's certainly inspired me to create the games from my game playing days, games that held my attention, games that I had a hard time putting down. I want to relive these games but with the pleasure of having recreated them myself. After all, I've prepared for this all my life having dabbled in creative fields but also in having become a seasoned software engineer.
My favorite thing is that the puzzle matrix idea cures the "blank page issue" where you're stuck staring at a blank page (or in this case a blank stage) and not sure what to put on it. Which is extremely clever!
The high level concept behind most of these techniques is "how can I get more clay (options) on the table?" followed by "okay, now which clay do I keep and which clay do I get rid of? how do I sculpt this clay into my sculpture (game)?"
My speedrunning brethren, the time has come to once again exploit GMTK's game and break it in ways that he'd never foreseen. We are still reeling from the removal of the laser clip, but I believe that wall-techs are still possible. When the game goes live, trust that I will work my hardest to exploit the game as much as possible. You have my honor.
Finally a video with really applicable and reproduceable steps to create good puzzles, and not just superficial tips or analysis. This video just turned "only geniuses make good puzzles" into "i can make good puzzles if I organize myself and follow these steps"
26 of 30 is amazing! One thing that can be very demotivating in gamedev is not getting "enough" done (according to your own plans). It's beneficial to think in terms of "I got these things done" instead of "I didn't get those things done". A very simple psychological trick. Today I spent 9 hours designing rather small areas on paper and I got 3 of 5 done that I wanted to design. And while I could say "damn, almost half of it is still on the todo list", my mind is rather at the point "man, 9 hours! Can't believe I was able to focus for so long and the areas turned out great". This mindset is especially helpful when the project takes a long time in total.
That puzzle matrix is essentially a gameplay variety matrix - something I used at Ubisoft a bunch. It's pretty much the driving force behind maintaining variety across a game's campaign!
@@THExRISER Watch Dogs and the Far Cry series. The variety matrix was used extensively in both! It was pretty much what drove the gameplay scenarios in every campaign mission (along with the story).
@@SeanNoonan Ah, the only two Ubisoft series I was ever interested in. They are leagues above the rest from what I know, so you've done a pretty good job keeping the game loop interesting. I'll think back on this conversation whenever I play those games.
That's interesting, both those games are big open world series- what "gameplay elements" did they have as equivalent to the "puzzle bits" in Mark's puzzle matrix? Enemy encounters, NPC's, resource acquisitions, stuff you can hack in Watch Dog's case etc, etc?
@@goranisacson2502 Hard to explain without showing it, but I'll give an example from a Watch Dogs mission I made. In "A Risky Bid", I recall that the variety matrix suggested "behind enemy lines", "no weapon", "intense combat", "vehicular escape". This drove the mission to force the player into temporarily giving up their weapons at the start, and rely on their phone and stealth once the "behind enemy lines" part of the mission was out of the way. It's hard to say if it was my personal preference bleeding through, or just the direction the game was headed... But at some point I overruled this and gave the weapons back just as the greater combat state kicked into gear. However, that initial focus on making a hacking only path through the combat section didn't go away, so it simply augmented the combat scenario rather than replacing it. Hacking only combat was still mostly viable, but it allowed for a richer combat space for those that wanted to go guns blazing. Hope that sorta explains one application of the matrix, even if I didn't stick to it until ship 😅
This reminds me of your episode on Baba is You as well. You described the puzzle making process as starting from a Solution and then working backwards until you reach a satisfying starting position.
Puzzle matrix seems lik a very nice and methodical approach. Thank you for sharing this process! Especially how it became a starting point for further work and mental freedom
That matrix is insane. 22x22/2 = 242 possible levels with 2 mechanics alone and 252 if we built from 2 mechanics up to the full 22. 494 total possibilities. And the best part is they're visually easy to see and sort out. Now that's some productive genious!
Too true, I'd even go so far as add in one more mechanic to add a little more depth (easter egg or story branch?) to each level. Imagine the possibilities
@@jacobshirley3457 Well, and minus the combinations that just don't work or aren't fun for one reason or another. But the point is you get _a lot_ of clay on the table to then start sculpting down into the sculpture (the game) that you want. The high level concept behind most of these techniques is "how can I get more clay (options) on the table?" followed by "okay, now which clay do I keep and which clay do I get rid of?"
I still remember having my blown at how clever the puzzles got in the portal games, especially the sequel since it's such a simple fucking concept yet executed so damn well
@@IfOUGHTpIRANHAz I find solving and setting puzzles actually to be two sides of the same coin, when it comes to pencil puzzles at least (i.e. sudoku, yajilin, slitherlink, starbattle, etc.) Setting a puzzle is just solving a puzzle, when there isn’t yet a puzzle to be solved. You come up with an idea of a solve path, then make it work by iteration. Thus, the more familiar you are with a certain genre of puzzles, the more patterns and techniques you encounter during solving puzzles set by others, the better your own setting becomes. Similarly, setting a couple puzzles in a genre, building them up from a blank grid, can lead you to making up tricks you wouldn’t have otherwise seen, and make you a stronger solver for it. I’d presume it works largely the same way with video game puzzles
This has been such an inspiring series not only as someone who adores game development but as someone who wants to work in creative fields. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this.
What I love about your process Mark is that you incorporate research into it, experimenting and exploring methods to better aid your production. It's so easy to get burnt out and demotivated, but sometimes a bit of research can go a long way into boosting your enthusiasm and plotting out a new route for success!
