Another one of those days. Not much done externally, but a lot of time spent thinking and doing some research. I have a set of levels, but I need to work out how to connect them together – the overall strategy to build the game from the levels.

I could just string them all together, but that makes for a linear game. And it creates a situation where if someone can’t solve a puzzle, they’re just stuck and can’t proceed. I’m determined that the player will have more freedom, but that means some sort of navigation of puzzles, as well as being able to exit a level or more to a different puzzle or section of puzzle in the same level. Also, some levels might have different puzzle sections, so it’s important to be able to come back to a level and continue it. (At this point, I plan on every level you visit remembering its state. The entire game is in play at once. That has some interesting ramifications in terms of whether you can do irreversible actions.)

To list that out explicitly:

1. There are multiple levels that can be navigated among.
2. You can exit a level and come back to it, and the level will be in the same state.
3. There may be multiple ways to leave a level (places to go to), with some being easier and some being more advanced.
4. There is some sort of overworld or other type of hub level that the other levels branch off from.

Of course, that could all change. I had originally envisioned a single level with all parts of the machine on it, which you would massage into operation as a single master goal. My reluctance to do that has two aspects: 1) having smaller “bites” to focus on might be easier for the novice player to deal with in the beginning, and 2) I have concerns about performance for something that large all operating as a single network.

Stating things like this, in and of itself, has stirred some thoughts. Perhaps I should do this more often, even if only to myself.

Penultimate but not. Life will continue beyond devtober.