Esther's Quest

March's project is going really well so far! I finally have a name for the project: I'm calling it Esther's Quest. The name comes from a song I like that I was listening to while I was working on it.

Last week, I ended my article by talking about how I wanted to open the game up a bit more, making the level design non-linear to make it more like an adventure than just a series of puzzles. I'm happy to report that this has been going really well so far! Thus far, I would describe the game as an adventure game where puzzles are your means of traversing from one area to the next.

Changing the mirror mechanic

In case you didn't read my previous article, the concept of the game was that you had to cooperate with a mirror image of yourself to solve some of the puzzles. However, until this week, that mechanic was more of an environmental concept. That is, your reflection was built into each level, starting at a very specific location somewhere. I made two changes to this idea to make it fit the adventure-like structure of the game I'm going for:

1. You control where you place your reflection (or whether you even want to place it at all).

   To activate the mirror, you hold a button, which locks your movement. Now, you control a cursor, which can move anywhere (even through walls!) except through a special kind of fog (indicated by the yellow tiles - excuse the placeholder art). When you let go of the button, your reflection materializes wherever you've placed the cursor (as long as you didn't try to drop it somewhere illegal, like a wall or door).

   

2. The mirror is an unlockable item.

   You don't start the game with the mirror unlocked. This allowed me to foreshadow its use while players explore.

   

So those are the only major changes I made to the mirror mechanic (aside from the shader that makes your reflection grayscale - cool, huh?). It's been a joy developing some of the puzzles (I don't want to spoil too many of them, though!).

Stray thoughts on level design

As I've been constructing this little world to explore, I've been thinking a lot about non-linear level design. Here are a few common themes that keep coming up for me:

1. Foreshadowing and Backtracking

   For this game, I want to design levels that the player must find their way through, rather than ones that they are guided through. The main difficulty in completing the level isn't the execution of your inputs on the controller, but rather in reasoning through the level as though it were a real space and figuring out where to go next.

   There are many opportunities for backtracking, as I don't always want the way forward to be right in front of the player. Sometimes, I want the way forward to be in a room you've already explored. I already showed one example of this above (the room with the treasure chest), but here's another one:

   

   This is the second room you come across in the level, and you can't go into the room to the left without a key. Since you won't start with the key you need, you'll have to go find it and remember to come back. The difficulty is actually finding the key and then remembering where this room is relative to your current location in the level. Thus far, the level is filled with lots of moments like these.

2. Choices

   To give the player the experience of exploring an unfamiliar space, I wanted to give them lots of options on where to go. In the previous screenshot, you can see that there are four different exits (you first enter this room from the one on the bottom). Which way is the way forward? You won't find out unless you explore.

   The tricky thing is, I don't want to overwhelm players with too many options. That's why, even though you have many options right off the bat, a lot of them are actually dead-ends (at least in the beginning). There will either be a key you need or a puzzle you can't yet solve with your current toolset in most of the rooms you can visit right off the bat. The idea is that more of the level becomes accessible to you as you explore it more.

3. Loops

   As I mentioned before, sometimes I want players to have to go to a room they've already visited in order to progress through the game. The problem with that is that it's not always fun to go through an area you've already been through. That's why I've built some looping structures in the level that make it easier to get back to the room(s) you need to return to when the time comes.

   Here's an example of a loop I've already built. This is a portion of the level so far:

   

   If you follow the path in red, you will find a key and will eventually end up back in the same room you started in (it just so happens to drop you off in the room in which you need the key. Isn't that convenient?). The player has to backtrack to the room in the lower left once they have the key, but the level design guarantees that it won't be a chore to do so. In fact, in this case, the player doesn't have to really think about how to get back to the room at all. I promise that some of the other loops in the level will require some more thought!

Building up to a demo

Ultimately, I'd like to have a playable demo by the middle of the month. I have the entire level planned out, it's just a matter of actually building it. However, even after the level is built, I have a lot of things I'd like to have done before I release a demo. The main thing I think the game is missing right now is audio. There's no music, and there are no sound effects at all. I'll make sure I add some of those before I have people play it.

That's about all I have to say for this week. Stay tuned for next week, where I'll give some more updates on my progress on Esther's Quest!