The Past Within News

[h3]The Past Within official trailer comes out tomorrow! [/h3]

It’s almost time to visit this cabin… 👀

Thank you so much for all your feedback! It has been awesome reading your experiences on the small 2 player puzzle we shared in the last devlog*. To quote a few:

• "My son and I enjoyed it! We both have been playing through your other games and have had to put our heads together to solve some of the puzzles. We look forward to actually playing the whole game together. Love the communication aspect and having to talk through and describe things. Hopefully it will be a little more challenging and maybe some puzzles where each person has to solve some things individually first. Can't wait!!"
  
  
• "It was amazing, we both are fans of the games, and we wanted something to play together! Since we have a very wonderful link we were able to pass the first enigm very soon, we used the same word to describe it and we understand each other perfectly! We tried to use our knowledge for second enigm, instead, we just needed to analyse it together! For third, it was hard, but two brains are better than one, so the solution jump on our mind almost contemporarily! We are both very hyped to try the full game! Greetings from Italy!"
  
  
• "we met with Angela through the comment section of your giveaways and so we have become international best friends. We had a great time cooperating through discord and we are looking forward for more The Past Within content."

This is exactly what we try to achieve for The Past Within - a satisfying puzzle experience given by communicating with each other. Playtesting puzzles, like the small 2-player puzzle we shared for you to solve, have been vital for the development of the game. In this devlog we will dive a bit deeper into test playing puzzles of The Past Within, how it affected the development and share more in which stage we are at now in the process of development.

As mentioned in our previous devlog, playtesting has been, more than ever, a very important part of the puzzle design process. And perhaps we even underestimated the importance of playtesting when we changed our concept from singleplayer to multiplayer. In a single-player game, a puzzle has a certain solution that has to somehow feel logical for the player. But in this game, every puzzle has to be solved from 2 sides, so it needs to be tested on two sides.. preferably by 2 new players every time.

A puzzle that didn’t make the game

Unfortunately due to Covid-19, it has been harder than usual to find test players. Normally we would go to a gaming conference at least every 2 to 3 months (by the way awesome if you visited our online Indie Arena Booth!!), where we could test a new build with a new crowd of people each time. Going to these events would also function as a perfect deadline for us to have something ready to show. As you know almost all events were not possible and due to Covid regulations in the Netherlands, it was often impossible to invite test players to our office.

Rusty Lake’s Digital Indie Arena Booth

Luckily the past 5 months have been easier and we have been able to invite new test players every 2 weeks. We asked friends, couples, Rusty Lake fans, people that never played games before, people who would play over Discord and many other variations. Every play session has been unique since each pair of players have different ways of communicating and playing. We’ve heard puzzles described in so many different ways, ways we never even thought about ourselves - which has been invaluable in helping us tweak puzzles or coming up with new ones.

After more than 20 playtest sessions we have been trying to filter the right feedback and fine-tune the whole flow and experience of the game. Each time we added content (puzzles) with the aim to improve the overall experience and gameplay length, it meant we also had to playtest that specific content in at least 3 different playtests to verify and see if it would actually work between two people. During all these playtests we have been mainly checking if we triggered the right points so people communicate the right details of a puzzle (keeping in mind they both have completely different views). Maintaining the right balance of difficulty for two players has been a challenge as well - for some couples a puzzle has been very easy while others kept on struggling - so where do we draw the line and decide if a puzzle is perfect for two players? Luckily, if you are stuck and both need a hint …. you are allowed to peek at each other's screen (although for the best experience we wouldn’t recommend it).

2 different groups of players testing The Past Within

Current stage and date of release

This new way of developing and playtesting is also the main reason why it is harder to communicate a release date: we are currently still testing and improving the experience and flow of the game. The last couple of weeks have been all about designing an intro, tutorial and ending that work and feel natural. There is also a focus on adding replayability - we want the game to be fun for players who want to re-experience it together with the same person or with someone new. We are continuously polishing and improving the 3D and 2D environments. Together with these new additions and adjustments, we will soon start adding in the soundtrack and sound effects. Not to mention all the technical aspects that come with the fact that we changed to Unity. The to-do list seems never-ending and at this time we are pretty sure that aiming for a release in Q1 2022 is a more realistic and honest plan than the current ‘2021’ date which is displayed on Steam.

Developing a two-player co-op is and has been a new learning experience for us and playing a co-op game will probably be a new thing for most of you, so we are doing our utmost best to make the experience as fun as possible. Especially for all of you who are already excited to play this together. And at the same time we are putting hard deadlines for ourselves (without the events) to get the game out there - but then again... we will only release The Past Within when we are confident that the game is fully ready - and to achieve that level of confidence, we have to keep playtesting. Luckily till now all our testers really enjoyed playing it :)

There has been one very special playtest in this little cabin… and in the upcoming month, we will share a small video of their recording!

A small cabin in the woods!

Stay tuned!


*We contacted all winners and even chose some extra people to win the new Albert t-shirt. In case you missed it, check out the small 2-player puzzle in Devlog 3.

Welcome to our amazing virtual booth Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom!

Unfortunately we are not showcasing The Past Within, but we are happy to answer any questions when we are there. Feel free to visit and chat with us: online.indiearenabooth.de

We are located in The Lake 🤩

Tomorrow 28th of August our team will be at our virtual booth and hold a Q&A between 11:15 and 12:00 in the morning CEST (UTC+2).

