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[stevesan]

It's hard to deny that Braid and Portal 1/2 are all great puzzle games. But there are tons of great puzzle games out there, such as the recent "Pursuit of Hat," "Gap Monsters," "The Company of Myself", and the list goes on and on. Flash portals are full of them, etc. etc. So I'm starting to wonder, what makes Braid and Portal and Limbo stand out? Some possible answers...

Production value. Obviously, Braid, Portal, and Limbo all look and sound much better and just have more artistic content than almost any smaller game. Portal is fully 3D with some very cool visual effects, Braid has a really cool rewind mechanic, and Limbo just looks fantastic.

Story. Limbo doesn't have an explicit story of course, but the mystery is very compelling. Braid is similarly compelling. And Portal, well, it's just great in so many ways.

Length. Your average Flash puzzle game maybe lasts you 1-2 hours (from my experience). But that's about the same length as Portal 1, and Limbo isn't too much longer. Braid is certainly significantly longer, as it has tons of puzzles and they can really take you a while to solve.

So all that is pretty obvious. But what about just the puzzle mechanics themselves? This is less true for Limbo, but do you think that there's just something special about the puzzle mechanics in Braid and Portal? Or simply the puzzle design in Braid? I felt like Braid had very pure puzzles. Most of the puzzles hinged on a single clever idea. They didn't feel like a whole mess of various parts put together (some did, but most didn't), and you just had to figure out the correct sequence of actions. Portal had a tinge of this to it, especially near the end.

The real question I'm trying to answer is, why don't you think a lot of smaller puzzle games, say Flash puzzle games, make it as larger releases? Is it simply because they can't bring the length and production value and story, or are their mechanics just not cool enough to stand up to the likes of Braid and Portal?

[s0]

aside from production values which no doubt play a big role, both games have novel, intuitive mechanics that are easy to market.

they also have unusual aesthetics for puzzle games (or videogames in general). braid maybe moreso than portal, but portal has memorable quotes.

as for the flash puzzle thing: i think part of the reason is that there's an inherent bias against flash games. people tend to not see them as "real" games or w/e.

[tesselode]

I will readily admit that I have a bias against flash games. I'm too used to seeing the kind of stuff you would see on addictinggames.com or something. Plus flash is very laggy and slow, which severely limits what you can do with it.

[gimymblert]

MARKETING

[J. R. Hill]

Atmosphere.

Also: Hana no Puzzle is the best puzzle game of the current century.

[vinheim3]

Polish and right mix of atmosphere.

By polish, I mean you can tell that after the game mechanic and levels made from it were created, the developers put in a lot of time and effort to make everything look good and to have effects everywhere. This is usually what separates a quickly made flash game from titles that developers want to sell.

In Braid, you can see the polish everywhere, the atmosphere change in rewinding, the dirt that comes up when a rabbit is coming up from the ground, the fuse on a cannon, the sounds rewinding makes, the shadow world in that world where rewinding creates a shadow of you, etc. In Limbo, you can see the game looks like an old film with the shaking and occasional black vertical lines (I think they were there?). In Portal, there's GLaDOS, radios, incinerating the companion cube, the heart on the companion cube, etc.

By right mix of atmosphere, and this is very important, I mean that graphics, sounds, and gameplay complement each other to their very best. VVVVVV does this excellently. A guy wants a fast-paced platformer about switching gravity. What better graphics to use than flashing, 1-color objects, fast-paced electronic music and smiling characters?

Braid is a puzzle-platformer with some difficult puzzles, so its a slow-paced game. Having slow music and extravagant detail (that isn't too confusing to look at) add to the atmosphere. Limbo is also a puzzle-platformer, but with no extra gimmicks like rewinding time, also there's death everywhere. A plain game with death everywhere is definitely best suited with dark graphics that are simple (so you can concentrate on the jumps and not get distracted by detail). Portal is about a test subject and a new weapon shes being used to test, so a lab scene with an overhead voice suit it. Having the voice sound mechanical is a lot better than having it sound human since it would mean there's an important character around whose story needs to be explained (sort of like in Sequence, if you've played it).

This is, what seems to me, the 2 major contributions to their successes.

[rivon]

I think that the main reason is that all the parts of these games work together perfectly. They all fit like pieces of puzzle. Also, polish.

[Falmil]

Mind-bending puzzles

[s0]

I will readily admit that I have a bias against flash games. I'm too used to seeing the kind of stuff you would see on addictinggames.com or something. Plus flash is very laggy and slow, which severely limits what you can do with it.

yeah, not saying the bias is wrong or unfounded, i'm just noting that it exists.

[stevesan]

Polish and right mix of atmosphere.

Hmm yes I can totally see the importance of atmosphere. A lot of flash puzzle games tend to sell themselves short in this regard by having very cartoon-ish and silly atmosphere. They're screaming, "I'm a kid's game! I don't have much to offer aside from some cute lil puzzles!"

