Tell me about your puzzles, please

nimmanu · July 2013

Assuming that the Foundry will be up again sometimes relatively soon... I'm starting the next puzzle section soon.

Right now, I have things set up so that at one point, you can choose combat or puzzle.

The first part of the puzzle is that you have to figure out which light will activate a statue. When you figure that out, a table appears with a bunch of chemicals. You then must create a deadly lockpicking potion...

Now, here's where I get into a bit of an issue. There doesn't seem to be anything that can cause people harm in this. Like for example, in the regular game, there's fire that will hurt you if you stand in it. Campfires will harm you if you stand in them.

But in the foundry, none of the fire, even the campires, do anything to you. And traps don't work if they appear under you, they only work if you run into them (motion activation).

So... anyone know a way to get a person to get stung a little by a wrong choice? Or have an idea for an effective 'punishment' that's quick and not too severe?

Furthermore, what have you done as far as puzzles? Almost all of mine work with prompts, which isn't all that effective.... puzzle making is exceptionally limited in the foundry. Or is it just me?

xhrit · July 2013

You can make the room up high and drop trap doors out from under them. ><

Or.... just spawn mobs on them.

I have a quest called Spellgard that is a giant puzzle arena. It is published, but I do not advertise it, because out of all my quests it is the one that needs the most work. You can try it if you want tho...

zoiks100 · July 2013

You could have a trap appear under them, like the poison gas type. Also there are a few components that hurt characters, besides traps, including some of the burning debris and I believe the spell plague fire.

Unfortunately none of those things scale with the level of the character, so they'll matter at low level, but be mostly pointless at high level.

Puzzles I've made are a simple platforming puzzle, a few riddles, and a couple stock logic puzzles. And yeah, it's pretty limited in what you can do.

meylynda · July 2013

nimmanu wrote: »

Assuming that the Foundry will be up again sometimes relatively soon... I'm starting the next puzzle section soon.

Right now, I have things set up so that at one point, you can choose combat or puzzle.

The first part of the puzzle is that you have to figure out which light will activate a statue. When you figure that out, a table appears with a bunch of chemicals. You then must create a deadly lockpicking potion...

Now, here's where I get into a bit of an issue. There doesn't seem to be anything that can cause people harm in this. Like for example, in the regular game, there's fire that will hurt you if you stand in it. Campfires will harm you if you stand in them.

But in the foundry, none of the fire, even the campires, do anything to you. And traps don't work if they appear under you, they only work if you run into them (motion activation).

So... anyone know a way to get a person to get stung a little by a wrong choice? Or have an idea for an effective 'punishment' that's quick and not too severe?

Furthermore, what have you done as far as puzzles? Almost all of mine work with prompts, which isn't all that effective.... puzzle making is exceptionally limited in the foundry. Or is it just me?

I'm pretty sure some of the lava elements will cause damage.

nimmanu · July 2013

meylynda wrote: »

I'm pretty sure some of the lava elements will cause damage.

Ohhh! I'll check that out. You might just be a genius.

Cause it's supposed to be a big explosion... so. Yeah.

rogu3ish · July 2013

nimmanu wrote: »

Ohhh! I'll check that out. You might just be a genius.

Cause it's supposed to be a big explosion... so. Yeah.

Like xhrit said above, I use mobs as penalties for incorrect puzzle guesses. It's the only way to introduce an actual penalty. If nothing else it causes a delay for getting things wrong.

In my quest (Felling the Forgemaster, NW-DOHCJ5VE3) I use that extensively. In one area you have to walk a certain path - stray from the path and mobs will spawn on you. In another area where a room is on fire and you're supposed to avoid the fire, again mobs will spawn on you if you walk in it. I wanted to just cause fire damage, but it's so trivial as to be pointless.

As for puzzles that require player choice, I've not gotten too much into those yet. The primary puzzle in my quest involves 'activating' 6 things in the proper order. I do all that through a giant dialog tree, and mobs spawn when you make an incorrect choice. I'd love to allow the player to interact with each item in the proper order, and if not just reset them all, but I'm not aware of any way to do that.

eskarine · July 2013

Lava and some of the spellplague cracks cause damage.

I am making a puzzle quest. So far I have based most of them on interaction with correct objects and a lot are dialogue-based.

agentjaspor · July 2013

I've got a few puzzles in my second quest *zomg spoiler alert* :
- Pulling the right chains/levers to open a bridge.
- Putting the correct objects into jars to unlock a door.
- A lever that can be pulled multiple times and configures the path differently depending how many times the player pulls it.
- A riddle where choosing the correct answer leads to an easier path, while choosing the wrong answer leads to traps and extra mobs.
- A room with multiple doors to choose from. Some lead to rooms with additional challenges, but only one leads to the exit.
- The final "boss" presents a series of riddles. Get them right, and you defeat him without combat. Get them wrong, and you have to fight.

I debated how hard to make some of these, particularly the bridge and jars ones. In the end I made them fairly easy to avoid impatient people becoming frustrated and simply quitting. But if it becomes popular enough, I'll probably make a more difficult sequel somewhere down the line.

zahinder · July 2013

One puzzle I'm proud of is a Tower of Hanoi puzzle in Beggar's Hollow, done completely in one MAMMOTH dialog.

I also have a combination lock with a poetic puzzle for it that nobody's figured out yet. (Though it has a 'cheat' option so people who aren't into Secret World-level puzzles can at least see what's inside)

nimmanu · July 2013

Awesome, thanks all. It sounds like some great puzzles... but also seems like most have to be word puzzles.

However, the idea of opening up different paths appeals to me greatly!

todocaldo · July 2013

I have a cryptogram-ish puzzle in the quest I'm working on now with penalties for wrong answers, my favorite of which is a trapdoor which drops the player onto a teleporter which takes them to the beginning of the dungeon

Prolly get some downvotes for that one but still makes me giggle.

nimmanu · July 2013

LOL. I used prefabricated rooms, so no pit traps for me. But I do love that idea, it's awesome!

todocaldo · July 2013

nimmanu wrote: »

LOL. I used prefabricated rooms, so no pit traps for me. But I do love that idea, it's awesome!

Build your own platform, stairs and a piece of flooring is all you need!

And thanks for this thread I'm always looking for news ways to spice up the ol' hack & slash.

Tell me about your puzzles, please

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