This is the primary design document behind the creation of the mechanic. It will detail exactly what the mechanic is, why I chose this mechanic, what it is meant to achieve, the main design considerations when creating the mechanic and thinking deeper into it, and how to possibly take the mechanic further. This document will also help to gather my thoughts in utilizing the mechanic and determine a set direction for my implementation.
The property editor is a tool/mechanic designed to maximize player interaction with the world space and objects in the environment to make a mechanic that is fun for the explorer player type to play with. The focus of the mechanic is to provide a range of different solutions to various puzzles/goals that the player must use creative lateral thinking to achieve, effectively creating their own solutions to problems by using the mechanic, rather than reaching the solution by one single means.
Through developing with the mechanic I hope to create a sense of creative catharsis in the player whenever they reach the goal by creatively playing with the mechanic until they form their own solution to the puzzle.
The end goal of the mechanic is to allow the player to chart their own journey to the solution of a problem by giving them freedom to explore the properties of worldly objects.
To delve even deeper into the mechanics design I will be asking a series of questions about the mechanic and attempting to answer them so I can better understand the mechanic as a whole.
In designing the mechanic I am taking a large amount of inspiration from the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilds game design philosophy in trying to create "multiplicative gameplay" which involves unifying your game world through a consistent set of physics based rules, the player will come up with all sorts of things they want to try and will actively explore the possibility space within your game. Adding this to a simplified chemistry model of designing the world to determine the states that can change based on the physics based gameplay creates an amazing sense of discovery in the player whenever they manage to figure their way out of a situation by just experimenting with the mechanics at hand. In essence multiplicative gameplay involves causing chemical reactions through gameplay. If I were to look at this mechanic through a similar chemistry based approach as to the events that can occur in gameplay, I would essentially look at the game as a "Rule-Based State Calculator". The three main rules of thumb to create this chemistry based gameplay is:
1: An element can change a materials state
2: Elements can change other elements states
3: Materials cannot influence each other states.
The goal of this mechanic is to allow the player access to specific properties that can be used to change the states of objects in the world in an effort to create effects/elements that are required to accomplish the objective.
The player will be given direct access to a set amount of physical properties on each interactable object which when manipulated can be used to cause changes of state in other objects and be used to accomplish an objective. The properties will each have relationships to each other in a way that creates a systemic form of gameplay. The manipulation and exploration of these properties is the main focus of the mechanic, and will be the primary way in which the player will achieve their goal within each puzzle scenario. In this way, everything in the world will need to be connected to create this type of systemic gameplay, but will allow for maximum exploration of the possibility space of the world, suddenly basic interactions take on new meanings and there are several ways to go about achieving goals.