{"author_name":"Shide","cat":"LD #37","comments":[],"epoch":1483206180,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"757","p_author":"Shide","p_authorkey":"29081","p_urlkey":"35605","p_title":"Lighthouse Mystery (post-mortem)","p_cat":"LD #37","p_event":"LD37","p_time":"1483206180","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"29081","us_name":"Shide","us_username":"\/author\/shide\/","event_start":"1481241600","event_key":"81","event_name":"Ludum Dare 37"},"text":"

Hello everyone and happy new year!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are two brothers from Moscow (Russia) who\u00a0had almost no experience in game development 3 years ago. We’ve been participating in Ludum Dare for the hmmm… 10th time, I guess and thanks for LD we gained a lot of game development experience over these years. We started from shitty 2D pixel-art graphics on XNA engine ending with 3D multiplayer games with PBR materials. \u00a0Here are our previous\u00a0most successful<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0less successful<\/a>\u00a0entries.<\/p>\n

And this time we made a first-person puzzle game.<\/p>\n

Play Lighthouse Mystery<\/a><\/h2>\n
\"Lighthouse<\/a>

Lighthouse Mystery. Ludum Dare #37<\/p><\/div>\n

Read more about development below:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

This LD’s theme was ‘One Room’ and this time we decided to make a first-person game so we end up with some sort of puzzle game. But one room literally wasn’t enough for us to make a great puzzle so we decided how to stick to the theme without forcing player to stay in one room actually. And then we got an idea of “one room, multiple exits”. After discussing the idea we end up with the door like in “Howl’s Moving Castle” animated film by Hayao Miyazaki. It had a special lever which changed the destination of the door.<\/p>\n

\"howls_comparison\"
\n Gameplay<\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

First draft of our idea<\/p><\/div>\n

So we made a similar one door. Now we had a concept of multiple external enviroments and one room which was a start and an exit point at the same time, perfect for a puzzle game. But player needed something to do in the ‘outside’ world so we modified our door a bit and created a concept of a key which is actually a cube charged with a specific color. Each color leads to a different world and is consumed by the door after changing door’s destination. So player now had a purpose in the outside worlds: to charge his key by the color of the next world. And we just needed to add some puzzle component into the worlds itself. We took some inspiration from Portal and Talos Principle games and decided to use quite simple laser mechanics with emitters, mirrors and receivers. Last one designed to charge player’s key. And also we added an impossible gravity, just because I had an extra time.<\/p>\n