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Episode 19: Balloon Studios (Botany Manor)
135 Plays13 hours ago
In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Laure and Kitt from Balloon Studios, the developer behind Botany Manor. Topics include the development of the game, the inspiration for setting the puzzles in a manor, and tricking players into playing puzzle games.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guests
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the Drakknack 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 Drakknack and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Drakknack at Drakknack and Friends.
00:00:35
Speaker
Heyo. Today, we're joined by Laura and Kit, who you may know from their work on Botany Manor. How are you today? Yeah, we're good. Yeah, good. Thank you.
00:00:47
Speaker
Awesome. So can you take the opportunity and introduce yourselves and sort of what you've done on the game? Yeah, sure. Shall I start, Kit? Yeah, I'm going to assume that you will start with all the questions you may come past to me if you like. Well, I mean, let's take a little turns, but yes.
00:01:05
Speaker
Okay. um So yeah, hello, I'm Laura. I'm the creative director on Botany Manor, and I honestly did a little bit of everything as it goes in the indie world.
00:01:15
Speaker
So I did the programming, general design, level design, and yeah, just like overall direction. Yeah, that was me. And I'm Kit and I started out as 2D artist on Botany Manor, but then I also ended up dabbling a bit in the game design and the narrative design as well.
00:01:34
Speaker
Awesome.
Overview of Botany Manor
00:01:35
Speaker
How would you describe Botany Manor to someone who hasn't played it before? Well, if it's someone who has played puzzle games before, I would say it's a bit like Return of the Obra Dinn, but with plants, figuring out plants instead of murders.
00:01:51
Speaker
But yeah, we describe it as a botanical puzzle game set in a Victorian English manner. And it's a bit like a detective game where you have to figure out what a plant needs to grow.
00:02:03
Speaker
And there are various clues spread all over the house that you can inspect and kind of learn the different requirements of each plant that you have. Awesome.
Kit and Laura's Journey into Game Development
00:02:14
Speaker
So what got each of you into game development? Wow, that's a big one. and I studied, well, I've been into games since being tiny, like um tried to write games in basic on a BBC micro as as like a seven year old, but then for a long time just thought I wanted to do art.
00:02:34
Speaker
um And I didn't even know for a long time that you could study to be a games artist. But then I graduated and worked in kind of media adjacent jobs for a bit and eventually managed to get a kind of a public employment scheme working for an educational game studio as an assistant producer. And then from there it was trying to get into the art side as much as possible and got there eventually. um Yeah. And for me, decided Also, similarly, was interested in games from a very young age.
00:03:05
Speaker
And when I was a teenager, I got started with the Tomb Raider level editor, which was this free editor that came with the fourth game. And that's kind of how I really got into the, I guess, design techie side of it all.
00:03:21
Speaker
And then I did maybe a slightly more traditional computer science degree and got a bit sidetracked by going into mobile app development and just general software development.
00:03:34
Speaker
But then eventually i decided I wanted to try and find a way into the games industry and got my first job at US2Games in London. And that's also why I moved from Belgium to the UK.
00:03:47
Speaker
Awesome.
Inspiration and Evolution of Botany Manor
00:03:48
Speaker
And what was the inspiration to sort of start development of Botany Manor? I guess that was, it started out a little bit as my passion project because I'm going to talk about Tomb Raider again, but um I always really loved the Croft Manor levels, like the sort of tutorial safe space that you get at the start of the game.
00:04:15
Speaker
And I always thought, I wish it was just that. I wish there were no scary temples and enemies and the whole game would just take place in this manner. um And then when I moved to the UK, it became a bit of a hobby of mine to visit. We got a lot of manors.
00:04:32
Speaker
Yes, National Trust. um Yeah. And I realized, oh, you could actually visit these places in real life. And yeah, ah that just became passion of mine.
00:04:45
Speaker
And I guess all of that combined inspired me to think of a game that could take place in and and an authentic English manner, in a happy, positive way, not a scary way.
00:04:56
Speaker
And did you immediately go to, oh, this should be a botanist? No, actually, for a long time, the game was called, well, not a long time. In the beginning, it was called Pottery Manor because I wanted it to be a game about pottery and ceramics.
00:05:11
Speaker
um But then that kind of, I don't know, it just didn't really flow as well and I didn't get as much ideas for that so then eventually i thought well also because i visited down house which i don't know if any of you have visited but it's darwin's manor in surrey like south of london and he uses his whole house for his research and he did a lot of plant research which not everyone knows like he he was very interested in climber climber plants
00:05:44
Speaker
um So he used his whole house to grow different kinds of climbing plants and he would he had this greenhouse full of little succulents and cacti all in purpose of research.
00:05:58
Speaker
And that kind of started the idea to have a more plant botanical related game. And also because it's just a very, maybe slightly more romantic, visually pleasing angle for a game.
00:06:13
Speaker
So it all kind of slotted together. you think people care more about plants than the things that plants go in? Well, I also really like ceramics and I think they're very beautiful and satisfying too.
00:06:28
Speaker
But I guess there was just more science around plants and especially 19th century historical angle was maybe a little, that's kind of the the time when there was a lot of botanical research being done.
