The Locked Door

One of the biggest obstacles I have encountered with creating an interesting adventure game, is something Im calling The Locked Door.

The Locked Door is the predisposition to divide your game into a series of room, where the challenge comes down to getting through a door. The horrible thing is that these types of challenges just feel so ‘natural’ with Adventure Games-but they get old VERY quickly!

The challenge for me, in being a ‘one man design team’, is how often I hit the wall of ‘OK, so you have to get to the next area, but the door is locked’. Im sure with a few people to bounce ideas off of, this would happen WAY less, but the truth is EVERY area that I create starts off with that basic design. The trick is to try and train your brain to get out of the habit of ‘The Locked Door’, and try to find other obstacles for your character to circumvent.

Walking Around The Door…

Sometimes-the locked door is inevitable. Having a locked door just comes hand in hand with Adventure Games. So how do you make it interesting? Well, every door needs a key. If you have an interesting key, the door becomes interesting. Now, a key doesn’t have to be a literal KEY. When I have a locked door, Ive tried to be as creative as possible with the keys-from puzzles involving turning on power to a certain area, to resetting security computers. I have very cool ‘key’ that involves a kitchen knife, and a tattoo-but I dont want to give to much away. 😉

Less Inventory Puzzles!!!

Something that Im also trying to do with the game design is to steer away from INVENTORY puzzles when I can. I dont want the game to devolve into a ‘use everything on everything’ click fest. The screen below is a small example of other forms of interaction that will take place in STASIS.

The Breaker Box

The Infirmary

And for those who just come for the candy, here is a new area, briefly hinted at before. 😉



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