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[TheWing]

Great and solid progress, looking amazing as usual :D

I don't really think the game shows off as an Antichamber-clone.. at max a game graphically inspired off it, and not even that heavily! Sure, both games have the same kind of contrasts between different walls, but what I can see Antichamber was much more.. flat? I mean, shading-wise, not that the world would be in any way flat :D

Anyhow, the graphical similarities are there, but both games have their own style and aesthetic based off flat walls and edge detection. And that's just the graphics; gameplay and architectural design differ greatly, even though the inspiration is again shared (Escher and mind-bending puzzles)

Manifold Garden certainly has its own style, be it inspired off things that have inspired other games previously

[Zorg]

I like the visuals of the inverted mode, but i'm not sure about the mechanics you described. Bringing cubes back to trees could feel like reversing/losing progress.

As far as i know, you can't change gravity with a cube in your hands in the regular mode either. So a more obvious mechanic, to keep the player from changing the gravity would be "sensitive" cubes which are destroyed if you put them on the floor instead of special allowed places/switches designed for that kind of cube. Or cubes which are destroyed if you put them on the floor and you change the gravity. (I just thought of a cube, which adopts the color of the ground, on touching the surface. Maybe this could be interesting? But that's a different topic.)

Can you give an example, which type of puzzle do you have in mind with the dark cube? Preventing the change of gravity could force the player to use the world wrap to climb stairs. Resetting the player's position in a short time sounds like the game could get hectic in these moments. Do you already have puzzles in the game which require timing?

[William Chyr]

Great and solid progress, looking amazing as usual :D

I don't really think the game shows off as an Antichamber-clone.. at max a game graphically inspired off it, and not even that heavily! Sure, both games have the same kind of contrasts between different walls, but what I can see Antichamber was much more.. flat? I mean, shading-wise, not that the world would be in any way flat :D

Anyhow, the graphical similarities are there, but both games have their own style and aesthetic based off flat walls and edge detection. And that's just the graphics; gameplay and architectural design differ greatly, even though the inspiration is again shared (Escher and mind-bending puzzles)

Manifold Garden certainly has its own style, be it inspired off things that have inspired other games previously

I think maybe just because I'm too close to the project. I know it's really just graphical similarities, but it's just magnified from where I stand.

Thanks so much for the feedback! Really appreciate it.

I like the visuals of the inverted mode, but i'm not sure about the mechanics you described. Bringing cubes back to trees could feel like reversing/losing progress.

As far as i know, you can't change gravity with a cube in your hands in the regular mode either. So a more obvious mechanic, to keep the player from changing the gravity would be "sensitive" cubes which are destroyed if you put them on the floor instead of special allowed places/switches designed for that kind of cube. Or cubes which are destroyed if you put them on the floor and you change the gravity. (I just thought of a cube, which adopts the color of the ground, on touching the surface. Maybe this could be interesting? But that's a different topic.)

Can you give an example, which type of puzzle do you have in mind with the dark cube? Preventing the change of gravity could force the player to use the world wrap to climb stairs. Resetting the player's position in a short time sounds like the game could get hectic in these moments. Do you already have puzzles in the game which require timing?

The mechanics definitely still need work. I should clarify that you are not bring the invert cubes back to the same trees you grew in normal mode, so you're not "undoing" work. That's a separate set of trees that you are working with.

A cube which adopts to the color of the surface it touches could be interesting... Hmm.....

I still don't have a good puzzle with the dark cube yet - they're mostly navigation based, and not so much centered on logic.

[edderiofer]

Bringing cubes back to trees could feel like reversing/losing progress.

What if invert trees allowed invert cubes to turn into regular cubes? Then this mechanic could perhaps be subtly introduced by having a tree with no cubes on it in a very noticeable place. The player wouldn't feel like this would lose progress either, since they're, in a sense, actively creating more cubes.

Perhaps invert trees could also let regular cubes turn into invert cubes, though why that would be useful is a mystery to me right now.

Going off on this tangent, invert cubes might also be able to create invert trees. How would invert water work? Would it spew out of regular trees, or waterloops from regular mode?

