Ideas for minigames/puzzles?

[Blake337]

Hello everyone. I'm currently writing a suspense/sci-fi VN in which you investigate a deserted laboratory searching for the corpse of a scientist who mysteriously died. My idea is that you need to find several passwords to open a vault where he's trapped in (or his corpse, rather), and in order to get those passwords, I was thinking you might have to go into rooms that lock themselves, give you a sort of puzzle or minigame, and if you succeed you get the password for the main door and the room you're in unlocks.

The problem is, I have no idea what those puzzles could be. I was thinking about making them escape the room-like puzzles, but I have no experience with imagemaps and the such (although I could learn). Another problem might be that it could feel too similar to 999 (which I did draw inspiration from, but I don't want to make a crappy clone).

What other ideas can you think of, that involve some kind of gameplay? Think of something a sorta cruel scientist would do to screw intruders over, but is still doable if you know what you're doing.

[Kia]

I can think of many games involve time, order, chance and many other element but I'm not sure how good is your coding skills so I'll mention few simple ones.
keypad with required code
finding the hidden object
pushing piano keys in correct order
decryption a message
plug devices together
keep something at a specific range (like heat)
catch/shoot something
combine things
I think anything can be turned to a puzzle...

[Parataxis]

What if you were just solving the puzzles to get the clues, but weren't locked in the room? Either the door to proceed is locked, or else even there's no lock at all and you just don't have the character let the player leave. (Except maybe once for dramatic effect you can have the room lock on you.) That could reduce the 999 feel certainly.

As for actual puzzles, I think the setting you have is ripe with puzzle opportunities! Maybe you have to fix some piece of equipment that's broken, or you have to make a chemical solution based on instructions, or, depending how long the lab has been abandoned, maybe you have to find an escaped lab animal. Virtue's Last Reward, with it's slightly more sciencey flavor could definitely work to give you ideas of specific elements to use.

[Weonix]

I think some questions that may help are:
Who set the puzzles and codes?
Why do they set those puzzles and codes?
Who is intended to solve the puzzle? Is it only for themselves or intended for a specific person?

People may tends to set puzzles around their own specialty. If them don't want others to solve it, they probably would not leave clues within the areas, perhaps some cryptography. However, if them intend for only some specific person to solves it, then it would probably involves knowledge that they would have.