The Anatomy of a Game: Problems

Problems

Problems are the heart of the puzzles and obstacles that you need to solve or overcome in order to progress through a game. They are flexible and powerful, but reasonably simple to set up.

Solving a problem usually has some affect that allows the game play to move forward. It might make a new direction of travel appear by opening a hidden door. It might make an object appear that will be useful to you later in the game. It might simply reveal some information that you can use later in the game.

Solutions

The action that solves a puzzle is called its solution. The words used in the solution can be anything defined by the game author. Game designers are not not restricted to the built-in vocabulary of TAF.

The use of those words is flexible too. Words can be defined as aliases of other words. For example if the phrase to solve a particular puzzle was “put on the head torch”, you could define “turn” and “switch” as aliases for “put”. That means the player could solve the problem by typing any of:

• put on the head torch
• turn on the head torch
• switch on the head torch

Requirements

Problems may have requirements. These are conditions that must be met before the problem can be solved. In our example above, perhaps the player must find the right type of batteries and put them into the head torch before they can try to turn it on.

Requirements can be other problems, or objects. To unlock a chest you might need to find the key first, take it and use it to unlock the chest. That’s an example where an object is the requirement.

Problems can be a requirement to other problems too. For the player to unlock a digital keypad on a door, say, they may have to have arranged some Scrabble tiles into a word, which puts the Scrabble tile values in the correct order to reveal the keycode.

Actually, a problem may have any number and any mix of objects and problems as its requirements.

Also, an object may be consumed or altered in the process of solving the problem. For example, if you throw a bucket of water onto something you no longer have a bucket of water. You’ve got an empty bucket. But if you throw a hand grenade, then you you’re not left with anything—the grenade is gone from the game.

Rewards

The pay-off for solving a problem can be:

• A new direction of travel
• A new object
• Some useful information
• All of the above

If a new object is part of the reward, it might appear in the current location. In which case you’ll be able to see it and you can take it. Or it might manifest itself straight into your possession, and straight into the “carried” state. Or it might appear in a different location, either one you’ve yet to visit or one you’ve already visited.

Likewise, a new direction of travel might be added to the player’s current location, or it might be added to any other location in the game. Performing some action like pulling a lever in one location might do nothing visible in that location, but it might slide open a secret panel in another location.

It all depends on what the game author wants to achieve—and how fiendish they are feeling when they write the game.

Sound Effects

Optionally, the solution of a problem can be accompanied by a sound effect.