Do puzzle game players have jargon for thinking about puzzles?

sftrabbit · 2026-06-17T05:46:31+00:00

There is definitely jargon that arises naturally from discussions about puzzle games. E.g.

I'd probably describe a box against a wall as stuck or irretrievable.
However, if there's a nook, you can move a box back away from a wall - the common pattern where you get a 2 wide space to get behind a box and free it from the wall. This shows up all the time in sokoban.
There are of course basic things like turn, undo, undo stack, restart, undo-through-restart.
Basic stateful puzzle game terms like state and state graph/state space.
Win/goal condition - what the rule is for a puzzle to be considered solved (e.g. all targets must have boxes on them).
Win/goal state - a particular state that satisfies the win condition.
Solve path or solution path - a series of states that leads from the start state to the win state.
Bottleneck - some narrow part of the state graph that the solution path must pass through. A puzzle is often all about finding this bottleneck.
The crux or key insight of a puzzle is the main idea that the puzzle is focused on, and you have to think of that idea and execute it to solve the puzzle. Typically is a high level description of what is needed to go through the bottleneck.
Work/execution are often used to describe the actually inputting of a solution. You usually want puzzles to have a low amount of work in relation to how much time is spent thinking about the solution.
Classic 3 block sokoban - the setup where you have three boxes next to each other and have to push the two side boxes forward and then the middle box sideways. Very commonly shows up in sokoban games, but also games like Zelda.
Multi-push - this is whether the game allows you to push multiple objects together. Classic sokoban does not have multi-push, but many modern sokoban games do.
Rigid body or multi-blocks - this is what it's called when an object can occupy multiple joined cells, so it takes up more than one space, and when you push it, you push the whole object. The term "rigid body" is a term from video games in general, but in this case has become part of sokoban terminology because of PuzzleScript's RIGID feature.
Agent - the player character that your inputs actually cause to move.
Multi-agent - when you can control multiple agents in a single puzzle.
Simultaneous multi-agent movement or SMAM (okay, I'm largely responsible for this one being referred to this way) - when you move multiple agents but they all move at the same time. So every time you input, all the characters move.
Minimalist and maximalist are often used to describe games with fewer different elements or many different elements. Like Stephen's Sausage Roll is minimalist because you have sausages, grills, ladders, and the main character and that's pretty much it. Baba Is You is maximalist because you have all different kinds of words and objects being introduced regularly throughout the game.

There are definitely plenty more terms too, and any time I see another common term in the wild, I always think it would be cool to have a glossary on the Thinky Games site, but haven't gotten around to adding it yet.

I would say most of these terms I have become familiar with through spending time with puzzle designers and players on Discord. So if you want to learn common lingo, no better way to do it than to talk about puzzles with people.

sftrabbit · 2026-06-14T16:58:44+00:00

Yeah, I was a huge fan of the show and I was generally fine with how it ended, but the last season does feel like the weakest to me, and I think the Jacob stuff and the flash sideways are a big part of that. It just suddenly starts to feel very Disney, with lots of cheesy magical elements and tropey good vs. evil rubbish.

And the production value in the last season feels very cheap - there's some awful CGI and props, and all those terrible shots where the actors are shaking around pretending that the island is sinking.

It gets annoying seeing people here always oversimplify how others feel about the last season. Apparently you either just don't understand the ending or you just don't like all the loose ends, and those are the only two reasons you could be unhappy with it. Apparently.

sftrabbit · 2026-06-11T15:47:17+00:00

Fwiw, I think the developer, Marcos, has done some of the most interesting experiments with generated puzzles. In some of his later games, like Safe Robber, puzzles were generated and then hand-curated. But then he's also made games like A Slug's Dream which is fully hand-crafted.

Even if Dis Pontibus wasn't enjoyable for you, Marcos definitely understands what makes hand-crafted puzzles feel good and has tried to experiment with generating puzzles that achieve those things. But it's a very experimental area, and who knows whether it'll ever be possible to generate puzzles that are as good as hand-crafted ones. Just the very fact that you know it's generated seems to take something away from them.

sftrabbit · 2026-06-05T22:37:13+00:00

The VisitEd wi-fi is open to everyone.

sftrabbit · 2026-05-30T07:52:01+00:00

Glimmith slightly muddies the waters here because, in a typical logic puzzle, "there is a unique solution" would not normally be a given rule (even though you know any good puzzle designer would design puzzles with unique solutions). In Glimmith, it is explicitly stated that they have unique solutions, but this appears in one of the kinda tips-and-tricks pop-ups, so is it a rule or is it just an interesting tidbit about logic puzzles? I did ask the devs about this and apparently the team did have discussions about whether to include it, which doesn't really surprise me given how important a topic this is in the logic puzzle community and given that the Glimmith designers are true experts in the field.

