this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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Technically, almost all video games are puzzle games. (lemmy.zip)
submitted 4 months ago by sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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You could probably make a poptarts are sandwiches alignment style thing out of this.

Basically, any video game with an explicit goal, or set of goals is just a puzzle game with extra steps.

What buttons do you push, when do you push them, what does this accomplish, how does that lead you to your end goal, etc.

You could even argue that multiplayer tactics constitute a puzzle, a more social puzzle.

Yes, this is reductive, but this is a dumb showerthoughts post.

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[–] warlaan@lemm.ee 18 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's not reductive, it's misrepresentative. A puzzle game is only a puzzle game as long as coming up with the solution is the main task. There are more than enough games where coming up with the right solution is not difficult, but performing it is.

Also the name puzzle game implies that there are designed puzzles. Any game where you have to make decisions in generated situations aren't puzzle games. For example if you take a specific chess situation and ask which move would lead to check mate in x moves then that's a chess puzzle. That doesn't make the game of chess itself a puzzle.

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

By your definition, Tetris is not a puzzle game.

Its generated and execution difficulty is a major factor.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

According to his interpretation of the genre it would be an action-strategy game which arguably fits tetris better. Your underlying point implies that all strategy games are puzzle games which this guy doesn't agree with I think.

[–] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Speaking of chess, you might be able to argue that some old RTS games are puzzle games when playing campaign, such as the first Command & Conquer. You often have very limited resources, the AI will do specific things at specific times or with specific triggers, and you're often given specific constraints, like a time limit or keeping a specific thing alive. In this case, though, it's mostly because the AI is so primitive that almost every action is scripted in advance for that specific map.