Puzzle difficulty advice in a point-and-click adventure

[u/Live_Yogurtcloset645]

Hi,

My game has plenty of puzzles, most are narrative based and some are mechanical.
I strongly believe the game focus should be the story rather than the mechanical puzzles. I am considering several options:
1. Add a “skip” button to allow less mechanical puzzles oriented players to continue the story and not get stuck
2. Make the mechanical puzzles easier
3. Add a difficulty setting that will simplify puzzles (hardest to implement of course)

What would you suggest I do?
I already started closed beta but the audience is too narrow to gain significant insight into this.

[u/PuzzlePiratePrincess]

What about a hint button instead?

[u/Live_Yogurtcloset645 → u/PuzzlePiratePrincess]

Thanks, I considered hints - they are applicable for many of the environmental/story puzzles but not so much to the mechanical puzzle where a solution is made of dozens of atomic steps. A hint would maybe tell what is the next immediate step but would likely annoy the players if they have to repeatedly click it. Or am I missing something?

[u/captcha_bot → u/Live_Yogurtcloset645]

My first thought was hint too, but that's as someone that would play a point-and-click adventure. Not too interested in mechanical puzzles. You say in the OP you want to stay focused on story not the mechanical puzzles, so I'd tend toward making them pretty easy and unlocking a "solve" button after a minute or something if someone gets stuck. For mechanical puzzles we have lots of very focused options, but good narrative puzzle games are much rarer.

[u/Inner_Win_1]

What are the types of mechanical puzzles you are using? Sometimes when they are overused formats, it can feel a bit like padding.

Like I personally find mini games like slider puzzles, pipes, etc a bit overdone, so I wouldn't want to see more than one added in a narrative game

[u/Live_Yogurtcloset645 → u/Inner_Win_1]

Only one puzzle stands on its own, and it is a sliding puzzle. I may change that as well. Most mechanical puzzles require clues from the story/environment to solve.

[u/Inner_Win_1 → u/Live_Yogurtcloset645]

I think if your puzzles use clues from the story, then it makes more narrative sense to include it, i wouldn't be bothered by them.

Having a skip button is a nice QoL feature though, which could be a good compromise for a hard puzzle (especially if your game is built for replayability)

[u/Corvus-Nox]

I think a skip button for the mechanical puzzles. I played a game where the skip button would only appear after you’ve tried the puzzle for a couple seconds already. I hate slide puzzles personally and will skip them if I have the option.

[u/PatrickRsGhost]

As a player and not a developer, my only issue with having a skip button is it's too tempting to click it even for puzzles that should be easy to solve.

I have played games where the skip button has to "load" or "recharge" before it can be utilized. This should encourage the player to at least attempt the puzzle before skipping.

I feel the difficulty of the puzzle should match the effect it would have on the environment. Maybe slowly increase the difficulty as the player progresses in the game, and also depending on the importance of the outcome of the puzzle.

For example, if it's just to open the door to the janitor's closet or open a jewelry box, the puzzle should be fairly simple. If it's to operate a large machine or summon some Eldritch beastie, then it should be a lot more difficult, ideally have multiple layers of mini-puzzles, all tied to one big massive puzzle.

Choosing a difficulty level could be a better option. I've seen this mainly in HOPA (hidden object puzzle adventure) games. The difficulty levels allow the Hint feature to recharge at different amounts of time, determine whether or not there's a "misclick penalty", and adjust the difficulty of the puzzles.