I want to talk about the divination mechanic today.
So most people might've already guessed that our game is heavily inspired by VA-11 Hall-A. I really enjoy our role as a player in that game, where we have to serve and talk with clients and learn the world through that interaction. For me tho, the game is quite too long. So I want to make a shorter and more compact experience. Not just that, I also want to make a more puzzly game.
The fortune-telling mechanic is inspired by another game, which is GROW series from
http://www.eyezmaze.com/GROW is kind of casual puzzle game, where the player has to determine the correct combination of buttons to click to maximize the grow of their world and ultimately achieve a good ending. Clicking a button will add an object to the world. The objects in the world will then interact with each other based on the order they appear. Player can guess the correct order by observing the rule that the object interacts.
I really like the simplicity of it and always want to make a game based on that mechanic. Then finally I have the idea to combine it with the theme of fortune-telling. The idea to use VA11-Hall-A as reference comes after that when I imagine the player's role in the game.
Thus DIVINATION is built with that intention in our mind.
In the end, I have this base design of DIVINATION as a narrative and puzzle experience. I put my message through the story and crafted the game as a puzzle with 3 stacks of layer; where player has to guess the meaning of the divination's image, the relation between the runes and their order, and the role of the characters in the narrative and story event.
That's how the game comes to be. There's still problem with the narrative especially because I don't think that my message really comes through, but I'm still quite proud of the result. We're gonna release it in 2 more days, hopefully the experience is compelling to you.
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