What Happens If You Step On A Rusty Nail

Release

This postmortem is for the most part a lot of thoughts on puzzle design in games in full general, but lets first apace wait at a list of other things we're learning from for the next game.

We're very grateful for the "overwhelmingly positive" response to the game, sitting at 97% positive right now and having earned back its cost already. I did wait a response in the mid to high 80s, merely not in the high 90s because I'm well aware of many of the game'south shortcomings. Though I accept to say, my ain view is probably overshadowed past the bumpy development process more than what the actual result is. In the finish the bigger problems accept been glossed over and are not that visible anymore to the player.

The issues of Six Inches Nether accept been pretty obvious to us for a longer fourth dimension, so there are not too many things I learned afterwards release. The team internal postmortem is the far more important ane to united states of america considering it helps us improve our work processes. 1 of our main problems for case was that nosotros did fashion too many things that took a lot of effort without providing a proportional amount of fun. The reason I could make Supraland by myself was that I only picked low-effort/high-fun things.

Origin Story

If you read the SIU devblogs y'all already know how this project was non actually planned to be in such a way and we've just been improvising along. It was supposed to be a DLC for players who already know the abilities, so there were no introductions to new abilities. Nosotros fabricated the switch to standalone (considering nobody buys DLCs) and and then shoehorned in lots of tutorials.

The game kind of had no creative head for the nigh time considering it was just this little experiment and information technology felt more like a committee thing (which I think is terrible thing for any piece of entertainment!).
So the offset 1.five years of its development I personally was busy making the Crash DLC then I needed a serious break. Having fabricated Supraball, Supraland and Supraland crash in a row was just likewise much. Making games was the least interesting affair to me at that point. Then I got a new hobby and started playing puddle billiards 24-hour interval in and 24-hour interval out. After half a year of not doing any game development the bulldoze slowly came back to me.
In spring 2021 I took over Vi Inches Under and filled the void of direction the project had.

I tried to wrap up the game, polish up all the crude edges, but there were primal problems nosotros could not set up without redoing everything, so we just accepted them. For example:

Backtracking

To create motivational backtracking, you need to plan things out very well and have the earth open and interconnected. I know how to do it and it will be fine in Supraworld; information technology just didn't work out well in Six Inches Nether for various reasons. One beingness that it's underground and the other ane being, that the areas are all sidearms to Cagetown and too far away from each other, so we could not interconnect them.

Supraland was very open, every region was interconnected. That's how it will be again in Supraworld. And information technology's simply much more of a feel practiced vibe when the sun is shining!

Gating

A big question for anyone designing a metroidvania is, how many gates you allow the player walk past, that they tin't overcome notwithstanding. That is in full general a thing that was non accounted for a lot in the planning of SIU and you can feel the lack of information technology. In Supraland I was very careful about planning this. I think yous tin can barely programme information technology out fully; it's fashion besides complex. A lot of things will always simply happen during development.

1 of my core philosophies is, that I wanna let y'all run past many future gates, just I don't want you to encounter them. I recall it'southward a mediocre design choice if yous see all the future issues then start speculating almost which ability you will become lateron to overcome it. You all know that feeling, I'm certain.

A prime number example from the first Supraland, when yous go the float buckle and suddenly you lot remember all the metal tools y'all saw everywhere. That's pretty much always i of the highlights for everyone. Simply likewise noesis gates like the purple flies in your hometown. You could take used them all along, but but lateron you know how.

The other question is, if you go on an take a chance, like your typical Zelda Dungeon, abroad from your hometown, should you be able to 100% that dungeon now or simply afterward when you got all the abilities?
From Six Inches Under a takeaway of mine is that we should let you 100% it with whatever you get in that region. We are dangling too many carrots in front of your confront, but yous accept no chance nevertheless to get them. It does non spark joy for me.

A thing I also want to overcome in Supraworld is the uncertainty if you lot tin solve something. Whenever people are not sure if they can solve a affair, they volition simply go out and become somewhere else. That'due south sad. I call up it's a beautiful situation when you know you can solve something, just y'all accept no clue how, but you can take on the challenge.

