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Episode 40: Oolimry (Glowkeeper)
143 Plays4 hours ago
In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Oolimry, the developer behind Glowkeeper. Topics include the development of Glowkeeper, designing a Metroidbrainia, and how to test secrets in game.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Drakkneck and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Sorrent, producer at Drakkneck and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Drakkneck at Drakkneck and Friends.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi there. Today, we're joined by Ulamri, who you may know from their work on Glowkeeper. How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty great, yeah. I mean, Glowkeeper came out like a month ago.
00:00:48
Speaker
So yeah, I've been catching a break a bit. Awesome.
Meet Ulamri: From Singapore to Game Design
00:00:52
Speaker
Can you sort of introduce yourself to the listeners? Okay, I'm Olim Reed. I'm from Singapore and I guess I'm like a university student now.
00:01:06
Speaker
So I study computer science like generally, but I really like like the game design part of things. And so started getting into game design a little bit like three-ish years ago.
00:01:19
Speaker
And then I guess Glowkeeper was the first major project that I worked on, which has been actually been for the past like three-ish years. So yeah, I'm student. Now I'm pretty happy about it, yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker
Awesome. What got you into studying game design? and Honestly, actually didn't play that much games for a while. But I think I didn't play a lot of games. i played like The first thing I got back into indie games was in Hollow Knight, when I played in 2019. Then I played a bit more...
00:01:52
Speaker
of the games and that kind of things, like Celeste, you know, the the more classic types. And then, i think, during this time, I started watching a lot of, like, game design videos itself. Like, I binged the entire GMTK, embarrassingly, so I probably know everything that he has said at some point in time.
00:02:10
Speaker
Uh, yeah. So... Then I started realizing that game design is pretty interesting in itself, even if I don't night play all the games out there. But then I can start to see like the patterns between the games and how a lot of the things I thought about games, actually there's a lot that goes behind it. So I that's when I started becoming interested in ah coming up with ideas for games myself.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah. Awesome.
Glowkeeper: Concept and Gameplay
00:02:41
Speaker
And so for people who don't know, how would you describe Glowkeeper? How would I describe Glowkeeper? This is such a difficult question, because but i will say it is Mesh 3, Kuzzle Platformer, Metroidvania.
00:03:00
Speaker
Like, literally, it is that. ah But, I mean, i feel like also kind struggle to describe Glowkeeper. It's It is a game where like you you you draw lines on the grid, you match things so you can construct like bridges, break down walls, and then you explore a wall.
00:03:20
Speaker
And that is kind of what you do. But also a lot of it is about like understanding the interactions and of the mechanics. if You go to one place, you learn something about it, and you go to a previous place that you've seen before and use your you something that you've learned.
00:03:34
Speaker
So in that sense, I would it's... At this call, still a Metroid-brainia game. Just that it's infused with like a match-three twist to it. Yeah. yeah And how far into development did it become Metroid-brainia?
00:03:48
Speaker
How far into development did it become? Actually, pretty early on. Okay, I will say the timeline for this game was really weird. Because ah the whole thing started three years ago.
00:03:59
Speaker
But the development has been very on and off. Because of... like things in life. I mean, I'm studying and before i studied, i had to serve like natural service in Singapore. So I didn't, sometimes I had lot of free time. Sometimes I didn't have any free time at all.
00:04:15
Speaker
So I guess maybe about like 10 to 20% into development, I decided that it would be a metriberania. So that's like, four months-ish.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, I mean, fun fact, right? Like, the development of Glowkeeper was never meant to be a puzzle game in first place. I was actually never a puzzle game developer to begin with. Okay, I was never puzzle game fan to begin with.
00:04:38
Speaker
ah The story was that I was trying to just randomly play in Godot Engine ah building um like a Mesh 3 platformer with like the linking mechanic and the platformer so I built like this randomly generated stage like every Mesh 3 game has like you know randomly generated gems across everywhere so I built it and I played it like it was just not fun at all because you know I mean, every Mesh 3 game becomes very boring after some point because the grid, even though it's randomly generated, looks kind of the same, right? So then like I realized, actually see the intro puzzles I made, like I gave a friend to play that. She said the intro puzzles were more fun than the game itself.
00:05:17
Speaker
So I guess that's when I... Okay, that's the first step. like I started making a puzzle. Then, because like it's ah you know there's like a platformer, and I think at this point, I was like quite inspired by Solace, which is one of my two favorite games of all time. so And, you know, a lot of spoilers for it, but like there's this thing where you can you know refresh a dash between the room, right?
00:05:41
Speaker
And I thought i was like... pretty interesting because there's like lot of strawberries or hidden collectibles in the game that you had to do that for. And so I was thinking like, you know, what if instead of like many single screen puzzles, which was my first prototype, I made it like one big continuous world where, you know, there's like some interactions between like the different elements of the world.
00:06:03
Speaker
And so I think naturally from there, it started turning more into a metrobrenia. ah Yeah, I mean, i I think that, like, making the whole world interconnected was the more... was the first decision that I made. And then after that, I think it seemed quite natural to hide stuff in... like, hide stuff in plain sight. Like, for example, ah one of my earliest prototypes had, like, a scroll in plain sight.