The first 15 minutes (11:00-11:15) we are hidden somewhere on the map of the Summer Camp of Doom! The first ones who find our fishy heads (see below) will win an Albert t-shirt (make sure to make a screenshot) 🐟👀

Our friends testplaying the game!

Today we’re back with another devlog! As promised we want to dive a bit deeper into the puzzle design for our upcoming 2-player game The Past Within. But first, we’d like to offer some more insights into how the puzzles for our previous Rusty Lake and Cube Escape games were designed.

When we started making Rusty Lake games, we wanted to create a foundation for our games using the basic principles from those early Room Escape flash games: you are trapped in a room and you have to find keys, codes or specific items that help you progress through a level and, in the end, escape the room (or defeat a terrifying corrupted soul for example). Having only four walls helps to keep the space around you clear and easy to understand. We also try to stick to two basic rules: “the player should be able to use everything in the room” and “do not give the player too many options”. And since you are not always escaping the room itself in our games, we strive to give the player a sense of progress, a clear goal to reach. Examples are completing the machine in Birthday, the different shows in Theatre or collecting the cubes in Seasons or Paradox. That way we give the player a structured puzzle experience while simultaneously giving ourselves more freedom to stuff the game with atmosphere, strange twists and mind-bending puzzles.

Puzzle examples from Cube Escape: Seasons, Paradox, The Mill and Rusty Lake: Roots

One of the first items you find in several of our games is the box of matches. While this became sort of a running gag over time, it actually has a purpose: it is a recognizable item, as most players will know what to do with matches: light a candle or set anything else on fire.
This way we make players familiar with the gameplay and the environment, it’s always nice to have a few interactions before the real puzzling begins.

After this we try to give the players an interesting variety of puzzles:

• You have to use an item you have found on the right object.
  
• You have to solve a stand-alone puzzle. This can be a sliding puzzle on a cabinet but also a sequence puzzle on a specific object.
  
• You have to find a code. This can be a basic 4-digit code on a piece of paper, but can also be way more complex, like the scale-in-the-ear of Arles or the binoculars puzzle in Roots.
  
• You have to solve a more extensive minigame, like the 9-room puzzle or tower defence game in Paradox.
  

Puzzle examples from Rusty Lake: Hotel, Samsara Room and Cube Escape: Paradox

The inspiration for these puzzles often arises from the location or theme of the room: for Arles, we looked at the Van Gogh painting and looked for puzzle possibilities in the decoration of the room. In Hotel every guest had his own profession or hobby. Samsara Room has the animal themes. We always choose a location that works within the story and offers us enough opportunities to create interesting puzzles.

To keep every new game fresh and exciting we spent a lot of time designing a new or different layer of puzzles or a slightly different way of gameplay, which gives space for new kinds of puzzles. Another thing we enjoy doing is extending the experience with puzzles outside a particular game; e.g. connecting Seasons and The Lake with a special code, finding secret hints in the Paradox short film or visiting the mentalhealthandfishing.com website after playing The White Door.

The Past Within

When we started creating The Past Within (as a single-player experience) we tried using all these basic puzzle principles, but unfortunately, it didn’t match with 2D and 3D environments and the story we wanted to tell (as you can read in devlog 1 and 2). After changing it to co-op experience we had a breakthrough, but this also meant we had to approach the whole ‘puzzle designing’ process from a new angle. For the first time, we had to design puzzles around communication, where two players have completely different environments.

The majority of the puzzles in our other games are based on certain visual hints: symbols you find, an item you have to place on an object either because it matches its appearance or because of pictures with useful information hanging on the wall. But in The Past Within, you only see half of the puzzles and in order to solve it, you need to both describe any visual hints to the other player and listen to hints/clues from the other player. This makes the game fun, but also more complex. Therefore our two rules “the player should be able to use everything in the room” and “do not give the player too many options” become even more important.

The Past Within co-op puzzle example: 3D vs 2D

Playtesting is, more than ever, a very important part of the puzzle design process. We are often surprised by how the players communicate since they often describe visual hints in ways we didn’t think of ourselves. Some puzzles turn out easier than we thought, others harder. It’s more difficult to predict how the game is played than with our other games. Which is interesting to see, but also means that we need to allow ourselves to be flexible with the puzzle designs we make, and adapt based on what we see during these playtests.

To let you get used to the idea of how The Past Within works, we designed a small puzzle for you and a friend to try out (yes, you can do it by yourself, but we’d really like for you to get a feeling for how The Past Within will work). Feel free to join our Discord, find a friend there to play with, and work together to solve this small test puzzle. Make sure the other person chooses the other Player and start to communicate what you see!

Choose Player:

Player 1 Player 2


Did you work together and found the answer? Congrats! Please keep it to yourself and share it with us here: https://forms.gle/1oe3otcH4SUHeSYn7. We’ll be giving a 1000 piece Rusty Lake puzzle box to 3 pairs of players!

1000 piece Rusty Lake puzzle depicting the famous Roots painting by Johan Scherft!

We will be back with another devlog! Stay tuned!

Greetings from The Lake!🚣‍♂️