[William Chyr]

What if invert trees allowed invert cubes to turn into regular cubes? Then this mechanic could perhaps be subtly introduced by having a tree with no cubes on it in a very noticeable place. The player wouldn't feel like this would lose progress either, since they're, in a sense, actively creating more cubes.

This is actually a pretty good idea. I will explore this.

Going off on this tangent, invert cubes might also be able to create invert trees. How would invert water work? Would it spew out of regular trees, or waterloops from regular mode?

I actually don't think I'll have invert water. That might just be too much. Water also introduced until later, so I would still something interesting going on with invert mode early in the game.

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #283 - 01/13/2016

Invert Mode Issues



Earlier this month, I had a 3 hour long discussion with Chris Bell, one of the designers on Journey, and currently a designer on What Remains of Edith Finch.

I'll try to summarize some of the key points here, mostly as a reminder to myself of what we discussed.

Some of Chris' issues with invert mode:

- It doesn't really invert the mechanic. Chris thinks maybe it should invert gravity direction.

- Bring the invert cube from button to tree is cool, but not really as massive of an "inversion" as what happens in Starseed Pilgrim

- Starseed Pilgrim is great. It's like playing with wild fire, so a lot to balance, and constantly teetering on the edge of madness. Manifold Garden's mechanics are too clean for that kind of insanity.

- MG's insanity can come from elsewhere though... but how?

- Right now, invert mode is really more like "lock onto gravity" mode, in which case the visual should be that the color changes to mostly monochrome of that specific gravity. So for blue gravity, the background would be mostly blue when you're in the mode. This is technically the mode when you pick up a box though, since you can't bring a box into another gravity (you can change gravity, but you'll drop the box).

- Part of the problem right now is that the mechanics in normal mode still are not totally flushed out, so it's hard to know what to "invert" when what is normal still isn't clear.

- We talked about some level progression and over world design... I'm not going to go into details here though as that's a lot of spoiler stuff. 

- Chris doesn't like the design of the invert trees. Or rather, they'd be more interesting if they actually grew in the opposite direction, as opposed to just the leaves pointing down instead of up.

- How to get back into normal mode if not relying on the invert cube?

[TheWing]

- How to get back into normal mode if not relying on the invert cube?

Just pick up a normal cube again?

I had a thought of the inverted mode being somewhat daunting, maybe with visual glitches and other stuff like that.. but that doesn't really affect the gameplay

[marcgfx]

maybe you could mirror the repetitions of the level? instead of infinite repetitions of the same structure, it would change depending on which mirror-image you go to.  to get to other side of the architecture you would need to jump off the current structure you are on. you could maybe also make the gravity a lot weaker, allowing higher/longer jumps.

[matt_b]

I think you mentioned on the stream that this mode would be something like an endgame for each world, accessible once you've completed its puzzles.

I don't reckon it needs any new game-changing mechanics, but I think it should use the player's spatial understanding of the world that they've built up while exploring. In The Talos Principle you've got those extra star puzzles you do after completing the main ones, where you often need to get items from one seemingly closed-off area to another, or rig a laser to point across the map & unlock a door.

You could do something like that: line-of-sight puzzles where you connect one part of the world to another across the world-wrapping portal (maybe connect up all 6 axes?) using lasers or water streams, or get cubes from a place that seemed inaccessible before. Things that would seem impossible when first playing, but after some exploring you have these eureka moments & realize they're solvable.

That kind of thing feels like it has more depth than introducing a new puzzling system - more passive than active design as architects say.

[William Chyr]

- How to get back into normal mode if not relying on the invert cube?

Just pick up a normal cube again?

I had a thought of the inverted mode being somewhat daunting, maybe with visual glitches and other stuff like that.. but that doesn't really affect the gameplay

I was thinking you can't interact with normal cubes in invert mode. It also might be too much of a stretch. Plus, there are places where you can't find a normal cube so you could potentially be stuck in invert mode.

I'll play with visual glitches and stuff, and not until the main mechanic of invert mode is finalized.

maybe you could mirror the repetitions of the level? instead of infinite repetitions of the same structure, it would change depending on which mirror-image you go to.  to get to other side of the architecture you would need to jump off the current structure you are on. you could maybe also make the gravity a lot weaker, allowing higher/longer jumps.