00:06:45
Speaker
So it felt like it was a better choice. That makes sense. And initially, was it just you working on the project? Yeah. So in the beginning, before i found a publisher, i was just working on it in my free time, and working on a demo and like a proof of concept.
00:07:03
Speaker
And then I got it signed. And then that gave me the funding to hire people to do... well, help me make this game and also just do the stuff that I absolutely can't do, like art and 2D art, 3D art, music, animation, all that stuff.
00:07:22
Speaker
And yeah, we found eventually it was the five of us. So we had Tim doing the 3D, Jim doing the animations, Thomas doing the music and the sound, and then Kit, ah to the 2D art, and also...
00:07:38
Speaker
yeah Kit earlier said she dabbled a bit in the design. I think she did a lot more than that. yeah She contributed a massive amount to the narrative design especially. So we were like creatively very good collaborators on the game.
00:07:52
Speaker
Thank you.
Puzzle Design and Mechanics
00:07:56
Speaker
So I think my next question is like, once you decided to make it plants, what were the immediate things that changed going from pottery to botany?
00:08:12
Speaker
Like mechanically speaking? um Yeah, well, I should clarify first that I never even got to the stage of actually prototyping mechanics besides the thought of you sculpt a pot or something.
00:08:27
Speaker
So it was all very conceptual still at that stage. um So I kind of immediately started thinking about mechanics with the plants. Like I never really built anything with the pottery.
00:08:37
Speaker
So yeah, not a whole lot changed except for obviously having to think about mechanics that are related to potting seeds and what kind of how you can puzzleify or have gameplay out of growing plants like that specific bit was quite a long journey to figure out how you make that fun and how exactly that works so that was a lot of iteration there Yeah, would you would you start with the obstacle and then figure out a plant? Or would do you figure out a plant and then work out an obstacle? Or was a bit of both? How how did that process go?
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was a bit of both. In the beginning, it was a lot more sort of component-based, if that makes sense. So with the thought that one plant needs water, sunlight, this particular temperature, and then the next plant is a bit harder and it requires all that stuff and then more.
00:09:40
Speaker
But that was a very maybe abstract approach that actually felt like It didn't make a lot of sense. And also using very normal mechanics, like you have to place the plant in the sunlight.
00:09:52
Speaker
It's a little debatable, I think, where exactly in a house is sunlight, where a shade, like if you put it partially in the shade, Is that enough? Like technically the room is bright, but it's not exactly in the sun. So it was it was too abstract, I think. And it needed to be more binary, what a plant needed.
00:10:12
Speaker
So then the whole saucer system. So basically in the game, you have to plant a seed in a pot and then put the pot on a saucer and that kind of solved the fluid environment problem where you decide yourself where you can place it so then you only had options between one saucer that's exactly placed in this spot and another saucer that's so it was easier for the player to limit the options of what was available to them But yeah, otherwise it kind of did go a little bit of both. Like sometimes we would start from this plant needs to unblock a gate for the player.
00:10:51
Speaker
So what can we do? And then sometimes it was um that more like theme related. Like, oh, we would really like a bioluminescence plant. what can we do with that or this is a cool item that we found like a magic lantern which projects slides on the wall it's like a very old-fashioned projector that's a really cool item how can we come up with a plan where we could use this item in the puzzle so it would Yeah, this is one of my favorite terms in game design or when I think of puzzles, but I always like to bring up a spider chart which has different labels. So for example, one plant has a very strong theme or another plant has a very cool animation when it grows.
00:11:41
Speaker
And then another plant has a very cool mechanic interaction to make it grow. So we would always make sure that Each plant had one 10 out of 10 for all of the different cool factors of a puzzle. That's really interesting. Do you remember what all of the cool factors were?
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was, well, the the things I listed, so the the reveal of the animation, for example, the plant having having an effect on its environment, or it would be ah cool mechanical interaction, or it would be the clues are very unique and interesting, or it would be narratively very or thematically very beautiful and nice.
00:12:27
Speaker
So sometimes it would allow me to accept that a puzzle wasn't as difficult or as intense if it meant that all the other ones were... Like, it was a really beautiful reveal.
00:12:39
Speaker
That kind of justifies the fact that it's a bit simpler. So it it allowed me to sort of understand the pace of the game better. Do you remember any other ones, Kit, that were factors...
00:12:54
Speaker
um Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking of like the Sapphire Gloom was quite a simple puzzle to solve. So it didn't have any like, it didn't score very highly on the complex mechanic yeah factor, but it was a mushroom. Yeah.
00:13:10
Speaker
um it had this symbiotic relationship with the tree and it was grown so it's kind of had had its own uniqueness factor um and then where we placed it in the game in relation to some other solving non-plant-based solving that you had to do also kind of balanced out the fact that it wasn't as difficult a puzzle yeah that's generally a difficult thing to figure out as well like the difficulty progression in your game, it doesn't have to be linear. It doesn't have to scale up.
00:13:40
Speaker
Like simple, slightly harder, really hard, hardest of hard. And we allowed ourselves to just dip back and give the player a breather, which also makes it easier for us to design a puzzle that's a little simpler, like a sort of intermezzo puzzle, if that makes sense.
Player Reception and Game Challenges
00:13:59
Speaker
So Body Matter came out on PC and consoles, and I would love to know, from your perspective, do you think that different audiences responded to the game differently or to different things in the game?
