How did I design the puzzles?

Hi everyone!

I just released my submission for the GMTK Jam 2024! The Voxel Riddle

It's a puzzle game where you can change the scale of your character to become atom-sized or planet-sized, allowing you to modify elements and move celestial bodies.

You must use these abilities to solve puzzles that will challenge your thinking. Will you be able to complete all the stages?
Please consider playing it and leaving your rating and opinion!

About the game design: I had 96 hours to complete the game, and it was tough—sleep was optional for me (just kidding). The main challenge I encountered was the puzzle design. I coded everything quickly—coding is my forte! However, when it came to designing the puzzles... how do people come up with them? Solving one is tough enough!

After some research, I found that puzzles need to have three key elements:

1. GAME RULES: The basic concepts of the gameplay.
2. LINEAR SOLUTION: Once the player starts the puzzle, they should see a clear solution to follow, making them think it's easy and that they’re smart.
3. TRAP: While players follow their linear solution, they make a mistake—a wrong step that was intentionally placed.
4. DEEP THINKING: Once players realize their linear solution isn’t working, they must struggle until they discover the trap and solve it, leading to the next step.
5. EUREKA MOMENT: This is the point where players achieve their goal, feeling proud and clever. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING—the reward of a puzzle game is that brief instant where the player says "EUREKA!!"

Once I understood this, I managed to create three puzzles that followed these steps. However, considering this is an entry for a jam, not all players may enjoy puzzles, so I had to find a way to keep those players from getting bored. HINTS! After the game detects that you are struggling, a hint button appears on the screen, giving you the option to read it or not.

And there it is! The game is finished and uploaded in HTML5 to play in your browser, as well as in Windows.

Go ahead and check it out and LEAVE YOUR RATING and OPINION!!!

You also have information about this game on my website: https://mrnoupgames.com/TheVoxelRiddle/