2.10 Chess tournament and multiplayer Quake tournament
What is a Puzzle? 35
What is a Puzzle?
by Sco Kim
Sco Kim has been a full-time puzzle designer since 1990 with his company, Shu?¬„ ebrain. His work includes
puzzles for Tetris, Bejeweled, and Collapse!, as well as game design for computer games Heaven & Earth and
Obsidian. He also writes a monthly puzzle column for Discover magazine, and he has designed many games,
including Sudoku 5x5, for the toy company ThinkFun. He has degrees in music and computers and graphic
design from Stanford University, and he lectures widely on puzzle design and math education.
An earlier version of this article originally appeared in The Games Cafe, a now defunct Web site devoted
to lovers of board games and puzzles.
From casual games to 3D action games, puzzles are an important part of many electronic games. Whether
you are designing or producing games for the Web, mobile phones, computers, arcades, or console games,
you need to know how to create good puzzles. In this article I de?¬? ne what a puzzle is, explain how it di?¬? ers
from other types of games, and o?¬? er suggestions for how to design good puzzles.
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