00:06:27
Speaker
You didn't know how to get there. i Unfortunately, people, like... seem to figure it out a bit too early. So, okay, fine. But, like, I could tell that people really enjoyed... They say, hey, wait, I solved the puzzle, but there's still a score there. Like, what... How do I get that score?
00:06:42
Speaker
I think people enjoyed, like, that feeling. So I think that was what gave me the, like, the green light to push it to a metroidvania direction. yeah Interesting. So from from hearing you say that, it sounds like it was almost more like it was a interconnected space that allows
Game Design: Linear vs. Non-linear
00:07:01
Speaker
for puzzles before it was a puzzle game.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yes. i did not intend for it to be a puzzle game to begin with. It was just a random project I was trying. Yeah. And then somehow it showed the potential for pretty interesting puzzles. Yeah.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think you've done a really good job of like chasing the core of what the idea wanted it wanted to be and then making a really good version of that. um like it you can't I don't think you can tell like that it had that winding ah history of design.
00:07:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty funny to look back now thinking about it, but yeah. um Because yeah, I feel like the interconnected puzzles are a lot of what gives it its identity.
00:07:52
Speaker
And like i'm I'm curious because that that i I can't really tell what the normal first-time player experience is for this game because I played like a little bit of the demo and then I picked up the game later and then I had a very unconventional start to playing the full game, which I loved and like had ah had a delightful time with.
00:08:14
Speaker
um And then I was like playing the the the intended like critical path, the the early game, and one thing that struck me was like it feels...
00:08:25
Speaker
actually quite linear at the start and maybe there's like a lot of like medium difficulty puzzles that gating access to the rest of the game. I'm i'm curious, like how do you feel about how long it takes to reveal its identity and like what what makes it special? Okay, honestly,
00:08:46
Speaker
That's a pretty good point because i i think, yeah, it does take quite a while to reach, like, you know, the point where the chasm opens up and that's when the game actually opens up, right?
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah. I realized, like, it did take quite a while to reach that point. But, wait, so you you were asking, like, what were you asking again? um i mean, it's a meandering question. Like, i'm i'm i'm I'm curious about your perspective on, like, the early game and, like,
00:09:16
Speaker
teaching teaching people the mechanics and like making making them intrigued to to see more without like pushing them in the deep end too soon.
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay, yeah. i I also do have like this concern that like the early game is too linear. At the same time, I also do have the concern that like previously before when the early game wasn't too linear, it was too unlinear. And then people got very, very lost on certain things.
00:09:47
Speaker
So, for example, there is this, you know, before you go up the truth, right, there is this puzzle to the right called Luminescent Passage. It had a 10-score gate, right?
00:10:00
Speaker
To go through that puzzle, you need to know, like, rocks, you need to know wind wind. Yeah, you at least need to know these two things. So, at first, right, I just put the puzzle there.
00:10:12
Speaker
Oh, and the the puzzle itself was gating progress, not the gait. Yeah, the puzzle itself was gating progress. And for a lot of the people I played it with, like, I think they were frustrated that there's this puzzle that's, like, clearly there, right?
00:10:26
Speaker
But, like... the the kind of knowledge you need to clear it is not clearly signified. Like for example, there are some puzzles which are like, okay, if if let's say this is a new symbol I've not seen before, like say in The Witness, then yeah, okay, the the rule of the game is go learn what the symbol is first, then come back.
00:10:41
Speaker
It's quite clear cut. But in this case, it's not even clear that you don't have the knowledge to solve the puzzle because you need the knowledge to even reach to a state where you have some idea of how to proceed.
00:10:53
Speaker
And so, for example, like one of the things I did was to put a 10-score gate there. So the 10-score gate is actually not hard to not how to clear. By the time you learn the rock and you learn the wind, you probably have 10-scores already. It's just more of there to say that, okay, this is the beat this is off the beaten path.
00:11:08
Speaker
Don't come down here. And I think the I felt like... i because I played i start with people who were mostly like my friends who aren't puzzle game players.
00:11:21
Speaker
And think a lot of them like got lost very early on in different places. One example would be, you know the the place where where you went at the start, right? yeah Like, ah before before that, before the the in the current version of the game, once you jump down to the ledge, you can never jump back up until you, you know, re-enter the area. Yes, there's no there's no warp point at the beginning of the game for most players.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah. And before that... I think that's a smart decision. Like, i I see why that's needed. Or not needed, but like... it would be very easy to have a worse experience if you were to go back to that point a bit too early before you're ready for it.
00:12:07
Speaker
Because like there was a point in the game where, you know the first puzzle where you have to drop down Baron Crossroads? You have to like realize that there's a gap below, it so you have to drop down. So we went to... A lot of players went there, they were stuck.
00:12:19
Speaker
They were like, where do I get a screw? So they backtracked all the way to the front. Then they so they saw rocks. So they pushed the rock down and i went into the area that you went. Which is like, they will be so dead if they cut it when they go there.
