a home for puzzles with no home

[yukonhorror]

I keep messing up where my posts should go.  So sorry in advance if I messed up.

Sometimes I think of good puzzles, but have no good ideas of how to put them in a game, so I thought I'd list them here and allow for the general community to use them at their will

1. You need to get into either a straw or stick building, but the stupid door is locked.  Solution:  you give the wolf (who can't catch his breath) in the other screen the inhaler you found earlier in the game.  And he blows down the house for you.

2. This is a unique spin on a maze

There are five normal doors each labeled with a roman numeral. 

Upon opening a door, it looks like a plain closet with a chest in the far right corner.  Once one person enters, the door automatically closes.  Each room has four doors on each of its four walls.  In the chest is nothing but a handle except for the specially marked rooms.  Pulling on the handle opens a trap door that leads to the outside of the five doors (a failsafe I give up option).

If the players attempt to enter the trap door, they will emerge out of the opposite trap door. 

On the inside of the lid of each chest is a phrase. 

I shaLL Run Back and FoRth tiLL i am FaLLing, then i wiLL Face the ReveRse Fan i hated as a Big Boy.

This is the key to the maze.  Starting with door number I, the player should take the door corresponding the letter.  L meaning left, R meaning right, F meaning forward, B meaning backward.  This will take him to the rooms with the treasure and finally take him back to the hallway.

Entering a room transports you to the grid location indicated in each block.

Example.  Walking into door III (grid space 1,3)  actually puts you into grid space 5,2.  If you then went into the right door, you would transport to room 4,5. 

The first number is horizontal, and the second is vertical.  Here is the grid:
       1     2    3     4    5
     ________________
5   |3,3|1,3|1,4|4,4|1,2|
4   |1,1|3,5|3,4|5,3|5,1|
3   |4,3|4,2|4,1|5,4|2,5|
2   |2,3|2,1|1,5|4,5|2,4|
1   |5,5|3,2|5,2|2,2|3,1|
     --------------------------
        I     II   III   IV   V

Following the solution takes you to 2,1 then out.  You can put your item anywhere along the path. 

Going forward while in row 5 steps you into row 1.  Going left while in column 1 (or right while in column 5) takes you to column 5 (or column 1, respectively). 

Going back in row 1 brings you back to the entrance with the 5 doors. 



3.  Another "maze".  I don't have the map with me, but I'll describe the general concept:

_____________
|       |       |       |
|  1   |   5  |   9  |
--------------------- 
|       |       |       |
|  2   |   6  |  10 |
--------------------- 
|       |       |       |
|  3   |   7  |  11 |
--------------------- 
|       |       |       |
|  4   |   8  |  12 |
--------------------- 

The door leads you square one.  The above map is one room with twelve squares.  When you step on 1, walls F, I, N, and Q turn on and walls A,H turn off.  A wall corresponds to the space between two squares.  So wall F is between 2 and 6.  It isn't a physical wall, but a semi-transparent wall of force/electricity/fire, etc...  Stepping on each square corresponds to turning on 4 walls and turning off two, except space 11.  Space 11 results in immediate death.

[Andail]

Your first puzzle is sweet. Classic adventure comedy.
The maze stuff isn't my cup-o-tea. Most people find mazes annoying, even if they solve them.

[yukonhorror]

They are mazes, but they aren't.  They have a logic to them. 

Also, this post is a call to arms for any puzzle that has no room or logic in your story, here is the place to share.  Somebody else may be able to use it.

[Ghost]

The maze puzzle reminds me of the dwarven mine maze in Return to Zork where two miners had a dialogue that held the clue to the maze:

"How many stuff do we have LEFT?"
"There's enough to do two shifts STRAIGHT!"
"RIGHT! Then let's see what..."
and so on. In the maze, you were on a lore and could flip switches to head into the directions provided by the dwarves.

Your spin on the maze sounds interesting and will be quite satisfying to figure out, so I say go for it.

I always wanted to have some sort of arcade puzzle in the style of Donkey Kong included in a game of mine, where the player had to scale a wall with some baddie sitting on top, throwing stuff. The key to the pattern would've been something in the baddies animation. I later dropped the idea because a) it didn't seem to entertaining, b) I suck at arcade scripting and c) Nintendo would probably have sued me.

[yukonhorror]

I had a thought of how to modify the Mazes so they aren't mazes

2.  So you have a panel of 5x5 buttons.  There is a window to another room with 25 chests.  Pushing a button opens the chest in the grid space the above map indicates.  So pushing a button corresponds to entering that room in the original example.  You can only push buttons that are lit up.  So initially, the first row of buttons are lit up, but if You pick button I, the 3 buttons surrounding the 5,5 button will be lit up.  However the solution is either written near the panel or they get it earlier in the game.

3.  Similar to above.  You're at a panel in another room with a window.  Pulling one of twelve switches turns off two flame walls, but turns on 4.  You basically have to pull certain switches in a specific order to make a safe path to the next door.  I was thinking earlier you get a message that says, "At exactly 4:40:15, the fires of hell will be quenched."  Meaning if you pull lever 4, then lever 8, then lever 3, you'll have the path you need. 

[Layabout]

Mazes are an irritating, lazy excuse of a puzzle. I hate them, and i'm sure many others do as well. In context I suppose they work... Nah.

The first puzzle would work in a kind of 'kings quest' where many of the characters are based on fairytales.

[Ali]

I think all of these puzzles sound fun, but then I like Myst. I think mazes are only a problem because they're rarely motivated by the context of a game.

I wouldn't describe the third as  a maze, it could certainly be made plausible in a Sci-Fi game: navigating a robot through the inner workings of an engine.

[twin-moon]

Illogical mazes like the minotaur's maze in KQ6 (where it's trial-and-error) are annoying. Not too mention the fact you die every time you take a wrong turn.

If it's a puzzle where you can know the route, like your number 2 or the Return to Zork puzzle, it's a nice change in the game.
(I'm also reminded of the copy-protection maze in Larry 3, where the answer is in the manual in the form of a song containing only of words that starts with N, W, S and E, which was so obvious in hindsight.)

No. 3: I like those Dr.Brain type of things. Like Ali said, use a robot to navigate through some mechanical thingy or a pet rat through a maze and you've got a great puzzle.

[yukonhorror]

Do you guys have any puzzles you'd like to donate to this forum topic?  I like the critiques, but this is a place to submit puzzles any onlooker can come in and say, "WOW, that's awesome.  I am totally going to use that."