Hi friends,
This is Dan, and I’m the Lead Puzzle Designer for Planet of Lana. In this update, I'll shed some light on the creative process behind designing the puzzles for the game, touching on our inspirations, challenges, and design choices. Our goal has been to captivate players' imaginations while challenging their cognitive abilities in order to create a game that combines an immersive story with engaging puzzles.
Environmental storytelling is something that we are really passionate about at Wishfully, and to enrich our game's narrative and atmosphere, we designed puzzles that serve as opportunities to reveal more about the world, characters, and overarching story. To help us with this, we used visual cues, hidden details, and environmental elements to create a sense of discovery and wonder, encouraging players to explore and understand the world in which Lana lives. For the curious player there is so much to dig into here, with everything from strange creatures and plants to the language and culture that have developed on Novo.
To ensure there is a fun evolution of the puzzles, we crafted them around a core set of mechanics that gradually expand and intertwine throughout the journey of Lana. By layering new elements over existing ones, we create a sense of progression and mastery, keeping players engaged and motivated to overcome each new challenge.
I think one of the most exciting aspects of Planet of Lana is the ability to control animals and robots in fun and imaginative ways. We dedicated ourselves to creating unique interactions and mechanics that not only add depth to the puzzles but also infuse the gameplay with delightful surprises. Our focus here was on designing moments that spark joy and excitement, where expectations get turned on their head. Perhaps something that was once a deadly threat all of a sudden can become something useful and crucial to Lana’s progression in the game…
When designing puzzles, striking the right balance between difficulty and pacing is essential to ensure players feel challenged yet not overwhelmed. One could almost say designing puzzles is a puzzle in itself! Just changing the order in which one element or mechanic is introduced to the player can make a huge difference in how difficult a puzzle is to solve. Keeping this in mind, we carefully crafted our puzzles to maintain a steady difficulty curve, building on previous concepts while adding extra complexity. Our puzzles also balance logical problem-solving, reflex-based challenges and stealth sequences, catering to different player preferences and keeping the gameplay varied.
Game design is an iterative process involving constant testing, refining, and retesting. We used playtesting as a crucial tool early in the process. Using a very rough and simplified version of the game with rudimentary graphics early on in the process, we could gather feedback on puzzle design and difficulty before the real game environment was even developed. Since we built the puzzles in this more basic environment, we could also prototype more puzzles in a shorter timeframe and have a quicker turnaround between playtests. And by watching carefully how people were playing and incorporating the feedback during multiple iterations, it allowed us to fine-tune our puzzles to strike the perfect balance between challenge and enjoyment.
For me, seeing how players interact with our game has been one of the most interesting and fun aspects of the puzzle process. Everyone’s mind and experience is truly unique, and this is something I’m constantly reminded of every time I see someone play our game. And as the release for Planet of Lana is coming closer and we are about to share the game with the rest of the world, I’m eager to see even more players experience our epic adventure!
And a tiny spoiler: next weeks "Novo News" will address the language of Novo as well as the voice actor who lends her voice to Lana.
All the best!
Dan
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/