You could probably make a poptarts are sandwiches alignment style thing out of this.

Basically, any video game with an explicit goal, or set of goals is just a puzzle game with extra steps.

What buttons do you push, when do you push them, what does this accomplish, how does that lead you to your end goal, etc.

You could even argue that multiplayer tactics constitute a puzzle, a more social puzzle.

Yes, this is reductive, but this is a dumb showerthoughts post.

  • warlaan@lemm.ee
    2·
    3 months ago

    It’s not reductive, it’s misrepresentative. A puzzle game is only a puzzle game as long as coming up with the solution is the main task. There are more than enough games where coming up with the right solution is not difficult, but performing it is.

    Also the name puzzle game implies that there are designed puzzles. Any game where you have to make decisions in generated situations aren’t puzzle games. For example if you take a specific chess situation and ask which move would lead to check mate in x moves then that’s a chess puzzle. That doesn’t make the game of chess itself a puzzle.