Inside Steve Meretzky's Philosophy — If It Isn't Fun, the Puzzle Hasn't Started

Introduction — The designer behind the Babel fish puzzle

Steve Meretzky designed text adventures at the American company Infocom. His best-known works are Planetfall, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which he co-wrote with Douglas Adams.

This piece reads the person, not the works, through his own words. In short, his talk swings between two points: a puzzle that is not fun has failed, and difficulty is also part of the appeal. That swing is what makes him interesting as a puzzle designer.

Background — From second tester to author

By his own account, Marc Blank, Infocom's head of development, hired him as the company's second tester. About a year later he was offered the chance to write his own game, which became Planetfall (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2001). source ↗

So he began on the side that plays and breaks other people's games. I read the experience of watching where testers get stuck as a foundation for his later puzzle design, but I found no source where he says so himself, so this is my inference.

Philosophy — It needs to be fun

Asked for the most important principle, he answered: "Same as for any game - it needs to be fun." (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2001). In his telling, too hard, too easy, too repetitive, or unfair puzzles all boil down to the game not being fun. source ↗

He also described Infocom's development approach: "a development philosophy at Infocom, which was to kind of have a little fun with the player and try to always hit them with the unexpected" (MIT Technology Review, 2009). He spoke of a feeling that player and writer were in a little game of "cat and mouse." source ↗

Side by side, they suggest that fairness is a means, not a goal, for him: it protects the fun. And surprising the player is stated as a design policy, not a prank.

Obsessions — Giving the world an "else"

His signature puzzles are often praised for attention to detail. In the T-removing machine of Leather Goddesses of Phobos, besides the main task of turning "untangling cream" into "unangling cream," many unrelated reactions exist: a tray becomes "Ray," a rabbit becomes a rabbi. Jimmy Maher draws the lesson: do not ignore the "else" in the "if, then, else" (The Digital Antiquarian, 2018). source ↗

Meretzky himself commented on Planetfall's red herrings, saying in essence that they were intentional, not leftovers of unfinished puzzles, and that they gave the world texture (comment on The Digital Antiquarian, 2013). source ↗

The puzzle he names as his favorite is the coal-mine time-travel puzzle in Sorcerer: you go back and give your younger self a clue you learned only afterward. He says the King Mitre puzzle arrived whole in the half-awake moment just before waking (Spillhistorie, 2024). source ↗

Failures — The Space Bar did not sell

Asked about his biggest disappointment, he named The Space Bar: it took far more work than any game he had made, he thought it came out well, and it got great reviews, but it "sold like bat guano" (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2001). source ↗

His answer also points to what came after: "I'm much less interested in catering to the hard-core gamer, more interested in things that will have a broader appeal to a more casual type of game player." He does not leave the failure at regret; by his own account he changed who he builds for. source ↗

He also talks about failure at Infocom's scale: when a section did not work, "One person wasted one month," compared with today's five person-years. Experiments were cheap to lose (MIT Technology Review, 2009). source ↗

Dilemmas — Wanting it hard, wanting it played

Hitchhiker's Guide was made after he and Adams discussed that adventure games were "becoming a little too easy." Testers strongly urged that it be made easier (as quoted by Jimmy Maher from Get Lamp and the book Game Design Theory and Practice, The Digital Antiquarian, 2013). source ↗

According to Maher, Meretzky remains unrepentant about the difficulty: he felt that wrestling with a game for weeks or months until the "Eureka!" moment was a huge part of Zork's appeal. The same person later says he is much less interested in the hard-core gamer. source ↗

These look contradictory, yet both are things he said publicly. I treat them as a record of one person imagining different readers at different times, not as a contradiction.

Influences — Zork and the people around him

Few influences can be confirmed from his own words; three can. One is Zork, whose appeal he located in long struggle followed by sudden insight. Another is Marc Blank, who hired him as a tester and gave him the chance to write a game. The third is Douglas Adams, his co-author, with whom he discussed the direction of Hitchhiker's Guide.

On The Space Bar, he calls concept artist Ron Cobb "truly funny and creative" and says he contributed countless ideas to the design itself (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2001). source ↗

I found no source where he names other works or books as influences, so I do not guess.

Kizuki's reading

This part alone is my opinion. I read Meretzky as someone who designed puzzles as a conversation between writer and player. He says he cherished the feeling of a game of "cat and mouse." The two demands, keeping fairness while surprising, fit together once you see it as conversation: you imagine what the other side will think and place a small trick one step ahead.

I also read his defense of difficulty and his later turn toward a broader audience as a change in who he was talking to, not as a reversal. This goes a step beyond his words; he did not explain it that way himself.

Closing — Where to start

If text adventures are new to you, start with the story of the T-removing machine in Leather Goddesses of Phobos, or with Sorcerer, the line of work he is proudest of. His principle that fun comes first should be easy to see there.

If the difficulty question draws you, read Hitchhiker's Guide alongside Maher's article. Next I want to look at designers who built puzzle logic in the same era.

Sources

Sources consulted:

・Adventure Classic Gaming: Steve Meretzky interview(2001年5月公開)

・Spillhistorie: Q&A with game designer Steve Meretzky(2024年7月)

・MIT Technology Review: Author of Play(2009年2月24日)

・The Digital Antiquarian: Planetfall(2013年3月、Meretzky 本人のコメント含む)

・The Digital Antiquarian: Hitchhiking the Galaxy Infocom-Style(2013年11月)

・The Digital Antiquarian: Ten Great Adventure-Game Puzzles(2018年11月)