​SEACRET - DevLog #7 - Game Design

Hello fellow divers, and welcome back to a new DevLog post about our student game called Seacret !

It’s been a while since last time, we took a small break for celebrating the end of the year, but we are back, as motivated as ever to bring you the latest advances in your favorite underwater adventure (and by the way, happy new year 2025 to you all <3 ) !

Without further ado, today’s topic is Game Design, so let’s dive in !

1. Designing the standard puzzles

As presented in the last DevLog (see DevLog #6 - Level Design for more details), the structure of the game will consist of a series of puzzles to be in order to progress through the general environment, with the puzzle phases separated by colored biomes, allowing the player to “breath”.

The design team has thus succeeded in proposing this general puzzle map out to project onto the whole Seacret experience : 

We decided to divide the game into three acts, representing the introduction, build-up, climax and conclusion of the story. In each act we’ve placed the game’s different levels, which are the areas of the game divided up equally (the colored levels are the exterior areas that don’t include puzzles), and in each level we’ve placed a total of 17 puzzles. This number is not necessarily the definitive number of puzzles that will be implemented in the final version of Seacret.

But what are those icons ?

As you can see, each puzzle is represented by several icons. Here’s how to read them, in simplified form first : 

• Main icon : First, a puzzle will exploit one of the game's 3 main mechanics, respectively dash (move quickly, between a sequence of alternating geysers), harpoon (shoot a crate at a pressure plate) and proximity (pull levers in a certain order to push crates with geysers to a pressure plate).

• Color : Each puzzle is arbitrarily represented by a color, corresponding to its difficulty: 

- Blue for “very easy” (to introduce a mechanic)

- Green for “easy” (the majority of our puzzles, with few actions required around a single main mechanic)

- Orange for “moderately difficult” (several actions sometimes requiring the combination of several mechanics)

 - Red for “difficult” (several solving stages, several objects to interact with, need to master several mechanics, or even combine them)

In details

But to be as clear as possible, each puzzle has been detailed in these small recaps containing more informations :  

In addition to the main icon and color, there are several other things to note: 

• Secondary icons : small in the frame, they represent the other mechanics the player CAN USE in this puzzle, whether to optimize movement or solve the puzzle more efficiently.

• Extension H-8 : Represented by the small yellow and blue circle below the main icon, it indicates the presence or absence of small robots that will guide the player by positioning themselves at the elements with which he can interact, giving him clues as to how to solve the puzzle.

• Area : The level where the puzzle takes place

• Difficulty : Just like the color

• Gameplay steps : main number of actions needed to solve the puzzle

• Mechanic(s) used : corresponding to the main icon

• LDI used : The différent elements and assets needed in the level design of the room of the puzzle in order to make it functional.

Now that you know how it works theoretically, here is the representation for one puzzle :

In this example taking place very early in the game, the player needs to use the dash mechanic in order to go through fans to get to the exit.

• The red dot represents the starting point of the player, and where he’ll respawn if he takes damage

• The red arrow represents the end of the level

• The red line represents the critical path the player needs to follow in order to get to the objective

• The blue circles represent the big air fans blocking the player’s way

• The smaller blue arrows represents the direction of the current sent by the air fans.

As we can see in the puzzle icon, the main mechanic to use is the dash in order to go through the fans.

I voluntarily chose a tutorial difficulty level so this is both easy to understand and doesn’t spoil any other advanced puzzles.

2. Designing a special puzzle : the chase sequence

Now you understand how we made 90% of our puzzles. But there is an exception that needed another step of reflexion to design : one special puzzle, a chase sequence.

In order for the player to feel ingame the moment he is approaching the climax of Seacret, we wanted to put him under a bit of pressure with a small chase scene. Here how it is represented : 

Let us break it down for you : 

The puzzle will start at the entrance of the room, where one of our main character our crab robot M-8 will be released into the room and start to chase us (first “trigger” zone). Then it’ll attack and destroy one of the small robots that accompany us (in the second “trigger” zone).

The player will then need to activate the lever, navigate through a lot of geysers with the threat of the robot getting closer, to finally reach a closing door at the last moment to escape M-8, crashing onto the door, to add impact to the scene.

It should not be a particularly hard level, but we hope it’ll be a memorable one.

Here it is for the Game Design part ! Thanks for reading this far, and we'll see you in the next DevLog for the continuation of the Seacret adventure ! Don't forget that you can download the build to test the first prototype of the game yourself, and even give us feedbacks about your experience ! Everything is explained in this DevLog : 

Take care, and "sea" you next time !

TEAM SEACRET