Thanks for the great reply.

[stevesan]

Very good point. Flash games carry some strong stereotypes with them. Another unfortunate aspect of flash games is that they're usually presented in flash portals full of ads and other distractions. Not exactly a great way to consume a deep, contemplative game.

I will readily admit that I have a bias against flash games. I'm too used to seeing the kind of stuff you would see on addictinggames.com or something. Plus flash is very laggy and slow, which severely limits what you can do with it.

yeah, not saying the bias is wrong or unfounded, i'm just noting that it exists.

[mirosurabu]

Because of the way people are encouraged to make flash games.

It's not simply because they run in windowed/browser mode, it's the fact that they are supposed to be nothing more than just a few-minutes distraction during which one can spot the ads. That's it. Anything more than that and it's wasted effort. You aren't rewarded for creating something that is thoughtful, you're rewarded for creating a meme. Virality over quality.

An average player will only see an average flash game, and an average flash game follows that model. There are exceptions of course, but most of these exceptions escape that model and are thus rarely seen as flash games (e.g. Machinarium).

[s0]

Smartphone games work pretty much the same way. Not coincidentally, a lot of smartphone games are ports of flash games.

[vinheim3]

Polish and right mix of atmosphere.

Hmm yes I can totally see the importance of atmosphere. A lot of flash puzzle games tend to sell themselves short in this regard by having very cartoon-ish and silly atmosphere. They're screaming, "I'm a kid's game! I don't have much to offer aside from some cute lil puzzles!"

Thanks for the great reply.

Yeah, the atmosphere is usually silly, but what's more important is the mix of atmosphere. If you know the game An Untitled Story, it had graphics made in paint and it looked childish, but it was accompanied by music that fit it well as polished parts that added to its childish appeal, like the sound made when jumping, the enemies, bosses and projectiles you could shoot. It also had more polish (wind, barrels breaking, area names fading in, etc). It had the appeal for a highly sell-able indie game, but not something I'd buy off Steam (you could feel this, it's probably the art style or mediocre level of polish).

[rek]

D) All of the above.

Higher production values generally mean a game with more meat on its bones – an involving story, a wider variety of challenges that keep you challenged right up to the end, and just more game than you're likely to find in something made in Flash/for your phone/hosted by ConglomoWebGames.

But this isn't the only formula for success – Angry Birds has none of these things.

[s0]

Higher production values generally mean a game with more meat on its bones – an involving story, a wider variety of challenges that keep you challenged right up to the end, and just more game than you're likely to find in something made in Flash/for your phone/hosted by ConglomoWebGames.

Both Braid and Portal have VERY little content though. A lot less than you'd find in popular flash puzzle gams.

[kato9]

This thread is making me nervous. I'm working on a Flash game with the intent on creating something smart and atmospheric like these game you guys have mentioned. I'd like to think the people who play Flash games would like something like this as a change of pace from the norm - but maybe the audience just isn't that interested in smart or 'arty' games...

Then again it's probably not wise to generalize 'people who play flash games'. I feel like most internet users have played at least one flash game in their life right?

[rek]

Higher production values generally mean a game with more meat on its bones – an involving story, a wider variety of challenges that keep you challenged right up to the end, and just more game than you're likely to find in something made in Flash/for your phone/hosted by ConglomoWebGames.

Both Braid and Portal have VERY little content though. A lot less than you'd find in popular flash puzzle gams.

But what content they have is quite varied and/or allows for greater and greater complexity, which means the challenge is there. They're also the type of game you can beat and then beat a little differently the next time – rewind here instead of there, pop out of the wall instead of the ceiling, etc. The old "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master" factor. You aren't going to beat any level of Pursuit of Hat differently the next time through (at least from what I saw of the first ~15 levels).

[Reives]

I think high-concept has a lot to do with the success of Portal and Braid as well. There are tons of games that are fun and interesting to play, but if you can hook the player on some point of interest with just 10 seconds of non-playable concept pitch, then it makes a whole world of difference since getting people to step through the door is often the hardest part.

[mirosurabu]

Flash audience is a heterogeneous audience. If you have a good game, you'll certainly get some sort of approval. There is no doubt about that.

For example, Newgrounds and Kongregate audiences are quite fond of "arty" games. The tolerance level for "arty" games is so high they will swallow yet another Braid-like no problem! Even a very basic art-game can get high rating and millions of views on any of these two portals.

However, if you step outside of Newgrounds and Kongregate, there will be a lot less approval for these kinds of games. In fact, that applies to any kind of game that deviates from the usual "viral bullshit" norm.

Basically, flash market does reward quality. It's just that virality is far more rewarded, which explains why majority of flash games lack in quality.