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Episode 20: Tana Tanoi (Shape Sender Deluxe)
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In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Tana Tanoi, the developer behind Shape Sender Deluxe. Topics include the development of Shape Sender Deluxe, the Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant, and the difficulties of making a thinky physics puzzle game.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Drakknegg and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Seren, the producer at Drakknegg and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Drakknegg at Drakknegg and Friends.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello. Today, we're joined by Tana, who you may know from his work on Shapesender Deluxe. How are you doing today? I'm great, thanks. Awesome. So can you introduce yourself a little bit and talk about your game?
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm Tana. I am from New Zealand. And down here, have been in the games industry for like seven and a bit years.
00:01:04
Speaker
And basically all of that was at a company called Dinosaur Polo Club, the company behind Mini Metro and Mini Motorways. Before that, I studied software engineering. And the intention was always like...
00:01:18
Speaker
to just work in software and then make games on my own time until something took off. But I thankfully got a games job right out of uni
Journey into Game Development
00:01:27
Speaker
unexpectedly. Honestly, I didn't even know games were made in New Zealand until I saw a job ad for a game studio.
00:01:34
Speaker
looking for a junior programmer. And so ah that's pretty cool. And now I have been working both at Dinosaur Polar Club and with my own studio, Dead Teapot, working on Shapes in a Deluxe, which is a physics narrative puzzle game where you learn how to solve these puzzles, ah get things from A to B, and your new best friend, Cindy, teaches you how to play and banters with you and challenges with you and eventually betrays you.
00:02:03
Speaker
Spoilers! That's for the intrigue. So what led to sort of your first big solo game like that being physics-y puzzle
Inspirations in Game Design
00:02:15
Speaker
game?
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's a very good question because there are so many inspirations that I realize came to me while I was developing it. And I assume we're just subconsciously in the back of my mind the whole time.
00:02:29
Speaker
The obvious ah example to start with is Portal. That was a big game on my childhood. and Source engine games in general. I was really into my Garry's mod. That's probably The biggest reason I got into game dev was making things for that and playing things.
00:02:42
Speaker
And then once I'd started making the game, I was like, surely someone has made a game like this before. We are just kind of making this weird little factory of getting things from A to B. And it wasn't until I'd kind of finished the first prototype where I remembered the existence of The Incredible Machine.
00:03:00
Speaker
And I remember that I played that a bunch as a kid on the school computers. And I definitely think that had a large influence over the game design subconsciously.
00:03:14
Speaker
And other inspirations come from places like Poly Bridge, where you just have these little physics puzzles that are doing specific things. Well, like, you know, building a bridge in real life is a very complex task, but Patrick's just...
00:03:28
Speaker
Really nailed making it simple and approachable. And yeah, I'm sure there's some other inspirational games in there that I've missed out. But I would say those are the biggest ones. That's so funny that you name a team that I've worked with.
00:03:42
Speaker
Anyways, so is that the type of game that you... anyways
Game Design Philosophy
00:03:48
Speaker
so is that the type of game that you like to play in your free time? Like how, and the just cause this is a puzzle podcast doesn't mean that there's a right answer.
00:04:01
Speaker
Like when you are relaxing and playing a game, what types of games do you end up gravitating towards? I like systemy games typically.
00:04:13
Speaker
So I wouldn't say i' am a puzzle game player as my like main thing, but I just simply adore games with interlocking systems. And I just started playing Animal Well. That's a lot of fun thinking about puzzles and that, even though they're a little more actiony. I haven't got very far, no spoilers.
00:04:32
Speaker
um Yeah, I've always been into immersive sims, Dishonored, Prey, things like that. And I often try to argue that Shapes in the Deluxe is and immersive sim because in a lot of the puzzles, I have a puzzle in mind or one possible solution, but I don't always limit the tools I give you so that if you come up with a different solution that uses some crazy physics hack, then you can do that as well.
00:05:03
Speaker
And I really just want to encourage the creativity in my game in an immersive sim kind of way, even though it mainly just looks like a puzzle game.
00:05:15
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, it sounds like you still gravitate towards that kind of thinkiness in games, even if it's not pure puzzle. Absolutely. Another great example actually that I think of is Tom Francis's heat signature.
00:05:27
Speaker
That if you just look at screenshots, it looks like an action game. But once you play it, it's a very thinky, very methodical strategy game because you can pause at any time. And there is not necessarily one possible solution to ah stealing something from a spaceship.
00:05:44
Speaker
But it feels as though you have this list of tools and there is some solution that exists that you could do in combination in sequence that will win that particular level. And I think that's really cool.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah. i Something I feel like is interesting about that game is I feel like Tom did a really good job of like priming in the trailers he or
Player Expectations and Narrative Twists
00:06:10
Speaker
like the videos he was putting out about the game, priming people how to think about that game.
00:06:15
Speaker
And I feel like I don't know how many people went to that game like more blind than I did and had a worse experience because of it or whether like the game itself does teach you to play it that way. But like, i think, yeah, there's there's that disconnect between like what the game looks like it's going to be and what what it actually is.
