The Best Experiments Are Functional

In games of logical induction, players perform experiments to learn how the game works. These create the reward of feeling clever for figuring out secrets, but it can be frustrating when an experiment provides little useful information and players feel their efforts are wasted. To prevent this, you can make experiments functional by giving them a purpose beyond learning information.

The game Alchemists asks you to uncover the secrets of eight potion ingredients by combining them into potions and identifying their properties. You have several ways to identify the effect of a potion, including drinking it yourself or having a student drink it for you. By far the most exciting method, however, is selling the potion to an adventurer. When you sell a potion, you must offer a quality guarantee based on your confidence that the potion is correct, and receive gold coins if it lives up to this guarantee.

The information you gain from selling a potion is slightly weaker than from drinking it yourself, but earning money makes it more exciting than the alternatives. It also leads to different strategies. You might focus on earning money even if you don't learn new information, or take wild swings with weak guarantees that pay some coins even if you are wrong. Incorporating a resource acquisition subgame into the information-gathering subgame makes both stronger than the sum of their parts.

Allowing players to choose the level of risk adds a push-your-luck element to testing. You are gambling on your understanding of the ingredients. If you are confident about the experiment's outcome, you can gain a lot of money. If you are guessing blindly, you may prefer a lower-risk bet. This creates a stronger emotional investment by heightening the stakes.

Alchemy and potions seem to be a natural fit for functional experiments. Skyrim also has a potion-making subgame that teaches you what ingredients do as you use them to craft useful consumables. Many classic roguelikes such as Nethack or Brogue have unidentified potions that you can test by drinking them, providing an immediate effect that may save or doom you depending on the situation in which you drink it. The approach extends beyond potions, however. Any time you ask players to perform experiments to learn information, including concrete rewards besides information, immediately makes the subgame more compelling.