Looking at puzzle mechanics

Puzzle mechanics

Silent Hill 3

 

I played through 'Silent Hill 3' for research into their puzzle system; although this research will slightly bleed over to the other games in the series as the puzzle mechanics are essentially the same.

 

Selecting new game lets you pick the overall difficulty of the game but also has a riddle difficulty setting- the modes being easy, normal and hard. For the research and also to blitz through quickly, I chose normal riddle difficulty; however I will mention the differences between the difficulties.

The first puzzle in the game is the 'Shakespeare puzzle', the door to the back of the book shop is locked and the player needs to input a number combination to progress. Depending on the riddle mode this either involves just good observation of the books (There are numbers written along the spines of the books and you simply have to put them into order.) Or a good grasp on a variety of Shakespeare's works.

Easy-Normal mode;  'Fair is foul and foul is fair, put these books out of order.'; the riddle is the same for both difficulties.

Hard: The number code is always the same; it is NOT written on the spine like the others. The player is given a far longer riddle and needs to know a degree about what each book is about. Heather- the character you control can give her two cents if you examine it further- however only her knowledge extends so far; as in she doesn't even know what 2-3 of the books are about. This is also one of the easier puzzles for hard mode.

 

The general gist of the system is that there is a block in your path or progression and requires the player to solve the riddle to open the path again. Sometimes this also involves the retrieval of necessary items- then working out the riddle; an example of this would be the final puzzle of 'Silent Hill 3'; you must retrieve 5 tarot cards, there is also a book which describes the cards- to help people not familiar with tarot, basically describing what they are. After this you go back to the block where Heather must put the cards into the correct locations on the door; with a riddle to give her a hint. Sometimes the puzzle does not block the progression but withholds a necessary item from you. Very rarely there are optional riddles.Heather memos down all of the riddles she reads.

For the puzzle itself it is usually displayed as a still pre-rendered image; the interaction with it is commonly shown through an arrow in screen or will skip the image to the puzzle being solved.

 

Comparing to for example 'Phoenix Wright', if the players guess is incorrect; in 'PW' you get penalized; if you repeatedly get things wrong you will end up with a game over; 'SH' more often than not, there is not punishment for getting it wrong- it is just, you're still stuck.

I really like how Silent Hill lets you pick how difficult you want the puzzles to be; it isn't something that I see very often in puzzle orientated games. Whether or not this is an idea for our demo, it seemed quite unlikely. The puzzle style and method, however is what I was focusing on and is something to consider.