Mood geometry without purpose

I think we did no good job with the interior of muzzle town, because y'all can do very few interesting things at that place. Information technology is more often than not architecture that is supporting the atmosphere and setting, but it is not interwoven with puzzles. All the puzzles that exist there barely deserve the proper noun, because they are just busy work like climbing buildings to get some aureate or to carry burning matches around. But null that makes you lot go "AHA!".

As a contrast, expect at Blueish Ville in the commencement game. Every single building, every single brick placement, is part of the puzzles in at that place. Puzzles that sometimes stretch beyond multiple buildings. There are no useless houses that are just in that location for the mood. Everything serves multiple purposes. If yous removed half the buildings from cagetown, you would lose atmosphere, but the gameplay would ultimately be the aforementioned.
I think we did a good task with the design of the different floors, the idea of 3 tiered class system in a hamster cage and how the mood changes. Did you notice the music changes from floor to floor? If y'all didn't discover consciously, I'm sure you felt it subconsciously.

Anyway, I want every unmarried thing to have a purpose and non fill the earth with distracting details, and that's how we'll practise it in Supraworld.

As well many Shops

The first game established having many shops everywhere and all of them sold their own stuff. 7 shops more or less. SIU once once again has multiple shops just less; only 4. I think information technology's too disruptive. What I wanna do in the future is that we have the same shop in multiple places in the world. So no matter where you lot get, information technology'southward the aforementioned content everywhere.

Gainsay

Enemies as puzzle elements were definitely appreciated past players. That is something that I wanna do A LOT in Supraworld.

We pretty much only put enemies into arenas which separate them from the remainder of the game. The change to keeping enemies abroad from puzzles is a good affair, apparently.

Limiting enemies to simply arenas feels kinda meh to me though. When you leave your safety zones it should feel a fiddling threatening to add a certain atmosphere to the game. We need to bring that back.

That enemies require dissimilar approaches to impale them is also good and I think everyone appreciated that. Nosotros'll certainly become more into that direction.

The combat feeling itself however I don't like so much. The feeling of hitting someone, dodging someone etc. All those details don't experience every bit good every bit they did in the commencement game. Information technology is a lot of item work to get this stuff right and nobody on the SIU team was really responsible for it and that'due south why it ended upwardly unpolished. I'll kneel into these details in the adjacent game to make certain it feels satisfying.

I also want to bring coin drops back from enemies. At the same fourth dimension the coins should be very valuable. It should exist a much improve motivation to kill enemies instead of just doing information technology because the next door doesn't open. Every enemy yous attack should invoke the feeling that it gets you lot closer to the next major upgrade, because it volition drop coins.

Some other problem to take on is how we mix ane. reappearing enemies in the wilderness, two. enemies all dropping coins and iii. having a tight, engaging money balance. I recollect the answer is probably to make information technology style too grindy to expect for respawning enemies while the upgrade cost also goes upwardly, then the roaming enemies don't provide enough.

Goals

The whole cave theme made it hard to requite the player overarching goals.
We show you the exit sign, just yous accept no idea really how to get there. Then we needed to guide you way more.
I love what nosotros're gonna exercise in Supraworld in that regard. The goals will always be visible in the altitude, and it's upwardly to you to somehow manage to become there. In the cave yous just could not make the goals visible in the altitude, and then leading the histrion through the principal progression is a bit bogus and directionless. We often did this "find more abilities" quest. It sorta works, but it'southward besides ambiguous to be actually engaging I think, considering yous have no real management.

We've also gone through a couple of other goal types that didn't work.
One I remember well was that to become on to the top floor y'all needed to look rich. So you lot needed to steal the golden (stomp) shoes from the bank vault to wait appropriate. But it'southward not the kind of idea players get by themselves; yous need to actively tell them and that makes information technology dull.

My goal is e'er to make players feel clever for making decisions on their own and by figuring out the ways to execute on them. So the more than specific and detailed the goals become, the more you impale that fun. AAA games basically take nothing of that left. They are and then agape of players getting stuck or lost, they but flat out tell you every stride you need to make. It's all absolutely unplayable for me at this point.

Supraworld will take the Supraland approach of having landmarks in the distance and those are your goal. All the picayune steps in betwixt you lot take to come upwards with by yourself, based on the overarching goal. Only it will be better than in Supraland, because y'all could not really visually see these goals most of the time, and so information technology was still too ambiguous. In Supraworld the whole world is designed around that idea.