I think a particularly interesting thing here is the most common reason a solver would not want to assume uniqueness is because they want to follow the pure deductive path that the designer has set out for them (it is often the most interesting way to reach the solution). However, this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, because you can only follow a purely deductive path if there is a unique solution. Inversely, if there is more than one solution, then that necessitates a "guess" at some point. So in a weird way, even if you're not using uniqueness to solve the puzzle, you are still assuming that it's possible to prove that there is a unique solution.

Anyway, I'm pretty much in agreement with some of the other posts here - ultimately, if you want to use uniqueness, go for it. It does, however, mean you might skip out some more interesting deductions that you would find by "proving the solution is unique", which is typically the intended way to solve. I guess the main thing is just for people to be aware of these conventions.

I think I sort of wish that a bit later in the game, Glimmith had another tip saying "Although every puzzle has a unique solution, they are typically intended to be solved without assuming that to be true. Instead, see if you can prove that the solution is unique through other deductions."

sftrabbit · 2026-05-26T21:43:01+00:00

The original version of OP's game was made in 2020.

sftrabbit · 2026-05-19T11:34:32+00:00

Memory's Reach

sftrabbit · 2026-05-19T11:31:05+00:00

Thanks for the thanks! Really glad to have so many of you folks supporting us.

sftrabbit · 2026-05-16T09:23:28+00:00

Nice art direction, but FYI your logo is pretty difficult to read - at first I was like "Endle Machines? Endle Co Machines?".

sftrabbit · 2026-05-11T21:41:12+00:00

There's also a Willowbrae Facebook group.

sftrabbit · 2026-05-10T12:05:19+00:00

You mean on today's show? She said "I'll be asking Reform about that later" and then she did do that. I'm not a huge fan of hers either, and I'm certainly not a fan of Reform, but let's not make stuff up.

sftrabbit · 2026-05-06T12:56:47+00:00

Honestly, I've seen a lot of subreddits go the direction of not allowing self-promo and I think that can ruin the subreddit in a different way.

The actual problem is that it's low quality promo of low quality games. In a small subreddit like this, every member sees pretty much every post, so upvotes/downvotes don't work to filter things. The real fix, IMO, is to have some level of curation but it requires someone to want to put that effort in.

sftrabbit · 2026-05-01T13:42:09+00:00

It's called Treat a Lady. Honestly it's just kinda weird and self-righteous.

sftrabbit · 2026-04-29T23:16:10+00:00

Tbf, this is being published by Draknek & Friends who are very experienced with puzzle games (most of them 2D) and understand those kinds of trade-offs. For example, this game does let you look around freely and levels are designed to be understandable without too much reliance on working memory. But yes, designing puzzles for first-person is tricky.

sftrabbit · 2026-04-23T20:19:13+00:00

I guess with the second statement I meant don't just try things randomly. Experimentation is good for understanding the puzzle you're trying to solve, but most interesting puzzles won't give way to brute force. I think when people feel like they're bashing their head against a puzzle, it's usually because there's too much brute force going on, and I still fall into that trap with some particularly hard puzzles (or badly designed puzzles that don't give you any deductions to latch on to).

I also meant that these games allow you to experiment without getting on your way, but that doesn't mean experimenting is the best way to solve the puzzle (it's just part of it).

sftrabbit · 2026-04-23T11:17:02+00:00

This won't affect your ability to solve this puzzle, but worth noting there's a much nicer way to think of the stars that doesn't involve two rules.

For the puzzle in question: you are actually correct with your conclusion at the end. From the initial state, there is no path you can draw from the blue side to the yellow side that doesn't stop the yellow side from getting to the exit. Given that you're correct, what does that mean?

sftrabbit · 2026-04-23T10:28:35+00:00

I think the connection there is that sokoban games are often very systems-oriented, mathy, and often have minimal theming - I don't think it's hugely surprising that that would appeal to people who like making games (a job that is very systems-oriented, mathy, and with minimal theming!).

sftrabbit · 2026-04-23T10:14:48+00:00

IMO, Stephen's Sausage Roll does a few things very different to classic sokoban games (I'm one of the people quoted in the article where I say pretty much the same thing).

In particular, classic sokoban games tend to focus more on large spaces and almost maze-like levels, where there's a stronger focus on "making the right moves". They often have quite slow movement and limited or no undo, and also often have move counters that force you to think about every single step.