00:14:13
Speaker
It's interesting. there's definitely It's hard to get a true picture of what players think, of course, other than what you read on social media and Steam communities and things like that.
00:14:24
Speaker
But there was definitely different types of players responding to different things. Some people really appreciating certain things about the game, um like the difficulty factor or that sort of thing. And then different types of players being maybe a bit...
00:14:37
Speaker
frustrated that the game wasn't longer. i haven't like stood back and thought about it in terms of PC versus console. Well, I think one thing I can think about the console is that we we launched on Game Pass and that did give us ah very different audience than maybe would pick up our game organically.
00:14:58
Speaker
And that was actually quite nice because we had a lot of people who would normally play Call of Duty and I don't know, other issue games try this one out and be pleasantly surprised by it.
00:15:10
Speaker
And that was kind of a fun experience that even audiences that wouldn't necessarily have played it did get to play it through Game Pass and then actually liked it, which we didn't expect either.
00:15:21
Speaker
But yeah, that's not that's maybe not necessarily console related. No, that makes sense. Do you think that... I'm just thinking about this because it is... It's hard for me to like put my thoughts on the game into words. I really like it, first of all. like This is not a because I don't like it and I'm afraid of bothering you. But I think it's more like, because of the environment art and the theming, it's very, very casual, cozy, friendly.
00:15:53
Speaker
And then the gameplay is very, very deep and puzzly. And so that's like... Right, like setting expectations is tricky.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yes. Like, how like were you worried, especially like as you were announcing the game and like before the game was rolling out, that there was going to be difficulty in positioning the game?
00:16:19
Speaker
Because like i I can imagine a world where a bunch of people who don't realise it's a puzzle game pick it up and then are like, what? I'm being asked to think? Yes. Yeah, that that definitely was a worry before announcing it.
00:16:33
Speaker
And we did get the occasional person thinking that it was going to be a sandbox plant growing game. and then realizing it wasn't. But I don't know, it kind of works in both ways sometimes because we did get people thinking it was going to be something else, but then being kind of like, oh, actually I kind of enjoyed this more or actually being surprised or kind of liking the gameplay.
00:16:56
Speaker
But we definitely knew that because of the presentation, like the very cozy, inviting atmosphere, we would attract an audience that wouldn't necessarily play Return of the Obra Dinn or The Witness or that kind of game. um So we we just tried our best to adjust the difficulty more skewed towards that audience than to the previous games I mentioned.
00:17:20
Speaker
If we had the choice between a really, really difficult, complex thing or a more gentle, fun experience, we would go with that because it just felt like the audience who's going to play this game or want to play this game is going to appreciate that more.
00:17:33
Speaker
And I think that was the right choice. Kit, what you think? I would just echo everything you said. It it was really interesting to get a few people comment and say, i normally don't like puzzle games, but I really enjoyed this one.
00:17:47
Speaker
So it's like we kind of Stealth kind of duped people into playing a puzzle game little bit. But yeah,
Marketing Strategies for Puzzle Games
00:17:55
Speaker
and it it was definitely a push and pull, like all the way through development on difficulty, you know, as people who love Obra Dinn and games like that, you kind of want to create this masterpiece complex puzzle that people will really kill themselves to solve and then feel like geniuses at the end when they've solved it.
00:18:13
Speaker
But that's not always the best gameplay and it's not always right for the setting or the audience. um So yeah, I feel like we got a good compromise in the end between some quite complex and tricky puzzles, but also just an enjoyable, relaxing experience that didn't make people throw the console out the window of frustration.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. And I would rather have someone who doesn't normally play puzzle games enjoy this one than a veteran puzzle gamer find the game too simple.
00:18:44
Speaker
So it's nice to give a sort of stepping stone to becoming a puzzle gamer. Yeah. I mean, I've talked about this kind of stuff with Seren a lot and it's kind of disappointing in some ways that like the most effective way of marketing a puzzle game is sometimes to make it look as little like a puzzle game as possible.
00:19:06
Speaker
And that's like, it's a weird feeling. Yeah, you definitely also have the puzzle fanatics out there who want, you know, i i don't even know. Well, The Witness, I think, is a good example of that. Like, it is like 95% solving puzzles.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. And they're very, very challenging. And I do think, yeah, it's a bit of a split audience between people not wanting to think and then people wanting extremely hard, difficult puzzles. And it's it's difficult to find the in-between.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, and I, like, what when I think about mainstream games, or games that are attempting to be more mainstream, that are for, as I affectionately call them, puzzle sickos,
00:19:49
Speaker
ah you get games like last year's Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. which is a really deep and complicated game, but it's also one that can feel super imposing.
00:20:05
Speaker
And yeah, I don't know. What Alan said is right. Like we've released a bunch of different thinking games and the ones that sell best are the ones that have a marketing point other than really good puzzles.
00:20:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I see. And that's, I don't know, a little disappointing, but I get it. Yeah, i mean, I don't actually think it's that people are put off by like challenging puzzles.
00:20:34
Speaker
like Like The Witness is an example. like There's a lot of puzzles, like it's very thinky. And like, that didn't stop people wanting to play it. But that also wasn't what brought people to The Witness. I mean, maybe brought some people. But like I think first and foremost, that game gets traction because it looks really nice. And then that's one way of getting people in. there And once people are in, they're like, oh, yeah, there's some puzzles and I can solve them.