00:12:34
Speaker
And so, yeah, I think over time, like, I realized that ah initially, like, actually the plan was for Glowkeeper to be a bit more of a... not so like hand-holdy a bit more hand-holdy towards the start i guess because i didn't want it to be like maxwell's puzzling demon or something like that i did want it to be a bit more beginner friendly i guess to the game like for for people to join in so i initially that the direction that's why i started like pushing people away from
00:13:08
Speaker
paths that they're not supposed to go to it and go through the linear path. Like, of course, if you're good enough to go off the beaten path, then just go. But for the players who aren't, I try to push them towards the main path. And I'm not sure if they appreciated it or not, because honestly, the rock area is actually pretty hard.
00:13:26
Speaker
Like, from playdesting, it's really hard. We nerfed it many times. It's still pretty hard. So, okay, i I do have a bit of, like, doubts myself about that area, but Yeah, on the whole, think that the decision to make the first initial path like more linear is because it's not something I wanted, but because i if I didn't do it, then I think the players who are more prone to getting lost, or yeah they can't recognize when the puzzle is like a knowledge gate or when it's just, I am not good enough because they're not well-versed in puzzle games.
00:14:05
Speaker
stuff like this, like Metroid Brainias kind of games. So I did want to make sure that the experience for these players aren't ruined as well. Yeah. No, and that makes sense.
00:14:17
Speaker
So one one thing that I noticed, and maybe this goes back a little bit to some of the original design inspiration and adding some of the Metroid Brainias later on, the...
Control Scheme Decisions for Glowkeeper
00:14:30
Speaker
the um The control scheme for this game of using the mouse to interact with sort of the the symbols and the matching, as well as obviously needing to platform around,
00:14:46
Speaker
is not it's I wouldn't say that no games do it, but it's not something that you see very commonly. oh Was that just a decision made out of necessity for the mechanics that you wanted to implement?
00:14:59
Speaker
Or was that something that you were actively looking to explore as well? Okay, because the initial game was like a randomly generated grid where you try to climb as high as possible. And like the idea was that, you know, there will be like a rising hazard from below. So you have to try to jump up as fast as you can.
00:15:19
Speaker
So I know like theory it's possible to have like a matching mode where you use your arrow keys and platforming mode where use your arrow keys and a matching mode where you use your arrow keys. ah That is definitely possible.
00:15:32
Speaker
But then, because the original design was more of like an action game, right? You kind of had to be both matching and moving at the same time. So I think by necessity, had to be like one mouse, one keyboard.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But okay, eventually I realized that actually it's also the most intuitive control scheme, I think. Because platforming games definitely use your keyboard. And fundamentally, it's also a line drawing game. And line drawing games always use your mouse.
00:16:02
Speaker
i Okay, i mean not really, but most line drawing games I know... Is that even true? Okay, maybe not. But using a mouse is one of the most like intuitive ways for a line drawing game to work. So I guess that's like the natural conclusion I came to.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, because I think i I've definitely played games where it uses both keyboard and mouse. And like, oh, I hate this. This is so awkward. Like I'm constantly having to switch between them.
00:16:30
Speaker
And I actually didn't have that feeling at all. Well, the very, very rarely with your game. And I can't put my finger on why i just like accepted it very quickly when it really feels bad in other games.
00:16:44
Speaker
I think... The keyboard and mouse... Actually, you know what? I have a theory, which is that you don't use anything on the keyboard other than arrow keys.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah. I have very similar feelings towards games like this. For example, I cannot play Hades on keyboard and mouse. It's just not possible because... But you know it's so annoying because,
00:17:08
Speaker
like I remember clearly the dash direction in Hades is where your mouse is pointing at, right? so Yeah, I can't do that either. If you dash twice in the same direction, you may not, like, you want to dash twice in the same direction by spamming dash, but you are dashing, like, once forward and one backward because your mouse stays at the same place, but your character moves.
00:17:28
Speaker
So, yeah, I could never play with a keyboard and mouse. And, I mean, the other issue is that, like, I think most games have too many keys. like if i If you need me to use my pinky or my thumb, I probably will use a controller instead.
00:17:45
Speaker
So, yeah. Thankfully, I think Low Keeper doesn't need anything other than WSD. Did you consider trying to make a controller support? Okay, that's a good question. I did think about controller for a while. was trying to think...
00:18:02
Speaker
how on earth will implement the line matching? And the best solution I could come up with was left D-pad for matching and right joystick for, you know, left D-pad for movement and right joystick for matching, which, and then like the right trigger for like selecting and releasing, which the move I thought about it was extremely awkward to do. I don't, I cannot imagine doing that.
00:18:33
Speaker
Even someone myself who plays platformers and controllers all the time. So, yeah. And then once you go into like the timing-based puzzles, it also starts breaking down entirely. So, yeah. I think I thought about it. I was like, nah. I don't think any sane person would play this on the controller.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah. No, it's it's just interesting, like Alan said, because it's not something that it's It's just not something that people typically rely on as a control scheme. I think partially because a lot of developers are thinking about like mobile and thinking about console and or controller or Steam Deck or a lot of other ah situations, but because this game isn't Yeah, I do think that the control scheme works really well.