I genuinely want to play this now! Not just out of curiosity, like before, but some of these puzzles look really inviting and rewarding! That idea matrix is a tool that can probably used for every type of game. I've seen similar charts with enemies and weapons used to dissect why Doom and Halo have such rich combat scenarios. I bet something similar was going on in the minds of whoever decided that Burnout Paradise should have three different boost systems that reward different types of driving, and which cars should have which boost combined with which stats. Fill up all the possible slots, prototype them, get rid of the ones that don't make sense or aren't fun. Boom, game development.
@@rancheraosborne I couldn't tell you at this point. Ancient video essays going way too in depth about why their favorite game is so good. I think one of those charts came up in... I think it was a video about Far Cry 3, and a chart like that was used to explain why the enemy variety in that game is so lacking? God knows who made that video, though... I consume a lot of content and don't retain much of it!
I love the idea of this puzzle matrix! One thing I would encourage you to do is to remember the solution for older puzzles once you figure out some basic order and reuse some of those solutions as pieces of puzzles further down the line as I think it would be nice to add depth and allow for the player to have a callback to something they solved before and have it be just a portion of the overall puzzle down the line with a bit of a twist maybe too! Love the progress! Keep up the great work! (Obviously it’s your game so so as you please but just figured I’d offer my thoughts)
I love the logical process. The puzzle matrix leads to individual experiments, some of which lead to discovering useful combinations that then lead onto becoming the foundation for a level design, which then lead to multiple levels being created, that then lead to the puzzle bible, that then highlights gaps in the levels and hence the need for new new level designs utilising the identified combinations that they need to include. It's like you have gamified the process from begging to the end since each part leads to a reward that then builds on the previous to then complete the game, which in this case results in a game being created! I love it!
That "fill the cells in the spreadsheet" design strategy is a big part of how content gets made in all sorts of games! The work for "design 50 abilities" is made so much clearer when you instead say "design an ability at each rarity for each keyword for each weapon." Figuring out what the columns and rows should be is the juncture where content and systems designers need to be on the same page.
Honestly one of the best video series about working as a creative I’ve ever seen. I don’t make games as a job, nor do I make games as a hobby, but I do work in a creative field, and I am learning SO MUCH from your videos. Thank you!
Amazing mate! Really great idea with that Puzzle Matrix! Gonna try it myself for my Puzzle Game where literly got the same creative problems where it comes to puzzle level desing.
It's so cool how all creative endeavours seem to have these periods where you hate your project, then when you work thru the problem, you get all excited about the work again!
Mark I need you to know that it's so encouraging to hear that I'm not the only person who gets really discouraged trying to do something new sometimes! Thanks for your honest look at game dev!
Leave it to Mark to show you just how difficult game making can be. I'm glad you make these videos it gives a lot of context into the process, and I think is great for putting it into perspective for people who seem to underestimate what kind of endeavor game making is
I've shared this series with a couple of my high school game dev classes and it's brilliant! Thanks so much for opening up and sharing your insights into the design process. This one has been especially helpful for me as I work on my own project. Keep it up!
This is an amazing concept for puzzle design, wow! One thing I saw in a video a while ago was the idea of a "double-take effect". It doesn't work for puzzle where the goal is part of it, but the idea is to setup a method for solving the puzzle that pretty much requires the player to fail once. Such as, you teach the player to press a button in the previous room. In the next room, there's a ledge, a button, and a platform. So the player goes to press the button... but the platform goes up without them. Then they realize there's a box in the corner.
The matrix is a great idea ! For my own game, I just listed all mechanics I had created and tried to find the best way to introduce them so that the player keeps discovering new things all along the game and get a nice learning curve.
Hey Mark, I just want to say you're doing great work. We really appreciate the gamedev videos with the behind-the-scenes looks at what it takes to be a solo indie developer. It's a giant undertaking and I know I'm super proud of how far you've come. Thank you so much for allowing us to come with you on this journey, and I look forward to your update in the future :)
I'm seriously so grateful for you taking the plunge to not only develop your own game, but take us along for the ride, and being courageous enough to share the ups AND downs. it's really encouraging as a creator to see how you put the advice in your amazing analysis videos into practice!
Inspiring story. It can be so easy to just quit a project when faced with a really difficult section but powering through can be so rewarding and important in your personal growth. Well done!
This is a beautifully made video you have here, as someone who has been watching for a few years now and have always been used to hearing your voice overs, it's lovely putting your voice to your face whilst you explained everything, with the frequent cuts to the visuals of the game. I felt I could engage with the video rather than be a audible background that historically your videos have been for me. Keep up the marvelous work!
The matrix concept is essentially another way of looking at another common puzzle design method: teaching the player mechanics. You mention this in the video tangentially, but for me this is the focus rather than a side effect. Once you develop your main mechanic and sub mechanics, the game should teach the player how to use them, and for a puzzle game, that's done via puzzles. It's essentially the same concept of classic Mario level design, but with a more explicit purpose. Your reordering of puzzles near the end outlined this, but for me, puzzle design has always been easiest when I know what I want to teach the player. As you found, experimenting with your tools/mechanics though is a great way to discover that. Hell even making puzzles to teach something is a great way to stumble into new combinations. Like Johnathon Blow has mentioned about Braid, designing a game can lead to the game essentially designing itself. One caveat to all this (and this applies to making puzzles in general, regardless of the method), is in order for it to work... you have to really understand your mechanics. Being good enough at puzzle games to understand the lateral thinking the designers want you to figure out is one thing, but it's another thing all together to invent your own. So kudos to you for making so much progress and finding so many clever combinations! It's incredible how much you've learned and improved on through this project in such a short time.
I really like the idea of the puzzle matrix! It reminds me a lot of the way that I use to make factions/races/groups in the games I make. I create a list of every single mechanic that the game has, then I assign a handful to separate factions as their major focus, and then a different handful to the same factions as their minor focus. Depending on the number of mechanics some will be shared (though one faction will have it as their major and the other as their minor) or not shared at all It's a great way to make factions feel totally different based on the focus that they have, so they aren't just thematically different they are also different in gameplay. The puzzle matrix sounds super similar. You've got a list of all the mechanics and a really great progression system. Keep up the awesome work, both with game design and the videos!