00:20:56
Speaker
Or there's some puzzles and they're too hard for me. But mostly it's like, oh, yeah, the difficulty of the puzzles is not the factor that makes people decide whether they like the game or not. Obviously, the onboarding is super relevant. so But...
00:21:08
Speaker
You can get people to solve some very, very hard puzzles if you layer them in correctly. It's just that you need them to want to play the game in the first place. Yeah, I agree with you because the reason I played The Witness was because I wanted to explore the environment, not necessarily because of the puzzles.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I didn't really know in the beginning that that was the game. And I remember asking like, so when is it starting? When am I through these panels? When do I get to the first fetch quest?
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, where's where do I get the minimap? Yeah. like games that are more pure puzzler, like a Baba is You or a Patrick's Parabox, each have a very marketable gimmick.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, right. ah That someone can look at Baba is you and say what you're pushing words around and the words are changing the rules. I am instinctively interested in that whether or not as it is a puzzle game versus, says you know, the smaller audience of we've made some really good puzzles. Does anyone want to play them?
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah. Which, you know, that audience speaks to my own heart and Alan's heart, but... The purists. Yes, but that's... They are the target audience for this podcast, and so I will... We we love you.
00:22:27
Speaker
we We love you all. We love you very much, but also, y'all will show up whether a game is marketed as puzzles or not, if you know it has puzzles.
00:22:37
Speaker
They will piece together what games are interesting on their own.
Game Design Decisions and Immersion
00:22:42
Speaker
um Do you want talk a little bit about the hint system? The hint system?
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah. Or the lack thereof. Lack thereof, yes. Well, I mean, there's a hint system, but it doesn't give you as much information as people might expect to have from a hint system.
00:23:00
Speaker
um In the sense that the the clues aren't kept in the herbarium. Right. Yeah, the very controversial criticism of the game.
00:23:13
Speaker
Well, this is, yeah, we've talked about this a lot. And maybe I'll let Kit answer this one because yeah we we have talked to a lot about it and I have talked a lot about it. So yeah. Yeah.
00:23:27
Speaker
I suppose just like in terms of a hint system at all, we did consider it, didn't we? A few times. Yeah. Yeah, well, the herbarium was supposed to be, well, that is the Hint system.
00:23:39
Speaker
But I think it's a little bit like you can't have a and then not have B. So people expected that to then be more. But actually validating the clues in the herbarium, that was supposed to be the Hint system.
00:23:52
Speaker
And it's actually completely optional. Like you don't have to do it. But we saw that everyone actually does it because they find it fun to organize their clues. So, yeah.
00:24:02
Speaker
The controversial thing is that a lot of people really wanted to keep the clues in the herbarium. Or keep the clues just in a viewable panel. of some kind and we, i would well, is agonized too strong a word? No, we agonized.
00:24:21
Speaker
We really went backwards and forwards on it. Like, so and a lot of players like in the steam community and stuff, they're like, request, please add the ability to, um and it's like, well, you finished the game now. So even if we add it now, is it going to be helpful?
00:24:36
Speaker
But we really, really thought about it and went backwards and forwards and ultimately the game would have moved into the book. you know like In Obra Dinn, there's exploration and there's the book, but the book really has a lot more layers than our herbarium had.
00:24:53
Speaker
um And with everything being black and white, it you know it just felt it flows a lot more naturally in that game. And we really wanted this game to be about the environment and to be about exploring and that sense of place and that relaxation and mood.
00:25:09
Speaker
And as soon as everything is accessible, in a book or in a panel away from that environment, the game would then move really into that panel. um And We just felt like that would be a lesser game.
00:25:21
Speaker
You would lose something. it It is frustrating to walk backwards and forwards around the house to go and look at a tiny piece of paper that you could have just put in your pocket. But also i think we had like 80 clues, over 80 clues by the end. So to then be like sifting through 80 pieces, they weren't all Victorian pieces of paper, but a vast majority of them were Victorian pieces of paper.
00:25:45
Speaker
Like, I would rather wander around this beautiful environment to look at those things than to just sort through like a Rolodex of clues. So i still, I stand by the decision that we made.
00:25:55
Speaker
think it was the right one. Yeah, I think I agree. Like you can kind of picture ah hypothetical playthrough of the version where all the information gets added to the book, where you're just kind of speed running, like running around the house,
00:26:11
Speaker
clicking on things but not even reading them, find the next thing, click on it, not really read it. Yeah. Like, oh, yeah, I found a thing, now enter the book. And that's just less engaging of a way to play the game. Yeah.
00:26:23
Speaker
And we did we didn't really try to make โ well, we we put all the effort into creating a mental map for the player. like we didn't put the effort into โ developing a ah way to keep the clues in your inventory.
00:26:38
Speaker
But we did, we really, really tried to make the clues unique enough and fit in their environment. For example, the Alpine climbing guide is like surrounded by climbing gear and right next to the tower that you need it for.
00:26:57
Speaker
So we, all the clues are actually quite close by to the puzzle that you need and you'll never get more than what you need, that makes sense. Like you won't see clues of the next plants and you don't have to backtrack to a previous chapter ever.
