Lumeni

Shine light on all the switches at once to open the door. 

A casual puzzle game made during a solo 3-hour mini-game jam (theme: 'Alone in the dark')

Mechanic and puzzle design

• The prompt for the jam was 'Alone in the dark'

• While thinking about light-based mechanics, I took inspiration from "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker", where a certain temple revolved around shining light onto objects from the right spot.

• Iterating on this concept, I prototyped a level where the player shines light at multiple targets at once, instead of using a certain order.

• Using obstacles, I could make a variety of levels that had multiple right answers.

• Using the puzzle design principles of 'assumption', I created spots that seemed like the obvious answer (but were incorrect), to have the player rethink their approach. I also moved and resized obstacles to fine-tune the size of the 'correct' spots.

• In retrospect, I could think of additional mechanics to introduce later in the game, leading to more interesting puzzles. I liked how simply moving the character around already helps the player search for the right answer, and creates a low-frustration puzzle experience.