Kimball Brooksby - Game Designer

Summary

For this surrealist puzzle game, I predominantly handled the inspection and interaction system, covering both the construction of puzzle elements and the viewing of them, as well as its integration into the project. The design challenge in this was figuring out how to make interacting with this system intuitive for both the player and the developer. This, as I describe below, entailed a lot of research, testing, and iterating on both ends to get it to a place where everyone was comfortable working with it.

Details

Team Size | 28

Duration | 10 Months

Platform | Windows (Steam)

Role | Systems Designer

Tools | UE 5, Blueprints, Trello, Nuclino, HacknPlan, Miro, Perforce

Core Systems Documentation

The Problem: What is Syke about?

With such a large team compared to my previous project, it was imperative that we had a document that would provide us with direction for the game and rally all the members under a single banner.

The Process: Researching, Discussing, & Documenting

I started out by doing research on the game loops and user experience of games in a similar niche, recording my observations of what worked well for them, and then sharing my notes with the rest of the team.
Using these notes, I led a discussion with the design team to flesh out the pillars of our experience and the features we wanted to have in the final game in order to craft that.
At the end of all this, I took the diagrams and notes everyone had taken during the meeting, cleaned them up, and compiled them into a sectioned design document using Nuclino.

The Solution: Routine Maintenance

Maintaining the documentation didn't stop there, though. As the scope of the game continued to shift throughout its lifecycle, I migrated the documentation to HacknPlan, then Miro, in order to preserve clarity and keep it up-to-date.

Inspection & Interaction System

The Problem: What Is a Puzzle?

We needed a system to construct puzzles and iterate on them quickly that was also robust enough to handle the breadth of challenges we wanted to throw at the player. In our pursuit, we considered two different options:

The Process: Deciding between Physics-Based or Puzzle Box

The first option was a physics-based puzzle system like the one found in Portal. This approach, however, limited Syke to primarily box puzzles or platforming and left a lot of room for the player to get stuck when combined with some of the game's other systems, such as the dynamic gravity.
The second option was a puzzle-box approach like the one found in The Room. With this system, we could make individual pieces and connect them together to form a single puzzle object while retaining a large amount of freedom artistically and efficiency technologically.

The Solution: Landing on Puzzle-Box

This second option is the one I ended up implementing, as it clashed with the other systems in the game the least and allowed us to create a wider variety of narratively fulfilling puzzles.

Video Comparison: Old Tree Ring Puzzle Showcase (Top)
Recent Puzzle Chain Showcase (Bottom)

TreeRingPuzzleShowcase.mp4

CutsceneCamRefactorShowcase.mp4

Puzzle Object Implementation

The Problem: How Do I Solve this Puzzle?

Of all the puzzles I was given to implement, one stood out above the rest: the pipe puzzle. As the school level's gatekeeper, it had to prime the player for the school's puzzles without being so complex or boring that it'd block the player.

The Process: Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.

The first iteration was a simple collection puzzle where the player had to fit pipes onto a grid to create a path from a spigot to a dry plant. In playtesting, though, we got feedback that this version felt like busy work, so we changed it into a rotation puzzle instead.
In the second iteration, clicking a pipe would also rotate adjacent pipes, and it would reset after a certain number of moves. This version was received much better than the first, but ended up being too complex and blocking a large number of players.

The Solution: Giving Clear Feedback

The final iteration of the puzzle reduced the number of moves to solve and added indicators for the number of moves remaining, which allowed us to retain the interesting bits while reducing the puzzle's complexity. This version was very well received by players at large, and it's the one in the game now.

Visual Comparison: Pipe Puzzle Version 1 Diagram (Above),
Proof of Concept (Top), Interpolation Showcase (Middle),
Indicator Showcase (Bottom)

PipesPuzzleShowcase.mp4

PipePuzzleIntegration.mp4

PipePuzzleIndictorUpdateShowcase.mp4

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