00:19:26
Speaker
It was just something that really stood out to me when playing it. Thanks, yeah. I think, personally, I just didn't really have much thoughts about console or mobile.
00:19:37
Speaker
I mean, people did ask whether this can go on mobile. I'm like... possibly but the grid can't be 12 by 21 there's no place to fit the joystick and the jump button and not fat finger like the grid if your grid is 12 by 21 big so i was like probably not mobile as well but I think mobile is still the more possible one console like controller just feels really weird with this game think yeah I think I think both controller and mobile would be a ah real not fun challenge
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah. So earlier you said that you weren't really a puzzle game fan.
Puzzle Game Influences and Community
00:20:21
Speaker
um but also earlier you just offhandedly mentioned Maxwell's puzzling demon.
00:20:26
Speaker
So, uh, clearly at some point, uh, you became more familiar with the puzzle games and like, certainly At some point you joined the Thinky Puzzle Game community. so yeah, like I'm curious, like at what point in the game's development did like you come to this awareness of the genre and like, how do you feel about it now?
00:20:50
Speaker
Okay, so, yeah, before that, I don't think I played much. Actually, before that, the games I played was, like, really constrained. It was, like, a lot multi-platformers kind of games. And so, I mean, of course, including stuff like Hollow Knight, but, yeah, like, that kind of game.
00:21:06
Speaker
So, what happened was that, like, once I picked up Baba Is You, that was my first puzzle game I played. I played for, like, 10 hours. Then, you know, after 10 hours, you reach the point in Baba is You where you exhausted all the easy puzzles and you give up on the game.
00:21:21
Speaker
So I gave up on Baba is You for 8-9 months, I think. Was it more than that? I have no idea. So I just gave on the game. Then, while developing the early prototype of Glowkeeper, I realized that, okay, maybe I want to lean into the puzzle side more. So in order to like learn more about puzzle games, I decided to replay Baba is You.
00:21:44
Speaker
And okay, I actually did finish Baba is You this time, like with the very helpful Baba is Hint website. I finished, like, I don't know why I decided to 100% it, but I did 100% it for once.
00:21:56
Speaker
So I was like, anyway, yeah, this is pretty interesting. So I decided to like start exploring more puzzle games then. What was the next one I played? I think it was Railbound.
00:22:08
Speaker
And then after that was Steven Sausage Row, which is... Yeah, as Steven Sausage Row is so good. Oh my gosh. and And then after that, Can of Wormholes, which is also extremely good. These two are like my favorite puzzle games of all time. And I think...
00:22:24
Speaker
I think on these two games, I would say their concept of minimalism, like in the sense of trying to get the most out of a small number of mechanics, I think resonated with me the most.
00:22:35
Speaker
And so I think that's also kind of something that influenced Glowkeeper's direction quite a bit. Yeah. So actually, honestly, the I consider myself quite a flexible player gamer i play practically every genre that is not competitive like fps yeah so okay i mean i don't play too much 3d games mostly because i get motion sickness but yeah i play a wide range of job genres my favorite games list range from all different kind genres so yeah i i'm i guess my attitude is like if i'm working to develop something i like to like see the games in the genre to you know
00:23:15
Speaker
get some ideas to see what I could absorb, what I think they've done well that I could learn from. And yeah, that's actually the main thing of how I started getting into puzzle games. I mean, of course, the consequence is that now I have played a bunch of great games.
00:23:29
Speaker
So yeah. Yeah, well, I should also say that, like, another game that I did play, like, at that time... When was it? Yeah, I it was after Stephen's Sausage Row was, like, A Monsters Expedition. And, like, I think that that was the game that inspired a lot the meta elements. Because, you know how in A Monsters Expedition, you you you can reset the island, but you don't reset the other island. And then, because of that, you...
00:23:52
Speaker
you can do some really weird things that I don't even understand how it's possible in that game. It's too complex for me to I don't get how the game is actually plausible. you know like surely someone How do you design the island such that it's not plausibly possible to raft out of the thing? Of course, it's possible to raft out. I've seen before. oh So much playtesting.
00:24:14
Speaker
So much playtesting and manual. That game was so broken for a long time. Yeah, so i'm I'm kind of surprised that a monster expedition can exist without being broken. I mean, of course it's still got broken, but like... mean i think I think the checkpoint ah solution you have in your game is is really clever. Like just having multiple checkpoints that could be activated for each resettable region.
00:24:43
Speaker
um yeah like did you like How did you come to that solution? Okay, I think initially it was like very inspired by Monsters Expedition at first because I like the puzzles.
00:24:55
Speaker
The part that I was a bit confused on was like, does this reset this way or does it reset that way? If I reset this room, does the log in that island reset or something like that? So ah for myself, I like,
00:25:09
Speaker
prefer when things are very clearly defined. So I put quite a lot of constraints into the game that like made it very clear. like For example, actually one of the earliest prototypes didn't have the checkpoints. They had invisible checkpoints as well.
00:25:23
Speaker
So there were a few invisible checkpoints in every room. And people kind of figured it out, actually. like For example, there was a puzzle where ah there's a checkpoint on the left. like You know the Totems puzzle, right? There's a checkpoint on the left and the checkpoint on the right.
