The Wonderland Board

Ok.. Something I've wanted to ask for a really long time,
How do you guys come up with all the ideas for your own puzzles?
We all know I struggle (Or those who've played my previous adventures) in the term of puzzle making, and I want to get some tips on how you guys do it so that I won't have as much trouble coming up with ideas.
So. How do you guys come up with ideas?

Try working backwards, thinking of what could be in your way, then how to solve it.

Or maybe start with gates, water, or enemies, and try and find a needlessly complicated way for the player to deal with them.

Or try a simple concept that would be hard to execute, such as the gem mazes MS and other people (LIKE MEEEEEE) are fond of.

Or uh, hmm... this is hard. You just came up with a hard puzzle. Congratulations!

Well, I am pretty sure I'm not I good puzzle maker, but what I do is make a smallish room, figure out some thing(whatever) to put in it, add more and more things, and then test it for a few minutes/days.
Admittedly, some of them only took a few minutes, others took about a year.

Some times ideas just come right to mind. Other times, it's more of a work some thing out, modify it, and then you're satisfied with whatever mutation you came up with that is ~38% what you cam up with type of thing.

Though... if you take my knowledge, you might not end up with an adventure for a few months. Do note that I all so took breaks in between making levels and stuff, so, there's that.

P.S. apparently my preview button's showing me some sort of glitch with the word "came"... oh well.

Basically what Nobody said. Something that I've found works for me is if I have an idea of what elements I want to use in a level, then work backwards from there.

By the same token, I've also found that looking at a concept from a different angle can help. Like, hmm... How to explain...

If the player is on one side of a pool of water with boxes scattered around that they may not be able to use (i.e. not enough or can't get into position), with the exit on the other side, instead of thinking, "How could I get the boxes in the right spot to make a bridge", it might help to try something like "What else can I use the boxes for" or "How else could I cross the water with something else".

I'm not sure if I explained that very well, but... yeah.

To begin with, I normally think of a trick. For example:

Slight spoilers for my adventures wrote:In my adventure "The Iceberg", the trick is that a moving turtle can stop you sliding on ice. Or in my adventure "The Dead Swamps" the trick is that you can spring onto a brr float and step off it without it melting.

I then incorperate that trick into a larger area for misdirection. It's a simple method that makes really tricky puzzles.

Thank you all for your sharing.
This helped me quite a lot, actually.
Thanks!

yot yot5 wrote:To begin with, I normally think of a trick. For example:

Slight spoilers for my adventures wrote:In my adventure "The Iceberg", the trick is that a moving turtle can stop you sliding on ice. Or in my adventure "The Dead Swamps" the trick is that you can spring onto a brr float and step off it without it melting.

I then incorperate that trick into a larger area for misdirection. It's a simple method that makes really tricky puzzles.

This is actually a great idea for teaching the players how the world interacts with the player. I like.

yot yot5 wrote:To begin with, I normally think of a trick. For example:

Slight spoilers for my adventures wrote:In my adventure "The Iceberg", the trick is that a moving turtle can stop you sliding on ice. Or in my adventure "The Dead Swamps" the trick is that you can spring onto a brr float and step off it without it melting.

I then incorperate that trick into a larger area for misdirection. It's a simple method that makes really tricky puzzles.

This is actually a great idea for teaching the players how the world interacts with the player. I like.