The following screenshot shows you a very early on version of Supraworld. In the distance yous see a wooden castle that you need to get on summit of in order to..... nah, I'1000 not gonna spoil that much.

Zappy Gun

Anyway, instead of the golden shoes, the vault in Six Inches under at present contains the Zappy gun. A tool that we know doesn't add much to the game in a Supraland sense. In other metroidvanias you often get abilities that only let you lot to disable ane type of barrier and cypher else. In Supraland though you look all abilities to exercise all kinds of creative things that combine with other mechanics. The Zappy gun cannot deliver that. Information technology mainly helps a lot in combat.

Abilities like the zappy gun just eliminate puzzle ideas. Imagine if in Supraland 1 y'all had a color gun that could color everything the way you needed it. This kills all the cute color puzzles. And that's what the zappy gun does for electricity puzzles. Past merely providing power everywhere, the puzzle possibilities are only gone.
So we gotta make certain abilities e'er only provide one part of a recipe, non the unabridged recipe at one time.

Secrets

Secrets are very fun to find if they are non too like shooting fish in a barrel and if they are all different in a way. 6 Inches Under has a lot of tedious "await into every corner" and you lot tin can exist certain there will exist something everywhere. Just none of them feel special to find. It simply feels similar work going through all of them, not like wonder. Especially in the industrial area I find information technology especially unfun to just go everywhere. Did you lot feel that too or is it simply me?

In Supraworld all the secrets will be unique and special again, and I'll endeavour to keep the areas uncluttered. The clutter in the cave creates so many rocky corners you demand to go through. We'll have straight walls again from now on!

I retrieve pretty much everyone agrees that the secrets in SIU are not that rewarding. We keep hearing complaints about "just coins/health". It'south one of the hardest things to proceed rewarding players in a meaningful way. Now I have a pretty good thought how to keep them motivating throughout.

A chief problem in all of the three past Supraland adventures is that coins are absolutely necessary in the get-go to buy major upgrades; it's super motivating and the balance is just correct, but after that, coins become meaningless. You can buy some power ups, but you lot could besides ignore them. I want to go on the upgrade loop with coins going throughout the entire game. So even a secret with coins should feel meaningful and exciting.
Supraland had about 210 chests, SIU had 140. Information technology should be clear that nosotros cannot give yous something super meaningful in every chest. But with the correct balance fifty-fifty the less heady things can feel cracking to accept.

Just in Supraworld nosotros volition besides give y'all really meaningful stuff in secrets, like new optional abilities. Information technology should be actually exciting if every chest is potentially ane of these. I'thou too thinking about randomizing chests a bit, then you never know for certain where things volition be.

Endgame

I like how SIU has so much endgame content, like it has 3 more areas. In Supraland you lot've basically been everywhere when the credits rolled. You could find more stuff, but little entirely new. Having so much endgame stuff too meant, the credits ringlet much earlier and it'due south a frequent complaint that I saw coming exactly that mode. Fifty-fifty though in that location is a lot to be washed, when y'all've seen the credits, y'all kinda experience, the game is over and the motivation drops.
In Supraworld I wanna have even more optional regions, merely I desire them accessible before the ending. So you'll most likely be going places and be spending a lot more than fourth dimension before the credits.

Easy peasy

Nosotros go along hearing how the puzzles in SIU are as well easy compared to SL.
I totally agree with that i. We had a tendency to assistance players through the game way too much, while I personally savor seeing people suffer while being stuck on puzzles. Non every puzzle should be hard, only every now and again. The joy is so much bigger when you finally observe the solution afterwards y'all were stuck for a while. And so yes, I desire to brand Supraworld significantly harder again in terms of puzzles.

The puzzles in Supraland 1 also happened in more complex situations. In that location were more options that made the situation less articulate. SIU often but leaves you one affair to do so it's obvious what to practise.

I think developers are generally afraid of players facing likewise complicated situations and leaving the game for practiced. But I recollect the opposite is truthful. It engages players even more and they wanna figure out how to do it. The puzzles just need to turn out to exist fair, or otherwise you lose the trust into the game.
Does that brand sense?

Puzzles

When I congenital everything on my own, I was guided by my feeling for how puzzles should exist done and how secrets should be laid out. When I brought more people into the process this naturally changed and everyone kinda felt "this doesn't feel similar Supraland". And so instead of just feeling the design of the game for myself I had to call back harder about it and put it into words.

