Grimrock

Thanks for this interesting article.

http://www.grimrock.net/2013/09/05/puzz ... -grimrock/

I couldn't help but notice how this part...

- "16 steps"
- you need to travel from A to B taking exactly N steps along the way
- multiple routes are offered

... looks like a game I've played years ago. It is grid-based and the movement is only possible in 4 directions, just like LoG. The goal is to go from point A to point B in... not exactly N steps but in the minimum possible amount of steps. You may call it an optimization puzzle. This game is played from a top-down perspective, though. It is indeed ideal for this kind of puzzle. I always wondered how it would be from a first-person perspective so I take this opportunity to give you some ideas .

I said "one game" but, in fact, there are two. The first one had a more limited set of "tiles" : Empty, Character (You), Wall (always occupying a whole tile, not a boundary between two), Goal and Movable. The trick with the movable block is that it can be pushed, but only if the destination tile is empty (or a goal, which is essentially an empty tile for "physics" purpose.). So that's it. There's nothing more to know. You said what I've always been saying while describing this game :

I’ve discovered that usually puzzles where the “rules” are simple but the solution is not, work the best

And you can make terribly complex puzzles with that. As an example, here's one I created :

(Pale blue : empty, Green : character, Black : Wall, Brown : Movable, Rainbow : Goal)

By the way, it isn't that hard to reach the exit there; it's reaching it in 248 steps that's difficult with three wrong paths taking you no shorter than 250 steps . While such complex levels wouldn't be suitable at all for a first-person perspective, the "movable block" concept could still be very interesting for LoG. Similarly, ideas introduced in the second version of the game could be useful. There are two of them : restricted movables (can only be pushed North, can only be pushed South and East, etc.) and holes. You can't fall down a hole nor step on it. Pushing a movable into a hole will fill it and turn the tile into an empty one.

Here's what a level with these options can look like :


Here are some simple structures we call "locks" with some properties. Simple locks require you to push their two sides before proceeding further. Directional locks force you to take a particular side last. Half locks block the way back. Double locks forbid a new passage in the lock in both directions. Reverse locks only imply some pushes are done from the other side.




So yeah, there are many new concepts you can add to LoG to entertain us with good puzzles. This thread can be used for other puzzle mechanism suggestions.

Lastly, I'm not too sure I should name the games seen above or give some links. I'm not here to advertise them. If devs/mods are ok with it, I can post a link. It could be useful if you want to play them and see the many kind of levels and tricks that can be created with these rules.