Toroidal World
It’s been a long time since the last post. I want to start posting more often but I may need to use another platform for that - since my website views are currently low and don’t have a commenting system for feedback.
Back in June 2017, I had completed what was a toroidal world for Project Square - the name is still a placeholder by the way. This means that the levels are repeated infinitely in a grid, so any of the touching open edges allow seamless movement/object travel between the repeated world. This makes for some interesting puzzles.
Since then, I fixed various time travel bugs, made 50 levels, and polished things up. But recently I realized I didn’t have a proper theme, it was just going to be some generic sci-fi game without a real purpose. The mechanics were exactly the same as sokoban inside a time-traveling/toroidal world. Which was an interesting concept but it’s not completely unique.
The prototyping continues, I am trying out a simple chain of gardening mechanics that each work differently but together. Light beams on planted seeds that are watered will grow plants to solve the puzzles. The back-story to this theme will be something like it’s hundreds of years into the future, where Earth is no longer habitable, so you must plant crops in this weird alien world we discovered with the right conditions for life. It’s a multi-dimensional world so it wraps around and you can travel through time.
The “sokoban” block pushing is always a challenging mechanic, so I am partially keeping that with the seeds. The light beams go on forever and will look cool with the toroidal world. Haven’t even thought through all the time travel possibilities with these new mechanics.
I will post the previous version with just blocks (and cracked areas) soon. Just know that things are still evolving, but I have a clear direction to take now, and should be able to put together a polished game to publish.
As always, you can play the current prototypes here.