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Episode 07: Samarth Hattangady (Konkan Coast Pirate Solutions)
224 Plays3 months ago
In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Samarth Hattangady, the developer behind Konkan Coast Pirate Solutions. Topics include how Samarth started making games, learning how to design great puzzles throughout development, and his experiences with the Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Introductions
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Dragneck and Friends official podcast where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Saren, the producer at Dragneck and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazilden, the head dragneck at Dragneck and Friends. Hey.
Guest Introduction: Samarth and 'Konkan Coast Pirate Solutions'
00:00:38
Speaker
Today, we're joined by Samarth, who you may know from their work on Konkan Coast Pirate Solutions. How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm doing good. Nice to be here. Awesome. So, do you want to tell us a bit about the game?
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So Concon Coast Pirate Solutions is a cozy puzzle game about helping pirate ships do pirate things. So it's it's based on a grid and the idea is that you have to figure out how the pirate ships navigate. So you start off by placing some tokens on the grid and you press play and see how everything works out.
00:01:14
Speaker
So the idea is that you need to understand how the ships behave with each other, with the tokens and what the different goals are. So there's a focus on like rule discovery. So it's light on tutorial sometimes to its own demise. But ah the idea is that you slowly understand what the different interactions between ships and tokens and the different elements are. And hopefully there's an interesting story to go along with that.
Transition to Game Development and Inspirations
00:01:42
Speaker
Awesome. So taking us all the way back, what got you into game development in the first place? ah Yeah, so I was used to be a ah web developer before this. So working in a bunch of startups across Bangalore. So I think that was all done in languages like Python and JavaScript. And at some level, I thought ah maybe learning a lower level language would be beneficial to me in my craft as a programmer. So I started off with trying to learn C and then kind of stumbled into game development because I just wanted
00:02:19
Speaker
something to make using C and a lot of the people who use C or C++ plus plus generally are making things like games and then I think I kind of found a few interviews or podcasts or talks about puzzles specifically and it just seemed like it's as good a choice as any other but then slowly I got a taste for it and then it it got more and more interesting I think I am not somebody who gamed a lot growing up or I wasn't passionate about video games playing but it's the kind of craft itself that pulled me in
00:02:56
Speaker
that once I started making games, I kind of understood just how deep the field is, just how expressive the medium can be. And I think puzzle games was something that is at least from a ah coding point of view ah easier to make because there is not as much requirement for mechanics because things are like kind of slow and generally go step by step and there's no like physics or multiplayer or things like that so ah and then it's it's just kind of got deeper and deeper as I went that understanding how games are made and seeing how like
00:03:34
Speaker
people who are competent at making games and making puzzles specifically just how much of an art there is to that and that just kept drawing me in deeper and deeper so I started off kind of at a in a way that's not very common but then I kind of got sucked into it so but I'm glad to be here now I guess yeah Yeah, I mean, that's actually kind of a similar journey I went on where initially I started making games just as a, it seemed like a fun programming challenge, like ive I was into programming. um Games are a thing you can do with programming. And yeah, like it took me a while too to go from like, oh, this is something I can do as a fun programming challenge to like, oh, this is this is kind of fun in of its own right to be like, oh, this is really creatively rewarding.
00:04:22
Speaker
And then the final step for me was like, Oh, now, now I hate programming. ah I'm curious. So you said that you're consuming material about puzzle games and that made you go like, Oh yeah, this is as plausible as anything. Like, were there any specific puzzle games at the time that particularly drew your attention? I think it was, uh, I came across like Stephen Sausage role in, uh, some talk or some essay or something about it. And the message about the game was that.
00:04:53
Speaker
It's like the pinnacle of design in some ways that it's very pure in what it's trying to do and it does it very well. And that for me was like a beacon that I could say, okay, like, okay, this is, ah I mean, I don't remember exactly where i I came across it, but I trusted the information enough to dive in and it was brutally difficult. I think it took me ah many months and many attempts to even get started. But I think that was the first foray into it and then getting into a couple of discords and including the thingy puzzle discord and just seeing just how people think about it and how people talk about it. So I was playing puzzle games just before I started making them. And that was my first entry, which I don't know if I would recommend anyone else get into it that way. but
00:05:44
Speaker
I managed to finish it and it was such a compelling and rewarding experience that then I kind of got the hang of it, right? Because it feels like puzzle games are kind of a conversation ah between the developer and the player. I mean, I understand these things now. I didn't understand them in these terms at that point, but I think I kind of felt something like that, that what the developer is doing is finding very interesting things and then presenting them to the player.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I think that was the first game I remember playing. ah Then I played a bunch of the other ah like Witness and Portal and like A Good Snowman is hard to build. ah And I think I slowly got into the the scene, you can call it from there. And I think, yeah, that's how ah that's the early games that I played were probably these. I don't remember if there were any other specific ones, but these really stand out.