00:06:35
Speaker
And I'm not sure if I have a point here, but. No, I think it's an interesting one thinking about player expectation ah against what the game is. I know that that's something I'm a little spooked about with my game, ah having done a recent play test with some things where I am setting up quite a cute, wholesome aesthetic on the store page, but like I alluded to earlier, the plot doesn't necessarily stick to being cute and wholesome.
00:07:06
Speaker
And that's definitely something I'm thinking about at the moment. I don't have a concrete answer for either, but I think it's an interesting topic. Yeah, because my gut tells me that you can get away with that kind of pivot easier when it's a narrative pivot than a gameplay pivot.
00:07:25
Speaker
um That's unexpected. Yeah, true. But I also feel like you're intentionally trying to see that in like the way you're talking about the game on the store page anyway. Yeah.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think about games that had narrative twists. I mean, like, you could go like really, really extreme narrative twists like Doki Doki Literature Club and be like, well, that game is Frankly, like that that game is defined by its narrative twists of, oh, it's presenting as one thing, but then it's not presenting as another. But then it also as soon as like you go in knowing there's a twist, you're having such a fundamentally different experience. like That experience only works a certain way
Balancing Creativity and Teaching in Game Design
00:08:13
Speaker
blind, and then it becomes a very different one.
00:08:15
Speaker
Whereas in terms of gameplay... gameplay Yeah, it's... There's definitely been games that I ended up... Like, ended up being more thinky than I expected, or or less thinky than I expected. Or, like, ah the first time I played Obra Dinn, I didn't fully understand what it was.
00:08:41
Speaker
And so I was like, oh, okay, this is this is a detective game. But, like... when I played that day one, I had not necessarily been following a lot of trailers. I had mostly just been like, well, okay, it's Lucas Pope's new game. I'm going to give it a shot.
00:08:57
Speaker
And yeah, it's, it's weird trying to balance those expectations. I think. Expectation management is definitely a hard one that doesn't feel like it's in everyone's wheelhouse, ah but trailers and store page descriptions are going to be the first and port of call for that.
00:09:13
Speaker
Oh yeah, and then it's, ah does your are your screenshots immediately legible for what type of genre it even is? um One thing I think about is the original Sokobond, you look at five different screenshots for that game, and they just look like the same screenshots color-swapped.
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's an interesting one, because I have been having this exact discussion with my art director. where we want to introduce some kind of variation both in the gameplay and the aesthetic for the screenshots on the store page to just allude to the fact that there's more content than there appears and yeah store page descriptions it's a whole science on itself oh
00:10:05
Speaker
Alan, how many store page descriptions did we end up going with, like, trying out for Sokoban Express? Was it like six over the course of that life cycle? I've blocked out any ah store page discussions we had for that game.
00:10:20
Speaker
ah You can tell that that one was a bit of a struggle because if you look at that store copy versus all of our other ones, the tone is completely different.
00:10:33
Speaker
ah we One of our consultants slash contractors ended up doing a pass on it. ah So you mentioned before talking about the sort of immersive sim adjacency of some of the potential unintended solutions with the physics mechanics in this game. Yeah. And that's really interesting to me because so many puzzle games...
00:11:01
Speaker
try to focus puzzle solutions around teaching, around like teaching or reinforcing that this behaves this way and this does that. And, oh, if you put these two together, like you get this edge case and be, and like gating around that wall tutorializing without explicitly like click here to do this. Now click here to do this. This is why this happens.
00:11:24
Speaker
And I'm wondering, like, ah while you're in this design process, are you budding up with like, well, for this level, it would actually be pretty disadvantageous if there were unintended solutions, because then the player might not actually fully understand X, Y, or Z.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, this is a really good question. And I've had these exact thoughts ah because one of the pillars of the game is about creativity. So I try not to lock any of the players' creativity if they want to, for example,
00:12:01
Speaker
ah solve a level which could be easily solved with maybe two magnets. If they want to decide they want to solve it with 15 boxes, then power to them. And I want to be able to encourage that. But at the same time, it's exactly what you're talking about, that I want, in some levels, I want to teach a mechanic.
00:12:17
Speaker
And I remember having this one case where the mechanic i was trying to teach is that if you used a magnet behind the entrance to a portal, then a shape would enter the portal faster and therefore exit the other side faster.
00:12:34
Speaker
And it's a cool little mechanic. I think some players ended up calling it like an early play test. They called it like the portal rail gun kind of thing. And I like when players come up with names for things like that.
00:12:45
Speaker
But I had one person solve it by, It was a very tight space. Like I intentionally narrowed the space so you could ideally only solve it the way I'd intended just this once, but they came up with a very creative solution where they used multiple portals where the shape would go into one, get teleported up, go into another, get teleported up and be gaining velocity from gravity that whole time as a separate way to be accelerating the shape as opposed to using a magnet to pull it down faster.