I'm actually already planning on mirroring the repetitions of the level in normal mode for some of the later levels. That actually forms a half-turn manifold.

Weaker gravity interesting...

I think you mentioned on the stream that this mode would be something like an endgame for each world, accessible once you've completed its puzzles.

I don't reckon it needs any new game-changing mechanics, but I think it should use the player's spatial understanding of the world that they've built up while exploring. In The Talos Principle you've got those extra star puzzles you do after completing the main ones, where you often need to get items from one seemingly closed-off area to another, or rig a laser to point across the map & unlock a door.

You could do something like that: line-of-sight puzzles where you connect one part of the world to another across the world-wrapping portal (maybe connect up all 6 axes?) using lasers or water streams, or get cubes from a place that seemed inaccessible before. Things that would seem impossible when first playing, but after some exploring you have these eureka moments & realize they're solvable.

That kind of thing feels like it has more depth than introducing a new puzzling system - more passive than active design as architects say.

What you're saying about using the player's spatial understanding of the world in invert mode really gets at what I want to accomplish. I think you might be right in that introducing a new mechanic for invert world may not be the best way to go about this.

Line-of-sight would feel too much like Talos Principles...

The issue is that those insights are already contained in the normal mode. There are moments that require you to break sequence and look at architecture in new ways to accomplish seemingly impossible stuff. So how can invert mode extend that even further?

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #284 - 01/14/2016

Different Invert Modes



Currently implementing different invert mode types, and setting up a system to easily switch between them for the purpose of playtesting. These are not the ones I'm going with necessarily. Just posting here mainly for documentation purposes.


1.Button to Tree - Lock to Gravity

- Use normal boxes to light up invert box stand, so invert box is accessible

- pick up invert box to go into invert mode

- in invert box, player cannot change gravity

- if invert box is dropped, slowly fade back into normal mode, where player and invert box are reset to position before going into invert mode

- While slowly fading back into normal mode, player can go near a normal tree to continue being in invert mode

- if player moves away from normal tree, the fade to normal mode will resume

- player can also pick up box to cancel fade into normal mode

- if player brings box to invert tree, then the invert mode stage is complete

- Something special happens


2. Contant Fade To Normal

- pick up invert box to go into invert mode

- as soon as you enter invert mode, the screen starts to slowly fade to white (Takes about 60 seconds).

- Once the screen is fully white, go back to normal mode (reset invert box and player)

- the player can extend time in invert mode by going to a normal tree

- player must bring the box to invert tree before the fade back to normal mode is complete

- Something special happens


3. Reverse Gravity

- Press a button to enter this mode

- Player cannot change gravity

- In this mode, direction of gravity is inverted - player falls upwards

- can pick up boxes and drop them


Options:

A1. Objects fall down

A2. Objects fall up

B1. Floor is colored

B2. Ceiling is colored 

C1. Cannot change gravity

C2. Can change gravity

D1. Can jump

D2. Cannot jump

[Mark Mayers]

Do you think timing puzzles with the inversion mechanic are really the way to go?

Introducing timing elements could potentially spoil an otherwise cerebral and relaxing experience.

From what I've seen Manifold Garden is a 'pure' puzzle game, in that there are no elements involving execution based puzzles.

I've talked to you in the past about design for Desolus, which influenced my decision to move away from timing/execution based elements. This (in my opinion) resulted in a better game, as timing is often counter-intuitive in the context of puzzle games.

The concept of a true 'inversion' of mechanics seems interesting (the dichotomy between pure puzzle and twitch/timing).

However, this potentially causes a conflict in the appeal and theme of your game. I can imagine a person unskilled or lacking 'twitch based' video game experience becoming frustrated as a result. Inversely, the FPS veteran could find timing puzzles too easy or unsatisfying.

Just my two cents.

[sam_suite]

I'm thinkin' A2, B2, C1, D1 would be interesting.
ie you're stuck on the ceiling and you can navigate normally, but can't change gravity (until you complete some challenge or exit invert mode).

[William Chyr]

Do you think timing puzzles with the inversion mechanic are really the way to go?