00:06:37
Speaker
Sure. And yeah, I mean, I think from playing Conchome Coast Pirate Solutions, you do really get a sense of like, oh, this is a game where the designer is interested interested in showing me interesting situations, interesting interactions. Did you have that realisation fairly early on in, actually, ah before we go there, like was this game one of the first puzzle games you made or had you made other smaller projects before it?
00:07:03
Speaker
I think ah I'll say it's like the second game I made. The first one it's called This Mouse Will Swim. It's a Sokoban where you're a mouse and you're trying to push an ice cube into like a pit where it at least in the fantasy of the game it it melts and you can swim there and it's the general like ice mechanics where if the land is frozen then like you slide across it as well as if you push an ice block it keeps moving until it's stopped by something else and specifically ah when you push an ice block it freezes the ground so it's like those three things kind of combine and that was the first game I i made.
00:07:44
Speaker
I didn't start off as something else but i say that once i got deeper into it i remember one point where. I had an idea that, or at least I had a belief that every ah cell in the puzzle has to matter. So there there's no extra in a cell anywhere and ah like in the in the grid. And I felt that the levels were very clunky and I posted asking for advice on on the Discord. And ah someone said like, you don't have to do that. You can just have extra cells as long as it gives space for the player to do things that are not crucial to solving the puzzle.
00:08:21
Speaker
ah like specifically if you need to push a block back inside and there is a ah two block, I mean I think this is kind of hard to explain but basically I got feedback that says that that principle doesn't make sense and what you should be doing is trying to funnel players towards the interesting things and ah so don't try to have rigid things in your games and I think that helped.
00:08:49
Speaker
Uh, but I would, I don't think I would say that the, that game is complete. Like I finished it and released it, but I released it mostly because I was tired and I had a bunch of things and I just want to be done. I think there's a little bit more there. I don't think I'm going to go and expert again, but I think, yeah, that was, that was the first game I'll say I made a couple of game jams. I think I took part in again, back when I didn't understand this idea of.
00:09:17
Speaker
helping the player out. That ah your role as a designer is to help the player understand what's interesting. not do ah You're not their adversary. You are their consultant, I guess. So I made a couple of game jam games where I didn't understand that. But again, ah I think someone in the Discord pointed out either my game or in a very similar game that don't make everything hard to do. Just make the interesting thing, the the crux of the puzzle and and make everything else simple and easy for the player to understand what is interesting and what's not.
Design Philosophy: Balancing Level Size and Player Experience
00:09:52
Speaker
So that was yeah the first learnings, I guess. yeah
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah it's interesting you commented specifically about um making levels as compact as possible and how you found that in that game that might actually be a bad thing because there's this tension where like it's very easy to design a puzzle which has a very rigid set of solution steps of like oh yeah you need to do this thing here and then this thing there and because you've got a tiny space to work in every step is like really constrained and you need to think a lot and A lot of the time those puzzles can be hard, but they can be hard in a way that is maybe kind of samey with other games of the same type, or might have might be samey among all the levels, and they're not hard because there's a single interesting realisation that you're having to have that's like a unique realisation to this specific level.
00:10:47
Speaker
But at the same time, like before this conversation, I think I would have just said like, no, yeah, you should make your levels as small as possible. And the the place I come from with that is like a lot of the time beginning designers make really big levels. And then to execute an idea, you need to like walk halfway across the level and grab a block and then push it over here and then go over there and then grab something. And and there's a lot of steps that are just busy work and just like, okay, well I need to do A. I can see that I need to do A. But to do A is going to take like five seconds of just moving around the level. And that's also bad in its own way. And so it's interesting that, yeah, if you make things too small, you'll have the opposite problem of like, there'll be too many sub-steps between the actually interesting things to reason about. Yeah.
00:11:34
Speaker
I think yeah specifically the word I use is claustrophobic and ah you need to be claustrophobic in the places where the puzzle is, so not in the busy work.
