Do Not Puzzle the Puzzle Player: When Communicability Issues Influence Playability

Puzzle games are a popular category of games whose goal is to challenge players by offering them hard problems to be solved. Nowadays, it is possible to find several games from this category available to computers, mobile devices, and on the Internet. However, sometimes, to increase its difficulty, game designers might puzzle the player, by offering challenges which they find difficult to understand regarding what needs to be done in order to evolve. On the other hand, we underline the concept of communicability, which refers to the users’ capability to understand the interface design as it was conceived by the designers. In this context, our question is: May communicability failuresimpact game playability and the users’ first-hour experience? To answer it we present a qualitative research in which we conducted a user observation using the Communicability Evaluation Method. Our findings show that the unavailability of help resources in games can affect the game communicability, and we lead a discussion regarding the importance of this kind of resource, not only to help gamers understand how the game works and how to interact with it, but also to support them to evolve and to engage in the game.