Say you encounter a locked door in an adventure game. The player needs to find a key or something equivalent to open it. There may be alterative solutions, eg crawl through vent, but these also require specific actions or state.

This is a Rigid System.

Compare this to a first person shooter where the player encounters a monster guarding an opening. The player as many options: shoot, stealth, run, etc. No special state is needed, problem is picking best approach and surviving.

This is a Squishy System.

Rigid systems requires the player to understand what the designer was thinking. It is never clear that the player is in the right state (eg has a certain key) to overcome an obstacle. There is always the problem of getting stuck without knowing why.

Squishy Systems are always possible to complete, no special state is needed. Worst case, the player lacks resources (eg ammo) and/or skills to bypass the obstacle. In these cases, player can still try but will die. Getting stuck is not really possible as the game resets on death.

(Note that death is meant in the abstract sense. It just means some mechanic where player fails and is given a chance to have another go or potentially just skip the obstacle)

Most games rely on Squishy Systems as their bulk gameplay. Reason is that it just feels better to play in these systems. Goals are more clear and it feels like u are causing progress (eg killing monster) rather than discovering it (eg finding key) = Increased Agency.

The big question now is: What other play systems can be made Squishy? Could we make more narrative play, eg verb set of an adventure game, Squishy?

There are some interesting examples. Eg Fallen London and 80 days are sort of Squishy.

Current thinking for achieving this:

• Underlying Economy
• Interconnected Mechanics
• Open Narrative (ie not plot driven)
• Good Affordances (ie player can understand world as collection of systems)
• Trust Player (ie don't force solutions or events)

Lots of details for these points and more stuff involved too. Just wanted to give the briefest of overviews to show I think this is doable.

For now just wanted share the idea of Squishy Systems in general.

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Challenge is interesting as u do not want it to boil down to any obstacle being trivial or easily solvable with certain op mechanic.

Feels like games with combat has the same issues though and has solutions. Eg, limited resources and obstacles immune to some tactics.

Also, crucial to see the “every obstacle is always solvable" not as an issue, but as the big opportunity.

And have to be aware that reaching it will require new challenges (eg balance) and sacrificing other aspects (eg forcing player path)

Yeah, to me the solution lies in having an interesting economy where a "puzzle" means trading resources. Then some form of planning/skill element lies on top of that.

Shooter has: health & ammo + aiming & target selection.

For a generator puzzle u would want some resources (eg energy, scrap and reputation) and then interesting play (eg can always fix it by throwing resources at it, but can can risk reputation points and spend less scrap)