Introducing timing elements could potentially spoil an otherwise cerebral and relaxing experience.

From what I've seen Manifold Garden is a 'pure' puzzle game, in that there are no elements involving execution based puzzles.

I've talked to you in the past about design for Desolus, which influenced my decision to move away from timing/execution based elements. This (in my opinion) resulted in a better game, as timing is often counter-intuitive in the context of puzzle games.

The concept of a true 'inversion' of mechanics seems interesting (the dichotomy between pure puzzle and twitch/timing).

However, this potentially causes a conflict in the appeal and theme of your game. I can imagine a person unskilled or lacking 'twitch based' video game experience becoming frustrated as a result. Inversely, the FPS veteran could find timing puzzles too easy or unsatisfying.

Just my two cents.

I should clarify that I'm not a big fan of timing puzzles, and the use of them here isn't final. It's more a stage I'm going through to help me hone in to what's interesting.

The timing element checks off a few of the things I want on my list (clear path of return to normal mode, opportunity to reset position, etc), but isn't perfect.

I'll be playtesting this soon, and the discussions that arise will help me pinpoint the problems and arrive at the correct solution.

This is all part of the prototyping phase - basically leaving all the ideas in and not tossing them out too early.

I'm thinkin' A2, B2, C1, D1 would be interesting.
ie you're stuck on the ceiling and you can navigate normally, but can't change gravity (until you complete some challenge or exit invert mode).

That one definitely has the biggest visual impact, and is also a very clear reversal of the mechanic. Navigation though, is very tricky, so there's going to have to be some work done to get it to feel right and not be too difficult to navigate in.

[chris wade]

Random idea for invert mechanic (about to read through previous pages of discussion):

Inversion causes the world wrap to stop (just bring lerp fog distance in then disable wrapping) and stops gravity shifting. Blackness/invert color grows outward from where inversion started and the player has to outrun the growth while carrying the cube to an end point. If the blackness catches up with the player or if the player falls out of the locked world, they reset back to the original inversion point out of invert mode.

[William Chyr]

Random idea for invert mechanic (about to read through previous pages of discussion):

Inversion causes the world wrap to stop (just bring lerp fog distance in then disable wrapping) and stops gravity shifting. Blackness/invert color grows outward from where inversion started and the player has to outrun the growth while carrying the cube to an end point. If the blackness catches up with the player or if the player falls out of the locked world, they reset back to the original inversion point out of invert mode.

I was actually talking to Droqen about this back in December. The initial idea with invert mode was to not have world wrapping, and when you fell off, the world went back to normal mode. However, falling through the world and see the lines fade in from the distance just looked way too cool not to do...

I should still implement and test it though, just to see how playtesters like it. It might also lead to some interesting ideas...

[matt_b]

What you're saying about using the player's spatial understanding of the world in invert mode really gets at what I want to accomplish. I think you might be right in that introducing a new mechanic for invert world may not be the best way to go about this.

Line-of-sight would feel too much like Talos Principles...

The issue is that those insights are already contained in the normal mode. There are moments that require you to break sequence and look at architecture in new ways to accomplish seemingly impossible stuff. So how can invert mode extend that even further?

If the bulk of the game is already challenging, maybe you could do what Valve did at the end of Half-Life 2: give the player something fun & not too demanding as a change of pace. Instead of a super gravity gun, it could be a zero-g god mode where you fly around freely & do some rapid puzzle solving, or you enable low-g super jumps for a puzzle that has you bouncing around & world-wrapping.

Or do something with your tree generator, like grow vines & use movable blocks from earlier puzzles to shape its growth, or grow a huge tree & climb it to reach a portal to the next world.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Just caught up on this devlog and impressed at how thorough you are with your posts. Really insightful and great to follow the evolution of your development process.

Visuals are also fantastic.

[trbz_]

Just caught up on this devlog and impressed at how thorough you are with your posts. Really insightful and great to follow the evolution of your development process.

Visuals are also fantastic.

So did I. I spent ~10 hours reading from page 1 to page 47, and MAN this game!  

BTW Willy, you said a while back that it is going to be released in early 2016. Is this still the case?