There were a lot of puzzles that we cut from the game or reworked entirely, and it got me thinking, why practice these puzzles not work? I could feel the reasons, but I needed to put them into words for others to empathise.
Every bit a guiding system I came up with xiii points to check each puzzle against. Information technology turned out to be super useful even for myself.

Non all the criteria must be met, but if you go through the list and compare any puzzle with it, it volition certainly lay bare all the weak aspects of information technology. I think for the almost function these points should exist suitable for whatever puzzle in whatsoever game, not just Supraland.

thirteen Puzzle Rules - Checklist

1. Practice the players set the goal for the puzzle themselves?
Best case is y'all set a goal for yourself and yous were not told about information technology. The more than agency, the better.

two. Does the puzzle add a new aspect or unexpected twist to a mechanic?
If it doesn't, practise you lot need the puzzle at all or is it but boring repetition? Also make sure the game doesn't tell you about the new mechanic or information technology's worthless to have it.

3. Players more often than not figure out the trick (if bachelor) without being told about it.
Only subtle hints are allowed. Straight out being told how to do it by game, makes the puzzle useless.

4. Is the puzzle focused on one idea or are in that location too many at once?
If it tin can be cut down to its idea'due south essence, practise and so! If there are lots of simultaneous little steps involved, it might be only convoluted and not fun.

five. Once you lot had the "AHA!" moment and y'all know the solution, is it reliably piece of cake and quick to execute?
It'due south not fun if yous take to wait a lot or have to jank objects around until it finally works after many attempts.

vi. Are all consequences of your actions predictable?
If done right, you don't need to try lots of things, but you lot can solve the puzzle only by looking at it, because zero unexpected volition happen. Everything makes sense.

vii. Player does not solve it past chance or by creature forcing it?
It has to be admittedly sure that the players understand exactly what they are doing and don't stumble over a solution and they cannot just attempt a number of possible options until they got it.

8. Is it impossible or very unlikely to find the solution before you lot even encounter the trouble?
For example: at that place is no fun to be had if y'all discover a key before you got stuck at the locked door.

nine. At that place are no wrong solutions that players keep on trying?
Eliminate them! If people tin almost solve the puzzle in the incorrect way, they will keep trying that forever. If a jump is not supposed to work at all, make certain information technology's conspicuously impossible. If it's almost possible, you've got a problem.

10. Does the puzzle NOT open a door and NOT help you lot go to an elevated place?
If yous can give rewarding progress in another way, that'south corking. Progressing via verticality or unlocking a door should not be the but matter y'all always do.

11. Avert portal-test-chamber things like buttons, jumppads and stuff.
Buttons that agree a door open or motility a platform or so brand no sense in a real world and merely Portal is really 'allowed' to apply them. These are mechanics that have "Portal-exam-chamber" written all over them and feel wrong to me because they don't experience like they should actually be office of a game world. Nosotros don't need any more games where you need to put cubes onto buttons.

12. Tin can the thespian be surprised by seemingly unrelated things existence part of the puzzle?If you of a sudden notice that some chemical element of the world is part of the puzzle, that'due south a bully revelation. For instance if an omnipresent decorative matter is being used for the solution.

13. Can its ruddy herrings, decorations or puzzle elements be used over again for another puzzle?
It's always great if all the parts of a puzzle have more than just 1 use.

Examples

Let me go through this list past looking at my favorite puzzle I fabricated: the halo puzzle in Supraland ane.

Yous need to help a guy get into a chapel. He is not allowed entrance considering he is non holy enough. The process is that you realize he probably needs a yellow halo over his caput to be immune in. Y'all notice a fitting shape but it has the wrong color. You so effigy out how to color things by yourself.
This list will show the strong and the weak parts of it:

ane. Aye. The NPC tells you what he wants to do, but he does not tell you what yous demand to exercise to help him. By figuring out the problem on your own, you lot then automatically set further goals for yourself.

2. Yep. In that location are new mechanics. The puzzle introduces the entire color puzzle mechanic into the game.

3. Yes. Everyone figures out all the important parts past themselves. Not likewise hard, not too easy.

4. Yes. The puzzle is very directly forward. It's basically ii clearly separated steps; nothing convoluted.

5. Aye. Once you know what to do, the execution is very unproblematic and even fun because it's a new and unique thing to do.