00:13:15
Speaker
If I had a diagram, this would be a lot easier to explain. But I really didn't come up with a good way to solve this because on one hand, they didn't learn the thing that I wanted them to learn.
00:13:27
Speaker
But on the other hand, the constraints that I provided for this other puzzle ended up with them coming up with a really creative, really awesome solution. But that's not what my intention was for them going forward into the list rest of the game. And maybe they wouldn't be able to use this magna acceleration
Encouraging Player Creativity
00:13:44
Speaker
technique in the future if they didn't learn it now.
00:13:47
Speaker
But yeah, very interesting. Yeah, it's an interesting dilemma that you don't really get with the kind of puzzle games that we make, where it's like, nope, this is the solution.
00:14:00
Speaker
I almost wonder if a possible approach would be to double up on those tutorial missions. I agree. Where the first one, like, where it's possible that both of them could be solved in other ways, but...
00:14:17
Speaker
specifically an alt solution for one can't be the same alt solution for the second. So you're it's much more likely that at least in one of those two scenarios, the player will have learned.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good idea. And I think it'd be interesting to think about the potential overlaps of alt solutions if A and B work on the first level and B and C work on the second level. Then B is what you're trying to actually teach? Yes. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, I'm just, I'm, yeah. See, that this has just got me thinking about, yeah, because your game is a little harder to tutorialize. um Also, you, am I right in saying you have a linear set of levels rather than branching?
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i haven't fully committed to how the metagame is going to work yet, but at this stage I'm thinking it's linear for narrative purposes. because Yeah, because when we have a branching level structure, sometimes something I'll do is I want you to encounter this mechanic or i want you to be taught this thing, but I still want to branch your structure. Okay, well, i'll have a mechanic that does it on this branch and a mechanic that does it on this branch.
00:15:24
Speaker
And yeah, like, it's kind of like, oh, do you want you want to wire this up in in parallel or in series? And like, depending on the type of game that can actually have, like, like for a game with predefined puzzles, or like for a a game with more defined solutions, it is perhaps more natural to...
00:15:45
Speaker
do it so there's more branching and more redundancy of teaching. Whereas in your game, because there's more flexibility in the solution, you can get the same kind of feeling, even though they're in a linear set.
00:16:00
Speaker
Speaking of, if you're doing a linear set, like how are you thinking about the possibility of... Bottinex? Well... <unk>m I'm thinking of like optional puzzles, but like also like what happens if, for whatever reason, i have puzzle blinders on on level 13. Ah.
00:16:21
Speaker
ah Like, i I get really stuck on 13, and I know that I could do 14, and I had no problem with 12, but something's going on with 13. Is that, like, something that you are hoping that something like a hit system could help with? Or I'm i'm just thinking, because, like there's like, these are different problems that different kinds of games in this space have.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, what I'm thinking is a hint system would be nice and it fits narratively within the game because the idea would be just ask c Sandy for help with a particular puzzle. And I think it would be interesting because that's another point for dialogue where fun stuff can be chatted about and have little funny experiences there ah as well as subverting the hint system later. So that's definitely on the cards, but there's also a lot of levels. So It'd be a lot of hands was going to say that sounds like a If you get the game translated, that sounds like a localization headache. Yeah.
00:17:20
Speaker
ah But the other... This isn't like a proper solution, but... Because most ah puzzles will have alternate solutions, they typically won't be as elegant as the intended solution.
00:17:34
Speaker
And so hopefully they can brute force it with a lot of springs or a lot of magnets. And it might not sound pretty or look pretty, but they will have completed it. And if they're annoyed about it later, then they can come back to it.
00:17:52
Speaker
And the other final aspect of it is that I think the main line of puzzles, I typically want to be fairly straightforward, but like I was alluding to earlier, c Sandy, the mascot will give you additional challenges.
00:18:07
Speaker
So for example, there might be one case where there's a puzzle looks pretty straightforward if you had access to springs and portals, and then Sandy will go, I'll give you a steam achievement if you solve it just with magnets.
00:18:20
Speaker
And so that way, the people who don't want to invest in the additional challenge and just want to complete the game can go through, play it, ah solve the solution pretty easy. ah But for the people who want to be challenged and want to have a bit more puzzle can opt into it as they go.
00:18:38
Speaker
and that's That's actually a really a really clever expression of having ludonarrative implementation for the puzzles. Yeah.
00:18:52
Speaker
of being able to have a character literally come up to you and offer a challenge in a certain way. Yeah, I like it a lot. And I find it really fits with the character, it fits with the narrative, and it fits with the meta aspects of it, ah talking about Steam achievements specifically. Hey, do you want to know something fun I believe you could do with the Steam achievements?
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah. I believe there's an API for removing somebody's Steam achievement.
00:19:25
Speaker
That would be fun to play with. Like, off-road up. Yeah, when suddenly it gets mad. Uh-huh. That's... I'm going to put that in somewhere. That's good.