Thank you so much I felt like maybe just giving up on being a game dev altogether but to know that you had similar struggles to me and hearing your solutions is really inspiring!
I've spoken with a few game dev before that structuring your work and the (pre-)production phase with exploratory tools, like the puzzle matrix, is actually one of the most important aspects to really finish a game. Great video
This series is, absolutely, the single most important resource for anyone trying to develop a new game. You have encountered many hurdles in the process of developing your game, that have nothing to do with the actual components or code, and found really awesome solutions for them that anyone can implement regardless of the game they are making. I'm so glad you have worked through all the places where many people would give up. I cannot wait to get to the video where you say your game is completely done. And it's March now, so let's see it!!
Hey Mark, just wanted to thank you for all your videos and insights into game making. I finally found the courage and motivation to start on my first, and thanks to you, I'm not scared of not finishing it, or it being too much for me anymore.
I’m still learning to say "it’s okay that I didn’t reach my goal." You are an encouragement to me, not only because I want to make a great game someday, but because life is all about redefining progress. You’re doing great, keep at it!
This video is SO helpful - thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, both the challenges and the breakthroughs. The puzzle matrix idea is SUCH a helpful concept.
And so 1.37 million people went on to incorporate puzzle matrix into their design workflow, and we were all better off for it. Thank you so much for sharing your process!
Mark, I love this series, because it feels like a journey I could see myself going down. I find it very helpful that almost every one of these videos starts with dealing with frustration, a lack of motivation, etc. because seeing how you deal with those obstacles makes me feel like I could do that, too. I am looking forward to your play testing video! I really hope that you will take some time to talk about how a developer could approach play testing if they don't have a huge TH-cam channel and Discord and Patreon full of willing testers.
I've been trying to write short stories, so not really like game development at all, and yet I've found a lot of useful insights and inspiration watching your GMTK progress on this magnet game. So thanks for that!
i watched the whole series in one go and you're like a different person when compared to first video in the series. this metamorphosis from an aspiring video game developer to an actual video game developer is really inspiring. i can't wait for the final product and for your future endeavours.
I used to write down things I liked about games and then see if mixing and matching some of them would lead to a new concept or mechanic that I liked. Then I saw that my friend used something similar to come up with math problems for his students, and now this I feel like this method should have a name, I've seen it like everywhere.
I love the puzzle matrix, I think you could also take it one step further, once you've found the combinations that you like, put those on a matrix again and see what combinations you can put together for the later, more difficult levels
This was super interesting! Perspective of a non-game designer: I'm a research mathematician, and one of the struggles in my profession is coming up with new and interesting projects that allow me to do more researching. Extrapolating the idea in this video, one of the things I'm now going to try is making a "matrix" of all the techniques and areas that I'm familiar with, and seeing if I can find interesting and new overlaps, and so find new projects to work on. All that to say, this method of devising structure actually has applications way outside of just game design, and I'm really glad you made a video discussing it.
the puzzle matrix is so cool, it's like a fast-track way of getting interesting interactions between many independent systems... my system for making cool levels is just messing around with whatever tools i have available, and mushing stuff together until something interesting happens as though it's a point-and-click adventure. really great tips n ideas on how to navigate around the "writer's block" you had.
this series is so fascinating because it's a beautifully produced exercise of when a theoretician, amateur enthusiast or critic actually becomes immersed and practices the thing they theorize, review and enjoy. it's like a health science researcher learning to practice medicine. or a food critic learning to cook. obviously developing isn't exactly mark becoming a full time game dev (and all that entails) but its an interesting start. great video as always.
Your magnet game reminds me of The Learning Company’s 90s era Gadgets and Gizmos in all the best ways. I love your retro graphics and all my favorite games are puzzle based. Cheers Mark! Keep up the great work.
This is one of the best videos on game development I've ever seen, pure gold, making levels is my main bottleneck, not making a puzzle game here, but the mechanics matrix can certainly be used and adapted to any kind of game.
What a clever way to get around the all too common problem of paralysis from a blank slate, by "limiting" your possibilities into interactions of two mechanics!! Super helpful video.
A lot of game making advise is really vague like "you need to stick to your vision" or whatever. Maybe that helps some people. But this series is full of really practical stuff like that puzzle matrix. You explain exactly what to do step by step, to solve some problem. It's awesome.
I am one of the probably many people you inspired to start developping a game. I started a few months ago with a friend. Thank you for doing this series and good luck for your game: it's looking great!
Just keep on going, Mark! There are only a finite number of steps between you and your goal and you are taking them one at a time! The amazing thing is that everything you learn, we learn too. Even though I'm writing a science fiction novel and you're making a puzzle game, I can apply so much of the logic, organisation and goal-oriented determination that you share in your videos to my task also, so thanks very much and looking forward to the next installment!!
Sounds like you were bashing your head against the classic creative problem of the blank page. And you definitely found the solution that most people find works best, which is to introduce goals and restrictions to give each idea more focus. Necessity is the mother of invention, and limitations are the mother of creativity. On an unrelated note, I still want to draw attention to the fact that even with all of the work that is going into making the game, your video quality is still superb. The editing, effects, scripting, and flow are professional grade.
I often use your videos to help with designing my homebrew D&D campaign. I think this one in particular will be of much help! I too have been stumped by the paradox of designing good (or even mildly puzzling) puzzles.
