~I AM FEELING… SMART~
After playing several minimalist puzzle games, the idea of making a puzzle game of my own was inevitable.
The original concept was a game about several scales that you have to in one way or another you had to leave in perfect balance, and given my simple naming convention it was then called “Balance”. Because of how difficult it was to come up with simple game mechanics for it, or how to actually have a wide variety of problems, the idea was scrapped.
What remained up to the final product however, was the minimalistic style it was intended to have. The reason of wanting a minimalist style was to have both a simple yet elegant first project, without the need of complicated animations of graphics. All for the sake of having a relatively short first project to finish, in order to move on to more complicated ideas.
However a palette alone isn’t enough to make a game, but be the main game mechanic came by pure luck. After clearing one puzzle called “The Knight’s Journey” from the Professor Layton series the idea came. On a personal note, it was a difficult puzzle to clear once the board got extremely huge, and that is when the thought came: “This is more trial and error than a puzzle, if there was a way to make this easier…” Then a little lightbulb appeared.
After two weeks of making and playing with prototype versions on paper and cardboard, a simple yet challenging puzzle mechanic emerged. And after another month of development, KNIGHTS came to be.