Like summer As 2021 drags on, my mental health declines to the point of depression — and I’m certainly not the only one struggling right now. Along with other bored gamers, I’ve turned to something that’s always been there for us when we’re down: puzzle games.
I have long suffered from depression and anxiety, and during these low moments, I often choose games that challenge my brain and take over my busy mind. Whether I’m looking for clues in a puzzle-heavy detective game like Jenny LeClue: Detective or make my heart ache with the beautiful steps of Middle garden, I find that these puzzles make me feel, at least for a few moments, like I can keep my head above water.
And, as I suspected, I wasn’t the only one who shed tears over the quizzes when they got bored. Be Harsh Goyal, a dog training blogger and Rubix cube lover based in Delhi, India, who turned to puzzles amid stress and anxiety over last year’s Covid-19 lockdown. Goyal says he thinks of puzzles as a series of dots waiting to be connected in the right way.
“The eagerness to connect those dots is so strong that you get completely lost in it,” he said. “So even if I’m sad, angry or disgusted before starting any puzzle, I always end up satisfied after completing the puzzle.”
Goyal opts for grueling offline puzzles, like crosswords and the 1,000-piece sloped floor puzzle, to ease work-related stress or help him fall asleep when his head is spinning at night. But according to London-based trauma therapist Olivia James, it doesn’t matter what format your puzzles are — solving them feels good because it gives a sense of control and satisfaction.
“The thing that pleases you about the quizzes is that there are no surprises,” says James. “Nothing unexpected happens in a puzzle.”
Focusing on keeping your mind busy but not overly challenged, says James, is incredibly helpful for people with depression, anxiety, and stress because it delivers what she describes as ““ a little vacation for myself.” For some, this “light focus” takes the form of tending to the garden or cleaning the room, while for others puzzles fill the space.
However, the difference between the traditional gentle focus and the puzzle is the satisfaction of an “elegant solution” at the end, according to James. In a world filled with ever-changing norms and expectations, the clear rules and codes contained in puzzles make solvers feel in control — the rules of the puzzle won’t change completely. , so the only question is whether you can solve it.
For game developer Simon Joslin, co-founder of The Voxel Agents and level designer for Middle garden, design great puzzles is to teach players that code and then quiz them on it.
“You always accumulate knowledge because the player eventually learns the language of the game,” says Joslin of the puzzle game design.
As the player, you’ll be dropped into a world with new rules and physics, and beating the level is all about learning and applying those principles. “It’s not a language you’ve spoken before, so you need to learn the foundations of our language and understand how to use it and how not to use it,” says Joslin.
