It's a bit like a massive ladder

See my Patreon for an alternate version of this discussion!

Let's talk about pacing

Above we've got a fairly slow puzzle (sped up quite a bit for the video)  where you turn a bunch of pipes on and off.

I'm kind of ambivalent towards this sort of puzzle normally, but at this point in the game it felt appropriate to have a static puzzle. A lot of the time slower sections like this are used to provide breathing room between more intense sequences while still giving the player a win, although that's not necessarily the case here (more below).

The best example I have for this is the excellent ladder sequence from Metal Gear Solid 3, where an intense fight against an elderly sniper is immediately followed by a two minute climb up a big ladder as the game's theme plays. Ordinarily this would be considered bad gameplay, but in this case it feels completely appropriate to let the plater catch their breath for a minute before launching into a cliffside stealth section. It's like a mid-game credits sequence!

Let's talk about pacing but in increased detail

When I think about intense or exciting game pacing, the most basic kind of model is something like

or maybe

This is a really good model to have in mind but it's fairly reductive and doesn't apply that well to a more non-linear or exploration driven game, where you're stuck with something like

This is a bit limiting through, which is why I want to talk about pipes.

Let's find out why a pipe puzzle is relevant to all of this

The thing in  my mind here is that puzzles often have their own internal kind of pacing, where a period of slow contemplation is followed by a sudden rush once the player works out the answer.

If done right, I think this can make puzzles (even slightly annoying ones) a great launchpad into a more intense section of gameplay. I actually played around with this years ago in Heart of Ice, where an intentionally kind of annoying puzzle to open a door launches the player into a no holds bars series of action encounters, culminating in three boss battles in a row.

The pipes (above video) ideally have a simular purpose, launching the player into the last sectino of level where they have to evade a series of traps in order to grab the big McGuffin for that area.

I think it's helpful to think of puzzles in these terms, as kind of a natural ramp between low energy sections and high energy sections rather that just a contrast with higer intensity action.

Anyway, enought rambling; here's a screenshot with another new character: