Notes on puzzle and story design
Short, practical notes on designing escape-room style puzzles, clue chains and branching stories - written while building games for friends and testing them on anyone who would sit still.
Latest notes
Hints that don't spoil
A three-step hint ladder that keeps the solving with the players.
Branching dialogue without the explosion
Keeping choices meaningful in interactive stories while the script stays manageable.
Pacing a one-hour game
Where the difficulty should sit across sixty minutes, and why the opening matters most.
Red herrings: use sparingly
Distractions add texture, but too many turn a puzzle into an audit of every object.
Building clue chains
How to link puzzles so that each answer opens the next question without dead ends.
What makes a puzzle fair
A fair puzzle can be solved from what the player has already seen. Four tests we use.