Branching Pathways

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Icon for the ability Mind CarriageHi everyone,

We've had a busy summer working on the game, stabilising a few key features, and preparing to revisit some others.

We also spent time to develop some of our long term plans for the game and our studio. It is amazing what introspection and conversations with the right people can reveal! We're very excited about what's to come.


Forks in the Road

In the past, we've shared that Causeway's in-match progression is called the "Advisor" system. It's our twist on items. While we won't dive into much detail about it yet, we do have a lesson or two to share from development.

One of the goals of the Advisor system is to be a "minimum inventory, maximum diversity" system. This describes the tricky balance of having as little content as possible (less tooltips to read and internalise) while allowing a large number of (viable) possibilities and choices.

We have an implementation of this system, and we discovered that while had potential, it also came with a major shortcoming...

Players don't find it fun to calculate a large number of (viable) possibilities in the short timespan of a match.

Every time they opened the menu — there were too many options! There was also not a strong enough thread of progression through those options to narrow them down.

The system had so much freedom that players experienced choice paralysis. We saw people return to familiar options, rather than face the frustration of trying to optimise under time pressure.

That is a pretty big problem!

The Advisor system will need revisiting to address this issue. We plan to explore whether better UX can make a difference. Dawngate did a great job of concealing lots of choices in a cleverly designed menu.

Dividing progression into different equipments is usually a show of confidence from game designers, so that is another option we'll consider (though there are reasons we haven't pursued it yet).


Steps of the Giants

As some of you will remember, our game is named after the Giant's Causeway, which is a landmark in Northern Ireland. It also happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its stunning natural beauty.

During the summer, I had the opportunity to visit it for the first time. (Yes, we chose the name before visiting!)

Even though I'd seen plenty of photos online, I wasn't sure what to expect. Now I understand why I couldn't get a feel from just photos.

The area has a huge amount of variation in the size, shape, colour, erosion, and formation of the rocks. I don't think one picture or angle can really capture it. So here's a few samples I took...

Two photos of the Giant's Causeway in Northern IrelandTwo photos of the Giant's Causeway in Northern IrelandTwo photos of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

When I mention that I work on a game called 'Causeway', people sometimes guess it might involve a hexagonal grid of some kind — a rigid structure often used in turn-based games.

I felt much more inspired by the natural variations that appear all around this landscape. I hope Causeway's gameplay can be known for giving players the same organic feeling!


Finally, we're very grateful for the time our testers have contributed to help improve the game this year.

Despite our website not having pretty artwork (or much detail generally) we've somehow managed to attract a consistently lovely group of people. Running games and tests has been made so easy because of the open and friendly attitudes that our testers bring with them every week.

We look forward to welcoming more of you on this journey before the end of the year :)

Thanks for reading,
Softmints

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Icon for the ability Mind Carriage