Time limit on puzzle games: yea or nay?

Question

Of course, it goes without saying that this can only work when the puzzle is randomly generated (say, something like minesweeper/bejeweled) and not hand-designed levels (such as trainyard, theseus & the minotaur etc).

I am currently thinking that this can instill a sense of urgency to the player and make them feel more challenged. Along with increasing the actual puzzle difficulty, a time restriction could be another way to increase difficulty, and the combination of both can be used as a way to give a sense of progress.

Also possibly, incremental time increases when solving parts of the puzzle (like time extensions in racing games) could be used for these games.

What I'm wondering about is, what's the accepted thought about using time limits? Would they work as I'm currently thinking or am I missing anything?

Answer 1

Some thoughts about puzzle time limits:

1. You can have soft time-limits. With this, the game will not allow you to move to the next level because you didn't solve the puzzle in time, but you can still continue playing just to learn strategies, etc.
2. Many people play puzzle based games for relaxation purposes, so it might not make sense in certain scenarios.
3. A tiered reward system (5 stars for < 1 min, 4 stars for < 1:30) might make sense. This allows those who want to get the highest score, get the highest score, and those who don't care will still be able to progress.
4. Some non-random puzzle games still have time limits. There is a graph coloring game for iOS (whose name I can't think of) that has pre-made levels whose main goal is to beat under the time limit. The actual puzzle is easy, but the time limit is the main cause of difficulty

Answer 2

I'm not sure why you say that time limits can't work on hand-designed levels. I'd say that they're more reasonable on hand-designed levels, because you can test and work out what the minimum time necessary is and what a reasonable extension is for the limit.

However, a hard time limit (out of time => lose the level) is more appropriate for the arcadey early days of video game design. If you're not getting paid per play, it's a good idea to tone down the frustration of being half a second too slow - and, while you're at it, make the game playable by people which physical limitations which make them slower than the average player - by using soft time limits. In other words, out of time means no time bonus, but you can still complete the level. (As an example, see my game The Track Controller). Then you can get into achievements for completing X levels with time bonus, etc. (Not sure why I didn't think of that back then).

Answer 3

I'd say, the harder it is in the first place the less need for a time limit. Bejeweled wouldn't work very well without some sort of time control, in more complicated games the limit may just be annoying.

You could make multiple different game modes with different timing systems, try out what works and give the player some options.

Answer 4

Tetris and Doctor Mario have time limits in the sense that you have to act on every brick within a given time, and the time allocated becomes more scarce as the game becomes faster.

Doctor Mario for example, has a specific puzzle to solve with bricks that fall fast like tetris, and after a given time limit the game becomes impossible to play due to the speed of play.

It's a very popular game system which gives a constant and increasing sense of pace and anticipation, of continual time pressure on the player.

Given the sales figures of those to games, You can say that suspense inducing, continuous rather than final time constraints and fast thinking can be a very challenging and interesting attribute for a game.