EDIT: Also, when the game comes out, will there be a Level Editor that lets people create and play custom levels online? If not, I would much rather have to wait a few months for you to create one than get the game without one. A level editor would increase the longevity and popularity of the game by at least a fourfold.

EDIT 2: I would imagine that the Level Editor would only be accessible (both building and playing custom levels) after beating the actual game. This way, people know how the the mechanics work and what good levels should be like.

The reason I think a Level Editor would do a lot of good for this game is because, while it is fun, there is a limited number of levels included in the game, and once you beat it, you are done and you move on to the next game. With the Level Editor, there are near infinite puzzles to play and enjoy! In addition, you can express your own creativity and make the wildest level designs you can imagine. Overall, I think this would greatly increase how much fun you can have in the game, and how often people get their friends to try it out.

[William Chyr]

What you're saying about using the player's spatial understanding of the world in invert mode really gets at what I want to accomplish. I think you might be right in that introducing a new mechanic for invert world may not be the best way to go about this.

Line-of-sight would feel too much like Talos Principles...

The issue is that those insights are already contained in the normal mode. There are moments that require you to break sequence and look at architecture in new ways to accomplish seemingly impossible stuff. So how can invert mode extend that even further?

If the bulk of the game is already challenging, maybe you could do what Valve did at the end of Half-Life 2: give the player something fun & not too demanding as a change of pace. Instead of a super gravity gun, it could be a zero-g god mode where you fly around freely & do some rapid puzzle solving, or you enable low-g super jumps for a puzzle that has you bouncing around & world-wrapping.

Or do something with your tree generator, like grow vines & use movable blocks from earlier puzzles to shape its growth, or grow a huge tree & climb it to reach a portal to the next world.

I actually never got to the part with the gravity gun in Half-Life 2... I really should revisit that game and finish it. I do like the idea of having the player be super powerful in the end. Journey pretty much does this. It limits player movement right before the end, and then gives you a ton of freedom of movement, which makes it feel like a really big leap.

We are actually thinking of allowing players to somehow affect the growth of trees!

Just caught up on this devlog and impressed at how thorough you are with your posts. Really insightful and great to follow the evolution of your development process.

Visuals are also fantastic.

Thank you! Glad to hear that.

Just caught up on this devlog and impressed at how thorough you are with your posts. Really insightful and great to follow the evolution of your development process.

Visuals are also fantastic.

So did I. I spent ~10 hours reading from page 1 to page 47, and MAN this game! 

BTW Willy, you said a while back that it is going to be released in early 2016. Is this still the case?

EDIT: Also, when the game comes out, will there be a Level Editor that lets people create and play custom levels online? If not, I would much rather have to wait a few months for you to create one than get the game without one. A level editor would increase the longevity and popularity of the game by at least a fourfold.

EDIT 2: I would imagine that the Level Editor would only be accessible (both building and playing custom levels) after beating the actual game. This way, people know how the the mechanics work and what good levels should be like.

The reason I think a Level Editor would do a lot of good for this game is because, while it is fun, there is a limited number of levels included in the game, and once you beat it, you are done and you move on to the next game. With the Level Editor, there are near infinite puzzles to play and enjoy! In addition, you can express your own creativity and make the wildest level designs you can imagine. Overall, I think this would greatly increase how much fun you can have in the game, and how often people get their friends to try it out.

Wow. First of all. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this!

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to release the game in early 2016... I haven't been very good with my time estimates so I'm not going to say anything about release dates for a while.

Regarding level editor: we do have a very rough working level editor, but we won't prioritize it for release.

It's actually an incredibly large and complex undertaking. We'd basically be building Unity inside of Unity, and there's just a ton of UI and tech to take care of. Right now, we're just a team of two, and pretty much have our hands full already making a massive 3D game for two platforms. To do justice to a level editor would take more than a few months, and to invest time in it right now would come at the expense of the game, which I don't want to do. Besides, the level editor would be for PC only since it'd be too complex to use without keyboard and mouse. I wouldn't want PS4 players to feel like they got "less" of a game.

It is definitely on our minds though, just not a priority. If the game comes out and does really well, and there's a demand for the level editor, then that's definitely something I will look into.