A Moving Experience
Role
Solo Developer
Engine
Game Maker Studio 2
Genre
Puzzle/Sokoban
Platform
Itch.io
Year
2021
Design Pillars
Interconnected,
"Ah-Ha!" moments,
Arcade aesthetic
Ranked in the Top 10% for "Fun" out of 5000 Games
in the GMTK Game Jam 2021!
"This game is awesome. I don't really know how to write this, but I'll try: It looks like the game had gotten everything it needed developed in time: It has great music, good sound, nice graphics, and it's polished as well and has rewind and a pause menu. No aspect was overlooked.
But the most important thing is gameplay, and it nails that as well. The puzzles keep surprising and actually had me thinking, I'd love to see a post jam release with more levels. Fantastic job."
A Moving Experience was created entirely by myself in 48 hours for the GMTK Game Jam 2021. The theme for this Jam was "Joined Together", and I made sure everything in this 2d Sokoban-like experience reinforced that concept.
Many players responded positively to the way that the game slowly revealed to them the twist that their actions in one room deterministically effect all other rooms. This was a sign of success in not only making players think, but also making them fully engage with the core theme of "Joined Together".
"The level design was excellent on this one!"
- Shinado on Itch.io
A typical Sokoban puzzle game has a Meta Loop of Observe Puzzle, Plan, Solve, Move Rooms. This loop assumes that each room contains exactly one puzzle each.
A Moving Experience follows this structure for the first few puzzles, but I decided to mess with the player’s expectations and disrupt this loop by having puzzles that take place over multiple rooms. This means that moving between rooms something that takes place within the puzzle-solving process.
In this example, the player needs to move the blue block in the level on the right in order to move the blue block in the level on the left and clear the path. This means the player must Observe, Plan, and Solve in both rooms as one puzzle. This makes "Move Rooms" something that can take place in any or all of the phases of the loop, as shown here.
Ultimately, this maintains the same Core Puzzle Loop of observing, planning, and solving, but subverts structural expectations. This twist made for some very interesting levels and positive responses from players.
