Questions about skipping puzzles

[Chocos Ramabotti]

I saw the game let me skip basically every puzzle to split the story and the gameplay I suppose.

I'm not particular fond of that from an aesthetic choice as a game-design afficinado myself, it might've been not a good idea playing this after listening to the 15 hour Braid audio commentary.

After all I think there can be better ways implemented to not make the player feel forced they are in a deadlock without kinda removing the puzzle part of an puzzle game.

I think we're reaching a point and age where basically guides (and their writers) for videogames become obsolete, sure it's still fun to know how a puzzle is supposed to work, but actually you don't need it anymore cause the game has the "solution" built in.

So I wonder... there are optional harder puzzles in the game, their premise is probably their difficulty.
Is it still possible to skip these as well? I wonder if there are stipulations like showing the player which puzzle they solved and which not. I think that stuff might be important, some people are impulsive, bang their head against a puzzle, then they are at some point frustrated, biting the bullet, just skipping the puzzle without ever feeling accomplished or having learned something (asides from "letting go")
I think there should be a way to come back, seeing what you missed, tackle it later on and get some kind of acknowledgement for doing so. The way how the game is structured doesn't look like there is a pleasent way to revisit puzzles and to recognize on first glance which ones you have solved.

You know there are not just 2 kinds of people, like "those who want puzzles" and "those who want the cutesy graphics and story" there is something between and every option comes with meta decisions
I even thought about if I really want to use the silly hard mode for 10 minutes before I recognized it as a "joke".

Otherwise... its just, it feels different... i'm probably not getting to that point using the option, yet kinda knowing you could always just skip it, might ruin the engagement for some real brainteasers.
And I know - you could always rely on guides on the internet (perhaps there will be less with people being able to just skip) but there is still some distance between that, this knowledge exists outside of the game and therefore I don't get the feeling it's not the game I can blame for my low impulse control or feeling less incentivized to go for the more difficult stuff.

Does that make sense for you?
Probably not - I know games nowadays are targeted to all sorts of different people but there can be room for not making it possible to relativize basically the premise of the game, furthermore the genre its based on and still being approachable for all ages. It seems kinda cheap when the only way to accomplish that is simply just making the game "less".

I think there is some magic getting lost with that idea in the back of my mind that nothing I "solve" really matters. (yeah yeah it doesn't anyway, but games are their kind own of space and microcosm in order for them to hook you there needs to be this illusion of an sense of values of the things you're doing - at least to one person this sense is diminished.)

tl:dr
Are there things you can't skip and even being it just an acknowledgment that you haven't skipped something? Are optional puzzles that don't lie on the critical path excluded by this toggle?

PS: it's not about excluding players and yes i'm aware that I could pretty much ignore all of this and no i'm not "mad" for writing long texts on the internet (or justifying for it)

[B.V.Richthofen]

Hey I know you posted this a long time ago, so this response is late, but optional and skippable content in puzzle games is a hefty design consideration. The guy who wrote Spacechem (one of the best PC puzzle games ever in my opinion) wrote an interesting article about this:

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-zachtronics-industries-i-spacechem-i-

In the article, he cites a statistic from player data on his game: Only 2% of players reached the game's ending. Speaking from personal experience, I was in the other 98% and burned out on it before completing the game despite thinking it was among the best puzzle games I had ever played.

Having the ability to skip puzzles isn't just about accessibility, it's also about trying to provide a good player experience where people won't get sick of banging their head against a wall and find something else to do.

[Chocos Ramabotti]

Originally posted by B.V.Richthofen:

Hey I know you posted this a long time ago, so this response is late, but optional and skippable content in puzzle games is a hefty design consideration. The guy who wrote Spacechem (one of the best PC puzzle games ever in my opinion) wrote an interesting article about this:

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-zachtronics-industries-i-spacechem-i-

In the article, he cites a statistic from player data on his game: Only 2% of players reached the game's ending. Speaking from personal experience, I was in the other 98% and burned out on it before completing the game despite thinking it was among the best puzzle games I had ever played.

Having the ability to skip puzzles isn't just about accessibility, it's also about trying to provide a good player experience where people won't get sick of banging their head against a wall and find something else to do.

I mean I'm a huge fan of SpaceChem too. I played it over 100 of hours and I practically could return to it some time seeing how well I have improved. I never beat it but that's okay, obviously I got enough return value out of it.

I think these both games are generally very hard to compare. Arranger is a puzzle game with fixed solutions, Spacechem is an open-ended problem solving game. The complexity of problems in Arranger isn't even nearly comparable with those of SpaceChem. So where do we draw the line? Theoretically if you can get stuck I suppose it must be skipable? Zach Barth adressed the issue in next games but not by making you able just skipping everything altogether, but instead always offering choices of several level where you only needed to beat a few of them. Skipping the puzzles would basically defeat the premise as there was not much else going on in these games.

I suppose Arranger implemented the skip function so people could focus on the story and art, if they don't like puzzles altogether. Still it comes with that feeling that the sheer act of solving puzzles feels so... rejectable. And that is totally unnecessary in my opinion cause the internet still exists it would be very easy to look up solutions.

That's why I didn't buy the game so far i can't shake that feeling off, feels like the game is not respecting me as a player.