00:19:41
Speaker
ah Just be aware that if you bring it to other platforms, I believe that is Steam-only feature. Yeah, that's the thing I've been thinking about. And on Switch, they don't have any kind of achievement view.
00:19:54
Speaker
No, but on so but you can, like, if you make your own UI for it, like there's nothing on Switch stopping you from having an in-game achievement list. Yeah. It's just not platform level.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's something we're thinking about for many motorways is having its own little achievement viewer for Switch. Yeah, just, you know, when it comes to PlayStation and Xbox, they don't like when there's an in-game system that's out of sync with the out-of-game system.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, true. It's all really interesting because there's so many unique aspects to this game between it being
Integrating User-Generated Content
00:20:32
Speaker
physics-y, between it having the narrative, between it having the alternate solutions and like the the potential twisting, and also something we haven't even talked about, which is your plans for user-generated content.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah. Like, how is that factoring in during the game design phase? Yeah, so we're getting into spoilers territory, as a warning for anyone listening.
00:20:58
Speaker
Because what happens is, as you progress through the game, hit here's the major plot twist, is just giving you plenty of warning, is that...
00:21:11
Speaker
you as the player will get forced to design levels for the game. And so you're playing through it, you're understanding how the puzzles are made, you're understanding how all the systems work together.
00:21:24
Speaker
And once you have, as a player, a strong understanding of all these systems put together, you get thrust into a completely new context for how the game works, which is designing your own versions of the puzzles.
00:21:37
Speaker
And so at some stage in the game, for example, one of the puzzles will be broken and be impossible to solve. And you'll have to be like, Cindy, this doesn't work. And he'll be like, oops, let's go to the next level.
00:21:49
Speaker
And so that's foreshadowing that you will need to fix that level later in the game. And so one example is there's a really thick wall in the middle.
00:22:00
Speaker
and portals can't stretch that far. And so you get booted into the level editor. And to tutorialize the level editor, I just kind of give you the essential tools initially.
00:22:13
Speaker
So in that case, you can create a space in the middle of the wall, or you can make the wall thinner, or you could just delete the wall, or you could just move the pipe over to the other side. And there's lots of different creative ways that you can solve that particular puzzle.
00:22:27
Speaker
well, puzzle about the puzzle. And yeah, so how the way that factors into the design is that I'm designing the puzzles with the exact same level editor I'm going to be giving players. So every time I get frustrated with it, I know 100 players are going to be twice as frustrated with it.
00:22:47
Speaker
And for those level editing levels, do you put constraints on how much they can edit the level? Yeah, so I put constraints on the output rather than how much they can edit it. though i'm I'm tempted to look at that again and see how that goes post playtesting.
00:23:04
Speaker
But the idea is, Sandy will give you a design brief, and you'll have to match that brief. So in the example before, the brief was to make a level solvable when it previously wasn't.
00:23:17
Speaker
ah But another design brief might be this level is meant to teach you how to use fans. So currently it's is too easy and you should put some fans in to make it more interesting.
00:23:32
Speaker
Or the constraint might be that this required solution to solve the puzzle needs to include fans. And so it gets into this little complex thing where i the player has these two states that they're thinking about, the play ah the puzzle that they're designing, but also the potential solution that will solve it.
00:23:53
Speaker
And so it gets real meta really quickly. Going back to something we were talking about earlier about unintended solutions, I'm curious, how how many of your levels do you feel like are about a specific solution that you have in mind for the intended solution, whether or not there's an unintended solution?
00:24:10
Speaker
And how many of them do you think are about more of like a problem to overcome? Because I'm i'm wondering if there is a dichotomy there. and like Because puzzles which are about a specific solution you have in mind that can be more or less problematic when ah somebody finds a different solution.
00:24:29
Speaker
But problems that are just, oh, here's a a a memorable problem to overcome, in that kind of case, maybe it doesn't even matter how many different solutions there are. Yeah, I would love to have a decent mix of both.
00:24:41
Speaker
I think that puzzles where there is an intended solution can be more handcrafted to have a particular experience.
00:24:52
Speaker
Whereas when it's the, here's the problem, come up with whatever you got. It's a lot easier for those to be too easy or too hard, or the boring solution is the one that will work really easily.
00:25:03
Speaker
Like I know one problem I have is Some players will latch onto one particular tool and then just use that tool all the time. And it would be interesting to have problems where I know there are multiple solutions have a dynamic way of increasing the difficulty. For example, if we go back to the challenges that Cindy gives you, ah one example of a challenge could be here's your most used tool.
00:25:32
Speaker
You're not allowed to use that for this one. And because I know that there are multiple solutions that can work with this, I know they can solve it without using ah one particular tool. And so that kind of introduces and it a level that's going to be a little different for everyone that plays, as well as forcing players to move outside their comfort zone in a space I know will accommodate them.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting um because something that can lead to is like the same level having a different feeling for different players based on what they have used before or not.
00:26:11
Speaker
um Because like solving this level without tool X might feel quite different to solving this level without tool Y. Yeah, and that does... It's a risk because...
