I'm interested to get as many people's thoughts on this as possible.
Should levels only be solved by their intended solution? Should all other solutions be backroute-fixed, patched-out, or at most grudgingly accepted?
Or, can alternatives be happily accepted, but only if they're better than what's intended? Or even, should alternatives always be happily accepted because the player has found a different way to beat your level with the skills and situation that you've provided?
So then, should alternatives be outright encouraged, providing a skillset which enables multiple possible solutions, all of which are intended either by design or in spirit? This can be quite difficult to get right without making a level trivial.
On a wild note, should backroutes be encouraged? Or, is this just another way of saying "alternate solutions" in the event that the designer hasn't felt the need to prevent anything other than the intended solution?
I suppose what I'm really asking here is what's in the title: Why is the intended solution so important? It seems to me that there are so many other possible scenarios by which both designer and player can be satisfied, so what's the deal with packs which exclusively provide "do-this-only-as-intended" levels?
Maybe here's what's happening.
A scenario which comes up many times is that a designer will create a level, and a player will find a way to solve it with a solution which isn't intended. In that scenario, the player has "beat" the designer.
The designer must then take their level back to the drawing board and find a way to fix it so that only their intended solution is possible. We've all been there!
It gets beaten again, by another overlooked backroute. The level must be revised again. And again. And AGAIN! Until finally, in version 27.4, the level cannot be beaten by any solution other than the intended one.
But now, the player cannot solve the level. They don't know the obscure trick or they can't quite piece together the extensively complex series of actions which must be done in just the right order. Finally, the designer has "beat" the player.
But, neither of these situations is really what anybody wants. The player doesn't want a level they can't solve and the designer doesn't want their level to remain unsolved (not forever, anyway).
So, ideally, the player manages to figure out the intended solution, and at that point they have "matched" the designer. Nobody has "beaten" anybody: the player can own the fact that they figured out the solution, and at the same time the designer can be proud that their challenge worked as intended.
Maybe it's this then: if a level is solved by the solution intended, there are no winners and no losers. Everbody comes out on an even playing field, where wisdom and knowledge prevail.
Thoughts?
Should levels only be solved by their intended solution? Should all other solutions be backroute-fixed, patched-out, or at most grudgingly accepted?
Or, can alternatives be happily accepted, but only if they're better than what's intended? Or even, should alternatives always be happily accepted because the player has found a different way to beat your level with the skills and situation that you've provided?
So then, should alternatives be outright encouraged, providing a skillset which enables multiple possible solutions, all of which are intended either by design or in spirit? This can be quite difficult to get right without making a level trivial.
On a wild note, should backroutes be encouraged? Or, is this just another way of saying "alternate solutions" in the event that the designer hasn't felt the need to prevent anything other than the intended solution?
I suppose what I'm really asking here is what's in the title: Why is the intended solution so important? It seems to me that there are so many other possible scenarios by which both designer and player can be satisfied, so what's the deal with packs which exclusively provide "do-this-only-as-intended" levels?
Maybe here's what's happening.
A scenario which comes up many times is that a designer will create a level, and a player will find a way to solve it with a solution which isn't intended. In that scenario, the player has "beat" the designer.
The designer must then take their level back to the drawing board and find a way to fix it so that only their intended solution is possible. We've all been there!
It gets beaten again, by another overlooked backroute. The level must be revised again. And again. And AGAIN! Until finally, in version 27.4, the level cannot be beaten by any solution other than the intended one.
But now, the player cannot solve the level. They don't know the obscure trick or they can't quite piece together the extensively complex series of actions which must be done in just the right order. Finally, the designer has "beat" the player.
But, neither of these situations is really what anybody wants. The player doesn't want a level they can't solve and the designer doesn't want their level to remain unsolved (not forever, anyway).
So, ideally, the player manages to figure out the intended solution, and at that point they have "matched" the designer. Nobody has "beaten" anybody: the player can own the fact that they figured out the solution, and at the same time the designer can be proud that their challenge worked as intended.
Maybe it's this then: if a level is solved by the solution intended, there are no winners and no losers. Everbody comes out on an even playing field, where wisdom and knowledge prevail.
Thoughts?
:
) which allows both, optionally of course!
