The Puzzle Maker's Dictionary of Game Design | Same Circles

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Learning Paths

Make your first distinctive puzzle

Start with the experience you want to offer, give players productive limits, and test the smallest playable version.

Experience Goals and Design Intent → Productive Constraints → Mechanics, Gameplay, and Experience → Prototyping and Playtesting → Rules

Help players understand what they can do

Build a useful mental model, show available actions, and reveal complexity only when it becomes relevant.

Mental Models, Affordances, and Signifiers → Onboarding and Progressive Disclosure → Perceived Action Space → Complexity Trees and Pruning → Notice the practical rules players invent for themselves

Make choices expressive and consequential

Meaningful Choices and Tradeoffs → Connection Goals → Tile Laying, Grid Coverage, and Networks → Abstract Subgames and the Essential Game → Feedback Loops, Emergence, and Chaos

Design a puzzle that communicates with its solver

Authorial Inference and Curatorial Puzzles → Targeted Clues → Hidden, Public, and Puzzlelike Information → Exhaustible Content and Intrinsic Variability → Scenarios, Missions, and Campaigns

Build a thoughtful puzzle-making community

Metagames, Communities, and Microclimates → Spectation → Customization, Mastery, and Modding → Role Usurpation → Rewards

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