I've also made a puzzle game, and found a really helpful strategy for teaching mechanics. If there's something you want to teach so you can later use it in solutions, don't use it as a *solution*, but instead as an *obstacle*. For example; Let's say you have a platform that rises out of the ground when the player steps on it. You want to teach the player that the platform doesn't rise if there's no room for it to do so; if there's no empty space above for it to rise into. You COULD make it so that figuring out that interaction is a puzzle, where the solution is to figure out a way to prevent it from rising, however that's the mechanic that the player doesn't know about yet, so it's better to make it into an obstacle. This would mean designing a level where the platform *cannot* rise at all, and the way to solve it is by making room so it can. This approach makes it obvious and unavoidable that the mechanic exists (it's literally the thing stopping you from beating the level), and by understanding it (removing the blockage) you solve the level and are allowed to progress. The best part is, this doesn't mean your tutorial level isn't an actual puzzle - it can still be a challenge, just framed in such a way where the solution is comprised of mechanics the player already knows about.
I'm working on my first project I'm going to release, and I just want to say that your "Developing" series has been one of the few series that has encouraged me to keep on. Probably also responsible in part for the fact that it's end up as a puzzle game. xD I was just banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to come up with puzzle ideas, and this video has suddenly given me hope. xD
When you said the visuals were upgraded, you were not lying! This is looking *really* good! I'm not always the best at puzzle games, but this looks like one I'd be able to beat!
This reminded me of the first Portal Entering a new test chamber, you'd encounter a sign telling you which mechanics are used in that chamber (as well as which are not used, maybe to increase curiousity for next chambers)
The puzzle matrix solves a much more general problem or rather improves the status quo when we're talking about creativity and coming up with ideas around a topic in general. You are the type of person who loves doing something practical with clear goals and achieving those by the divide and conquer method and so am I. I'm also often aimless when I have to be creative (e.g. the vague goal of coming up with a research question, just like your "Build a new level"). I really do think that this matrix has much broader applications in science or any creative task too. Maybe a digital artist could create a matrix with objects related to a certain style or theme and then randomly choose some that they now have to use to draw an image. Maybe a researcher has a matrix with goals on one side and theoretical concepts on the other and that gives them suggestions on what to possibly look into or try out. I feel like what you've covered here is like a very generally useful technique to structure the creative workflow to work for our brains in particular.
This is such a great way of making puzzle, I have been having a hard time when making some little game to come up with interesting puzzle. This is genius! Thank!
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 84 วันนี้!! คู่เอก "ก้องศึก vs เมืองไทย"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3kuzsAIDf1c/mqdefault.jpg)
That puzzle matrix is genius
It's useful for more than just puzzles too. Any time you need content in a game think of how various items or mechanics intersect to help come up with more ideas.
@@lederp42 Hell, I could see it in a fighting game. Comparing each element of two characters movesets together to see if some options are disproportionally advantageous.
@@kevingriffith6011 some people in the fgc actually already make matchup sheets like these!
@@ShineChromatica I've seen the matchup charts, but I don't think I've seen them on a move-by-move basis.
I remember reading that blog post a few months ago and thinking "wow, this is neat, I wish more people would see this." So thanks Mark!
This is how I make puzzle levels in Mario Maker. I pick two or three main gimmicks (depending on how big I want the level to be) and write down every novel interaction I can find between them.
I immediately thought of Mario Maker when I saw the grid!
...and of how bad I am at designing levels 😅
Yeah same kind of thing here. I used to get overwhelmed and want to include everything in levels. But now I know that it's better to focus on a few things and really squeeze them out and make it interesting instead of complicated.
I feel like this trick could work for designing more action-based levels in Mario Maker as well.
Hmm
What's your Maker ID? I want to check out your puzzles.
Does anyone else find the Developing intro/outro music super relaxing? It has this vibe of, “ok, we’ve got a lot of work before us, but let’s just take it one step at a time and we’ll get through it together”.
The artist is Lakey Inspired, you might wanna listen to his other music too!
@@vanterbaba4110 you know which actual song it is, by any chance? Listened to his other stuff and it's great
@@firepheonix7301 The song Mark uses is called "Blue Boi"
@@vanterbaba4110 Thank you! I was looking for this song on Lakey Inspired's SoundCloud and couldn't find it. They make so much music!
@@vanterbaba4110 !!!!!
This is one of my absolute favorite series that you do. I really admire and appreciate your honesty going through the process of making a game. The "Oh God I wanna delete this and live in a cave" to "I can see the End" is really inspirational and something I think we can all relate to. Keep doing your best! You got this!
He's certainly inspired me to create the games from my game playing days, games that held my attention, games that I had a hard time putting down. I want to relive these games but with the pleasure of having recreated them myself. After all, I've prepared for this all my life having dabbled in creative fields but also in having become a seasoned software engineer.
My favorite thing is that the puzzle matrix idea cures the "blank page issue" where you're stuck staring at a blank page (or in this case a blank stage) and not sure what to put on it. Which is extremely clever!
Prompts in general are a fast solution to the "blank page/canvas/screen" problem, in almost any type of project. Writing prompts. Art prompts. etc...
The high level concept behind most of these techniques is "how can I get more clay (options) on the table?" followed by "okay, now which clay do I keep and which clay do I get rid of? how do I sculpt this clay into my sculpture (game)?"
My speedrunning brethren, the time has come to once again exploit GMTK's game and break it in ways that he'd never foreseen. We are still reeling from the removal of the laser clip, but I believe that wall-techs are still possible. When the game goes live, trust that I will work my hardest to exploit the game as much as possible. You have my honor.
We are the storm, and we are approaching gmtk 🤝🏼
TheSpiffingBrit would be proud.
I hope he takes the Celeste approach and leaves in some bugs of the bugs that you've discovered and that don't impact normal gameplay.
