How to Fix Outdated Puzzle Design in Games

I don' t want to spoil the title, but there was one gamescom presentation that stuck with me for the wrong reason. It showed a scene, where the player had to find a hidden door behind a shelf. The hint was... scratches on the floor! It reads instantly, but felt dated and there were laughs from the audience, because it is such an overused cue.

There are cleaner, diegetic ways to signal a movable shelf:

• A thin rim of light around the shelf.
• A faint draft that makes dust dance or a nearby candle flicker.
• A subtle wobble when the player bumps the shelf at the right spot.
• A low wind sound that gets louder when the player gets close.

Using in-world signals to nudge the player in the right direction before they consciously look for it is called signposting. The rule of thumb is simple: layer two soft hints plus one strong hint at the interaction point, keep them grounded in the world and make at least one of them work without relying on vision. That way the solution feels discovered, not explained.

In short: Good puzzles emerge from world logic, not decoration. Embed clues in the environment to respect players, improves readability, support accessibility and make the solution discovered, not explained.