Design Change Log

Original Design

Players originally needed to use flowers to unlock doors in the garden, and they would enter that level with a flower! 

Final Design

Players no longer can go through a door in the garden while holding a flower.

Why? 

• Reduce design and animation work. Designers had to figure out clever ways to get the Wisp to part with a flower, and art needed to figure out animations. 

• One of the project's advisors made an excellent point that the goal of the game is to bring flowers back to the garden, make it full again. Not take away from it. 

Iteration 1

Find breeze in world → Press 'E' to enter breeze → Wisp gets carried to another location. 

Problems with this design: 

• What that breeze is and why it's there is unclear. 

• Pressing 'E' to enter the breeze felt unintuitive. Additionally, there were even earlier puzzles that the player could blow AGAINST the Wind to change its direction. Blowing was extremely unclear. 

Iteration 2

Find breeze in world → Blow to enter the breeze → Wisp gets carried to another location. 

Why this design was better:

• Usage of the blow mechanic. Players are eager to engage with the unique core mechanic of the game.

Problems with this design:

• What that breeze is and why it's there is unclear. 

Iteration 3

Find dandelion int he world → Blow dandelion away → Wisp gets swept away with the dandelion.

Why this design worked: 

• Dandelion metaphor, which is already established on the UI. Dandelions are blowable, so we want to blow it away. Wisp naturally gets taken with the dandelion gust. 

• Removing keyboard input makes it feel as if the player is helping the Wisp cross, not the Wisp (pressing 'E') and finding a way to cross.