What makes puzzle games addictive?

Posted by Bryan Denny on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Bryan Denny
Published on 2010-11-16T22:18:30Z Indexed on 2012/10/08 21:52 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 271

Filed under:

game-design

|

puzzle

I'm currently developing a puzzle game for Android that is sort of along the lines of Alchemy.

I was wondering what makes games like Alchemy or Bejeweled so addicting? How do I keep players interested in the game to want to play it over and over? Is it the scores? Level advancement? The challenges? What should I be doing to try and keep a player engaged with a puzzle game since they are often quite repetitive?

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about game-design

Game Design Dilemma

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
I'm working on a 2d tilemapped RPG. I've actually made quite a fair amount of progress, but I'm at a point where I need to make a UI decision. I have the overland world completely mapped out, and I have several towns and special areas. I'm on the fence about how to integrate the two. Scenario 1: I… >>> More
Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because… >>> More
Suggestions on switching from lamp based web design-development to game design-development

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I have around 2.5 years of experience as a web developer cum designer working mainly on the LAMP platform. Now, I want to try out game development (of the likes of First Person Shooter games like Call of Duty (COD)). It is one of my dreams to some day succeed in making a profitable, popular, commercial… >>> More
Game Design Schools in Canada

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am a High School student in Ontario and i am trying looking for college/university programs the are specifically about game design. There are quite a few at most colleges near me, but they are all BA's and I am looking for a BSc. The only one i have been able to find is at digipen but that is across… >>> More
I want to make video games, but I hate coding

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I know this sounds eally crazy. However, I just want to ask. Now, I am studying C++ code in my school (My major is computer programming). Honestly, my grade is not so good, and assignments are really hard. Sometimes, I feel sad that I will spend 8~10 hours per day for coding (which is stressful)… >>> More

Related posts about puzzle

Help with C puzzle

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I found a site with some complicated C puzzles. Right now I'm dealing with this: The following is a piece of C code, whose intention was to print a minus sign 20 times. But you can notice that, it doesn't work. #include <stdio.h> int main() { int i; int n = 20; for( i = 0;… >>> More
How do I intiailize the vector I have defined in my header file?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have the following in my Puzzle.h class Puzzle { private: vector<int> puzzle; public: Puzzle() : puzzle (16) {} bool isSolved(); void shuffle(vector<int>& ); }; and then my Puzzle.cpp looks like: Puzzle::Puzzle() { // Initialize the… >>> More
8-Puzzle Solution executes infinitely [migrated]

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I am looking for a solution to 8-puzzle problem using the A* Algorithm. I found this project on the internet. Please see the files - proj1 and EightPuzzle. The proj1 contains the entry point for the program(the main() function) and EightPuzzle describes a particular state of the puzzle. Each state… >>> More
Creating a programming crossword puzzle

as seen on Dot net Slackers - Search for 'Dot net Slackers'
Most programming-related crossword puzzles are generated by computer programs, and consequently lack the design and wordplay which makes New York Times-style crossword puzzles interesting. I decided that I could do better. >>> More
SQL SERVER – Improve Performance by Reducing IO – Creating Covered Index

as seen on SQL Authority - Search for 'SQL Authority'
This blog post is in the response of the T-SQL Tuesday #004: IO by Mike Walsh. The subject of this month is IO. Here is my quick blog post on how Cover Index can Improve Performance by Reducing IO. Let us kick off this post with disclaimers about Index. Index is a very complex subject and [...] >>> More