Cozy can still ask you to think

I like a room with a comfortable chair, a clear table and a problem I cannot immediately solve. At first I may turn a piece over, make a note or follow an idea that leads nowhere. Then I notice something. My attention settles, and I want to stay with the question a little longer. That is one of my favourite ways to spend an afternoon.

The pleasure of a thoughtful cozy game can include quite demanding reasoning. There is curiosity at the beginning, effort while the problem resists, and satisfaction when something becomes clear. A warm setting can make that challenge inviting. The thinking gives you somewhere interesting to go once you have accepted the invitation.

The moment a thought takes hold

A good number puzzle offers relationships worth exploring. You begin to see how a decision in one place affects another, and the information gathers meaning. I enjoy the feeling of having a thought to follow. Even before the puzzle is finished, there can be pleasure in becoming involved enough to wonder what comes next.

The emotional journey includes the difficult parts. A promising idea may fail. A gap in your reasoning may take time to find. When the problem is fair and the information is clear, those moments can give the eventual discovery its weight. Difficulty needs a useful place in the experience, with enough support for someone to decide whether to keep trying.

A small discovery at the table

Here is a miniature example invented for this article, rather than taken from one of the games. Three cups occupy three places in a row. There is one blue cup, one rust cup and one cream cup. The blue cup is somewhere to the left of the rust cup. The cream cup is not at either end. Which cup goes where?

The cream cup must be in the middle: it has nowhere else to go. That leaves the two ends. Since blue must be to the left of rust, blue goes at the left end and rust at the right. The order is blue, cream, rust.

If that was a new kind of problem for you, there may have been a pleasing turn when the middle placement settled the rest. You can explain the answer. A small amount of information has become something you understand. An experienced solver will want more demanding relationships to untangle, but the pleasure of a deduction can begin with a very modest example.

Making the discovery yours

A satisfying explanation helps you see why a move follows. That matters to the feeling of accomplishment: you can carry the reasoning into the next problem, recognize something familiar and try an idea of your own. For the Sudoku work, I want that interest in understanding to remain close to the interest in completing a grid.

It also gives us a useful question about help: what would let this person make the next deduction themselves? A reminder of a rule might be enough. Drawing attention to a relationship might open the way. Someone else may want time to keep looking. Good support leaves room for curiosity to become confidence through the person’s own participation.

Several pleasures in one puzzle

Someone may enjoy a familiar kind of puzzle after a busy day. Someone else may want a challenge that takes the whole evening. The same person can want each on different occasions. A useful description of the rules and difficulty helps them choose the sort of experience they are hoping for, whether that is a comfortable rhythm or an absorbing stretch of effort.

This is why the studio’s interest in positive emotional journeys includes challenge. There is pleasure in getting better at something, in noticing a connection and in finding an answer you can account for. Clear controls and readable information help the puzzle hold your attention where the interesting work is happening.

When I finish, I often leave the pieces on the table for a while. I like looking at the arrangement that was so uncertain earlier. The room is much as it was when I began. I have had the pleasure of finding my way through something, and I am ready for the tea I forgot to drink.