How I make puzzles for my indie magnet game (Developing 9) 

That puzzle matrix is genius

This is how I make puzzle levels in Mario Maker. I pick two or three main gimmicks (depending on how big I want the level to be) and write down every novel interaction I can find between them.

Does anyone else find the Developing intro/outro music super relaxing? It has this vibe of, “ok, we’ve got a lot of work before us, but let’s just take it one step at a time and we’ll get through it together”.

This is one of my absolute favorite series that you do. I really admire and appreciate your honesty going through the process of making a game. The "Oh God I wanna delete this and live in a cave" to "I can see the End" is really inspirational and something I think we can all relate to. Keep doing your best! You got this!

This reminds me of your episode on Baba is You as well. You described the puzzle making process as starting from a Solution and then working backwards until you reach a satisfying starting position.

That puzzle matrix is essentially a gameplay variety matrix - something I used at Ubisoft a bunch. It's pretty much the driving force behind maintaining variety across a game's campaign!

My speedrunning brethren, the time has come to once again exploit GMTK's game and break it in ways that he'd never foreseen. We are still reeling from the removal of the laser clip, but I believe that wall-techs are still possible. When the game goes live, trust that I will work my hardest to exploit the game as much as possible. You have my honor.

My favorite thing is that the puzzle matrix idea cures the "blank page issue" where you're stuck staring at a blank page (or in this case a blank stage) and not sure what to put on it. Which is extremely clever!

Finally a video with really applicable and reproduceable steps to create good puzzles, and not just superficial tips or analysis. This video just turned "only geniuses make good puzzles" into "i can make good puzzles if I organize myself and follow these steps"

26 of 30 is amazing! One thing that can be very demotivating in gamedev is not getting "enough" done (according to your own plans). It's beneficial to think in terms of "I got these things done" instead of "I didn't get those things done". A very simple psychological trick. Today I spent 9 hours designing rather small areas on paper and I got 3 of 5 done that I wanted to design. And while I could say "damn, almost half of it is still on the todo list", my mind is rather at the point "man, 9 hours! Can't believe I was able to focus for so long and the areas turned out great". This mindset is especially helpful when the project takes a long time in total.

I cant even understand how ppl make puzzles in general . Making a puzzle game sounds rough

Puzzle matrix seems lik a very nice and methodical approach. Thank you for sharing this process! Especially how it became a starting point for further work and mental freedom

Always a treat when a GMTK video gets released. 🥳

This has been such an inspiring series not only as someone who adores game development but as someone who wants to work in creative fields. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this.

That matrix is insane. 22x22/2 = 242 possible levels with 2 mechanics alone and 252 if we built from 2 mechanics up to the full 22. 494 total possibilities. And the best part is they're visually easy to see and sort out. Now that's some productive genious!

What I love about your process Mark is that you incorporate research into it, experimenting and exploring methods to better aid your production. It's so easy to get burnt out and demotivated, but sometimes a bit of research can go a long way into boosting your enthusiasm and plotting out a new route for success!

Suggestion: use the music of this series somewhere in the game, like menu screen or intro screen or something. I love this song!

The spreadsheet is really clever! That's a great idea to see what mechanics are being underutilized or perhaps popping up too much.

Mark you're making such quick progress, it's truly an inspiration. Can't wait to see the finished game 🔥

It’s actually insane how the developing series has been going on for a year now. I still remember when the first one came out

I genuinely want to play this now! Not just out of curiosity, like before, but some of these puzzles look really inviting and rewarding! That idea matrix is a tool that can probably used for every type of game. I've seen similar charts with enemies and weapons used to dissect why Doom and Halo have such rich combat scenarios. I bet something similar was going on in the minds of whoever decided that Burnout Paradise should have three different boost systems that reward different types of driving, and which cars should have which boost combined with which stats. Fill up all the possible slots, prototype them, get rid of the ones that don't make sense or aren't fun. Boom, game development.

I love the idea of this puzzle matrix! One thing I would encourage you to do is to remember the solution for older puzzles once you figure out some basic order and reuse some of those solutions as pieces of puzzles further down the line as I think it would be nice to add depth and allow for the player to have a callback to something they solved before and have it be just a portion of the overall puzzle down the line with a bit of a twist maybe too! Love the progress! Keep up the great work! (Obviously it’s your game so so as you please but just figured I’d offer my thoughts)

That matrix is an ingenious way to get past the ‘white blank page’!

