How These Puzzles Deceive You

There are plenty of ways you can design a good puzzle level in your game, but in this video I'm going to talk only about the best kind of puzzle design.. the DECIEVING one. I'm sure most of you have no idea what I'm talking about but a lot of popular games like Inside, Baba is You and even Portal utilize this design without you even noticing so that's why I'm going to analyze the way these games implemented it and also show you how I did it in my game Concerned Joe, the Move or Die precursor that never got released.

Relevant Links
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Useful Resources
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Video Contents
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0:00 Intro
0:35 The Design of Misleading Puzzles
2:52 Double Take Puzzle Design
6:16 Examples
10:26 Design Breakdown

[GMTK]

So it turns out seeing your own face in someone else's video is tantamount to a jump scare

[Chepekk]

Not gonna lie, I kinda wish I could play concerned joe right now.

[tayyang]

The ending really made me realize something new and insightful, don't want to spoil it tough

[soupinabagel]

Can’t believe the ending what a twist! Definitely need to watch all the way through!

[clcsqueejy]

The setup and punchline of the "good job, you found the suicide button!" trap was so damn good.

[davel]

You actual madman. I was excited to hear your reason behind not releasing the game then immediately realised I’ve been bamboozled.

[qqxy]

Dude holy guacamole that ending was so insightful and mind blowing

[VRWarLab]

13:15 slanted tiles? What about: if you are running on top of the block and against a wall, the box will move away from the wall because your body is pushing against an immovable object and your feet are pushing the box it away from that immovable object :V

[CPhoenix]

I believe GMTK simply called “Double Take Puzzle Design” “The Assumption” in his video. It’s a tough choice on which moniker I prefer…

[hctic]

Paused at 10:11, bought and played through INSIDE, and came back 3 and a half hours later to finish the video. No regrets.

[lyrchr]

I am so glad you used gameplay from The Witness, that game was such a hard game at first, took a few months. You should’ve used gameplay from hue too though, a game about color and when you change the color it reveals some blocks you can move and removes blocks of the same color, another good double take game

[landlubbr]

I always wondered why you never finished concerned joe, i remember at the time i was following it quite closely waiting for a release date since i liked the flash version so much, and next thing i knew, you were working on the party game version of that concept.

[Banan]

Man, I just, you know, call it trolling the player. You're certainly embracing that with the sassy narrator.

[VRWarLab]

Wooow the statement at the end is super smart and mind-blowing! Worth a subscription and a like!
I was just about to start designing a few puzzles for a tech demo of a physics-based VR shooter and these concepts are just the best haha




Edit: lol I had no idea he would ask the people to talk about it 2 seconds after I paused the video lmao, definitively worth it watching the whole way through.

[BustyCatbot]

The best way to make a puzzle engaging is not to give the player the solution, but to make them think they came up with the solution themselves

[gerwin]

Mindblowing video as always! The most underrated youtuber I've ever seen; I'm looking forward to seeing you reaching hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of subscribers ^^

[see-em-ex]

Man, that outro - the one that wouldnt make sense without watching the entire video - was absolutely incredible!

[yhvr]

One of the few channels I watch the outros on. You really make it worth it with such insightful remarks.

[FuntimeSusie]

That ending was so heart filled and inspiring, it's really made me think about how I do things and I couldn't spoil it for you as it's an experience.

[souporwormgaming]

Wow! That conclusion was so crazy, I had to pause and reconcider life as a whole for a minute. It is just mind boggling how much amazingness you packed into that last minute!