00:26:26
Speaker
Thinking about that level in the context of its surrounding levels, for example, and the ah flow that I want players to have through that, I think going have to be very intentional about how and when those more open-ended levels with dynamic difficulty can fit as to not make players have you know too many too difficult levels one after the other or too many too easy levels.
00:26:49
Speaker
But I think it'll be worth the risk. We'll see how it turns out in playtesting. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm thinking about um what we did for some of the ah secret puzzles in Cosmic Express, where we have in that game is like a final level, which has a lot of different solutions that you can find.
00:27:07
Speaker
So you'll solve that once and then you'll unlock a bunch of bonus puzzles. If you unlock all the bonus puzzles, it will block off some of the tiles in the final level. And you have to resolve that puzzle without using those specific tiles. And it chooses which tiles to block off based on the specific solution that you found.
00:27:26
Speaker
um And then actually do that for a second time. So you you get some more bonus puzzles, and then it blocks off even more tiles. And you have to solve it again.
00:27:36
Speaker
And the thing that I didn't really anticipate when I was designing that is that, OK, there's like six different categories of solution. And each time you solve it, you're narrowing it down until you get left with one kind of unique final puzzle, depending on which order you found the solutions in. And not all of those six puzzles are equally difficult.
00:28:00
Speaker
And so some people end up with a much harder final challenge than others just by virtue of like the order in which they found the solutions, which is not ideal, certainly not intentional, but it also just has a certain amount of character that I don't hate entirely.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's super interesting. I'm actually doing something similar. ah I'm going to sit here and use that as my explanation for why I struggled so much. It's possible.
00:28:34
Speaker
But yeah, I'm doing something similar with Shape Santa Deluxe where in the... So again, spoilers again for the final boss fight, because there is a boss fight, is that...
00:28:45
Speaker
you get presented with a level and have to solve it. But then all of the positions you use to solve that are removed and you have to solve it again. And so it's because it it turns space into one of your resources, uh, where previously in the game, it wasn't.
00:29:04
Speaker
And I find it really interesting. And everyone that's, giving feedback on it, it's like, oh, that's a fun twist. And I think it really forces you to think differently again.
00:29:16
Speaker
So similarly to when we would remove access to your most used tool, this your naive solution or your solution that comes up the first time you see the level just isn't possible anymore or requires tweaking to make work.
00:29:29
Speaker
And when I've been playtesting this or at Expos, for example, I've got a toned down version of it that use for Expos just to test the mechanic. What will happen is players will use their tried and true tool they've been using for the demo so far.
00:29:47
Speaker
But then the moment it stops working because they can't put it in their initial positions, they start to get creative, which is exactly what I want. one of the pillars of the game. and I think a lot of creativity comes from being constrained like that. And I think that's really fun.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. i i assume that's a level where you are to some degree resource constrained so that you can't have a first solution that just happens to fill in like so much of the space that there isn't any possible second solution.
00:30:21
Speaker
I haven't done that yet. I feel that I... I'm going to steal some stuff from Portal for it. So I'm going to steal the whole, again, spoilers for Portal, but it's a very old game. So ah the neurotoxin idea of just as a timer for you to solve this puzzle. And by having a unthreatening but looming timer, I think players will be encouraged to do more optimal solutions rather than spending their time making a very long bridge
00:30:56
Speaker
I have seen someone do that in a playtest. They were actually cosplaying as Link from Tears of the Kingdom, and they were just making a very long bridge to solve one of the puzzles, and I thought that was incredible. Wow. Honestly, at least they fully understand.
00:31:10
Speaker
They've committed to the character. Yes. god Gotta stay committed to the bit. So how did you... i mean, know I know the answer, but pretending I don't. How did you hear about the Dracnik New Voices Puzzle Grant?
00:31:23
Speaker
think I would have seen it on social media. One of my friends sharing about it. And then I think even after I'd already applied, another friend had sent me the link.
00:31:37
Speaker
And said, you should apply for this. I'm like, way ahead you, buddy. But thanks for the link. What was your impression when you saw it and like clicked in and read about it? I had imposter syndrome.
00:31:50
Speaker
I was worried that my game isn't thinking enough. I worry that like, because the game comes off as quite wholesome and simple is the wrong word, accessible.
00:32:03
Speaker
ah I'm not sure what word to use here, but I was worried that, yeah, that it didn't require enough thinking for, but i mean, the kinds of puzzles that are typically associated with Dracnik
Draconeck New Voices Puzzle Grant Experience
00:32:15
Speaker
and friends.
00:32:15
Speaker
Did you already know who we were before? or Yeah, I mean, I don't know many people who haven't heard of snowmen. Oh, that's... I wish that were true.
00:32:29
Speaker
i wish everyone in the world knew about a good snowman is hard to build. You can get now for... ah Depends on the weather. Go check your weather out.