That puzzle matrix thing. Legit blew my mind. I shared that tip and this video with a few people 😅😅

Happy to see that puzzle strategies post by Patrick get some recognition, it seems very useful

That matrix is low key genius. Glad you found your flow. I'd be interested in learning about the tools you developed.

Yeah New Video!

That "fill the cells in the spreadsheet" design strategy is a big part of how content gets made in all sorts of games! The work for "design 50 abilities" is made so much clearer when you instead say "design an ability at each rarity for each keyword for each weapon." Figuring out what the columns and rows should be is the juncture where content and systems designers need to be on the same page.

Greetings from Serbia! I hope I can start making games soon too.

I've shared this series with a couple of my high school game dev classes and it's brilliant! Thanks so much for opening up and sharing your insights into the design process. This one has been especially helpful for me as I work on my own project. Keep it up!

I really like the idea of the puzzle matrix! It reminds me a lot of the way that I use to make factions/races/groups in the games I make. I create a list of every single mechanic that the game has, then I assign a handful to separate factions as their major focus, and then a different handful to the same factions as their minor focus. Depending on the number of mechanics some will be shared (though one faction will have it as their major and the other as their minor) or not shared at all It's a great way to make factions feel totally different based on the focus that they have, so they aren't just thematically different they are also different in gameplay. The puzzle matrix sounds super similar. You've got a list of all the mechanics and a really great progression system. Keep up the awesome work, both with game design and the videos!

This is exactly the video I needed, as I continuously find myself enjoying design-more-widgets-time and dreading level-design-time. Thank you!

I use this technique! I call them art-punnet squares, shout out to Mendel and his peas!

Thank you so much I felt like maybe just giving up on being a game dev altogether but to know that you had similar struggles to me and hearing your solutions is really inspiring!

Man I love watching these, I can really get a feeling for the whole process that I’ve never really gotten from anything else.

I love the logical process. The puzzle matrix leads to individual experiments, some of which lead to discovering useful combinations that then lead onto becoming the foundation for a level design, which then lead to multiple levels being created, that then lead to the puzzle bible, that then highlights gaps in the levels and hence the need for new new level designs utilising the identified combinations that they need to include. It's like you have gamified the process from begging to the end since each part leads to a reward that then builds on the previous to then complete the game, which in this case results in a game being created! I love it!

The matrix concept is essentially another way of looking at another common puzzle design method: teaching the player mechanics. You mention this in the video tangentially, but for me this is the focus rather than a side effect. Once you develop your main mechanic and sub mechanics, the game should teach the player how to use them, and for a puzzle game, that's done via puzzles. It's essentially the same concept of classic Mario level design, but with a more explicit purpose. Your reordering of puzzles near the end outlined this, but for me, puzzle design has always been easiest when I know what I want to teach the player. As you found, experimenting with your tools/mechanics though is a great way to discover that. Hell even making puzzles to teach something is a great way to stumble into new combinations. Like Johnathon Blow has mentioned about Braid, designing a game can lead to the game essentially designing itself. One caveat to all this (and this applies to making puzzles in general, regardless of the method), is in order for it to work... you have to really understand your mechanics. Being good enough at puzzle games to understand the lateral thinking the designers want you to figure out is one thing, but it's another thing all together to invent your own. So kudos to you for making so much progress and finding so many clever combinations! It's incredible how much you've learned and improved on through this project in such a short time.

Superb video, Mark! Your breakdown of the puzzle-making process was fascinating and educational! And it's so exciting to see how well your game is coming along!

“I’m almost at the end… I just have to do general polish” 😂 poor guy, you have no idea…

one of the things I love in some games is the secrets and easter eggs in it , I think it will be a good idea to add some

Every one of these videos makes me more excited for the final product. You’re doing great Mark!

Loving these dev diaries! Very clever with the table for puzzle elements, and using Keynote to arrange levels is genius!

These videos are always a treat - I started making my own game shortly before you released the first in the series and it's been really cool seeing the parallels in our experiences. I'm not making a puzzle game, but I totally agree that coding new mechanics is far easier to focus on than making content, and I'm at a similar place where I mostly have to focus on content and it can feel like a bit of a slog sometimes. Still, the end being in sight (if distant) is a great motivator and so is seeing others with similar experiences - thanks for making the series!