6. Aye. The consequences of everything are fairly anticipated. Yous volition definitely experiment a little merely everything makes sense inside the game's logic.

7. Yeah. Yous will absolutely non randomly solve this.

8. Yes. Incommunicable to stumble over the solution earlier seeing the problem.

9. Aye; all the wrong options are conspicuously wrong. There is one typical incorrect thing that most people try at first (a rusty, a white or a scarlet halo) only there is no reason to try information technology again.

10. No, it ultimately opens a door for progress. This is a weak spot I feel since I made it. He simply opens a door for y'all once he enters the chapel, and that is pretty lame. One time in the chapel he could have given you progress by for case using the power of the church to change beliefs of other NPCs, so they would have given you new options to act. The simple physical/geometrical progress lacks creativity.

eleven. Yeah. There are no articifial elements to the puzzle that seem out of place in the world.

12. Yes. Unseeming decorative things go puzzle elements multiple times here. At first you learn that flowers can be put into the color machine to blot their white color. Then you need something yellow though and there are no yellow flowers anywhere. The only affair yellow are the crystal lamps everywhere. People are always like "but there is nothing yellow" and so they get super excited to observe out they tin take the crystals out. They didn't notice them even though they've been there all along in many areas of the game. At that place is even more decoration in this place that after becomes meaningful.

xiii. Yeah and no. Some elements of the puzzle will be used for other things as well, some don't. I added red herrings: the shabby store in the area gives away rusty objects of all shapes. This is to disguise the rusty ring by too having a rusty cube and cylinder. These other rusty objects take no further utilize, which is a missed gamble. But the colour machine will be used for up to three more than different things right afterwards which I recollect is fantastic.

So this puzzle fulfills xi.five out of the xiii points.

Expert puzzles usually check around eight-10 of the boxes, Annihilation above that rarely happens.
If a puzzle only checks five-7 boxes, you should really consider removing or improving it.

More Examples

If y'all take a very early puzzle from Supraland 1 for instance: getting the gilt butt that has the double jump upgrade inside: you demand to roll the barrel through a small gap out of a hut and prevent it from rolling into the lava past placing the force cube in its way. Information technology scores a ten/13. It is a very basic little puzzle, merely you tin can experience people'southward excitement when they work it out.

In Six Inches Nether we had some 5-seven point puzzles that we improved a lot or replaced entirely. You could just experience they had nothing exciting almost them. A frequent problem was that the consequences of your deportment were totally unclear, then you unintentionally solved problems and just stumbled frontwards that manner. There was also just no "Aha!" moment, which is the pivotal signal of any puzzle. Without that, information technology doesn't demand to exist.

A puzzle in SIU, that I really like, fulfills ten points: dropping the battery from the tower to go the racers to start running. It'southward but held back past how it uses some typical portal-test-chamber similar objects and the goal is to gain more verticality.

The terminal serious puzzle in the main quest of SIU is in the boss castle, where you need to bladder the match to the bombardment. Everyone agrees, information technology's a great puzzle! But information technology checks 'simply' 9 boxes. What'south holding it back from existent greatness are the ii activators for the translocator and the forcefulness cube and that you can try some janky, weird stuff that can eventually also solve it for you in a completely wrong way.
In that location were ways you could take solved it with the translocator or the Forcecube (by teleporting to places or by jamming doors) then we but had to force y'all to park these 2 abilities somewhere to brand sure you solve it in the about cute way. These additional elements just add and then much racket to the puzzle so that you cannot clearly meet the beauty of its essence anymore.
Ideally the puzzle should accept been in a identify where you didn't have these 2 abilities however; but that wasn't possible because of the special puzzle mechanic in the dominate castle, that was also required.

A SIU puzzle that fulfills 7 out of 13 points is getting through the dark cave with a hot glowing metallic ball. It'southward kinda cool but information technology lacks in the agency section. It does not fulfill the first, third and seventh point on the listing. An NPC kinda tells y'all what to do and you don't know what you are doing it for. Then the rest sort of just happens, but you didn't programme for that. You lot kinda solve it by accident. On the plus side it got the points for not using typical test-sleeping room stuff, its elements can later be reused for other puzzles and y'all are not progressing through a door. Instead the progress happens by lighting up the path forwards that you simply could not see.

