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Cuddleccino1 year ago

Thank you so much!

I was aware of the possible confusion about the pattern, that is why the first level actually look like the patter right away (to hint that it is not the goal). I hope it helped at least a bit. The first dialog may be rewritten in the future to highlight it even more, but it was already a bit long. There were several design difficulties in this game I did not see coming.

Thank a lot for playing. And do not worry, I have already solid plans how to expand this to a sequel! (that would actually feature most of the cut mechanics from this version). Now to find the time :D

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Gina Häußge1 year ago(+1)

That is awesome news :D

I hope you don’t mind me asking questions, but: how did you approach the puzzle design? Did you create a tool that would just chuck them out based on some rules? Because while I absolutely love puzzle games, I’m currently still way too scared to try to develop one because I wouldn’t know how to create good solvable puzzles in an amount that it is actually a game and not just a prototype.

You had a ton of them in there, to a point where I warned my partner I’d be tied to my screen a bit longer until I had solved that fun puzzle game someone had created, and with the amount of time that was available I just wonder - how did you make them all in that short time frame?

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Cuddleccino1 year ago(+1)

I don’t mind at all.

So I first created a script that would just randomly press some tiles as a prototype. Create several “tools” (the way you switch the tiles) and test if its any good. I loved it. But.

The problem with this puzzle is that it is not very intuitive even when you know exactly how it works (that’s also the reason why there is no turn limit or so). The randomized puzzles had very randomized difficulty so the pacing of the game would be awful. Just awful.

So the first step, after knowing what I’ll do, was disabling the randomizer and made the levels by hand. It started very random too, I just wrote down the level (the games took a string for example “00;010;00” and creates a tiles by it). Then I played them and I tried to identified the easy ones and the hard ones. For example the Gundulf type of ship was extremely hard, my few playtesters had a hard time to finish them. So I tried a trick: I intentionally used dark and light colors there. So hopefully the first thing a player see is a pattern made of light tiles (they are more vivid and catch an eye easily) and you are left with just two white ones, again they should guide you to press them, and voila: You solved the level! And if it is not clean the second level features the white tiles in the similar way, so you hopefully feel smart that you know the trick already and also remember the concept of this “double side swapping” for the next time.

And the randomized puzzles will come back in the sequel! After the proper tutorial, they are fun as well. But you need to be truly familiar with concept already. The game is based on the similar game that I made in high school, that featured square tiles on a growing grid and was inspired by a chest minigame in the game Zanzarah: The hidden portal (that was only 3x3, I loved it but I can solve it with closed eyes in the end of the game xD).

And thank you so much <3 I really appreciate the motivation you give me by liking the game!

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Gina Häußge1 year ago

I see! So tool supported manual design, I have to keep that in mind ☺️ Thank you for the elaborate answer!

The puzzles reminded me a bit of how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, which I finally learned earlier this year after having it on my bucket list for way too long - it triggered the same pattern recognition areas in my brain I think 👍

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