Hey Mark, I just want to say you're doing great work. We really appreciate the gamedev videos with the behind-the-scenes looks at what it takes to be a solo indie developer. It's a giant undertaking and I know I'm super proud of how far you've come. Thank you so much for allowing us to come with you on this journey, and I look forward to your update in the future :)

This is a beautifully made video you have here, as someone who has been watching for a few years now and have always been used to hearing your voice overs, it's lovely putting your voice to your face whilst you explained everything, with the frequent cuts to the visuals of the game. I felt I could engage with the video rather than be a audible background that historically your videos have been for me. Keep up the marvelous work!

what a journey, that you for sharing the ups and downs - it's already all worth it for the videos and cherry on top the game looks like a hit

Hey Mark, just wanted to thank you for all your videos and insights into game making. I finally found the courage and motivation to start on my first, and thanks to you, I'm not scared of not finishing it, or it being too much for me anymore.

I'm seriously so grateful for you taking the plunge to not only develop your own game, but take us along for the ride, and being courageous enough to share the ups AND downs. it's really encouraging as a creator to see how you put the advice in your amazing analysis videos into practice!

As someone who has been banging their head against the wall regarding designing puzzles, that matrix is ridiculously useful! Thank you!

The puzzle matrix is a great tool and I like that you highlighted that it is just one way someone could give themselves a seed to start from. You also mentioned that you still haven't come up with a story. To me the story is almost always the most important part and before watching the whole video I was going to suggest that the puzzles should be motivated by the story. But you're making excellent progress anyway, so instead of "should be" let's say "could be". Besides, if you don't have a seed for the story you're still staring at a blank canvas with no clear goal in sight. ANYWAY, excellent video, thank you.

no youtuber uses this music like this series. Truly some of the best videos on youtube

Honestly one of the best video series about working as a creative I’ve ever seen. I don’t make games as a job, nor do I make games as a hobby, but I do work in a creative field, and I am learning SO MUCH from your videos. Thank you!

This is an amazing concept for puzzle design, wow! One thing I saw in a video a while ago was the idea of a "double-take effect". It doesn't work for puzzle where the goal is part of it, but the idea is to setup a method for solving the puzzle that pretty much requires the player to fail once. Such as, you teach the player to press a button in the previous room. In the next room, there's a ledge, a button, and a platform. So the player goes to press the button... but the platform goes up without them. Then they realize there's a box in the corner.

This video is really cool, right now I'm writing a story, and this was encouraging hehe thanks ❤️

Really enjoying this series! Really excited for this to be a finished game! Looks like a lot of fun and I'm a big fan of the art style.

This is such a great way of making puzzle, I have been having a hard time when making some little game to come up with interesting puzzle. This is genius! Thank!

This made me think of that expression "Judge, jury and executioner" but with game design, pretty neat. Keep it up👍

The matrix is a great idea ! For my own game, I just listed all mechanics I had created and tried to find the best way to introduce them so that the player keeps discovering new things all along the game and get a nice learning curve.

The title "The clever hack that makes puzzle design easier" made me more interested in this video. The mechanic matrix idea is very cool!

I love this series, it's great to see such high effort content still exists.

This reminded me of the first Portal Entering a new test chamber, you'd encounter a sign telling you which mechanics are used in that chamber (as well as which are not used, maybe to increase curiousity for next chambers)

This is amazing. I'm working on a puzzle game right now and this video is gold. Thank you so much. ❤

Way to go, Mark! That's some great progress, and you're motivating me to make more games.

I’ve been wanting to make a game for a while. I might actually start on it now because of you. It’s helpful to see your process to know where to start.

So proud for you. Following your progress is a pleasure and inspiration at the same time

11:36 funnily enough, you did invent maths! that shape you made is called a cardioid

26/30 is still really good! I'm looking forward to more dev logs and the eventual release!

This video is SO helpful - thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, both the challenges and the breakthroughs. The puzzle matrix idea is SUCH a helpful concept.

Love following this project along as you make it. It's really inspirational!

Mark, i just wanna say, you were the inspiration i needed to start learning unity! Much love man, keep up the great work

the puzzle matrix is so cool, it's like a fast-track way of getting interesting interactions between many independent systems... my system for making cool levels is just messing around with whatever tools i have available, and mushing stuff together until something interesting happens as though it's a point-and-click adventure. really great tips n ideas on how to navigate around the "writer's block" you had.