What I plant really interesting, there are iii puzzles in SIU puzzle that tick 12 out of 13 boxes:
ane. The optional 1 at the beach, involving the beach guard, the showerhead and the lady. We had to create 3 entirely new mechanics merely for that i...
ii. "Making the blue cardinal card", which I call up is beautiful, likewise the way we hint at information technology.
3. The whole thing about getting the lady to smell like flowers.

Which puzzles gave yous the best experience? Delight let me know, I'm super curious.

How to come up with puzzles anyway

If you are here, because you're interested in the puzzle design process, rather than SIU, I'll outline my process. The previous fleck was well-nigh checking if a puzzle works or which issues it might accept. But I e'er notice, when speaking about the process to non-puzzle-designers, in that location is big confusion well-nigh how to fifty-fifty become puzzle ideas.

Players recollect through a puzzle the exact contrary way that the maker does; I recollect that's why it seems and then hard. Making information technology can be much easier, most of the time.
My process of finding puzzle ideas is all virtually thinking of "what things can y'all do with those elements and abilities". One time you establish a machinery, y'all just try to build something that forces the player to utilize that mechanism that you lot simply constitute and avoid any other possibilities. On the manner y'all will encounter lots of problems from the 13 point list higher up.

The origin of the puzzles is by and large just playing around with the things you created and yous suddenly exercise something funny that gives yous a new idea. That is what makes it and so hard to program it all out alee. About adept ideas only come to you lot during development. So it's sometimes hard to keep everything consistent because yous keep adding new interactions between objects, and suddenly you lot break other puzzles because of the new options y'all created.

All of the color mechanics of Supraland 1 were improvised into the game. The whole blaster mechanics of shooting through the axle/colors/electricity etc were shoehorned in very belatedly as well. While shooting my beam with my blaster I just felt "it should become majestic now". I planned out the Supraworld abilities (all new) in detail, but I'yard curious what kind of new ideas we'll get along the way.

For the sake of information technology, this is the puzzle that was amidst the hardest for me to create.
The beginning of the procedure was, while playing around during testing, I noticed I can remotely move those steel beams back and along with my forcefulness beam without reconnecting anything in between. I plant the thought cool to remote command something, and that the players demand to set it all up by themselves.

The rest of the process is finding a way to make that remote control piece of work. Information technology could take been something to jump on, something that blocks your path or whatsoever yous can come upwards with. I went for creating different electrical connections on each side of the axle to control different doors.

But why is information technology all in a drinking glass muzzle? The Zappy gun just got in the manner. You could have shot the antennas, information technology would accept fabricated information technology and then easy, you would not have noticed there was a puzzle. So with the variety of abilities you need to exclude all of them from the equation.
There kept beingness more and more than culling ways to solve it, that were all mode too irksome so I kept moving stuff around and blocked off more and more until information technology worked. The magnet under the drinking glass box is too part of preventing a fake solution, that involved bringing an anvil into the building.

Now that I think about it again, I guess I could have made the cables fill slower, then the zappy gun alone would not have been plenty because information technology doesn't last. But when I made it we did not have slowly filling cables. That mechanism was but added months later.

Supraworld

I could go along with things we learned forever and we all can't expect to finally get started with Supraworld and leave SIU behind. The whole squad volition move over on the 31. of January 22.
Some of usa have been pretty busy with Supraworld already, mostly creating assets, and I started edifice the game world. But in that location is no coding done yet, and so there is cipher functional. If you haven't seen information technology, here is a very early glimpse.

https://www.youtube.com/lookout man?v=IF6YPgH_XY0

I would like to go Early Access with Supraworld pretty early actually. Information technology was great in the showtime Supraland to have so many testers play the game in Early on Access from the very early versions on. It'due south very helpful in terms of feedback and motivation. If yous bring together it, just don't wait annihilation close to a finished game. You'd buy in to being a spectator to the unabridged development process.

I would dear to read all your thoughts on anything hither. I'll read all of it!

For the end I have this little strawpoll virtually a question I'g really curious about: Poll: Which Supraland game did you lot play first?[strawpoll.de]

- David Münnich