This scene is heavily influenced by Ancient Polynesian culture, but I also want it to act as a “puzzley-metroidbrania” section. Only able to be solved if the player acknowledges and uses the correct information. But how do I plan these puzzles?

Planning the puzzles

Blue Prince: Case Study

Blue Prince was one of the first games I thought of when I thought of this puzzle mechanic:

Phase 3 – Star Game Prototype 1

But the telescope mechanic in Blue Prince isn’t a fully fleshed out puzzle in the game, so I looked into other puzzles in Blue Prince:

Dart Board Puzzle

This puzzle used the dart board, and coloured its sections, to make the player do math, depending on:

1. The colour of the section
   • Decided what operation to use
2. The ring of the section
   • Decided the order of operations
3. The number of the section
   • Decided what number to use

This could also be used with the night sky puzzle, but instead of colours of sections, it could be types of star.

For example, 8 of one star could mean one rightward turn from north (using the star compass discussed in this post), plus two of another star means to turn left twice. Resulting in the correct direction to turn.

Star Constellations

Constellations are a large aspect of astronavigation, allowing humans to recognise specific clusters of stars and recognise their meaning:

Which I discussed in semester one:

Phase 2 – Stars and stuff

For Haerenga, we could create our own constellation that points to a specific direction which would lead to one of the islands the player must sail to.