00:25:37
Speaker
And so you you have to clear it first, you get to the right, then you reset from the right, and then go to the left, right? people kind of figure it out. like But the method was like they had to exit the room and come back into the room to reset the checkpoint, which was very unnatural, I think. So I i decided, okay, let's make the checkpoint piece itself.
00:25:56
Speaker
And okay, I had a second reason for that. I wanted the checkpoints to fall. But I decided know that this was too complicated to program anything like that for the checkpoints to fall. So I gave up on that idea entirely.
00:26:10
Speaker
ah That's interesting. So it would have been like a matchable piece that had gravity. And so the location, But but it it also needs like resetting also needs to restists is reset itself or it wouldn't do like, Oh God.
00:26:28
Speaker
as i was trying to, I had some like ideas for it. Then I started implementing and then a bunch of bugs appeared, like obviously because as you actually step on the checkpoint, you match it away.
00:26:40
Speaker
And then what? right And even if let's say you don't allow to match the one that is like, checked, right? Like, let's say I have, like, four checkpoints. I match the top three ones.
00:26:51
Speaker
I step on the one at the bottom and I reset the room. Like, I'm going to be stuck in i' going to be stuck between the checkpoints. Like, what am I supposed to do Right? So, then, I think it was also very bad for visibility. Like, imagine if you drop the checkpoint, you step on it, you reset the room. are you supposed to spawn at, like, where the checkpoint originally was?
00:27:11
Speaker
So, yeah. I give out on the idea entirely because I don't think it Like, it's cool in theory, but I don't think it lends itself to interesting puzzles.
00:27:22
Speaker
It just lends itself to more annoying things to deal with. Yeah. And so I guess that was one of the things that but led to the checkpoint idea. Of course, I think other ideas that I wanted to do constrain the system was that, like,
00:27:35
Speaker
If you reset a room, you only reset everything within the room. And similarly, rocks don't push outside of the room. Elements don't fall between rooms. Because I feel like once you allow that, it starts becoming very... night The search space becomes too large, in a sense. I don't like it when the puzzle has like too large of a search space.
00:27:54
Speaker
Does it that make sense? Yeah, definitely. From experience, ah yes, pushing things out of bounds. ah Very, very ah very, very complicated design decision that will lead to knock-on impact.
00:28:12
Speaker
I mean, I guess in the Mosul's expedition... ah you're Sorry, Serene, you were saying something? no, no, please go. And you can take it again. Okay,
Handling Game-breaking Bugs
00:28:20
Speaker
sure. Like, in a monster's expedition, it's, like, not so bad. Because most of the time, if you push a log beyond its range, it either forms a raft or it just falls into the water. Like, it's quite straightforward what the consequence of it is. As in, the thing goes out bounds. But usually it doesn't cause any weird rolling effect. You have to very deliberately set it up.
00:28:39
Speaker
On the other hand, in Glowkeeper, I feel like if the moment when you start... this Okay, this was one of the problems with the purple element. ah you You know the purple element. Okay, not really the element. That's the thing that lets you draw long lines, right?
00:28:51
Speaker
I had a lot of trouble trying to constrain it to its sections because you can drag the thing across rooms. And if you can drag it across rooms and using the reset feature, in theory, you can drag something from one side of the map to the other side of the map.
00:29:07
Speaker
which apparently is not fun. It's just not fun at all. So I tried to constrain this as much. But then Miken Hako still just found a way to jailbreak and skip three quarters of the game by jailbreaking one of the areas in the game.
00:29:22
Speaker
It required some really elaborate setup of the things. I didn't even know it was possible until he performed it. yeah. It was very shocking to see when I saw it myself.
00:29:36
Speaker
I think a little bit of being broken is actually fine and good. Like, Monster's Expedition was like, so broken for a long time. And like, we fixed a lot of it up just by hard work and play testing. Oh my gosh. yeah There's still, there's still like the speed run for that game. I think it's still like three minutes long.
00:29:53
Speaker
Um, yeah and it's like the things you have because of the movement tech. It's partially because of a movement tech, but like if you just look at it as like the route traveled, it's like an incredibly broken route.
00:30:07
Speaker
Oh, yes. and we we um So when we patched that, because we needed to break the speedrun route in order to fix like actual player-facing issues, ah we archived the route the the the build that the speedrunners liked as a public Steam branch.
00:30:27
Speaker
So we're like, if you still want to play this version with the broken root, here it is. We're going to – in the meantime, we're going to go over and like fix the bugs that are impacting players who are not trying to abuse the tech.
00:30:42
Speaker
But allen is Alan is very right. like We locked in the final shape of the world outside of like edge case fixing.
00:30:54
Speaker
maybe a month before we hit 1.0. and then we spent that last month doing so much, pat like, sanding off the edges and finding edge cases and putting it in front of...
