I’ve been pondering this because I have very emotional reactions to some puzzle games, and I’m not 100% sure why. But! I think I partially figured this out.
Basically, certain puzzle games make me feel stupid in the same way that certain “simple” tasks make me feel stupid. Anything sokoban-related (other than Baba Is You) will make me feel like the hugest dumbass because I can’t figure out even simple puzzles, and then I’ll watch someone just understand a puzzle entirely from looking at it once, then carry it out perfectly. It’s an order-of-operations thing that I just don’t have any grasp on, in the same way that simple tasks like doing the dishes can quickly become an order of operations that just makes me frustrated. So like, I can end up in this situation:
I have to empty the dishwasher
The counters are dirty though, so I can’t take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher yet
But I can’t clean the counters because there are dirty dishes in the way
I have nowhere to put the dirty dishes because the dishwasher is full. See step 1.
And I just get stuck. Certain puzzle games make me feel exactly like this, except at the end I don’t have anything to show except a screen saying “great, now do it again!!” So I get angry and turn them off or, more likely, I don’t even attempt them anymore.
SSR made me immediately feel like this upon seeing it for like 2 minutes, so I never played it.
I also think there’s this sort of unspoken thing that puzzle games are, like, somehow smarter than other games? And so I also get defensive because I’m like “Look, just because I can’t solve a stupid box-pushing puzzle doesn’t mean I suck, okay??”
Anyway, basically I have ADHD and this is one of its manifestations. I just avoid most puzzle games now because they’re simply “not for me.”
I can do a Baba is You game though, because for some reason that order of operations is more intuitive and fun for me. Partially because I think it rewards experimentation, and partially because I can solve them in my head sometimes. Connecting concepts is much easier than moving things around in physical space for me.
Too many puzzle gamers think beating a puzzle game is the equivalent of an IQ test (probably because IQ tests are just puzzle game). They are seen as the true meritocracy of gaming, in the face of (what they consider) walking simulators, RPGs that play themselves, and brainless action games.
It’s ironic since most puzzle video games are quite humble*, they rarely celebrate total victory and inherently teach the player the only reward for progression is more puzzles.
I love SSR, but I’m also a weirdo who likes spatial reasoning tests and crosswords. I think it’s more normal not to like these games, they are incredibly obtuse even when they can be generous.
*Jonathan Blow’s games do not fit this criteria, as much as I like The Witness. He’s probably partially responsible for gate keeping in puzzle games.
Could you expand on this? I sort of see where you’re coming from and Jon Blow is 100% absolutely full of himself, but the Witness basically has that same message (the puzzles are just for the sake of puzzles) and I skipped all written text in Braid so I couldn’t tell you what happens there.
I sort of disagree that having unlocks other than other puzzles inherently perverts the genre anyway – a line of text or small cutscene is pretty meaningless compared to the time/effort spent in the puzzles for any example I can think of.
Both Braid and The Witness explicitly reprogram the player to find “the puzzle behind the puzzle”. Both have a meta-narrative of how this re-programing, even when done for good reasons, short circuits gamers, who will never stop searching for the next hidden discovery rather than just enjoying the puzzles for what they are.
They aren’t wrong and the creators clearly agree with my argument, but it’s a Fight Club situation where their cautionary tale is far too enticing. The chase for secrets (as illusory as they may ultimately be) ends up becoming the centerpiece of these games. People were more eager to allude to “the secret” in The Witness than discuss the other 95% of puzzles.
Despite all this, I really like The Witness and I don’t want to bash it too much. It has some superb puzzles, it approaches this meta-commentary better than I expected (minus the audio logs), and its secrets are honestly good enough to justify players getting sucked into them. But I do think it feeds into the “puzzle gamer as supergenius” archetype a bit too gleefully despite also wagging it’s finger at those players.
at some hotel my family always used to stay at in Pennsylvania they had a mini arcade with a few different games. i remember Kung Fu being one of them… maybe there was a pinball machine there. can’t really remember the others.
but there was also an arcade racing game there. it had pixel art… must have been late 80’s or early 90’s. i always thought it was Pole Position for some reason but that came out way too early. your car was pretty chunky (wasn’t an f-1 game as far as i recall) and there were a whole bunch of different flags you’d run into for different amounts of points. i remember your car would flip pretty easily too. i’ve looked at a list of late 80’s/early 90’s arcade racers and couldn’t find it on there. anyone know what i’m talking about? it definitely wasn’t Outrun or Chase HQ or any i’ve seen several times as an adult.
oh wow! yeah this seems to be it. i weirdly don’t remember the visuals looking exactly like that but the flags and sound fx are exactly what i remember. it’s strange that i remember the game looking nicer than it is… because this is definitely the game, and there were no sequels to it.
i have good memories of trying to get a perfect run on the c-64 version. also the game came with instructions in french so i copied the “about the game” section as my french homework, after writing that i went to the shops and bought a game. i got totally found out.
I’m also wondering about an old game I can’t recall the name of.
I’m pretty sure it was a 90s PC game—possibly a western-developed CRPG that was trying to evoke JRPG character design and storytelling. I think it had an isometric viewpoint, was set in a sci-fi desert world, and had a female protagonist with blue hair.
They also use it to package platform APIs, like “.NET Redistributable”, so rather than each game installing/checking for those on installation, they only need to ask Steam to take care of it. So it gets updated when your platform updates their packages.
