Puzzle Design - Githubissues

In playing the game we are most directly inspired by, Little Nightmares, I found that many of the "puzzles" are based around basic platforming and moving objects around. With that in mind and considering we are focusing on the starting area as of now, I came up with a few main interaction points and introductory mechanical sequences to introduce the player to mechanics and affordances to be used later in the game. The first sketch I have is of our starting room, wherein the player can walk off the bed, walk over to a stuffed animal, and pick it up when prompted. This will show the player how to grab things and will be a major mechanic later on. After grabbing the Teddy bear, the player can either investigate some mysterious knocking on the outer wall of her room, or leave to the hallway. Interacting with the knocking will cause the player to knock back, making the party on the other side stop.

The second interactable section is a skippable puzzle in the hallway between the bedrooms and the kitchen. The player can walk towards the foreground into her dad's office, and drag the chair to the shelf on the right, allowing her to pick up the colorful Rubik's cube (or other desirable object). This furthers the idea that the player can grab and move objects, and shows them why they may want to do so. After picking up the toy, they can leave through the hallway and continue to the right.

The third interactable section introduces the concept of climbing but doesn't actually follow through, and instead baits the player into a small animated sequence. The player will be prompted to climb up the tablecloth to get to an apple, but upon doing so, they'll pull the tablecloth off of the table accidentally. This sets the player up for later platforming beats where the the things they climb and stand on may not be so reliable. It also serves to set up an expectation to climb up something later on.

Lastly, I have a small platforming puzzle that shows the player how to climb, and what it will look like when they can. This cna be set up through brief dialogue, but wind has blown the tire swing up onto a tree branch, and your sister wants you to get it down. In order to do so, you can climb up the mossy area off the tree, and jump off, at whcih point a scripted event will knock the tire off the branch. This sets up future platforming puzzles by showing the player that mossy stuff is climbable and shows the player how to jump explicitly.

sonkiboy / Feywood

Puzzle Design #3