@@Kenionatus our #1 exploit was being able to clip the lasers and use them as platforms. I think he's going to give an equally valid option.
Ok
Finally a video with really applicable and reproduceable steps to create good puzzles, and not just superficial tips or analysis. This video just turned "only geniuses make good puzzles" into "i can make good puzzles if I organize myself and follow these steps"
26 of 30 is amazing! One thing that can be very demotivating in gamedev is not getting "enough" done (according to your own plans). It's beneficial to think in terms of "I got these things done" instead of "I didn't get those things done". A very simple psychological trick. Today I spent 9 hours designing rather small areas on paper and I got 3 of 5 done that I wanted to design. And while I could say "damn, almost half of it is still on the todo list", my mind is rather at the point "man, 9 hours! Can't believe I was able to focus for so long and the areas turned out great". This mindset is especially helpful when the project takes a long time in total.
Love this! It can be really easy to be overly self-critical if you don't take the time to look back and acknowledge your progress.
That puzzle matrix is essentially a gameplay variety matrix - something I used at Ubisoft a bunch. It's pretty much the driving force behind maintaining variety across a game's campaign!
What games did you work on when you were at Ubisoft?
What games did you use the gameplay variety matrix for?
@@THExRISER Watch Dogs and the Far Cry series. The variety matrix was used extensively in both! It was pretty much what drove the gameplay scenarios in every campaign mission (along with the story).
@@SeanNoonan Ah, the only two Ubisoft series I was ever interested in.
They are leagues above the rest from what I know, so you've done a pretty good job keeping the game loop interesting.
I'll think back on this conversation whenever I play those games.
That's interesting, both those games are big open world series- what "gameplay elements" did they have as equivalent to the "puzzle bits" in Mark's puzzle matrix? Enemy encounters, NPC's, resource acquisitions, stuff you can hack in Watch Dog's case etc, etc?
@@goranisacson2502 Hard to explain without showing it, but I'll give an example from a Watch Dogs mission I made. In "A Risky Bid", I recall that the variety matrix suggested "behind enemy lines", "no weapon", "intense combat", "vehicular escape".
This drove the mission to force the player into temporarily giving up their weapons at the start, and rely on their phone and stealth once the "behind enemy lines" part of the mission was out of the way.
It's hard to say if it was my personal preference bleeding through, or just the direction the game was headed... But at some point I overruled this and gave the weapons back just as the greater combat state kicked into gear. However, that initial focus on making a hacking only path through the combat section didn't go away, so it simply augmented the combat scenario rather than replacing it. Hacking only combat was still mostly viable, but it allowed for a richer combat space for those that wanted to go guns blazing.
Hope that sorta explains one application of the matrix, even if I didn't stick to it until ship 😅
This reminds me of your episode on Baba is You as well. You described the puzzle making process as starting from a Solution and then working backwards until you reach a satisfying starting position.
I was really waiting for him to say "then I found a really good resource: my own videos!" :P
Always a treat when a GMTK video gets released. 🥳
no way it's helper wesley
@@Jimblemimble no way it's ThatOneJoe😱
Hey. 👋
@@HelperWesley 😱😱😱
Hey!!
This is truth
Puzzle matrix seems lik a very nice and methodical approach. Thank you for sharing this process!
Especially how it became a starting point for further work and mental freedom
That matrix is insane. 22x22/2 = 242 possible levels with 2 mechanics alone and 252 if we built from 2 mechanics up to the full 22. 494 total possibilities. And the best part is they're visually easy to see and sort out. Now that's some productive genious!
Nevermind how one set of combined mechanics can have more than one novel interaction.
Too true, I'd even go so far as add in one more mechanic to add a little more depth (easter egg or story branch?) to each level. Imagine the possibilities
@@jacobshirley3457 Well, and minus the combinations that just don't work or aren't fun for one reason or another. But the point is you get _a lot_ of clay on the table to then start sculpting down into the sculpture (the game) that you want. The high level concept behind most of these techniques is "how can I get more clay (options) on the table?" followed by "okay, now which clay do I keep and which clay do I get rid of?"
I cant even understand how ppl make puzzles in general . Making a puzzle game sounds rough
It sure is a completely different muscle from solving them.
Ye
Doing it in reverse (from solved state to unsolved) is one way to make a puzzle.
I still remember having my blown at how clever the puzzles got in the portal games, especially the sequel since it's such a simple fucking concept yet executed so damn well
@@IfOUGHTpIRANHAz I find solving and setting puzzles actually to be two sides of the same coin, when it comes to pencil puzzles at least (i.e. sudoku, yajilin, slitherlink, starbattle, etc.) Setting a puzzle is just solving a puzzle, when there isn’t yet a puzzle to be solved. You come up with an idea of a solve path, then make it work by iteration. Thus, the more familiar you are with a certain genre of puzzles, the more patterns and techniques you encounter during solving puzzles set by others, the better your own setting becomes. Similarly, setting a couple puzzles in a genre, building them up from a blank grid, can lead you to making up tricks you wouldn’t have otherwise seen, and make you a stronger solver for it. I’d presume it works largely the same way with video game puzzles
This has been such an inspiring series not only as someone who adores game development but as someone who wants to work in creative fields. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this.
What I love about your process Mark is that you incorporate research into it, experimenting and exploring methods to better aid your production. It's so easy to get burnt out and demotivated, but sometimes a bit of research can go a long way into boosting your enthusiasm and plotting out a new route for success!
I genuinely want to play this now! Not just out of curiosity, like before, but some of these puzzles look really inviting and rewarding!
