Research Framework
Puzzle Videogame Spaces investigates the relationship between puzzles, games and space, exploring how their overlapping characteristics shape the design of digital environments.
The research is structured around three interconnected concepts. Each pair forms a distinct field of inquiry, while their shared intersection is examined through two first-person puzzle games: The Witness and Manifold Garden.
01 | Puzzle & Space
When Does a Space Become a Puzzle?
The research begins by examining the relationship between puzzles and spatial structures. Labyrinths, mazes and optical illusions are studied as different ways of challenging the player's movement, spatial reasoning and visual perception.
These examples reveal an important distinction: a space can create curiosity, contemplation or disorientation without necessarily functioning as a puzzle. For a spatial structure to become a puzzle, it must meaningfully test the ingenuity of the person experiencing it.
02 | Game & Puzzle
From Problem-Solving to Play
This chapter examines the relationship between puzzles and games, considering what distinguishes a puzzle from other forms of play and how puzzles become the central activity of a videogame.
The research focuses on two important design considerations: maintaining an appropriate balance between challenge and player ability, and reducing visual noise that interferes with problem-solving. Together, these principles help create an experience in which players can understand a puzzle's rules, learn through interaction and experience the satisfaction of solving it.
03 | Video Games & Space
Space as a Medium for Gameplay
Videogame environments are not simply representations of physical architecture. Their primary purpose is to support the gameplay, allowing spatial arrangements to be shaped around player movement, navigation, interaction and understanding.
At the same time, architectural design offers tools for communicating through space. Routes, landmarks, contrasts, viewpoints and sequences of arrival can direct attention, establish orientation and contribute to environmental storytelling. Unlike physical architecture, virtual environments can also depart from real-world constraints whenever the requirements of the experience demand it.
Perspective view of Limgrave in Elden Ring (2022). The framing establishes the primary visual cues of the open-world layout, contrasting the immediate foreground landscape with the distant architectural landmark of Stormveil Castle to guide player navigation.
The cathedral entrance of Anor Londo in Dark Souls III (2016). The structure demonstrates dual-scale architectural design, employing separate dimensions for steps and gates to serve the distinct anthropometric needs of humans and giant deities within the game's lore.
04 | Puzzle Videogame Spaces
Two Approaches to Designing Playable Space
The final chapter brings the three concepts together through an analysis of The Witness and Manifold Garden. Both games use explorable environments as an essential part of the puzzle-solving experience, but they approach the relationship between space and gameplay differently.
The Witness
The analysis examines how environmental continuity, regional identity and spatial landmarks support exploration across the island. Each area has a distinct visual character, shaped by its architecture, vegetation, materials and colour palette, while the paths connecting these regions allow the player to move freely between different puzzle-solving opportunities. The environment therefore functions as both a coherent world to explore and a structure that supports the progression of gameplay.
Beyond the puzzles presented on panels, the environment itself can contain clues to be discovered through observation. Shapes formed by tree branches, shadows, changes in terrain and reflections can all become part of the solving process. This makes visual restraint essential: unnecessary details must not obscure relevant information, while the environment still needs enough detail to reward close inspection. In this way, environmental design becomes an active part of puzzle design rather than simply a backdrop for it.
Manifold Garden
The analysis explores how impossible geometry and changing gravity transform the environment into a system of navigation and problem-solving. Inspired by the spatial paradoxes associated with M. C. Escher, the world repeats endlessly in multiple directions, allowing the player to move between surfaces that would normally function as boundaries. Architecture is no longer constrained by conventional spatial relationships; instead, its geometry becomes inseparable from the rules of gameplay.
Within this complex environment, colour communicates the active direction of gravity, while recurring vertical elements and carefully arranged architectural forms help players recognise routes and identify important locations. The restrained use of textures and materials keeps the visual language focused, allowing geometry, scale and repetition to guide perception. The level design demonstrates how architectural elements can be deliberately repeated or emphasised to clarify movement and make an otherwise disorienting space more legible.
05 | Design Takeaways
The two case studies demonstrate that spatial design in puzzle videogames requires a balance between clarity and discovery. Unnecessary visual information can obstruct reasoning, while carefully selected architectural details can support navigation, communicate meaning and enrich the experience.
These principles are not universal rules. The spatial design must ultimately respond to the specific demands of the gameplay: it is not the genre alone, but the way a game is played, that determines how its environment should be designed.
