So you’re an aspiring Eets Puzzle maker, wanting to make that really bamboozling Puzzle that’ll stump everyone, or gain fame and admiration amongst our Community members. However, making a really cool puzzle is not an easy thing. Often, with the first puzzle you make, you have this really, really awesome idea in mind and proceed to place pieces down in the Puzzle Maker to make your puzzle. After you finish making your awesome puzzle though, you may find that others solve your puzzle in ways totally unintended from your official solution, or even pass your puzzle in a really trival manner. As a result, your puzzle may not get a high rating at all.

With that in mind, don’t feel discouraged! Everyone I know who’s made an Eets Puzzle has probably gone through growing pains designing a really bamboozling puzzle. In fact, yours truly experienced some growing pains while making the 100+ levels found in Eets (Some of the levels that I first made were passable without placing any items!). Even after making a bazillion Eets levels, I still think I can make even better puzzles.

So fear not! To make a really bamboozling Eets Puzzle, all it takes is a little practice, patience, and some clever thought. In fact, I’ll share with you the main point I always use when making a Puzzle.

As an example of this point, here’s a quick little ‘puzzle’ that I made. If you have Eets, go ahead and try my Puzzle!

Here’s my puzzle, the first pass. Note that both whales and the angry marshmallow bud are unlocked.

Download My Puzzle!

If you thought my puzzle was really, really easy . . . then you’re right! (If you can’t solve this puzzle, take a look at the official solution and read onward. ) This Puzzle has a few flaws (i.e. trivial solutions) to it. First off, you can simply pass this level by placing one Prankster Whale on the screen and using to shoot Eets to the goal.

If you did take a look at the official solution, what I ‘intended’ involved this:

1. Shoot the Exploding Giant Marshmallow with the Choco Pump, which will cause the Angry Marshmallow Bud to roll over towards the Prankster Whale.
2. Suck in the Angry Bud with the above-mentioned Whale and shoot it to the upper platform where Eets is standing.
3. Eets eats the above-mentioned Angry Bud, turns angry, and leaps to the top-placed Prankster Whale.
4. Use the top-placed Whale to shoot Eets into the Puzzle Shard.

My intended solution is like this . . .

Did that sound complicated? What we’ve found while making Eets puzzles is that people don’t tend to think in such complex, grand manners while trying to collect the Puzzle Shards. Usually, the first time they play a Puzzle, they want to complete it in the most straightforward way as they can (an Eets Ninja will also likely use as few items as possible.)

In any case, take a look at what most people would do with my ‘puzzle’:

1. Shoot Eets with a Prankster Whale into the goal.

. . . but in reality, more people look to do this.

To a person who wants to solve a Puzzle, it’s more likely they’ll do this rather than the more complicated ‘official’ method mentioned above. Generally, what we’ve seen is that higher rated puzzles try to avoid having trivial, one-step solutions like the one above. Rather than this, these puzzles lean towards having more involved, multi-step solutions like the official solution in my Puzzle (although, there are exceptions). However, this is where the hard part comes in. Making people try to figure out your official solution while preventing others from finding trivial, unintended solutions is probably the hardest thing about making a really cool Eets level.

However, that in itself will probably take a while to explain, so I’ll leave it for next week . Then, I’ll mention the importance of choosing what items to lock & unlock, as well as the ‘power items’ in Eets. Until then, when you’re making that bamboozling Eets Puzzle, keep in mind that:

People look for the fastest, most direct way to pass a Puzzle, not the most complicated one . . .
People look for the fastest, most direct way to pass a Puzzle, not the most complicated one . . .
People look for the fastest, most direct way to pass a Puzzle, not the most complicated one . . .*

(I’ve repeated it several times, just to get it into your head. )

Questions, comments, suggestions?

Until then, class dismissed!

* (unless you’re an Eets Ninja, who after getting Ninja Skills on your level, look for the most interesting, awesome way to pass your puzzle . . . but that’s another topic altogether. . .)