That idea matrix is a tool that can probably used for every type of game. I've seen similar charts with enemies and weapons used to dissect why Doom and Halo have such rich combat scenarios. I bet something similar was going on in the minds of whoever decided that Burnout Paradise should have three different boost systems that reward different types of driving, and which cars should have which boost combined with which stats. Fill up all the possible slots, prototype them, get rid of the ones that don't make sense or aren't fun. Boom, game development.
Where have you seen the Doom and Halo charts you mention?
@@rancheraosborne I couldn't tell you at this point. Ancient video essays going way too in depth about why their favorite game is so good. I think one of those charts came up in... I think it was a video about Far Cry 3, and a chart like that was used to explain why the enemy variety in that game is so lacking? God knows who made that video, though... I consume a lot of content and don't retain much of it!
Suggestion: use the music of this series somewhere in the game, like menu screen or intro screen or something. I love this song!
The spreadsheet is really clever! That's a great idea to see what mechanics are being underutilized or perhaps popping up too much.
I love the idea of this puzzle matrix! One thing I would encourage you to do is to remember the solution for older puzzles once you figure out some basic order and reuse some of those solutions as pieces of puzzles further down the line as I think it would be nice to add depth and allow for the player to have a callback to something they solved before and have it be just a portion of the overall puzzle down the line with a bit of a twist maybe too! Love the progress! Keep up the great work! (Obviously it’s your game so so as you please but just figured I’d offer my thoughts)
I love the logical process. The puzzle matrix leads to individual experiments, some of which lead to discovering useful combinations that then lead onto becoming the foundation for a level design, which then lead to multiple levels being created, that then lead to the puzzle bible, that then highlights gaps in the levels and hence the need for new new level designs utilising the identified combinations that they need to include. It's like you have gamified the process from begging to the end since each part leads to a reward that then builds on the previous to then complete the game, which in this case results in a game being created! I love it!
Very useful, especially the puzzle matrix at 3:48. Thanks, Mark
Mark you're making such quick progress, it's truly an inspiration. Can't wait to see the finished game 🔥
That matrix is low key genius. Glad you found your flow. I'd be interested in learning about the tools you developed.
That matrix is an ingenious way to get past the ‘white blank page’!
Happy to see that puzzle strategies post by Patrick get some recognition, it seems very useful
"Finish The Game" - the saying I tell myself as I work on my game for 4 years now...
It’s actually insane how the developing series has been going on for a year now. I still remember when the first one came out
That puzzle matrix thing. Legit blew my mind.
I shared that tip and this video with a few people 😅😅
That "fill the cells in the spreadsheet" design strategy is a big part of how content gets made in all sorts of games! The work for "design 50 abilities" is made so much clearer when you instead say "design an ability at each rarity for each keyword for each weapon." Figuring out what the columns and rows should be is the juncture where content and systems designers need to be on the same page.
Man I love watching these, I can really get a feeling for the whole process that I’ve never really gotten from anything else.
Honestly one of the best video series about working as a creative I’ve ever seen. I don’t make games as a job, nor do I make games as a hobby, but I do work in a creative field, and I am learning SO MUCH from your videos. Thank you!
Amazing mate! Really great idea with that Puzzle Matrix! Gonna try it myself for my Puzzle Game where literly got the same creative problems where it comes to puzzle level desing.
one of the things I love in some games is the secrets and easter eggs in it , I think it will be a good idea to add some
It's so cool how all creative endeavours seem to have these periods where you hate your project, then when you work thru the problem, you get all excited about the work again!
Mark I need you to know that it's so encouraging to hear that I'm not the only person who gets really discouraged trying to do something new sometimes! Thanks for your honest look at game dev!
Leave it to Mark to show you just how difficult game making can be. I'm glad you make these videos it gives a lot of context into the process, and I think is great for putting it into perspective for people who seem to underestimate what kind of endeavor game making is
I've shared this series with a couple of my high school game dev classes and it's brilliant! Thanks so much for opening up and sharing your insights into the design process. This one has been especially helpful for me as I work on my own project. Keep it up!
Thanks for sharing!
As someone who has been banging their head against the wall regarding designing puzzles, that matrix is ridiculously useful!
Thank you!
This is an amazing concept for puzzle design, wow! One thing I saw in a video a while ago was the idea of a "double-take effect". It doesn't work for puzzle where the goal is part of it, but the idea is to setup a method for solving the puzzle that pretty much requires the player to fail once.
Such as, you teach the player to press a button in the previous room. In the next room, there's a ledge, a button, and a platform. So the player goes to press the button... but the platform goes up without them. Then they realize there's a box in the corner.
The matrix is a great idea ! For my own game, I just listed all mechanics I had created and tried to find the best way to introduce them so that the player keeps discovering new things all along the game and get a nice learning curve.
Hey Mark, I just want to say you're doing great work. We really appreciate the gamedev videos with the behind-the-scenes looks at what it takes to be a solo indie developer. It's a giant undertaking and I know I'm super proud of how far you've come.
Thank you so much for allowing us to come with you on this journey, and I look forward to your update in the future :)
no youtuber uses this music like this series. Truly some of the best videos on youtube
Every one of these videos makes me more excited for the final product. You’re doing great Mark!
I'm seriously so grateful for you taking the plunge to not only develop your own game, but take us along for the ride, and being courageous enough to share the ups AND downs. it's really encouraging as a creator to see how you put the advice in your amazing analysis videos into practice!
Inspiring story. It can be so easy to just quit a project when faced with a really difficult section but powering through can be so rewarding and important in your personal growth. Well done!
This is a beautifully made video you have here, as someone who has been watching for a few years now and have always been used to hearing your voice overs, it's lovely putting your voice to your face whilst you explained everything, with the frequent cuts to the visuals of the game. I felt I could engage with the video rather than be a audible background that historically your videos have been for me. Keep up the marvelous work!
