Monkey Island would have looked something like this. I like doing this because it gives players a sense of completion, and they can also file a bunch of knowledge away and (if need) the inventory can be culled). I tend to design adventures games in 'acts', where each act ends with a bottle neck to the next act. The game starts out with a simple choice, then the puzzles begin to expand out with more and more for the player to be doing in parallel, then collapse back in. Solving one puzzle should open up 2 or 3 new ones, and then those collapses down (but not necessarily at the same rate) to a single solution that then opens up more non-linear puzzles. When you step back and look at a finished Puzzle Dependency Chart, you should this kind of overall pattern with a lot of little sub-diamond shaped expansion and contraction of puzzles. There is nothing (NOTHING!) worse than linear adventure games and these charts are a quick visual way to see where the design gets too linear or too unwieldy with choice (also bad). There are two puzzles the player can be working on while trying to get the basement door open. They do connect into 'Opening' the basement door since they both need to be done.Īt this point, the chart is starting to get interesting and is showing us something important: The non-linearity of the design. 'Unlocking' the door is not dependent on 'Oiling' the hinges, so there is no connection. We add two new puzzle nodes, one for the action 'Oil Hinges' and it's dependency 'Find Oil Can'. Now let's add a new step to the puzzle called 'Oil Hinges' on the door and it can happen in parallel to the 'Finding the Key' puzzle. 'Unlocking the door' is dependent on 'Finding the Key'. first, we'll need figure out what you need to get into the basement.Īnd we then draw a line connecting the two, showing the dependency. My rational for left to right is I like to put them up on my office wall, wrapping the room with the game design.

I also like to work from left to right, other people like going top to bottom. I usually start with 'The player needs to get into the basement', not 'Where should I hide a key to get into some place I haven't figured out yet.' I always work backwards when designing an adventure game, not from the very end of the game, but from the end of puzzle chains. They do not generally include story beats unless they are critical to solving a puzzle. They are presented in the form of a Graph with each node connecting to the puzzle or puzzle steps that are need to get there. They reached their full potential during Monkey Island where I relied on them for every aspect of the puzzle design.Ī Puzzle Dependency Chart is a list of all the puzzles and steps for solving a puzzle in an adventure game. I can't remember when I first came up with the concept, it was probably right before or during the development of The Last Crusade adventure game and both David Fox and Noah Falstein contributed heavy to what they would become. Puzzle Dependency Charts would have solve most of these problems. The game is full of dead end puzzles and the flow is uneven and gets bottlenecked too much. Gary and I didn't have Puzzle Dependency Charts for Maniac Mansion, and in a lot of ways it really shows. For this article, I'm going to go with Chart.

There is some dispute in Lucasfilm Games circles over whether they were called Puzzle Dependency Charts or Puzzle Dependency Graphs, and on any given day I'll swear with complete conviction that is was Chart, then the next day swear with complete conviction that it was Graph. Don't confuse it with a flow chart, it's not a flow chart and the subtle distinctions will hopefully become clear, for they are the key to it's usefulness and raw pulsing design power. There are 754 record(s) in this category.ĭanganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair GirlsĭARK SOULS™: Prepare To Die™ Editionĭark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher Collector's Editionĭarkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolderĭaylife in Japan - Pixel Art Jigsaw Puzzleĭeadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguiseĭeadly Premonition: The Director's Cutĭefender's Quest: Valley of the Forgottenĭelicious! Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaireĭespot's Game: Dystopian Army Builderĭetective Case and Clown Bot in: Murder in the Hotel Lisbonĭeus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cutĭeus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Linkĭexter Stardust: Adventures in Outer Spaceĭigimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Editionĭisciples 2 Gold: Dark Prophecy and Gallean's Returnĭiscovery Tour by Assassin's Creed: Ancient Egyptĭiscovery Tour by Assassin's Creed: Ancient Greeceĭisney Fairies: Tinker Bell's Adventureĭisney Pixar Monsters, Inc.In part 1 of 1 in my series of articles on games design, let's delve into one of the (if not THE) most useful tool for designing adventure games: The Puzzle Dependency Chart.

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