Lost In The Hues
In the fall semester of 2022 I took a class called Principle of Game Design. The goal of this class was to further develop skills as a designer by having us create prototypes with specific restrictions. For this assignment the prompt was ‘spellbound’, with the restrictions being that it had to be a puzzle game for mobile platforms.
In my prototype the player plays as a wizard maneuvering through a magic hedge maze to reach their lost cat familiar.
The player moves the player character by taping and holding then moving their hand in the direction they want the wizard to move.
Throughout the maze there are different colored components. When the player runs into these they will pick them up. The player can only hold one at a time.
While holding a component the player can press the cast button which will cast a spell that changes the color of the maze to the color of the component.
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Barriers of the same color will open, allowing the player to advance.
My intent was to create a puzzle game that required planning ahead and thoughtful movement. I wanted to achieve this with simple player actions and mechanics. It felt necessary to not over-complicate the mechanics because as a phone game the player input is limited to touchscreen so all inputs had to be simple taps. The mechanic itself is straightforward, the challenge of the puzzles instead comes from the layout of the levels.