The matrix concept is essentially another way of looking at another common puzzle design method: teaching the player mechanics. You mention this in the video tangentially, but for me this is the focus rather than a side effect. Once you develop your main mechanic and sub mechanics, the game should teach the player how to use them, and for a puzzle game, that's done via puzzles. It's essentially the same concept of classic Mario level design, but with a more explicit purpose. Your reordering of puzzles near the end outlined this, but for me, puzzle design has always been easiest when I know what I want to teach the player. As you found, experimenting with your tools/mechanics though is a great way to discover that. Hell even making puzzles to teach something is a great way to stumble into new combinations. Like Johnathon Blow has mentioned about Braid, designing a game can lead to the game essentially designing itself.
One caveat to all this (and this applies to making puzzles in general, regardless of the method), is in order for it to work... you have to really understand your mechanics. Being good enough at puzzle games to understand the lateral thinking the designers want you to figure out is one thing, but it's another thing all together to invent your own. So kudos to you for making so much progress and finding so many clever combinations! It's incredible how much you've learned and improved on through this project in such a short time.
I really like the idea of the puzzle matrix! It reminds me a lot of the way that I use to make factions/races/groups in the games I make. I create a list of every single mechanic that the game has, then I assign a handful to separate factions as their major focus, and then a different handful to the same factions as their minor focus. Depending on the number of mechanics some will be shared (though one faction will have it as their major and the other as their minor) or not shared at all
It's a great way to make factions feel totally different based on the focus that they have, so they aren't just thematically different they are also different in gameplay.
The puzzle matrix sounds super similar. You've got a list of all the mechanics and a really great progression system. Keep up the awesome work, both with game design and the videos!
Thank you so much I felt like maybe just giving up on being a game dev altogether but to know that you had similar struggles to me and hearing your solutions is really inspiring!
I've spoken with a few game dev before that structuring your work and the (pre-)production phase with exploratory tools, like the puzzle matrix, is actually one of the most important aspects to really finish a game. Great video
This series is, absolutely, the single most important resource for anyone trying to develop a new game. You have encountered many hurdles in the process of developing your game, that have nothing to do with the actual components or code, and found really awesome solutions for them that anyone can implement regardless of the game they are making. I'm so glad you have worked through all the places where many people would give up. I cannot wait to get to the video where you say your game is completely done. And it's March now, so let's see it!!
Hey Mark, just wanted to thank you for all your videos and insights into game making. I finally found the courage and motivation to start on my first, and thanks to you, I'm not scared of not finishing it, or it being too much for me anymore.
This is exactly the video I needed, as I continuously find myself enjoying design-more-widgets-time and dreading level-design-time. Thank you!
I’m still learning to say "it’s okay that I didn’t reach my goal." You are an encouragement to me, not only because I want to make a great game someday, but because life is all about redefining progress. You’re doing great, keep at it!
This video is SO helpful - thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, both the challenges and the breakthroughs. The puzzle matrix idea is SUCH a helpful concept.
I’m glad you’re still going on it.
And so 1.37 million people went on to incorporate puzzle matrix into their design workflow, and we were all better off for it. Thank you so much for sharing your process!
The title "The clever hack that makes puzzle design easier" made me more interested in this video. The mechanic matrix idea is very cool!
Mark, I love this series, because it feels like a journey I could see myself going down. I find it very helpful that almost every one of these videos starts with dealing with frustration, a lack of motivation, etc. because seeing how you deal with those obstacles makes me feel like I could do that, too.
I am looking forward to your play testing video! I really hope that you will take some time to talk about how a developer could approach play testing if they don't have a huge TH-cam channel and Discord and Patreon full of willing testers.
I've been trying to write short stories, so not really like game development at all, and yet I've found a lot of useful insights and inspiration watching your GMTK progress on this magnet game. So thanks for that!
i watched the whole series in one go and you're like a different person when compared to first video in the series. this metamorphosis from an aspiring video game developer to an actual video game developer is really inspiring. i can't wait for the final product and for your future endeavours.
26/30 is still really good! I'm looking forward to more dev logs and the eventual release!
I used to write down things I liked about games and then see if mixing and matching some of them would lead to a new concept or mechanic that I liked.
Then I saw that my friend used something similar to come up with math problems for his students, and now this
I feel like this method should have a name, I've seen it like everywhere.
I love the puzzle matrix, I think you could also take it one step further, once you've found the combinations that you like, put those on a matrix again and see what combinations you can put together for the later, more difficult levels
11:36 funnily enough, you did invent maths! that shape you made is called a cardioid
I usually lack planning when I work on any kind of projects, but this matrix and bible are a genius piece of advice!
Great to see how the matrix helped you find the fun puzzles and I'm glad to see you excited for the game again!
The puzzle matrix makes things so much faster. Dude went from semi-procrastinating to really enjoying the development.
This was super interesting! Perspective of a non-game designer: I'm a research mathematician, and one of the struggles in my profession is coming up with new and interesting projects that allow me to do more researching. Extrapolating the idea in this video, one of the things I'm now going to try is making a "matrix" of all the techniques and areas that I'm familiar with, and seeing if I can find interesting and new overlaps, and so find new projects to work on. All that to say, this method of devising structure actually has applications way outside of just game design, and I'm really glad you made a video discussing it.
the puzzle matrix is so cool, it's like a fast-track way of getting interesting interactions between many independent systems...
my system for making cool levels is just messing around with whatever tools i have available, and mushing stuff together until something interesting happens as though it's a point-and-click adventure.
really great tips n ideas on how to navigate around the "writer's block" you had.
this series is so fascinating because it's a beautifully produced exercise of when a theoretician, amateur enthusiast or critic actually becomes immersed and practices the thing they theorize, review and enjoy. it's like a health science researcher learning to practice medicine. or a food critic learning to cook. obviously developing isn't exactly mark becoming a full time game dev (and all that entails) but its an interesting start. great video as always.