00:31:09
Speaker
a lot of people who are really really hardcore into breaking things in the puzzle game community and asking them to play the game and basically send us details of every time that they think they found an issue or an exploit and we patched as many of those as we could we got to 1.0 we submitted it to apple because that was an apple arcade game then we still kept going and sanding things off and then we launched and then it's still for like the first four months of that game's life cycle we're patching out like you can raft out into the open sea this way you can raft out into the open sea and then we eventually got to the point where like it is mostly solid there's probably a few that we're almost never going to find so we ended up putting in like emergency buttons like reset local area
00:32:00
Speaker
There's still so many ways you can get to a snowman on an island. Or like just soft luck.
00:32:11
Speaker
And you didn't get there from where we're expecting. And now, like, oh, I guess you're stranded on this island with no way back. Yes. And so recent local island was literally going through and in code identifying all of the individual, like,
00:32:28
Speaker
expected paths and like this island connects to this island connects to this island in like the game design so that you can go in and say reset local area and it will zip you right back to the start of what we think was supposed to be happening um but even then i'm like not at all confident that we we got have like I think there's there's some edge cases where you can still break it. You have to try real, real, real hard though.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yes, no, it's, an and I do feel relatively confident that if you broke it The tools are there to you. yes You you. You were trying to do it.
00:33:12
Speaker
One, you were trying to do it. And two, you have the tools to sort of get yourself back to normalcy. Which, that that's all that matters to me. if If players want to find new ways to break the game, God bless.
00:33:31
Speaker
Have fun. do not file bug report tickets. Yes, exactly. It's okay. like I think somebody was reporting recently some issues with, like, the undo stack with moving rafts.
00:33:46
Speaker
It was like, oh, this this does look broken, but, like, it's been too long. Statutes of limitations for these issues. haven't patched that game in a couple of years, so...
00:33:59
Speaker
ah i'm like This is not to say that you're never going see another patch for Monsters Expedition, but we do not have that project, those those code files open anymore on a day-to-day basis.
00:34:11
Speaker
We are firmly on ah the more recent games that have come out, plus Bonfire Peaks, which somehow is still getting bug fix patches, and um and ah the games that are currently in development.
00:34:30
Speaker
I mean, okay, but speaking of Undo Traces, Undo Traces, okay. Undo Traces in continuous, like, okay, Undo Traces in... Open World Interconnected games are such a mess.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, it is such a mess. doesn't help that Glowkeeper is continuous as well. But okay, that's a topic for another time. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I think on the topic of breaking stuff.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah, if people want to break stuff because they were intentionally doing it. Like, yeah, that's like perfectly good. Go ahead. I mean, I'll just say that... I mean, Amos' Exposition speedrun is 3 minutes, right? Glowkeeper's fastest speedrun is 17 seconds.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah. I have no clue how that even works. But i but i think it I think that's actually fine. Like, it sounds terrifying. Like, oh no, this game is so broken.
00:35:25
Speaker
But like, if it's broken in a way that... nobody who is actually playing the game will ever encounter, then it's fine.
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's perfectly fine. So what if you can you can beat it in 17 seconds if you have 15 hours of understanding in your head? Exactly. it's It's like saying that Lock Digital is a 10-minute long game if you know all the puzzle solutions.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, sure, I mean, I guess. ah Yeah, I mean, it's like saying you can beat Alterwells in 10 minutes. Like, yeah, but that's not the game. Yeah, that's that is you knowing every answer or reading it from a walkthrough.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah. But, okay, I mean, the 17 second thing took a glitch. It's like if you very intentionally need to use a glitch to beat it that quickly. Yeah. So, okay, fine.
00:36:21
Speaker
If you know the glitch, you know how to double jump, just double jump. Yeah. Okay, now I've spot the glitch, but yeah. I mean, that kind of makes sense. Like if you've designed the game, you know, what you that the player doesn't have a double jump and then there's a glitch that lets you double jump, then yeah, sure, you can shortcut some routes. And like if the if geographically the end is real close to the beginning...
00:36:44
Speaker
then, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, then just double jump. Yeah, just do it. Sure, one's going to stop you. But yeah I mean, I think ah designing a game with, you know, where like the whole map is one big puzzle and the puzzles are not self-contained. Like, okay, for example...
Designing an Interconnected World
00:37:03
Speaker
In a game like, say, Can of Wormholes, of course there is meta elements and metrobrenia elements, but mostly the puzzles are self-contained. You only carry knowledge between puzzles. You don't carry things, objects, game elements between puzzles. So it's pretty easy to reason with a game like that.
00:37:20
Speaker
But with, you know, A Monster's Expedition, i'm still kind of surprised how the game is. It's an engineering feat, honestly. I'm still of surprised the game even works, but yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, i mean, you, like, with this game, how much did the world change? And, like, how much did you move areas around and move puzzles around? like Because, like, that was one of the most time-consuming parts of Monster's Expedition is, like,
00:37:50
Speaker
not just designing the puzzles and figuring out the difficulty flow and like figuring out like, oh this is like, this is how you introduce this concept and this area should go to this area. But like, like, oh, ah like I want to insert a new area here where I need to like tear the world apart in order to make space for it.
00:38:13
Speaker
I think for Glowkeeper was not that bad. Like, Okay, because by virtue of it being a side-scrolling game, your your your vertical dimension is quite limited. Like, you just can't do that much in a vertical dimension. You can only jump.
