In the beginning of 2014 I was interested in procedurally generating computer games puzzles with typical elements like toggles, gates that can be triggered to open, boxes or boulders that can be moved onto pressure plates, etc. Many games contain elements like these and I took inspiration in particular from the game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.
To better understand these puzzles, and understand what makes a puzzle interesting or boring, I started creating a tool for analyzing and visualizing the state space of the puzzle. In the Procedural Content Generation mailing list I discussed the approach here. I've worked on it on and off since, and while I still don't have an algorithm for procedurally generating the puzzles, the tool itself is interesting in its own right. It's called PuzzleGraph and I've just released it for free.
Get PuzzleGraph at itch.io
You can setup and connect puzzle elements like gates, toggles, pressure plates and boulders, and see the state space of the puzzle visualized, including solution paths, dead ends and fail states.
If you make some puzzles with PuzzleGraph, I'd love to see them!
The best demonstration is this video I made. If you already saw the video, skip down a bit for some new info and announcements.
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To better understand these puzzles, and understand what makes a puzzle interesting or boring, I started creating a tool for analyzing and visualizing the state space of the puzzle. In the Procedural Content Generation mailing list I discussed the approach here. I've worked on it on and off since, and while I still don't have an algorithm for procedurally generating the puzzles, the tool itself is interesting in its own right. It's called PuzzleGraph and I've just released it for free.
Get PuzzleGraph at itch.ioYou can setup and connect puzzle elements like gates, toggles, pressure plates and boulders, and see the state space of the puzzle visualized, including solution paths, dead ends and fail states.
If you make some puzzles with PuzzleGraph, I'd love to see them!
The best demonstration is this video I made. If you already saw the video, skip down a bit for some new info and announcements.