00:32:41
Speaker
That was a good plant for you. But I'll tell you this, for your imposter syndrome, that wasn't a concern for us. Great. there was Basically, it was it was good to get a chance to talk to you, and then you were joking about how the questions we asked, which are honestly very representative of of what we've already discussed on this call, were things that you already hoped we were going to ask about. Yeah.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because the answers to those questions are also things I've already talked about in talks about the game design before. So Wellington, New Zealand, we have like Wellington Game Dev Meetup, and we have ah New Zealand Game Developers Conference. And I've done talks at both of those about the design of this game. And yeah, the exact things you talked about. I think they were like talking about things being fiddly with ah these kind of games where You can make micro adjustments and it completely drastically changes the puzzle, things like that.
00:33:42
Speaker
They're all things I've talked about explicitly. ah The talks are probably online somewhere as well. One thing that I am curious about, as part of the cohort, you are you know part of the Draconec New Voices Puzzle Grant community, and you did a playtest with other developers a few weeks ago.
00:34:09
Speaker
was wondering ah how you found that. It was amazing. I've done like maybe one or two playtests with a handful of people where I've closely watched them each time, and that was super useful.
00:34:23
Speaker
So having a bunch of people play and then also having discussions afterwards was absolutely invaluable. the not just like catching bugs and stuff, but design discussions and getting different takes on how different mechanics might be perceived.
00:34:39
Speaker
And even having recommendations for games that people thought were similar was really useful because finding games that do the kind of things I'm doing is rare.
00:34:55
Speaker
It's not completely unheard of, which is cool, ah but I haven't heard of most of them. So that's great that other people have.
Community and Passion for Puzzles
00:35:02
Speaker
If there's one thing I know about the kinds of people that Drac Naked Friends likes to associate with, it's that ah deep down, a lot of us are puzzle sickos.
00:35:12
Speaker
Puzzle sickos. I think Alan is just the magnet that brings all the Puzzle Sickos together. I'll just rename the podcast Puzzle Sickos Talk to Puzzle Sickos. I mean, look, if you want to rename it, I think honestly just calling it Puzzle Sickos is just a really straightforward, maybe even like Draconeck Presents Puzzle Sickos instead of the Draconeck and Friends official podcast. It's pretty catchy. Which truly feels like we just needed to put a name on this.
00:35:41
Speaker
I like it. I approve. Do you have any questions for us? Yeah, I've got two questions. One's specific to what we've been talking about, and one's kind of a more general puzzle game question.
Challenges of Designing Physics-Based Puzzles
00:35:53
Speaker
The specific one is, what's the coolest feature you've seen in physics-based puzzle games? Because oh there's lots of examples. I mean, Hackshot, I think, was in the previous cohort.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yes, it was. There's obviously games like Polybridge and things like that. But if there's any, I'm just keen to see the most unique things in other puzzle physics puzzle games. Mm-hmm. Hmm.
00:36:15
Speaker
um so one thing that i really like and actually you and i had a conversation about this when we were talking to you in our interview sort of divforcing set up in simulation as two distinct concept of ah think that A lot of puzzle games, and so this includes physics games, there's a lot of depth that sometimes can be overwhelming or can be sacrificed based on...
00:36:50
Speaker
trying to keep in mind how much information, like trying to prevent information overload for a player, right? Like either the designer accidentally is overloading or gets so afraid of like, well, if I ask the player to consider 20 things at the same time, then they're not gonna be able to do that. So I'm going to cut back how much I have.
00:37:10
Speaker
Whereas something like, an and this is not physics-y, but something like an Into the Breach, which us is a game that strives to give perfect information ah in the thinky space, like I think really opens up to a lot of depth without sacrificing any mechanics, but also prevents your brain from getting overtired.
00:37:32
Speaker
So when I think about puzzle games, like physics games, I think about like, Games that showcase trajectories in real time as you're setting up an angle, right?
00:37:43
Speaker
Things that like are very clear, not just this is the direction it will go, but like, hey, when the ball launches and hits this ramp, this is the trajectory that it will go on.
00:37:54
Speaker
And then you can like see that like maybe translucent line throughout game. puzzle experience in real time as you are like trying things and building understanding very quickly and in real time because you have a lot more information. So you're actually like your brain is being tasked with less and less, but you're still having the experience of having all of these interlocking systems.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually really interesting. You said a couple of good things that I can relate to both my game and my work at Dinosaur Polo Club. One of them is having reducing the amount of information you need to keep in your brain.
00:38:34
Speaker
That's like one of the major pillars in Mini Motorways, Mini Metro, just the mini games in general. The idea that it's low cognitive load and that very little information is hidden off screen technically and very little information is required to stay in your brain because it's all visible on screen.
00:38:53
Speaker
And I try and do the same thing with Shape Standard Deluxe, where there's no plan and then simulate phase. It's just all happening at the same time. And there's no consequence for missing a shape. There's just no lost state at all.
00:39:08
Speaker
And because of that, players can get instant feedback as to what their action does. And there's a couple of drawbacks to that. But on the whole, I don't think I'd have it any other way, which is I think is pretty cool.
