There are many puzzles throughout Land of Lights for Casta and their buddy Guppy to solve together. Collectively, our team decided it made the most sense for puzzles to increase in difficulty as the player makes their way through the game. Hence, the first puzzle starts off with very simple mechanics.
Image of puzzle 1, showing a seesaw set-up in a forested area.
Our first puzzle is a simple seesaw. The puzzle requires Casta to place a rock on one side of the seesaw, in order to keep the other side elevated and allow Casta to reach Guppy. We felt this was a good starter puzzle for the game, as it allows players to start experimenting with their player abilities in the game without overwhelming them with Guppy’s abilities right off the bat.
Image of puzzle 2, showing several different leaves, trees, and vines in a ravine
The second puzzle, the one that players must solve after finding Guppy, allows players to experiment with Guppy’s abilities. In order to solve this puzzle, players must use Guppy’s light-giving abilities to grow trees, turn leaves, and create a walkway across this treacherous ravine. We decided not to utilize Casta’s abilities in this puzzle, so players are required to experiment and understand how Guppy’s abilities work. This sets up all the following puzzles, which require a combination of both Casta’s and Guppy’s abilities to solve and thus continue onward through the island.
Image of crystal puzzle, with 6 differently colored crystals with lines on the ground between the crystals
There are many puzzles later in the game that emphasize both Casta’s and Guppy’s unique abilities, showing how the two can work together to solve puzzles they wouldn’t be able to do on their own. An example of this is our crystal puzzle, which has six individual crystals. Guppy can add light to each crystal, causing the crystal to emit a bright beam of color. However, these beams must match up with the lines on the ground; in order to get the beams to match, Casta must push each crystal to face in a direction that will match the aforementioned lines.
Drawing of crystal puzzle, with light beams emitting from two of the different crystals
The player must use both abilities in order to finish the puzzle and move on, creating a bond between Casta and Guppy as they rely on each other to get through the island on their journey to rid the island of its disease.
In summary, we designed our puzzles to build off of Casta’s and Guppy’s abilities while neither overwhelming players nor making the puzzles feel “too easy” to be fun. We hope that players will enjoy the experience of learning how to play as Casta and direct Guppy to absorb and give light, as the game encourages players to experiment with both in their attempts to solve the puzzles.