Final (?!) Phase Puzzle Prototypes!

After many iterations, we've finally decided on a bunch of puzzles we think will be really cool to work with! There are more of them than I thought, and some are quite long - I personally like this kind of puzzle so I don't mind, but I suppose we'll have to test this a lot in frontline before we throw it out to the stable beta.

It's definitely something that some people might find annoying compared to the 'regular' gameplay, so we don't want to test their patience too much!

The first puzzle will be a variation of the early prototypes I showed you guys last week, but in another version. You'll be introduced to the floating platforms and mirror blocks in 3 easy challenge in the same room:



After that, you get transported to a room with a second, similar series of challenges that also keep the puzzle mechanics very basic. Then: Poison challenge! Pretty similar to what we had before. You walk through poison gas, and battle some enemies. Onwards to the second Phase challenge instead:



It's an introduction to the blocks that suck you in! At a later stage, you also have to aim at a series of mirror blocks from one of those moving "donkey-blocks" (we call them that inhouse since they remind us a bit of our early days playing Donkey Kong, hah)!

Next room will take the donkey-block challenge a bit further, with donkey blocks passing eachother in circles:



As well as the pink donkey block, which has an arrow that spins around:



Aand I'm not gonna spoil the last one, but it'll basically be a combination of what you've done before, after going through another poisonous corridor battling stuff, that is :)

Now all that's needed is some actual backgrounds so these puzzles don't look too surreal, haha! I've actually already started sketching on one of the puzzle backgrounds, going for a Flying Fortress-meets-Mt Bloom merge, with flying platform and mountain walls mixed together. Hopefully it'll look cool in the end!

Super, super early BG sketch :D

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3 comments:

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  2. That my dear developer is beyond awesome. I love it.

    Only thing I'd definiately change is gettign hurt if you fail a shot. Like Donkey Kong where missing your barrel shoots lead to a punishment the player should loose some HP if he or she misses the shot, may the player hit one of the moving obstacle blocks or simply shoot into empty space. On normal difficulty the damage should be significantly lower than on hard difficulty.

    Other than that, everything is awesome. :) Will we see these puzzles later on in the game as well?

    Also I didn't quite understand the order of challenges in your post. xd

    So it's like this:

    1.) Poison room with simply running through poison.
    2.) 1st phase shift puzzles consisting of the easy one that we see in that first image and a 2nd room with another obstacle course. So 2 rooms.
    3.) 2nd Poison room, this time with fighting enemies. rather easy encounter.
    4.) 2nd Phase Shift Puzzle. This one consists of three rooms. All of them can be seen in this post (2nd, 3rd and 4th image you posted - unless this is all one room). 3 rooms.
    5.) 3rd Poison challenge with a very challenging enemy encounter.
    6.) 3rd Phase Shift Puzzle consisting of one last room with all elements mixed together. 1 room.

    Is that correct?

    Also looking forward to the visual realization of all these rooms. I hope to see some of the nice decorations from the lobby room of the Flying Fortress area as well like Crystal Pillars at the doors or some crystals and other decorative stuff. :)

    A final suggestion: Maybe you can draw an evil and nasty looking plant in the poison rooms. These plants that could look bulbous for example would basically produce the poison and are the reason it's so dangerous in these rooms.
    Something like that: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ARlfT1STKEw/UJrI56rbNoI/AAAAAAAAAk4/L4UqmP9Ymh0/s1600/Org_Bulbous_Plant3.png

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    1. Thanks! :D I think for now we feel like the time it takes to get back the beginning (or any of the 'save points' of the puzzles will be enough of a punishment, at least for Normal Mode XD Hard mode, on the other hand... Might be a cool idea for that >:D

      It's very possible that you'll see variations of these puzzles in other places of the game as well! We definitely like the mechanics, so if we have a chance to use them again we'll probably take it :3

      You got most of it right in your rundown of the challenge, except that the 2nd Phase Shift Puzzle encounter (your 4th point), is just 2 rooms as well, but the puzzles there are kind of huge so that's why it looks like 3 different room XD

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