Every year the Puzzle People Facebook group coordinates a Secret Santa, where people design a take home puzzle game for someone and get one in return! Designers of all experience levels are encouraged. Some games are designers first ever puzzle game, some are extremely elaborate, some even go on to get a Kickstarter campaign and be sold commercially.

I’ve done enough narrative design now but still have yet to design an entire game on my own, so I figured this would be a great opportunity to try my hand at a puzzle game! And because I’m weird, I am chronicling my process!

Not being a puzzle designer in the slightest, my main goal is to make something that basically works. Things working against me:

• Lack of puzzle design skill
• Lack of building skill
• Existential fear of failure constantly present in my soul

Hopefully these things, mostly the fear, won’t stop me! And I wanted to chronicle the process not just as a way to hold myself accountable as the deadline looms, but also as a way to share the design process and all its highs and lows. When we are so used to seeing the final products, we don’t always consider the hours of trial and error that lead to it.

So! Who knows, this game may not work. It may end up looking like a kindergartner built it. But I am so excited to try it out! (Okay, and a little more than scared, let’s be honest). Let’s dive in!

Part 1: The Brainstorm

There is no definitive way to start a game design or brainstorm. Some designers start with a mechanic, something cool they want to be integral to the game and puzzle flow. Some people start with the story and fill in the puzzles based on that. Some people start with thinking about how they want players to feel. There are all sorts of methods!

For myself, I tend to start with what story I want to tell. I know, shock. I wish I could say I had a tried and true way of shaping out my story from beginning to end which hits all of the right beats, or that I work in a manic, dedicated fashion, not resting, not eating, not sleeping until I was done. In truth when it comes to my initial process it involves a lot of daydreaming on walks or in the shower or at work. It also involves me talking to myself and playing out scenes like a crazy person (thank goodness I live alone).

Often, when I finally get that initial idea, it appears as an image or a single scene, whether at the beginning, middle, or end, that eventually I can develop and grow. In this case though I got 3 ideas that came from entirely different methods!

Mechanic/Story Idea: A game in a jewelry box: I was watching my niece show me an old jewelry box a neighbor had given her, and as she was describing everything in excitement, including an old love letter it came with that she claimed could transport you anywhere in the world, I thought “Hey, a jewelry box telling the story of someone’s life could be a great place for a puzzle game”.

Story Idea: Alien game. I always loved the x-files growing up. Doing some sort of government conspiracy/finding evidence of an alien visit is something I’ve always wanted to do.

General idea: Time capsule. I liked the idea of having a time capsule 2 friends contributed to over the years.

Story Idea: Something with ghosts–no, no, that’s dumb. Manda, you are too obsessed with ghosts, you can’t keep going back to this well. So no, no ghosts.

Initially, the jewelry box idea seemed the most appealing to me. I even went and bought an old jewelry box second hand. It even came with documents wedged into the back of it. It was just a school schedule and notes, but it inspired me nonetheless!

Buuuut then the reality of having a large jewelry box internationally kind of reared its ugly head. Suuure, I could use a smaller jewelry box but where’s the fun in that?

So back to the drawing board it was. At first I liked the idea of a time capsule and was brain storming ideas for that, but nothing was really gelling. What if the time capsule was made by 2 friends, and each envelope could be at a different point in their lives? Or what if they have a hobby they share? Like ghost hunt–NO, no, Manda, remember, we’re not doing ghost hunting!

…

Okay, so I’m making a game centered around ghost hunting. Well, it’ll be more of a tale of friendship, with some ghost hunting involved. I’m not going for a straight up horror vibe, more bittersweet, but there are ghosts nonetheless.

So why did I give in to my love of the paranormal and the hunting of said paranormal? Well, the main reason is that this was the first full narrative flow to have any semblance of completion in my head, so I went with that instinct and am dedicated to it.

So here we go. Next steps, actually making the thing!