Welcome back to [b]Behind The Lens![/b] A series where we give you a closer look at what exactly has been going on behind the scenes when It comes to creating Viewfinder. With last week’s formalities out of the way, this week, we really want to focus on a specific aspect of the development process and really hone in on the overall puzzle design of the game and what exactly makes a great puzzle! [h1]What makes for a good puzzle?[/h1] The design of puzzles is a delicate art. It’s about finding the right balance between logical thinking and creativity to find the solution to the objective set from the beginning. To put it in the context of viewfinder, it’s all about using the available game mechanics, such as the camera, photocopier and pictures to activate and reach the teleporter. This is also where the challenge comes in, as it’s up to us to teach you the basics of the various mechanics and build upon them over time within the puzzles. If we teach and show you too much of the solution, the puzzles will feel unrewarding and easy. On the other hand, if the solution to a puzzle is too far fetched and uses a completely new not seen before or illogical solution, it will feel frustrating. In order to hit the sweet spot between teaching you the logic of Viewfinder, applying your creativity to find the solution and providing you with that [i]‘Ahaa!’[/i] moment, there is a lot of testing involved. We’ve played around a lot with the order we teach mechanics and asked ourselves often can and do we need to break this mechanic down further. When you’re playing Viewfinder you’ll start out with individual pictures and over time the difficulty ramps up and we introduce more items such as the Photocopier and camera, each providing additional options in your [i]‘toolbelt’[/i] to solve a puzzle. The examples above are just a few of the things you’ll encounter. rest assured that there is a lot more in Viewfinder and there will be plenty of [i]‘Ahaa!’[/i] moments for you to encounter! [h1]How do we design a level?[/h1] Once we’ve got an idea of what the puzzle will be, the team create the level in a greybox environment. This greybox version of the level contains the essential objects and layout so that the puzzle is complete and can be solved. As development progresses you’ll see that the level itself will not have changed much, however the visuals have improved a lot. Below you can see the progression of one of the levels from its early prototype, the greybox, to it’s final version how it will be available in the game. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/ab9596892e176f9e7e9465b2a676f4cddc5f9c12.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/026b014f0b87e43846ba44bdbe6352bbce2e299c.png[/img] [h1]Further testing and finishing touches[/h1] One of the things we can’t repeat often enough, it’s all about testing and adding finishing touches to make the game feel better and make the experience smoother. A good example of this is the moment the player first finds a battery. In early prototypes the battery was found on the floor and we noticed that some players would forget where the battery came from and that it was actually from inside a picture. In order to help the player we added a pedestal, so that once the player picked up the battery, the pedestal would be empty and act as a reminder of its original location. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/fc021d848d9ab1902fbf262289e6caa0a5573ceb.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/431e1acff7272107a19479e668d39e85e96f2e80.png[/img] Another example in the same level is where we wanted to give the player more freedom and not punish the moment they learn about the photocopier. We learned that players would often place the picture with the photo very quickly in the world. to help with this we’ve opted to add various other pictures nearby where it’s obvious that there isn’t anything useful inside off. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/04d8ce9472f0e6507dc2bd4e9d470f4d504fe0b3.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/fffd45e4d1e16664b7f7bb73c82d4175c35cf5bb.png[/img] Following this choice we learned that the players would actively search the forest, assuming it concealed something of importance to solve the puzzle. We tried various other pictures afterwards and decided to settle on pictures depicting oil paintings of small areas of the level. These worked a lot better because it was easy to see that there wasn’t anything useful inside them. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/b8f4877f8920bcfb5d221b07e0bffda8986bd6e3.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43315097/1eab9f107ca4ed482f39bbb3227707ae5f68e794.png[/img] See above a selection of the oil paintings. Rumour has it that if these are placed ‘correctly’ you might be rewarded with an achievement too. That’s it! Viewfinder launches in [b]less than one week![/b] You can look forward to plenty of mind-bending puzzles and other surprises in the full release. Don’t forget that our cat photo contest is still ongoing and you can see more details on our [url=https://twitter.com/playViewfinder]Twitter[/url] & [url=https://discord.gg/rUmg5sWY]Discord[/url]! Join us next time where we will talk more about how the team met and decided to work on Viewfinder! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/