00:27:14
Speaker
And we always try to make sure that the clues, that there weren't like five papers lying next to each other or something, like there was enough breathing room in between. Yeah. I've thought about this specifically with regards to this game before, but it's not until chatting to you and listening to you talk about it that I'm like, oh, what about this approach? And like, I, I'm not saying this is a good idea and it's like really scope creepy in terms of the technical side of it.
00:27:40
Speaker
But what if you could like click on a thing in your book and then like the book closes and you're like auto walking to where it is. I wonder how that would feel. Yeah, well, I think it's, that was definitely one of the options that we had for like, what could a storing clues in book system look like? Like, for example, clicking on it and you teleport to the clue.
00:28:06
Speaker
Or you have an inventory with all the 3D objects. Or like, I don't know, the textures are in the book somehow. But yeah, again, I decided against that because i feel like it would break the immersion. Like that that was the main goal of this game, to be as immersive as possible and feel like you inhabit the character.
00:28:27
Speaker
so if you then take control of the body of the character, I feel like that... would break your margin. And so a lot of our decisions around the camera were all with that in mind.
00:28:38
Speaker
So never ever take control of the camera. Yeah, there was a lot of design that went into framing without controlling the camera, which was quite challenging. So like always making sure that we design something in a way that the player can't miss the plant growth animation.
00:28:56
Speaker
For example, the tower was used to be different. So there's an elevator in the tower that you can use to go up and down and you need to go at the right floor with the right window configuration.
00:29:09
Speaker
So before that, we it was just a staircase and then you could walk up and down, open the right windows. But then if you left the plant somewhere upstairs and then open the window downstairs, the plant would grow and you would miss it.
00:29:25
Speaker
So that's why we changed it to an elevator so the plant is always with you and you always look at the elevator and at the plant in front of you. So there were a lot of decisions there to never ever break immersion or cut the camera away.
00:29:42
Speaker
Did that end up just having a bunch of edge cases during testing? Well, I think it we would just try, it would sort of start from having that in mind right from the very beginning.
00:29:54
Speaker
And then if something came up that we kind of overlooked, we would just try and and make the mechanics change to that. And I think maybe the one where it's easiest to miss is the tree in the main hall.
00:30:09
Speaker
Because like you put the mushroom down. and that maybe this is a spoiler sorry but the mushrooms would grow on the tree and technically you can kind of just walk away from it but it was animated specifically from the plant upwards so that you kind have to follow it so it was it was informed in all sorts of ways like from the art how things animate to taking liberties with how a mechanical system and an old Victorian system would work.
00:30:39
Speaker
Like I haven't actually seen an elevator in a tower anywhere, but but yeah, that was like, okay, we have to, we just have to take liberties with that to make it work. ah Speaking of the ah design of the manor, how many iterations did the layout of the place go through? Was it bigger originally? Was it smaller?
00:30:58
Speaker
ah Definitely bigger, yes. Like, probably most games start out a lot bigger and then they kind of become more compact. But yeah, we did go through few iterations.
00:31:10
Speaker
I wouldn't say it it changed massively. I think, Kit, when you joined, it was pretty much locked in. Yeah, the the building, most of the building was pretty much done, yeah.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, but we did change like the purpose of some rooms and like some garden bits were only figured out near the end. But yeah, I think... let me try and remember how it how it evolved.
00:31:36
Speaker
I think the idea was always there to have like a central main entrance garden and then everything else is kind of around that. But yeah, there was a lot more in the beginning. There there was the idea to have a chapel somewhere, a bridge that you can cross to go over the river. And then there was an some sort of herb vegetable garden that I then ended up changing because it again kind of to emphasize that this is not a farming game so we kind of got rid of any vegetable in the game like any vegetable garden stuff
00:32:14
Speaker
Um, yeah, but other than that, I think we had this, this sort of way of working that I have adopted from Joel at us two games, who is a designer there called the cool board.
00:32:28
Speaker
And it's a great thing where you basically you can put ideas down.
Evaluating Design Elements
00:32:35
Speaker
Like for example, there should be a tower in the game and that then gets mapped on the cool board. And the axes are, they go from good to cool and from, so there's no bad ideas.
00:32:50
Speaker
And then they go from risky to not risky. And the ideal zone is not risky and very cool. So I think we just very early on thought about, well, there are some things that we have to have because you can't have a manner without I mean, you can, but a manor has a kitchen and a manor has main hall and it has a sitting room.
00:33:15
Speaker
So there were some things that we just couldn't get around. Like we needed to have those things, otherwise it wouldn't be a house. um But then there were other more flexible things like, yeah, like having a tower, having a boathouse.
00:33:27
Speaker
Those were just like, oh, that would be really cool. So let's try and work that in. And yeah, I think the gardens were the bit that changed the most. Like there was a lot of shuffling and making things smaller, but the main layout of the house was slightly more defined a bit earlier on and easier to to lock into place because it was more based on actual historical layouts of houses.
00:33:50
Speaker
Gotcha. Was there ever a desire to make plants used more than once?
00:33:59
Speaker
Yes. Yes, there was, but it didn't go very far.