00:11:45
Speaker
I think that that was kind of what I learned from that specific piece of feedback that ah like someone saw my level and clearly could see that a couple of like extensions were just to facilitate one mechanic which were not core to the puzzle at all. And having it over constrained and over claustrophobic was just making it annoying more than interesting. So I think that was the ah Again, like one of the things that really pointed me in a direction to show just how ah much variety and depth and wonder there is in all of these things. ah What are some other puzzle games that you've played since getting into this and maybe even since releasing Konkan Coast Pirate Solutions
Discussion on Recent Puzzle Games and Short Experiences
00:12:33
Speaker
that have like inspired you or made you think differently about the space?
00:12:38
Speaker
all Alright, so I think ah I really like Patrick's Powerbox. I think that's a game that has some of my ah aesthetic in mind where it could have been a lot more difficult, ah but it it's really constrained in that, like ah Patrick shows a lot of constraint in making sure that the levels are as simple as possible so that players can interface with the things that are interesting. ah I think a lot of really small games are fun. ah Like recently, I think Hempoli posted ah that the circular, soup one I don't remember what it's called, but
00:13:21
Speaker
I think a lot of the things that I have now gained appreciation for are the really small games that have one idea and deliver on that really strongly rather than large games. Because I think now that I have taste as a designer, I also have a lot of annoyances that that I find come up in a lot of things, um where if things are either too slow or too fast, I don't ah push through them the same way I did before.
00:13:50
Speaker
To my own demerit, I feel like I get what the puzzle is about or what the system is about and then I don't push through. But a lot of the smaller games I find very interesting because ah they very quickly present exactly what they're all about and then let you discover that and then let you go. right I think there is a lot of ah value in having a short but packed experience.
00:14:20
Speaker
Rather than ah something that's a long and drawn out for the sake of filling in more levels ah though, of course, I think that That I come at it from a point where I think I'm I don't like very hard puzzles anymore because it feels like it's not the same value for my time whereas I like the short and easy puzzles, but I There is a trade-off there where the developer of the game is trying to have some kind of learning curve of their own, which is also to onboard players who are not as familiar with games. And I think that's something that I am still not able to oh enjoy, I guess, in the sense that even though I understand the pacing is slower than I'd like for a very specific purpose, sometimes it it kind of irks me.
00:15:15
Speaker
but I also get it, and i I do play a lot of games, so I bounce off them very easily. So that's why I think, coming back to the question, though the short, sweet, and tight games are the ones that I enjoy the most. Going off of talking about your feelings about onboarding and pacing, how did you how did you start thinking about the onboarding in Konkankost? Okay, so I think, again,
00:15:45
Speaker
It's not a great example, like Onkon Coast. We can call it KCPs if that makes it easier. But I don't think that it's ideal for the general audience it ended up being for. So over the course of making KCPs, I changed my understanding of what a good puzzle is. so like I used to think going in that having things that are difficult and complicated and complex and hard to figure out is a good puzzle. But over the course of making that game, especially because those systems lead to like extreme amounts of complexity or complications which are not foreseeable. right there's There's a lot of interactions that happen that you cannot be expected to foresee.
00:16:30
Speaker
So that system can very well lead into a series of levels that are extremely difficult to solve because they are complicated, because the systems lean into it. But over the course of making the game, I realized that oh interesting puzzles are good, not difficult puzzles. And sometimes they need to be difficult so that you can find the interesting thing, but that's not always the case. So over the course of making that game, I changed my focus in the game to make levels that are more interesting. So I'd say that it's perfectly based only for me to to my sensibilities,
Onboarding Challenges in 'KCPs'
00:17:10
Speaker
which means that for a lot of, um like I'll say, expert or hardcore puzzle players, it suits their taste well if they give it a shot. But for the average player, it doesn't, which is overall, I think, a flaw in the game because it
00:17:27
Speaker
aims at an audience and it doesn't necessarily deliver exactly what they're expecting in the sense that ah Like what I see that a lot of ah hardcore players or niche players like is a lot of ah A, difficult levels that ah come over the course of the game and B, a lot of meta puzzles that allow them to rethink ah all the mechanics that they've seen and things like that. And I personally don't like those all that much. So what ended up happening is I thought I was taking the game towards a more general side, but I didn't do that.
00:18:03
Speaker
at all. So essentially, it's just perfectly placed for people with my temperament and my interests, which overall means that it's for a very like designed for a very small audience. right So specifically, ah while playtesting, the people who are very familiar with puzzle games would finish it in an hour.
