We’re back with another diary – this time we’re excited to share the iterative process that led us to the design of chests and stellars that will be in the final version of Twinkleby. See, the challenge of designing Twinkleby has always been to balance the building and decoration with the sim element of the neighbours; we want to tie it all together, and make the neighbours directly affect how and why you receive stellars and chests, without getting in the way of players autonomously progressing through the islands in the star chart.
Pictured: part of the original chest mechanic sketch; an inhabitant finding a chest location.
In the original design for chests, for example, neighbours would find them for you. In order to find hidden chests on the islands, you would need a neighbour to move in, and over time, they would wander around and discover the chests underground. Once a neighbour had found the chest, you could unearth it, and claim the reward. This is how the chests work in the demo, and it was when we observed players interact with the game on a larger scale that we reconsidered the design.
One of the core principles of game design is to keep the player’s actions and agency in mind. If things simply happen to the player, or if the player progresses “passively” without having it correlate with actions they’ve taken, there needs to be a good reason as to why. And while our original reason for why the neighbours would find chests for the players felt like a good way for them to be useful in the game progression, it did end up feeling like it relegated players to a more passive role.
This is how we ended up creating the new chest mechanic. Instead of being hidden underground, the chests of Twinkleby now fall from the sky – much like everything else in the game world. Twinkleby has a cyclical nature to it, where everything can (and will) be recycled; throwing things over the island’s edge to return them to your inventory; sending neighbours flying away with their umbrellas when they’ve overstayed their welcome, only to have them revisit at a later date. Anything that’s been thrown away has a way of returning to you, and now; things that someone else has thrown away has a chance of making its way into your inventory, if you manage to catch the falling chest.
Pictured: when implementing the new chest design, a single typo was enough to trigger a chest event of horrific, boss level-proportions.
Similarly, stellars were always a part of the game’s progression, but overtime they grew into something that is tightly connected to player actions and Twinkleby’s sim elements. Sure, stellars fall from the sky, but they are also earned through decoration – with a chance of spawning as you build your intergalactic dioramas. Beyond that, their spawn rate is tied to the happiness of your neighbours; a happy island will increase the frequency with which the stellars appear.
In Twinkleby, your actions make the stars fall; in Twinkleby, you are the one noticing and catching the falling chests, and – to close the loop – you’re the one throwing things into space, starting the cycle of “falling things” anew.
See y'all next week, and in the meantime; sparkle on ✨