00:39:21
Speaker
Alan, did you have any other thoughts about things that you find particularly interesting in this space? Yeah, so I don't think it's particularly going to be relevant to your game, because I think you've kind of locked down this this side of things already, but When I'm thinking about physics-y puzzle games, I feel like the place I'm drawn to is weird tools, like unexpected types of system or tool. Like a lot of physics-y games, um like you've got ramps, you've got trampolines, you've got magnets, and you've got fans. And those stuff are good and like...
00:40:03
Speaker
like There's nothing wrong with with using those tools well as as you are, but I feel like there's potential for a game which just goes in the complete opposite direction. And I'm i'm thinking here, like, Moselina, I think, is a good reference point. So, like, that in many ways is a physics game, and it chooses not to give you the tools you'd normally expect to see in a game like that.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah, I adore how you just get some very strange interactables. And yeah, it would be fun to toy with stuff like that for this kind of game too.
00:40:45
Speaker
And you had said you also had a general question? Yeah, this one's a holistic question.
Marketing Puzzle Games
00:40:51
Speaker
What do you think the biggest pitfalls are in going to market with a puzzle game?
00:40:57
Speaker
Oh, God. The fact that it's a puzzle game. How long do we have? Okay. Um... So these are all going to sound like the same, but I'm just going to rattle off a couple that are all distinctly different problems, even if they all in theory might have share a solution.
00:41:14
Speaker
i don't think that solution exists, but if one did, it might solve all of these. The amount of people in the audience that are eagerly looking for puzzle games is very low.
00:41:26
Speaker
ah the amount of people in the audience, and by audience, I mean not the audience that Dragonite Confess has cultivated or anything, but I mean like the broad gaming populace who's on Steam, right?
00:41:37
Speaker
I think that the people who Baba Is You, play it, beat it or don't beat it, that game's really hard, so maybe don't beat it, and have a great time are not then inclined to go find games like it.
00:41:54
Speaker
That was, to them, that's that's just a video game, and puzzles are what you do in it. But that doesn't translate to them in their head immediately as, I like puzzle games the same way that, like, oh, I play Call of Duty every year. That means I know that I like first-person shooters. Oh,
00:42:11
Speaker
you know i might go play Fortnite every now and then. I might go play Apex Legends every now and then because those are other shooters and I know that those translate. For whatever reason, and I think it might be due to a diversity of mechanics and it might be due to being more niche, ah puzzles are not always there.
00:42:30
Speaker
I think another thing is, like we were saying with screenshots and marketing, if your game is puzzle first, then... Unless you have an incredible diversity of styles of puzzle or visuals, it can be really hard to explain your game in six static screenshots.
00:42:54
Speaker
I think that there are ah enough different subsets of people who do like playing puzzles, of the people who are completionists who really want to see everything, and the people who will give it a try but don't want to feel like they're stupid and will bounce the first moment that they feel like they're really stuck and hit a lot of friction.
00:43:14
Speaker
And like how do you balance around both of those market realities? And then the other thing is I think that a lot of other companies like publishers or platform holders just see Puzzle as an inherently very risky proposition because of the aforementioned problems.
00:43:36
Speaker
So the amount of support that they might offer might be more limited. and then when even when you come to mobile, let's say or whatever, Well, guess what? You're competing with literally everything.
00:43:49
Speaker
Everyone just expects free with ads and in in-app purchases and premiums. There's just like a whole stack of like things that are... the like The deck is super stacked up against puzzle games, which is a big part of why we have the puzzle grant is because, yeah oh God, how do we how do we help? It's why we do cerebral puzzle showcases to help that genre cross-pollination of like, oh, you like Portal.
00:44:15
Speaker
ah Here's games that if you like Portal, we feel very confident you will like. It's like curated into sections, trying to have at least one... breakout game in each section that a player might look at and be like, oh, okay, these are going be games like Baba Izzy. These are going games like Outer Wilds. These are games like Zaktronics games. These are going to be games like etc. etc. etc. But but Yeah, I don't know.
00:44:42
Speaker
Alan, do you have any anything else that I missed? um Yeah, ah I mean, no, like that was very comprehensive. um i I think when it comes to selling selling and marketing a puzzle game, you can't just rely on oh, this is a good puzzle game. People want to play good puzzle games. like You can't sustainably run an indie studio based on revenue from people looking at something like Shapes and the Deluxe and going like, oh yeah, I want to play a puzzle game like that.
00:45:19
Speaker
You need to like lean really heavily into... what is novel that's not puzzly.
00:45:29
Speaker
um So it could be like the the narrative version, or it could be like the weird like end game, gameplay changing stuff that's like kind of meta.
00:45:41
Speaker
I think the more you can lean into that stuff and lean away and partly just trick people into thinking like, oh, this is a ah narrative experience with puzzles rather than, oh, this is a puzzle game.