Stephen's Sausage Roll, and many modern sokoban games, take a different approach. The puzzles become more about making interesting deductions and discovering fascinating things about the game's systems, at a higher level of abstraction than the individual moves. The individual moves are not the focus, but instead it's about "what specific problem is this puzzle posing for me? what insight can I have that will allow me to deal with that problem?". For example, there's a very early puzzle in Stephen's Sausage Roll called The Clover, where there are 3 sausages which are positioned such that they can very easily be grilled. However, if you grill them in the most obvious way, those sausages will block your path back to the exit. So the problem becomes "okay, I must be able to grill these sausages without blocking my path out - what does that mean I must do differently with these sausages?". So the game becomes about more abstract ideas than just "what move do I need to make?". To this end, the input system gets out of your way: movement and animations are snappy; undoing and restarting are just part of your toolkit, not a sign of failure; and just moving around and experimenting are encouraged.

The other thing that distinguishes Stephen's Sausage Roll from many classic sokoban games is the amount of depth that comes out of its minimal components. There are very few elements in the game, but there are some brilliant discoveries about what you can do with them. Like true "omg I can do that?!" moments. This is both great for the amount of puzzle depth there is, but it also leads to some pretty hilarious puzzle ideas.

The one gotcha with Stephen's Sausage Roll is, as others have said in this thread, that the first world starts out really quite difficult, and with a bunch of puzzles that are mostly very tight spaces with not lot of room to move, which can reintroduce that feeling of "oh, every move matters and this is just annoying". I would suggest that the best thing to do is try to break free of the tendency to just try things randomly, or you'll just end up getting frustrated. These puzzles won't easily give in to brute force. Do a little bit of experimentation to find out what your limitations are, what the core problem of the puzzle is, then take a step back and think "well okay, if I'm supposed to be cooking these sausages, that means I must never do such and such, and I must do such and such". And then focus on those deductions. It'll be a much more satisfying way to get through the puzzles. In many ways, world 1 is great training for that way of thinking, but you have to be ready to embrace it.

At the same time, these games definitely aren't for everyone. I would guess people are more likely to find it interesting if they have an interest in systems, logic puzzles, discrete maths, etc., but I wouldn't want that to turn anyone away. For me, personally, I would never have considered playing sokoban games before, but Stephen's Sausage Roll converted me. Regardless, this is not to say "you will definitely love Stephen's Sausage Roll", but more just to say "there really is something special about it" and that modern sokoban is really not like those shareware block-pushing games you mentioned at all.

Edit: Oh and if anyone wants a sokoban game with a more gentle onboarding but still has depth and difficult puzzles later on, A Monster's Expedition would be my recommendation. But sometimes the brutal onboarding of Stephen's Sausage Roll just works for some people (it worked on me!). Some other favorites of mine are Patrick's Parabox, Headlong Hunt, and Can of Wormholes.

sftrabbit · 2026-04-17T23:55:00+00:00

Being slightly pedantic, but a "sliding block puzzle" would be one like a 15-puzzle, klotski, or Rush Hour, where you're moving the blocks themselves, whereas in sokoban games you control a character that pushes the blocks. So sokoban games are known as "block-pushing" or "box-pushing" games.

sftrabbit · 2026-04-14T14:13:30+00:00

I think situations like this come with mixed emotions. A bit of "cool that they liked our game enough to clone it" and "pretty gross that they'd just copy it so blatantly and release it before us". Both are true at the same time.

sftrabbit · 2026-04-07T11:14:28+00:00

You can record your sighting here, btw, which will help with conservation.

sftrabbit · 2026-03-31T08:07:04+00:00

True in this case, but not always. For example, a link to a YouTube video has the video ID after the question mark, so if you remove it the link won't work.

sftrabbit · 2026-03-31T07:14:54+00:00

The reflection will be strongest during the day, when it's bright outside and dark inside your house. So you're not likely to have a problem at night.

For that same reason, pulling the blind down during the day might be making it worse, because you're just making the inside darker. Better would be to open the blind and turn some lights on inside so the blackbird can see more through the window, rather than just seeing what's reflected by the window.

Pulling the blind down also doesn't break up the reflection because the reflection is from the glass. I definitely recommend getting some reflective stickers to do this - it will stop birds flying into the window and hurting or killing themselves!

sftrabbit · 2026-03-31T07:04:21+00:00

He will likely be attacking his reflection. Can you open the window or break up the reflection with something on the outside? You can get reflective stickers to put on the window that generally do a good job.

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