Tiles Apart
Puzzle Designer
I was the puzzle designer for Tiles apart, a mobile puzzle game with roughly 50 levels to traverse.
Our project brief stated that we had to create a mobile puzzle game inspired by a board game. We chose the game Labyrinth and created a mechanic based around the tile swapping in that boardgame. I created puzzles for the game, held the vision of the project, did presentation for our key stakeholders, and got the game through the release process.
Our project brief stated that we had to create a mobile puzzle game inspired by a board game. We chose the game Labyrinth and created a mechanic based around the tile swapping in that boardgame. I created puzzles for the game, held the vision of the project, did presentation for our key stakeholders, and got the game through the release process.
My contribution
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Puzzle design
The big challenge for Tiles Apart puzzle design was that due to our mechanics doing small iterations/conceptualizing puzzles was nearly impossible. To still be able to make quick and effective puzzles we created an in depth pipeline puzzle designer could use to create, document, test, and implement puzzles. Puzzle design process
Puzzle Design Process showcase
Doing puzzle design for tiles apart was very different from how I usually tackle puzzle design. Sketching puzzles or "moments" trying to make them work on paper and then translating that to the engine works well. Our specific mechanics made that near impossible. So we created a pipeline to optimize, simplify, and get consistency for the process. The pipeline would allow the person starting it to get to a a solvable puzzle in an organised manner. A custom system to digitize the puzzles was created to be able to mix and match puzzles within the different chapters. We used the board game our puzzle game was inspired by to test and quickly iterate on puzzles. To give an example: I wanted to create a 2x3 puzzle with one static immovable tile. To the right are some of the possibilities I went through before finding one with a) a solution b) an interesting challenge. After successfully completing a puzzle we do a playtest, digitize it, and then put it in engine. Based on an initial difficulty rating it would get a spot in the lineup of puzzles. During the game's official in app playtests we would see if they were experienced as more or less difficult then we predicted, and then move to different spots accordingly. This worked really well for us.
Finding our ways in a game where traditional puzzle design techniques don't easily apply it was an achievement creating tools and a pipeline that supports our development process. |
7 attempts at creating a puzzle that teaches the player the game's rules.
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Responsibilities outside of puzzle design
- Presenting the project's progress to our stakeholders
- Holding the vision, ensuring the team is on one line
- Holding retrospectives and build reviews
- Releasing the game on iOS and Android
- Creating store listing, adding localisation
- Going through content rating survey
- Getting through Apple's app review policies
- Managing outsourcing (audio and music creation)
- Creating a website for the game
- Creating alpha, beta, and release trailers.
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