00:45:53
Speaker
I think that that makes it stickier in people's minds in a way that I hate, but is undeniably true. Yeah, I'm definitely trying to lean marketing-wise away from the yeah puzzle. Yeah. Monster's Expedition is an open-world game about about exploring a museum.
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah, you have to solve puzzles to get from place to place, but that's not why you're here, right? Ha ha ha ha ha. Man, it it's unfortunate because, if trust me, if good puzzles sold on their own, Drakknik and France would be rich.
00:46:29
Speaker
have one more question just to ah finish off, which is, what's the most memorable physics puzzle game level you've played?
Memorable Levels in Puzzle Games
00:46:38
Speaker
can be from anything. can be from Portal, Polybridge, anything like that.
00:46:41
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I have a really bad memory and I've not played any physics puzzle games at last six months. So... ah Okay.
00:46:53
Speaker
I've got two. i think that they're they're memorable for two very different reasons. I think the most memorable for gameplay reason is there's one specific shrine in The Legend Zelda Tears the Kingdom.
00:47:09
Speaker
which is so wildly a physics game. True. I like that. dad That game is the ultimate in tricking people into playing a physics building simulator because that's what they wanted to make. And then they're like, well, we have this engine.
00:47:26
Speaker
um It's so funny. but And honestly, I think that it's much better at being a physics simulation game than a puzzle game than a Zelda game. But ah there's a basically...
00:47:39
Speaker
in my memory of haven't played it in over a year, but you basically take multiple, like, carts and, like, build a train and put different things and attach different things to each and, like, snake it around then it becomes, like, a mini Cosmic Express level.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah. And it's really fascinating that it's like, oh my gosh, someone someone was cooking on this one. Someone was like, what's what's a weird thing that we can do with the pieces that we have that like really subverts the rush to the game?
00:48:12
Speaker
And then another one... The actual most memorable is in Polybridge, where it would surface user-generated levels, and there was a random button, and one of them was just someone used the tools to, in giant capital letters, spell the F word.
00:48:29
Speaker
And I hit random, and I just suddenly, that appeared on screen, and I'm like, no notes. No notes! Is it still winnable? so Didn't need to be.
00:48:43
Speaker
ah if you want if you again If you want to know the actual most memorable, you said most memorable and Polybridge. And I'm like, yep. Yep. That's other than the first three levels of Polybridge 2, because I played those about 300 times each for work. Yeah, that'd But yeah, no, that's Alan.
00:49:06
Speaker
Anything I say, Jock, your memory? Yeah, no not immediately. One for me is in Portal 2. There is the level where you have like the, i don't know what they call the springs that just you stand on it and it will just launch you on a but specific direct trajectory.
00:49:28
Speaker
And it is playing an electronic, a harpsichord track. And that transitions into an electronic track as you get the top of the arc. And,
00:49:40
Speaker
that I think is just a such a fun way to make players think about the parabola of the trajectory or whatever, and really think about the physics that's happening in a fun non-puzzle way.
00:49:52
Speaker
Actually, I have thought of something. um there's this in-development game Threadbound, which is about, it's like a puzzle platformer. You link the X positions of these two objects in the world. And then when you push one, the other one will also move.
00:50:08
Speaker
And that game, like initially you're just like, oh yeah, I can i can link the the X coordinate of objects. So I'm just choosing which to link up and then, oh now i'm I'm linking the X coordinate of this to the Y coordinate of that.
00:50:22
Speaker
or And then later on you can like choose like, oh, I can link these two and I can like can link X or Y on both ends And I can also choose like whether it's negated when it changes or not. And it's also directional. And that game has some really interesting physics setups where you link two objects or even like more than two objects, and then you push one, which affects something else. And like because this object is falling down and accelerating down, this other object is accelerating left across the screen. Oh, that's cool.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah. I'm looking that one up. so it's ah It's a space that is rich with a lot of different ideation, and that's really exciting. But specifically for what we're talking about here, like, it's also, you know, there's there's a lot of space for intentional and thinky design in this as well.
00:51:17
Speaker
So, yeah, I think, unless anyone has anything else, I think i think we're good. I think that does it. Thank you so much, Tana, for coming on. It's been a joy to talk to you again.
Conclusion and Online Presence
00:51:29
Speaker
Thanks for having me. This was super fun. Yeah. Where can people find you online? ah leaving the bad site. so I'm just on blue sky at the moment and can wishlist on steam. There's a website, ah dead teapot.games. If you want to follow along, there's a newsletter and all that kind of stuff.
00:51:48
Speaker
And yeah. Awesome. Yeah. No, I'm hoping that hearing us talk about the game excites people and the mention of spoilers doesn't put people off.
00:52:00
Speaker
um It'll still be fun. I promise. Even with the spoilers. Yes. And yeah, again, they thanks so much for making the time, ah time zones and all, but it's been our pleasure.
00:52:11
Speaker
And thank you for listening to the Draconeck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at coolnoise.bandcamp.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis.
00:52:23
Speaker
Our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawadniak. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice, and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.
00:52:39
Speaker
so