00:34:05
Speaker
But yeah, there was sort of, I mean, this was ah a bit of a loose idea in the beginning that you would have like a friendship plant or a romance plant that needed multiple plants next to each other to grow or one plant that attracts flies and then another plant needs flies, that kind of thing. Like having combination plant puzzles with different plants.
00:34:28
Speaker
I don't actually know why we didn't try that in the end. I don't know, Kate, if we ever spoke about this. Yeah, i I don't remember. I feel like it came up a tiny bit early on, but it's probably like everything else that came down to scope.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, and backtracking probably as well. Is someone going to remember that plant from, i don't know, three chapters ago? it felt maybe a bit mean to do something like that.
00:34:56
Speaker
But we could have probably also designed it specifically. you know It's all about what you put the effort in, but maybe we just didn't care enough about the idea to to try that. definitely I've heard a few people say that they expected to like go but have to go back to the conservatory and things like that. And I think I kind of did as well, like early on when I was working on the game.
00:35:18
Speaker
But at the same time, we used to have a more loose structure for the clues. I think at one point you could solve all the plants at once, right? Yes. um And it just through you like play testing and testing it ourselves, we came to the conclusion that those kind of invisible guardrails of gating and just kind of guiding people through a more linear path is comforting.
00:35:43
Speaker
And the alternative was very unnerving and people would get lost. Or like you say, you might just forget six plants in, you might forget what you did with an earlier plant and then you just get frustrated and stuck.
00:35:56
Speaker
Mm Yeah, the gating was interesting. Like you said in the beginning, there was just nothing. And we had to sort of come up with the terminology hard gates and soft gates.
00:36:08
Speaker
So like a hard gate is ah literally a gate, but the gate shut and you can't enter in this chapter. And then a soft gate is you can get there, but you need to do a few steps first.
00:36:19
Speaker
So it's it's available to you, but we can play with the timing of when it is available to you. And that allowed us to have a bit of a path how the player goes through all the clues because it it was hard as well because you can't really control what a player goes to first and especially in a first person game and there's always a chance that someone misses it and just doesn't look at it so we couldn't rely on that we always had to make sure that every clue was one fifth of the puzzle
00:36:49
Speaker
in itself and it was never oh I've seen clue 3 before I saw clue 1 now I can solve the puzzle like that that couldn't happen yeah I think going in i was expecting something maybe a bit more systemsy where it's like oh I'm going to learn all these plants and each plant is going to give me something I can do and then I'll get to learn how to use them in different contexts but I think it very quickly becomes obvious that that's not what the game is trying to be and think that's the right decision for like actually shipping the game.
00:37:23
Speaker
ah Like the version of this game where you do use plants multiple times, I think you really need to really lean into it. And like, it's not just like, oh yeah, at plant four, you need to go back to plant two. Like you need to go like, oh, plant one, then plant one and two, then plant two and three, and like really reinforce that you're always going back and using them together. And that's such a harder game to design.
00:37:48
Speaker
And probably a lot bigger, like you would need a lot more puzzles to teach that. And like making a plant was quite a big production thing because it needed to be designed. It needed to be well, concepted, animated, modeled.
00:38:01
Speaker
So, and then there's more constraints on what the plants do, because it's not just a single time thing. Yeah, it would be a lot harder to design, I think so, for sure. But yeah, the first plant, that was ah very conscious design to set the expectation that these plants are kind of fantasy and unique.
00:38:23
Speaker
It's not like this one needs this soil with this, I don't know, really grounded plant. Yeah. botanical things like the ph level of this soil needs to be that like it was more i guess yeah binary like this plant needs temperature this plant needs light it's completely different every time so it couldn't like bleed through each other too much Yeah.
00:38:48
Speaker
Talking about progression, I think there's also something quite subtle that's also a really smart choice for scope, which is that some of the plants, you solve them and they unlock progress like in universe.
00:39:01
Speaker
But some of them, it's just when you've done this thing or when you've done these two things, the bell's going to ring and there's going to be delivery at the gate. Yeah. I'm curious, was that a distinction you you you had from the start?
00:39:14
Speaker
No. Kit actually came up with that, so she should elaborate. Yeah, the and the gating, it was kind of funny because we were like, wouldn't it be great if it wasn't lazy game design to just get a new key every few puzzles and a door that you can open?
00:39:31
Speaker
And then we did actually end up having at least one thing that functions as a key to open a door, which we just couldn't get away from. So we just tried to make be as creative as possible about how that worked.
00:39:43
Speaker
But yeah, I think we were kind of brainstorming for a while about how to lock players out from later puzzles in an elegant way.
Narrative Tools in Botany Manor
00:39:52
Speaker
And ultimately, the kind of receiving of parcels just felt like quite a sweet, sort of slightly exciting thing to happen. And also it's quite a solitary game, um even though you've got all of the letters and things you can read about these background characters.
00:40:06
Speaker
it's still kind of eerily silent. There's no actual characters or animations or voices. So that was just an extra way to make the world feel real and lived in and less, you know, Silent Hill kind of I'm wandering around a spooky manner vibes.
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the only other option would have been to do something like um that you find a letter and it says, oh, the key is, ah dropped the key behind the cupboard somewhere.