00:18:23
Speaker
and people who are not if they manage to slog through would take maybe four or five hours for the main main path of the game which is i think uh not ideal overall in terms of pacing. So I did not really think that much about onboarding for a player who doesn't like the kinds of things that I like, which is specifically rule discovery and trying different things out and seeing what works because the game is all about that. It's all about understanding how the different things and experimenting and trying things out.
00:18:56
Speaker
And the mechanics and the UI is all designed in such a way that encourages that kind of exploration. And not all players who are not familiar with puzzle games do that. And a lot of players who do play a lot of puzzle games ah may not have either understood what this game is or may not have ah liked it because it doesn't deliver everything else that they need.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I i think it's it's just generally very, very difficult to balance that approachability versus interestingness versus depth. It's easy to to have regrets about like, oh, well, this this didn't end up being like great for a general audience or great for a really, really thinky audience, but more great for the for some people in the middle. but like Actually like aiming for any of these audiences is very hard and so if if there is just a ah group of people who it does hit well for then like you're already doing pretty well. Do you... Just one more thing to add to that I think.
00:19:59
Speaker
A lot of these things I understood after making the game. So while making the game, I was just making what I thought was good for my taste. And then I think I realized a lot of these things about the market and different kinds of players after the game came out. And I don't know if changing the game to suit or or to target any of these things is something that I'm interested in doing or would improve the game as a whole. But I just wanted to like put that out there. I think that I made the game and in the best way that I knew and I'm really happy with it and I hope more people play it but also I understand why they may or may not yeah. Yeah because that that was going to be my next question is like do you have a sense of like oh maybe maybe I should have done this or maybe I should have done that but it sounds like you're happy with where the game i ended up and you're not overthinking it.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, ah for me it's like it was my first game and I knew I was going to learn a lot and I learned a lot and some of the things that I learned were about how to like position a game, how to market it in terms of having a very clear messaging as to what the game is, which I think the game like KCPAs itself kind of struggles with from a very like inherent way that the mechanics or why the game is interesting is not easy to show
00:21:19
Speaker
with a video or a tweet or a gif. So at the offset, it's a little hard for people to understand because there aren't too many other games that are very similar. So I can't just say it's like XYZ game. So that was yeah something that I learned about after finishing the game, but I'm happy with having learned that and having made the kind of game that I love. Yeah. I mean, you can't can't do much better than that.
00:21:48
Speaker
Absolutely. Looking back on it, outside of the lessons learned, is there a particular part of the project that ended up being your favorite part to work on? Either like a specific mechanic or something more specific to the process like learning how to position or market?
00:22:12
Speaker
I think I did some things that I have not seen other games do and which suit what the game I was making very well. So for example, I have a set of levels that are called demonstration levels basically, where since the game is such that your the player places the board and sets it up as they want and then kind of presses play and sees how it pans out, there are some levels where the game i mean The level starts off with everything set up and the player just presses play and sees it solve itself. And that came from a place of finding a bunch of like very interesting and fun things, but not things that I could easily convert into a level in a way that was
00:22:59
Speaker
ah suited the rest of the game. so But I thought that the way that things played out were like very interesting. So I ended up putting in a few of these levels which are become pre-solved and the player just watches the solution and hopefully finds it interesting. right And I think that was ah one thing that I really liked. I thought that that was a a nice way for me to share some of the things that I found.
00:23:25
Speaker
And another thing I think was the response from a few players that when you see someone play what you've made and really get it, like to a very deep level where ah you've done a lot of these small things and the player understands how what you were thinking when you put them in and and they get the same thing out. I think that was very special for me that once the game came out, I had a few players who It felt like they really understood what I was trying to say and trying to do, and that was extremely rewarding, right? So I think ah if I had to say my favorite part would be that, that seeing players understand what you're trying to say and enjoy that. Awesome. Is there anything while we're here together on this call, and specifically while Alan is, that you want to ask Drachnik about or pick our brain about?
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I mean, I have one, I have one question. So it's this like for Alan, I i know Alan's been a lot of these puzzle script games and so coupon kind of games. So I was wondering whether there is any game that's gone out recently that has either a system or a mechanic that surprised you specifically because ah you made something similar, but didn't find that or something along those lines. So Alan, do you have anything like that?
00:24:47
Speaker
um One of the games that has come out this year that I was very surprised by was Least Odyssey. It's kind of like Drogs, where you are um you're a person moving around and then you've got enemies which move and the enemies are trying to kill you and you're trying to kill the enemies.
