article thumbnail

Design review: Botany Manor as a quiet dark detective game

Radiator Blog

Botany Manor is a 3 hour first person puzzle game about growing plants while exploring a big beautiful fancy house that smells like British Bake-Off. Gone Home anchors its story focus with voice acting, narration, simpler puzzles, and wry realism. The Witness fully commits to hundreds of puzzles at the scope of an open world game.

Puzzle 173
article thumbnail

Deliver At All Cost by Far Out Games is a destructive joyride through a 1950s wonderland

PreMortem.Games

Silly things He admits that game- and level design was a real puzzle to solve in the semi-open world that allows players to carve their own paths by smashing through just about everything. “It It was definitely a challenge,” Olsson admits, referring to balancing player freedom with cohesive level design.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

The Rise of Hybridization in Mobile Games: How Developers are Genre Mashing Their Way to Success

Game Refinery

In the past, hybridization was mainly seen in 4X strategy games that merged with puzzle and idle RPG mechanics , but in recent months this phenomenon has spread to titles of all shapes and sizes across the market – not just the hybrid-casual genre. In many respects, this change isn’t particularly surprising.

article thumbnail

Tower of Fantasy – Is the Game Really a Genshin Impact With a Social Twist?

Game Refinery

The anime art style is fairly similar to the one in Genshin Impact, but one of the biggest differences is that Tower of Fantasy players explore the open sci-fi world of the planet Aida, rather than the fantasy setting depicted in Genshin Impact. The open-world of Tower of Fantasy.

Fantasy 130
article thumbnail

Mystery investigation specialist EQ Studios “All our murder scenes are fictional”

PreMortem.Games

Ideas for the game’s content were inspired mainly from movies and TV shows, while the game designs came from the games the team loves to play, like Everquest for the open world concept and The Vanishing Hitchhiker for the atmosphere. Some started from a puzzle standpoint. All the murder scenes are fictional”, assures Tomi.

Studios 129
article thumbnail

Quest Feedback

Grumpy Gamer

It's really just a series of supply fetch quests and "find yet another character whose name rhymes with 'son' (in this big huge open world)" but it feels like you are helping establish an entire new town in the wilderness - leaves you with a genuine "I helped people" feeling.

Fighting 264
article thumbnail

How to Create Video Game Atmosphere

Game Designing

Both are open-world action-adventure games with fantasy elements and similar mechanics. Is your world stormy and moody, or bright and sunny? Is there a fog obscuring hidden threats, or is the level in clear view for easy puzzle-solving? The best way to understand the atmosphere may be through an example.

Games 136