00:40:33
Speaker
And then like, only let that appear once you've read the letter. once you've read the letter So that felt like too cheeky. So I think, yeah, the gatehouse was the most immersive way of doing that.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. but I still kind of laugh to myself a little bit when I remember that some ironsmiths came and installed a door and then we later delivered the handle for the door.
00:41:00
Speaker
um But yeah, maybe that's a little bit of a wink to the player. Yeah. Before we wrap up, do you have any questions for Alan and i um Yeah, I think we both came up with one.
00:41:14
Speaker
Maybe, be Kit, do you want to say your question? Sure, yeah. and I guess I was wondering, as people who love puzzle games, puzzle sickos, if if you describe yourselves as puzzle sickos, I'm a bit of a puzzle sicko, I think.
00:41:27
Speaker
What do you wish there was more of in the puzzle world? So like... I feel like you know we made Botany Manor because we felt like there was not enough deep, like challenging puzzles where the environment is relaxing and beautiful.
00:41:42
Speaker
So I'm interested to know for both of you what you think there is a hole in the kind of puzzle game industry or like what you wish there was more of or what you'd like to play more of that doesn't exist.
Balancing Accessibility and Challenge
00:41:55
Speaker
Alan, you go first because mine isn't possible.
00:41:59
Speaker
um i and I don't know about doesn't exist, but I think I would love to see more games that are approachable to a very wide range of players and work well for them, like who work well both for players like very casual players who are just lured in for like good vibes or something. And for the really, really puzzle sickers who want the hardest puzzles possible.
00:42:26
Speaker
I think it's, it's really, really tough to hit both audiences, but I think you like having the stuff that the puzzle sickers love will like unlock something and it's ah in some of the people that are there more for the casual vibes but also i think having a game that can ease you into that stuff is good for even the people who want the puzzle sicko stuff um so i think it's it's a hard thing to balance but if you can balance uh i think it's really really positive in all aspects so i'd love to see more more games that can thread that needle
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah, great. ah For me, I mean, the version that... So saw a producer, and so this is why i was like, oh, it can't happen because I would never... i would scream if someone tried to actually suggest making this.
00:43:18
Speaker
But like my dream puzzle game is one that is somehow able to react to how the player is experiencing the...
00:43:35
Speaker
like, you're solving this mechanic really easily and you're having trouble with this one. Or you're, like, and be able to adjust... like, the difficulty or the, like, put you on different game design tracks based on your play experience, but that's not feasible at all.
00:43:56
Speaker
So, I think, like, my actual, like, I think back to a game like Threes that starts out, like, that just gets more complicated the better you are at it.
00:44:13
Speaker
by not necessarily introducing new mechanics, but just by virtue of the for like the more progress you make, the more difficult the same mechanics intrinsically become.
00:44:27
Speaker
So, yeah, so so something like that, if that makes sense. Something that is much more sort of forgiving for... players who maybe are interested in harder puzzles but aren't as good at them but has a lot of bite for the people who really want to dig in.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You have to give them like a ah test in the beginning of the game or something to figure out. Yeah, I mean, I think in a puzzle game context, even if you could do it, you'd also potentially get people complaining about like missing content.
00:45:06
Speaker
um Like, oh, I want to play the whole thing. um But like I think think there is a version of it where like maybe you frame it more like a roguelike, where you're not expected to see the whole thing and you're like just...
00:45:20
Speaker
dipping into a part of it randomly each time, the maybe that framing makes it both less off-putting, but also um more achievable?
00:45:32
Speaker
Yeah, potentially, yeah. People love roguelikes, so... I find them unsettling. his I still play them, but yeah. I don't like there to be so many hidden things, hidden information.
00:45:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, roguelikes are weird. Yeah. Again, it was like the first time I played one. It was Hades. It was the first ever roguelike I played.
00:46:01
Speaker
Oh, goodness. Yes. And I didn't quite get I was like, oh, I'm just starting again. Why is that? Like, oh, I think the save game didn't work or something. And i remember looking it up and then I found a Reddit thread of someone who asked the same question and then it was like, well thats gay then So yeah, I'm not too used to them either, actually.
00:46:25
Speaker
Laura, you said you also had a question? ah yeah Yeah, maybe it's like a bit, maybe we've talked about it in some ways already. But I guess my question was like, how would you about playtesting and figuring out the difficulty of something without shaving off all the corners or making it too simple like how how do you fine tune it's a very very difficult question but yeah i don't know yeah that is like please tell us such a tough question uh
00:47:00
Speaker
So from my perspective, not as game designer, but of just how I've witnessed Draconect doing play tests.
Playtesting and Difficulty Tuning
00:47:08
Speaker
And a sort of important thing, I think, about a lot of the Draconect puzzle games is outside of...
00:47:18
Speaker
A Monster's Expedition, they're pretty much all level-based, where it's like you there's like a level select screen. And from there, like one, if a puzzle is good, but there's issues with it or something, you you can like push it a little later, right? like if If everything is inherently level select, you can switch the order around. But then also...
00:47:43
Speaker
A lot of the design goal of Draconect developed and published, to a certain extent, ah puzzle games is that every individual level is teaching you something new or making you do something new.
00:48:01
Speaker
Like, giving you an experience that none of the other puzzles quite have. And so... Being able to take that, I think you can like sand down some of the maybe harder gotcha moments, like the potential false solutions to a puzzle while still keeping its essence.
