For all the talk about building Ages on a technical level, we don't talk much about the techniques of designing what goes in those Ages; and in particular puzzles. And one the key part of that is to be able to test your gameplay. When it comes to puzzles all people will react differently, some will miss information, some will understand the puzzle but try to solve it the 'wrong' way, some will try things you will never have thought possible etc.. Which is why it is so important to test.
Now we don't exactly have a lot of Ages with puzzles right now. But part of that may be because of the design/testing workflow. Maybe we can improve that?
How do you test your puzzles? Do you test them at all? If not why?Because it is long and complicated to implement a puzzle (python, SDL, visuals etc) it is better to test a puzzle out of the game. On paper. It is easier, can be done properly. It saves lots of time, and will lead to better puzzles. Take some pen and paper to draw stuff, a few random items to represent your puzzle items, and show it to people. Like an pen and paper roleplaying game.
Because again the best way to do that is with other people. You should never validate a puzzle just by yourself. We need outside perspective.
The problem we (the GoW) have here is that most of us are designing their stuff alone, 'testing' it alone. (I know: I do. 
) And part of why we do that is because we want our puzzles to be surprises, we don't want to spoil them, and so it's hard to just talk about them and ask for opinions... But we should. How do we do that?
(ha, this might even have been the case back when Uru was more popular...)