00:25:03
Speaker
but a lot of the depth of systems like that comes out from just the the specific enemy behaviors and how they interact with each other. And like I've i've always found to draw it a bit intimidating where it's like you've got this sword and the sword can be in 45 degree angles and you can move in 45 degrees and there's often a lot of enemies and just felt very complex and ah fit like like it would lead to fiddly solutions. And I haven't even spent that much time playing the drop games, but like that's just always been my impression. And I played Lee's Odyssey, which is obviously playing around in that space. And it's like, oh, well, like you don't actually need a lot of the complexity. You can have very simple systems, but just choose them well and curate them such that the combinations of them lead to interesting situations. And I love that.
00:25:52
Speaker
um That's actually very much outside of my wheelhouse design wise. I don't ah haven't yet designed a game like that, but that's the most recent example of a game that really surprised me with how much depth it could get out of a small set of mechanics.
00:26:08
Speaker
um In terms of stuff closer to what I've designed, can of wormholes is really brilliant in terms of like having a set of mechanics and constantly subverting expectations and making so that you are realizing deeper consequences of things that were always there and always possible, but you you didn't think to try them.
00:26:28
Speaker
um Obviously, the game we published, Sockbond Express, by Jose Hernandez, was directly riffing off a couple of but games that I made, but in a way that like it combined them in such a beautiful, elegant way that's like, oh Why didn't I think of that? But I never would have. So that was really pleasing to to see him and then to work with Jose on that game. um And then there's this just always interesting puzzle script games coming out of the Thinky puzzle community, which are like, I mean, I think the puzzle script scene is like riffing off itself a lot. So yeah, like the games that people are making now are often inspired by
00:27:08
Speaker
other public games that have been made like two, three or more years ago. And so things being made in public games feel very familiar, but there's a lot of just interesting stuff constantly getting made that feels familiar, but always fresh. So that's really nice. Nice. oh I guess one more question for both of you is ah like, what do you think is like special about games as a medium and puzzle games specifically?
00:27:37
Speaker
I mean, for me, I think that games are an inherently interesting way for the player to express their thoughts. And it's a it's a very unique way to deliver any kind of expression, like when you watch a movie, the director has ah framed the film and shot the film and like, you can watch it on a bunch of different types of TV screens or like movie screens, or you can even watch movies on your phone. But like the content of what you're watching, the structure of it, what scene goes after the next scene is
00:28:21
Speaker
has all been pre-planned, whereas there's a lot more agency in a lot of games. And I think in puzzle games specifically, it opens up to a lot of player players being able to explore mechanics, deepen their own understanding in conversation with the game in a way that is very special in the space. And I think that that sort of player to game conversation is that's my favorite part of this space. Alan.
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like when I'm designing something, after I've been playtesting it, it off I love building up a ah kind of understanding of the kind of mental models players will have and then using that in the design to subvert expectations or to um design an elegant system that I know will be interactive with most players and have them making it and have them having a good experience because I can kind of project onto the player like, oh, yeah this is the knowledge they're going to have going in. So this is the kind of thing that they're going to try. um Yeah, like makes it so that a puzzle game can do that conversation between the player and the designer in a really elegant way that a lot of other genres, um not that they can't do it, but ah it's it's less clean, I think.
00:29:54
Speaker
ah One other thing that I'd love to touch on is your experience with the Dragneck New Voices puzzle brand that we ran in 2022. Yeah, ah sure.
Impact of the Dragneck New Voices Program
00:30:08
Speaker
I think I've said this in to multiple people and multiple times that That was a turning point for me because, again, I was just coming out of a software job which I had left for a variety of reasons. And when I was making games, I was just like kind of exploring and trying things out.
00:30:29
Speaker
and I did not know if this case what became KCPs was interesting or good or worth working on right and I think getting selected for that program was a huge boost for me in terms of just confidence and like it was a signal for me that I'm on the right track, what I'm making is interesting in some way and is worth continuing working on. So I think more than anything else, it was specifically that, that it was validation for me as a designer and for the things that I was working on, the way I was thinking about things.
