Musings on metapuzzles ⁽⁶⁾

The Tunic post might come later, but for now I'll try to put together some sort of takeaways that don't spoil stuff:

• The definition I'm working with for metapuzzle is a puzzle that brings together information or resources across a broader scope than a single puzzle.
• In a puzzlehunt, information usually takes the form of puzzle answers, which can be combined either on their own or with some additional information (a shell).
  • In a puzzle game, the information can take many different forms (codes, rules knowledge, lore/story knowledge...), so there needs to be a way to determine what's even part of the metapuzzle.
• In a puzzlehunt, resources are usually more abstract like a count of puzzles solved, or something other than the answer that you're given as you solve each puzzle.
  • In a puzzle game, that can be something like an object in the puzzle's rule system like "you get a block in the overworld when you solve a puzzle", or a more complex way to affect the metapuzzle's state.
• Puzzlehunt metas are usually solvable without solving all of the puzzles that feed into them, but the more you have the easier they get.
• Looking for commonalities is a common skill in puzzlehunt puzzles, and doing so in a puzzle game can be a first step in its own metapuzzle.
• Breaking the abstraction layer and having the meta more deeply interact with individual puzzles makes design a lot more complex, but oftne makes the experience more cool and memorable.

Thanks for reading!

Here are some weird things puzzlehunts do with metas that I haven't been able to fit somewhere else. The one thing I'll be spoiling is the Hell, MI round from the 2024 Mystery Hunt.

It was harder to find a specific example of an information-based meta that wasn’t a huge spoiler, so I'll be kind of vague and handwavy there. I'll use Myst as kind of an example, but the spoilers are again pretty vague and early-game.

At the start of this I defined metapuzzles as being about collecting information or resources, but as I bring it around to actually talking about puzzle games I'll flip the order and talk about resources first.

This'll have some extremely minor early spoilers for Talos Principle 1 and Bonfire Peaks, and significant spoilers for the Hall of Innovation and Factory Floor rounds from the 2023 MIT Mystery Hunt.

If you're familiar with puzzlehunts, this one might be a little redundant. If you aren't, here's a pretty detailed post with an introduction to the sorts of puzzles you see there.

I'll be spoiling an old puzzle of mine: Wario, from the 2021 Microsoft Puzzlehunt. If you want to try solving it yourself, you can check the final answer here, or the individual minipuzzles at 9-Volt, Ashley, Dribble & Spitz, Jimmy T, Mona, Orbulon. There's a full solution here.