I've been trying to write short stories, so not really like game development at all, and yet I've found a lot of useful insights and inspiration watching your GMTK progress on this magnet game. So thanks for that!

This is one of the best videos on game development I've ever seen, pure gold, making levels is my main bottleneck, not making a puzzle game here, but the mechanics matrix can certainly be used and adapted to any kind of game.

Mark, I love this series, because it feels like a journey I could see myself going down. I find it very helpful that almost every one of these videos starts with dealing with frustration, a lack of motivation, etc. because seeing how you deal with those obstacles makes me feel like I could do that, too. I am looking forward to your play testing video! I really hope that you will take some time to talk about how a developer could approach play testing if they don't have a huge RU-vid channel and Discord and Patreon full of willing testers.

And so 1.37 million people went on to incorporate puzzle matrix into their design workflow, and we were all better off for it. Thank you so much for sharing your process!

Mark I need you to know that it's so encouraging to hear that I'm not the only person who gets really discouraged trying to do something new sometimes! Thanks for your honest look at game dev!

Inspiring story. It can be so easy to just quit a project when faced with a really difficult section but powering through can be so rewarding and important in your personal growth. Well done!

Leave it to Mark to show you just how difficult game making can be. I'm glad you make these videos it gives a lot of context into the process, and I think is great for putting it into perspective for people who seem to underestimate what kind of endeavor game making is

That matrix is exactly how I generate interesting effects for card games.

i watched the whole series in one go and you're like a different person when compared to first video in the series. this metamorphosis from an aspiring video game developer to an actual video game developer is really inspiring. i can't wait for the final product and for your future endeavours.

Just keep on going, Mark! There are only a finite number of steps between you and your goal and you are taking them one at a time! The amazing thing is that everything you learn, we learn too. Even though I'm writing a science fiction novel and you're making a puzzle game, I can apply so much of the logic, organisation and goal-oriented determination that you share in your videos to my task also, so thanks very much and looking forward to the next installment!!

Amazing video and very helpful material and experience for other puzzle gamedev folks! Thank you❤

This is so cool! Genuinely so interesting and inspiring to see your journey of making this game. I hope some day I can create something in a way that inspires someone else in the way that you have done to me. Can't wait to see what comes next.

I usually lack planning when I work on any kind of projects, but this matrix and bible are a genius piece of advice!

Amazing mate! Really great idea with that Puzzle Matrix! Gonna try it myself for my Puzzle Game where literly got the same creative problems where it comes to puzzle level desing.

An inspiration as always good sir. Thank you for showing us your game dev journey!

I'm working on my first project I'm going to release, and I just want to say that your "Developing" series has been one of the few series that has encouraged me to keep on. Probably also responsible in part for the fact that it's end up as a puzzle game. xD I was just banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to come up with puzzle ideas, and this video has suddenly given me hope. xD

Great to see how the matrix helped you find the fun puzzles and I'm glad to see you excited for the game again!

great video and some amazing tips, specially the puzzle matrix idea. thanks for the hard work!

I've spoken with a few game dev before that structuring your work and the (pre-)production phase with exploratory tools, like the puzzle matrix, is actually one of the most important aspects to really finish a game. Great video

i just found you and you are now one of my favs game dev youtubers and i'll use you to fuel my dream of becoming a good game dev. :)

I've always loved the music for this series, it's so chill.

"Finish The Game" - the saying I tell myself as I work on my game for 4 years now...

Sounds like you were bashing your head against the classic creative problem of the blank page. And you definitely found the solution that most people find works best, which is to introduce goals and restrictions to give each idea more focus. Necessity is the mother of invention, and limitations are the mother of creativity. On an unrelated note, I still want to draw attention to the fact that even with all of the work that is going into making the game, your video quality is still superb. The editing, effects, scripting, and flow are professional grade.

Such a thoughtful process and documentation! Thanks for sharing this!

I’m glad you’re still going on it.

Best of luck, happy to see you excited for the release of this game

The puzzle matrix makes things so much faster. Dude went from semi-procrastinating to really enjoying the development.

You're brilliant! The first few seconds of this literary just destroyed my "game design writers block".

this is one of the coolest game design trick i've ever seen. You'll publish this masterpiece soon just keep moving :)