You're brilliant! The first few seconds of this literary just destroyed my "game design writers block".
Your magnet game reminds me of The Learning Company’s 90s era Gadgets and Gizmos in all the best ways. I love your retro graphics and all my favorite games are puzzle based. Cheers Mark! Keep up the great work.
This is one of the best videos on game development I've ever seen, pure gold, making levels is my main bottleneck, not making a puzzle game here, but the mechanics matrix can certainly be used and adapted to any kind of game.
What a clever way to get around the all too common problem of paralysis from a blank slate, by "limiting" your possibilities into interactions of two mechanics!! Super helpful video.
A lot of game making advise is really vague like "you need to stick to your vision" or whatever. Maybe that helps some people. But this series is full of really practical stuff like that puzzle matrix. You explain exactly what to do step by step, to solve some problem. It's awesome.
I am one of the probably many people you inspired to start developping a game. I started a few months ago with a friend. Thank you for doing this series and good luck for your game: it's looking great!
Just keep on going, Mark! There are only a finite number of steps between you and your goal and you are taking them one at a time! The amazing thing is that everything you learn, we learn too. Even though I'm writing a science fiction novel and you're making a puzzle game, I can apply so much of the logic, organisation and goal-oriented determination that you share in your videos to my task also, so thanks very much and looking forward to the next installment!!
Sounds like you were bashing your head against the classic creative problem of the blank page. And you definitely found the solution that most people find works best, which is to introduce goals and restrictions to give each idea more focus. Necessity is the mother of invention, and limitations are the mother of creativity.
On an unrelated note, I still want to draw attention to the fact that even with all of the work that is going into making the game, your video quality is still superb. The editing, effects, scripting, and flow are professional grade.
This made me think of that expression "Judge, jury and executioner" but with game design, pretty neat. Keep it up👍
This video is really cool, right now I'm writing a story, and this was encouraging hehe thanks ❤️
Really enjoying this series! Really excited for this to be a finished game! Looks like a lot of fun and I'm a big fan of the art style.
Mark, i just wanna say, you were the inspiration i needed to start learning unity!
Much love man, keep up the great work
Been making games for many years now and never have I made a matrix like that. Great idea! I'll start using this for sure!
That matrix is exactly how I generate interesting effects for card games.
I often use your videos to help with designing my homebrew D&D campaign. I think this one in particular will be of much help! I too have been stumped by the paradox of designing good (or even mildly puzzling) puzzles.
I've also made a puzzle game, and found a really helpful strategy for teaching mechanics. If there's something you want to teach so you can later use it in solutions, don't use it as a *solution*, but instead as an *obstacle*.
For example; Let's say you have a platform that rises out of the ground when the player steps on it. You want to teach the player that the platform doesn't rise if there's no room for it to do so; if there's no empty space above for it to rise into. You COULD make it so that figuring out that interaction is a puzzle, where the solution is to figure out a way to prevent it from rising, however that's the mechanic that the player doesn't know about yet, so it's better to make it into an obstacle. This would mean designing a level where the platform *cannot* rise at all, and the way to solve it is by making room so it can.
This approach makes it obvious and unavoidable that the mechanic exists (it's literally the thing stopping you from beating the level), and by understanding it (removing the blockage) you solve the level and are allowed to progress. The best part is, this doesn't mean your tutorial level isn't an actual puzzle - it can still be a challenge, just framed in such a way where the solution is comprised of mechanics the player already knows about.
This game looks so much fun to play, the graphics are perfectly fitting the game vibe I think.
Way to go, Mark! That's some great progress, and you're motivating me to make more games.
So proud for you. Following your progress is a pleasure and inspiration at the same time
Best of luck, happy to see you excited for the release of this game
I use this technique! I call them art-punnet squares, shout out to Mendel and his peas!
what a journey, that you for sharing the ups and downs - it's already all worth it for the videos and cherry on top the game looks like a hit
I'm working on my first project I'm going to release, and I just want to say that your "Developing" series has been one of the few series that has encouraged me to keep on. Probably also responsible in part for the fact that it's end up as a puzzle game. xD I was just banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to come up with puzzle ideas, and this video has suddenly given me hope. xD
When you said the visuals were upgraded, you were not lying! This is looking *really* good! I'm not always the best at puzzle games, but this looks like one I'd be able to beat!
This reminded me of the first Portal
Entering a new test chamber, you'd encounter a sign telling you which mechanics are used in that chamber (as well as which are not used, maybe to increase curiousity for next chambers)
The puzzle matrix solves a much more general problem or rather improves the status quo when we're talking about creativity and coming up with ideas around a topic in general.
You are the type of person who loves doing something practical with clear goals and achieving those by the divide and conquer method and so am I.
I'm also often aimless when I have to be creative (e.g. the vague goal of coming up with a research question, just like your "Build a new level"). I really do think that this matrix has much broader applications in science or any creative task too.
Maybe a digital artist could create a matrix with objects related to a certain style or theme and then randomly choose some that they now have to use to draw an image.
Maybe a researcher has a matrix with goals on one side and theoretical concepts on the other and that gives them suggestions on what to possibly look into or try out.
I feel like what you've covered here is like a very generally useful technique to structure the creative workflow to work for our brains in particular.
This is such a great way of making puzzle, I have been having a hard time when making some little game to come up with interesting puzzle. This is genius! Thank!
I've always loved the music for this series, it's so chill.