00:48:27
Speaker
um Alan, if you want to take it from there. Yeah, um and certainly what you said about there's hard stuff, um you don't have to cut it. You can just move it later. It's a big part of of how we've done it, I guess.
00:48:43
Speaker
I think... One way we've maybe done it is by not over-testing on super casual players. um Just trying to get lots of medium-weight players and knowing that like if you if you have enough testers and you're paying attention, you're going to notice things that will also affect more casual players.
00:49:09
Speaker
And i think that approach does lead to us making games which are, not super approachable for people who like they're they're approachable in terms of what you're doing but they are less approachable in terms of the difficulty curve by virtue of like the pacing will be will will like not ease you in very gently um it will ease you in But we want to challenge you at every point. We don't want to give you and easy puzzle just to make you feel good, so generally. And like if there's an easy puzzle, that is an easy puzzle that's there for a specific purpose to to reinforce something or to to set you up to be doing something particular, um not because we want to give you like half a dozen easy puzzles to get you feeling like you've got your dopamine hit.
00:50:03
Speaker
And that pacing, I think, is the kind of pacing you you get pushed towards more the more you play a test with a lot of really casual players.
00:50:16
Speaker
So, yeah, I think i think it leads ah to a sense of, like, our games are always, like, slightly harder than people might want them to be. And that might mean that some people bounce off, but the people who persist are going to be rewarded for that.
00:50:32
Speaker
yeah With the exception of A Monster's Expedition. Yeah. That game... to her That game is an inadvisable design to recreate, but it's incredibly good.
00:50:47
Speaker
ah yeah Are there any other last questions that you had for us? Not that we talked about, but what's the latest puzzle game you've played? Oh,
Recent Puzzle Game Discussions
00:50:56
Speaker
yeah. Alan, you've played more recently than I have.
00:51:00
Speaker
um Yeah, I played some in ah Next first. Oh, yeah. played ah the Tempopo demo. ah yeah, me too. yeah, a little bit. Yes.
00:51:11
Speaker
That's very cute, very pleasant, pretty casual. But yeah, and interesting stuff. I played a ah game with another demo, Orbis, which is like a solo co-op. Like you're you're switching between two spheres that are rolling around and...
00:51:31
Speaker
Activating buttons that let the other one go around. um And then I played a little bit of the DLC for Leap Year, which Leap Year is a really, really great kind of Metroidvania-y game ah where you go this dude and you're jumping, but ah your jump height is like really, like it becomes fatal very quickly.
00:51:52
Speaker
And so you are... um learning to navigate this environment okay without killing yourself. But then it layers in a lot of surprising interactions that are systemic and have always been there, but you get talked to them slowly throughout of the course of the game. And then the yeah this DLC is basically...
00:52:12
Speaker
assuming you have the knowledge of all the mechanics you were taught over the course of the base game. And then like, what would it be like to just assume you have all that information and here's a new map, um new, new set of puzzles, a new set of like routine challenges for going out, Oh, how do I get from A to B? Yeah.
00:52:33
Speaker
That's cool. I like knowledge based gating a lot. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then I recently ah finished up The Root Trees Are Dead. Oh yeah, that's still on my list. The the hype is real on that game. o but um And then i also played the updated demo for Pup Champs in Next Fest.
00:52:57
Speaker
That game is delightful and adorable. Also, haven't played it. Hearing a lot of buzz for this game Type Help, which is on Itch. um It's also a very detective-y thing that, yeah, seeing a lot of people say good things about it. So, yeah, if you like Obra Dinn, if you like ah ah your game, like... Nah.
00:53:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah, or a Golden Idol, I suppose. Yeah, Golden Idol, Roo Tree. It seems like it's playing in that kind of space, but with like a a text mode computer interface. Okay. Alan, when you when you started with with that tone and you were like, I've heard a lot of good things about, I literally thought the next words were going to be the electrifying incident.
00:53:44
Speaker
Oh, I mean, yeah. I thought you were about to plug our own game. i mean, we should do that more on this podcast. Yeah.
00:53:54
Speaker
Oh, no, it always feels disrespectful. When's this episode going to be coming out? Is it going to be around the time that our game is coming out? Yeah, this episode is, what, slated to come out probably March 27. That's to be really funny if this doesn't come out on March 27.
00:54:12
Speaker
ah March 27, there's still, like, a couple of weeks to go, so you can be eagerly anticipating it still. Yes. Alright, well thank you so much Laura and Kit for joining us.
00:54:25
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you, it's been fun. ah Where can people find you online? Oh dear.
00:54:34
Speaker
I'm not that online anymore. You don't have to have an answer. The answer could be don't perceive me. I guess all the usual stuff, Blue Sky and um Instagram and Twitter.
00:54:46
Speaker
How much of that is still happening? but Yeah. Kate, how about you? Yeah, I'm on ah Blue Sky. I don't... Is it tweet? What is it? Like bleep?
00:54:59
Speaker
Tweet, post, whatever. I don't post very often, but I'm on Blue Sky. My handle is just my name, wherever I am, Instagram. Awesome. Well, thank you again.
00:55:10
Speaker
And thank you for listening to the Dracneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis.
00:55:22
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.
00:55:39
Speaker
Thank you.