00:31:06
Speaker
um I think that really helped then being a part of the program itself meant I was a part of the private discord where there are a lot of very experienced designers who have faced all the problems that I was facing and have very succinct ways to solve them. So that part of that network was very strong and was very helpful for me in all things in the game and also for non-game things in the sense that how do you make a trailer or what should you put in the trailer or ah like if you have an issue with Steam then ah how can you solve that ah things like that just other game industry things I think that was excellent for me and finally I had a couple of ah design buddies one was Lucas Leslow and one was Mohammed
00:31:56
Speaker
And we were all like making games around the same time and playing each other's games and giving detailed feedback and detailed discussions about the specific things that we're trying to do. right So having that kind of community with people who are experienced and interested in the same kinds of things and discussing very soft things about puzzles like how does the player feel at this point and how can you ah use that as a part of the game ah was like very interesting for me and I think without being a part of that grant and that community
00:32:33
Speaker
I would not have had the same kind of confidence to continue working on the game. And definitely without the feedback of different members, ah I would not have been able to make a game that I'm so proud of now. So I think that was really helpful for me. And once ah KCPs came out, it also meant that I had a very ah solid resume, I guess. So when the Astor Fellowship was announced, I had something that was very Very useful to show off as a part of my back catalog to say that ah this is the game that I've made and this is the way I think about things and I think that was instrumental in me getting selected for the Astor fellowship so it really changed the the direction of
00:33:21
Speaker
My life, I was a little lost when the program was announced. Like when the first New Voices grant was announced, I was a little unclear as to what I was doing. I had left my job and I was making a puzzle game because I thought that might be fun to make. And now I am like a full-time game designer and game developer. I think that it all worked out really well for me and it all started off with the that program. So if if anybody's listening and is interested, I think you should be applying for these kinds of programs. And I'm i'm very grateful to Alan and Rakhnik for organizing that in the first place that it's really like put me in a path that made things a lot easier for me. So I think that was my experience.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's really great to hear. Do you, do you want to talk ah about what you're working on at the moment or is it still too early? Uh, I
New Project: 'Sacred Groves'
00:34:18
Speaker
mean, sure. I guess, um, I am now trying to branch out a bit from the core puzzle genre. Uh, I think that I now understand what I like about like buzzy, thinky things, and I'm trying to figure out how I can, uh, put it in slightly different contexts. So right now I'm working on.
00:34:38
Speaker
a game called sacred groves. It's a forest builder. So it's like a city builder, but forests. So instead of having houses that want schools and electricity and hospitals, you're building like different kinds of plants and trees which care about getting water and nutrients.
00:34:56
Speaker
and they care about how much canopy coverage there is, how many roots of other plants they're connected to and not connected to. So it's kind of balancing an ecosystem to some extent. So a lot of it is inspired by ah like Caesar III specifically as a city builder, and also just the way that different mechanics in the forest work, like in like real world nature forests. So it's it's exciting, but again, it's very early. I think I've been on this for about a couple of months. And I'm excited. I think I'm understanding how I want to allow players to discover different interactions. I think for me, that's the core of what a puzzle or a thinking game is. It's about ah the players exploring and discovering interesting things. And as a designer, my role is to put them in a place or put give them the constraints or give them the
00:35:53
Speaker
direction so that they can find like these really magical things that happen in these systems. right So it's not exactly a puzzle game, but I think my aesthetic is very puzzley and thinky, so that will naturally breed into the game. and ah But again, like it's it's very early on. I'm still figuring out a lot of the core things, but that's just like a high level. I don't really have anything to show ah yet, but that's kind of what I'm working on right now.
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, I was just kind of interested to see which kind of direction you were pushing in. Yeah, I think again, it's mostly because I like a very specific thing about puzzle games, which is what I said, right? Like allowing the player to find these emergent ah interactions between different systems. And while a puzzle game is like the best suited to like, I mean, everything else is in guardrails so that the player has to discover them. i'm I'm also now interested in seeing how you could allow players to find those same things in a slightly different setup because
00:37:02
Speaker
ah I am interested in in in that as well. I want to see how how that would translate. and how ah And also for this game, I'm trying to keep in mind all of the things that I learned about marketing. So I think this one has a much more clear idea of explaining what it is. Things like that are also something that I'm keeping in mind. But I think at my core, I really like the idea of emerging mechanics between different systems. So the game, I think every game I make will somehow be about that.
00:37:34
Speaker
Sure. Good luck. ah Thank you, Alan. Yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Where can people find you online?
Where to Find Samarth Online
00:37:44
Speaker
ah So I think ah you can find me on Discord or Twitter at Chappleyboy, C-H-A-P-L-I-A-B-O-Y. ah You can also find my website at chappleyboy.com. And hopefully, you can find me on Steam at Conquincos Pilot Solutions.
00:38:01
Speaker
And I guess in other random corners of the internet, wherever interesting things are happening with puzzle games, ah I hope that we meet each other. yeah Awesome. Thank you so much.
Closing Remarks and Credits
00:38:14
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Dragneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoise.bandcamp dot.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice, and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.