00:38:29
Speaker
And you can only jump two squares. So, yeah, you in that sense, I think it is pretty limited. And it also gives a lot of constraints on how the map can look like and what you can do.
00:38:40
Speaker
Because, I mean, you can't raft. There's no rafting in in in this game. like The closest thing to rafting is taking purple square and bringing it halfway across the map. ah that That was the biggest issue that I had to try to stop.
00:38:54
Speaker
But other than that, I think mostly once I started figuring out like the core mechanic areas... like Okay, initially... Like there was the cross, the, the crossroom area, like the one that you went first, that was like one of the key like mechanic areas.
00:39:09
Speaker
I guess like in, in my head, I was thinking of them as like dungeons where like, you know, it's like each area has lost like a core mechanic, but then I wanted it to be like, I teach the most basic ones first, which is like the linear path.
00:39:21
Speaker
And after that, like you just do whatever you want. So eventually like it came to the idea of like four ish separate areas and that connect to like a central chasm,
00:39:32
Speaker
Because I think, yeah, I don't know how that idea came to me. But i once it came to me, it just came to me. So once that happened, actually, it was more or less like quite sad how the world would look like. There was the linear path and then there were like four areas.
00:39:48
Speaker
The biggest change, I think, at one point was I reordered the four areas. Because I realized that one of them was at a very strange location that shouldn't be there. It's like the hardest area.
00:40:00
Speaker
the It was like the hardest area, the orange colored one. And i put it where like the current purple colored one is. And then people just went there and got completely stumped because the puzzles there are so difficult.
00:40:12
Speaker
So i did I moved it around. That was the first major change. And then after that, I reworked the orange area. Because originally, my idea was just like, oh, have an area that's just a scroll dump. for all the hard puzzles that I don't know where to put elsewhere.
00:40:25
Speaker
But then eventually, I started exploring, like, used that area to explore, like, other more niche mechanics, like, you know, the timing and matching purple across rooms. So, yeah, that was kind of where the map started to, like, finalize itself.
00:40:39
Speaker
Then... okay Honestly, I get your point that you have to tear whole areas apart because you know every room in Go Keeper is rectangular, right? So if I want to move a room down a bit, if there's a room in the way, that room has to move down.
00:40:56
Speaker
But if if this room moves down, the connection with the previous room is screwed because there's no space to connect them anymore and everything, like you know there's a cascading effect. It was a pain because at some point, I had to move a room two spaces right.
00:41:08
Speaker
And then there was this massive empty gap that I didn't know how to fill because the gap was like too small to put a room in and too big to expand an existing room into it.
00:41:19
Speaker
So somehow I think I did a lot of like mental gymnastics and somehow it worked out. But yeah, a lot of shuffling rooms around. Yeah, like the the overall design of something like this like really asks a lot of you of like being able to keep everything in your head about, like not not just like, oh, like how does the room, like shifting one room affects another, but like,
00:41:44
Speaker
a lot of the meta puzzles will presumably require you to go like, oh, well, when I'm editing this room, I need to have these constraints among the puzzle, but also these constraints on all the other puzzles that go through this room or like start in this room or like finish in this room.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah, like it's a it's a real challenge to make make small edits in a safe way that don't break other things you're not actively thinking about.
Playtesting Challenges and Feedback
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, it happened several times. But I mean, okay, then I'll randomly play through the game and now I'm like, wait, I kind of destroyed this puzzle. like This column of water needs to be two white. It can't be one white.
00:42:26
Speaker
Otherwise, like the other puzzle, like five rooms away, just breaks. Yeah. yeah These are the kind of things that I see. But okay, I guess in the case of Glue Keeper, it's more constrained because...
00:42:39
Speaker
thanks that it's like the kind of stuff that you can do is more limited so in off the top of my head I don't know what needs to be fulfilled for like the puzzle to works so okay it's not that bad I just run through and as long as it works it works yeah and was that the main way you were like making sure that you didn't break anything it's like testing yourself um did you have a lot of playtesters for the game Yeah, i I did have quite a lot of playtesters, but not many of them reached the point where you know they started reading reaching the meta puzzles. Because, okay, I mean, my experience with playtesting so far is... I guess I could ask you this for advice later, but my experience with playtesting is like, okay, I'll ask like my friends to play it.
00:43:27
Speaker
And I mean, you know, puzzle games are so niche, right? Most of them reasonably will like reach a certain point. They'll play one session or two sessions and then bounce off of it. So i the earlier parts of the game are very, very thoroughly tested.
00:43:41
Speaker
But the later parts, very few people have reached that. I think the number of playtesters is 30-ish. But the number of people who have made it past the chasm, maybe like six or seven playtesters who made it past the chasm,
00:43:54
Speaker
So there's a lot of the latest stuff that I have difficulty testing. Okay, I mean, it's pretty easy for myself to verify that the puzzle works. I just play through the, clear the puzzle once myself.
00:44:07
Speaker
Whether or not the puzzle makes sense to people or whether people find ways to break it is a separate question. But definitely a few, like the few playtesters who did it, they are the kind that likes to break things. So they try to break everything.
