Stackbox
A two day puzzle prototype for level designers. A puzzle with focus on order of operations.
The main element of the puzzle loop, stacking boxes on top of eachother. The white one is the player controlled pawn and the goal is to get this box to the end of each puzzle. The pawn can only move vertical or horizontal on the grid.
Boxes below the pawn can be dropped of at pressure plates or color coded sockets which needs to be connected in order to charge moving platforms or gates. And to reach higher grounds the player can use the stacking function to elevate the pawn.
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The work in progress procedural grid works as a psuedo navmesh enabling the pawn to move to specific tiles on the grid. I'm planning on scaling the system to better be applicable to the whole level without having to use seperate grids. This function will take the gaps in the geometry in to account and don't spawn tiles in those sections. I'm currently working on communicating valid tiles between grids.
I see a lot of potential with these puzzles. If it's fun and engaging with only cubes, then that's a great start.
The initial paper design when brainstorming the core elements of the prototype. Highlighting the idea of figuring out theorder of operation by letting the player explore the constraints and finding the right way of approacing the puzzles.
The core gameplay also have room to increase the difficulty and complexity by layering mechanics like pressure plates, moving platforms, verticality and "cube wall running".
In addition I already have a system in place for Ambient Lighting in Unreal. By using cubemaps for lighting it gives a slightly cosier experience than utilizing Lumen.