00:44:21
Speaker
It was actually really helpful. Yeah. Awesome. Do you have any questions for us before we wrap up? Okay, I did want to ask about playtesting a bit more because I think this was one of the things, the biggest concerns I had at the beginning of the development because I did send the game to maybe 10-ish people and then among the 10-ish people, only one made it to somewhat far.
00:44:50
Speaker
um I'm not sure how do you more effectively playtest games because I mean, sent to both my friends and certain people in like the Thinky Puzzle Discord, but for reasons like they are busy or, you know, they just bounce off the game.
00:45:05
Speaker
It's very hard to get feedback for the later part of games where I feel like I need the most feedback for. I'm not sure how do you like, how do you handle these kind of things?
00:45:17
Speaker
Mostly just by, like, if if if we have 10 people and only one gets further in the game. Okay, that's a sign that we need 100 people. Okay.
00:45:29
Speaker
Okay. I guess that... But also also curating the people like ah like if if in a normal group of people only 10% gonna go deep.
00:45:42
Speaker
They're like finding a group of people for whom like, oh, maybe 50% of these people are going to play to the point where this stuff gets gets deep. Okay, yeah, that's true. I guess, I mean, if now now that I know who is the ones who like to break things and who who goes deep, you know, there are certain people that are more likely ah that I would ask to test these weird things at the end of the game. Yeah, I guess, like, I mean, honestly, it's not that the 10 people weren't helpful. The 10 people were helpful to for me to figure out at first, like, whether the game was...
00:46:16
Speaker
the intro parts of the game were accessible enough. Because the 10% will just breeze through it. It's really easy. But a lot of visual communication are not familiar.
00:46:28
Speaker
and not yeah People are not familiar with the kind of like lingo of puzzle games. you know So I guess like it was pretty helpful as well. But yeah, I think curating playtesters is probably something that I...
00:46:41
Speaker
would take away from this because when was starting i just like sent to random people who were helping willing to help test it it's like oh you you you're free right you want to help test the game i'm making and making they're like sure then they play for like two hours and then they just stop playing I mean very reasonable but yeah it was like something I struggled a lot at the start And it's it's ah important to have those people in your playtest group.
00:47:07
Speaker
ah Like, you want to know when you're making something that is, like, too hard for normies. and Yeah. um And, like, i think I think there's a lot of value in, like... And like, you can't once, once you've tried on one person, like they're, they're like, you can't test on them again. You can't give them the first time player experience again.
00:47:30
Speaker
Um, but like, I think there's a lot of value in like looking at somebody play and like figuring out Oh wow, this person really bounced at this point. and Um, like, There are a lost cause, they're going to come back to this, but can I make that so that this point is less punishing for the next person who comes along?
00:47:44
Speaker
um And like, even if for the people who love hard puzzles, it's not too hard, it might still be too hard for some people who, like you can like slowly lead them towards the trickier stuff.
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing we did, I remember we did this on Monsters Expedition, is we put out a demo and that demo had hidden stuff in it. And if you found all of the hidden friends in that demo, we just told you, hey, thanks for finding these secrets. ah Email this.
00:48:17
Speaker
ah I can't remember if we said we'd give them anything or just like, hey, thanks. Here's an email to get in touch and... And some of the best playtesters for that game came out of the people who got in touch with us because they found secrets in the demo.
00:48:33
Speaker
That's actually a pretty good suggestion. It's like a way to just filter people who are willing to go that that distance for your game. I mean, they probably they're like very enjoying it or like like to break stuff, I guess.
00:48:49
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. ah That's actually a pretty interesting way of looking at it. I would consider that next time for playdesting, yeah. Thanks a lot for that advice.
00:49:01
Speaker
Awesome. ah Is there anything else we wanted to talk about real quick before we wrap up? Not really. I mean, actually, the things I wanted to ask about mostly were about a monstrous expedition because i think a lot of the issues we talked about were stuff I actually wanted to talk about as well. Like, you know, crossroom stuff, breaking the game. Yeah.
00:49:24
Speaker
But I think we we talked about it a lot already. So i got I'm happy with what why got out the conversations about like discussing the game. yeah Yeah, it was a great chat.
00:49:38
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you online? a I'm not actually very online. I guess the closest thing that you can find me online is my Blue Sky page. It's just at Olimuri...
00:49:57
Speaker
What is it again?.bisky.social. I just used the default one. Yeah. I also have an itch. My itch has a few games only. Yeah. So, it's like, I mean, I'm not particularly online at the moment.
00:50:12
Speaker
I will... I don't know if I ever intend to go super online, but... I guess my stuff is there. So, yeah. Awesome. Well, i you're not missing much.
00:50:24
Speaker
As someone who's too online, you're not missing much. All right. Thank you again for joining us. it's been a real pleasure to chat with you. Same here. It was, like, really fun. And I did learn a lot as well. so I'm glad. Thanks for having Awesome.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
00:50:40
Speaker
And thank you for listening to the Drackneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoisemusic.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis.
00:50:51
Speaker
Our music 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.
00:51:07
Speaker
you