"I Come in Peace"- A Deep Dive on Transmogrify's Core Mechanic

In this post I wanted to talk about how I developed the core mechanic for my game, and why it is such a key element in shaping the gameplay and experience your players will have. It isn't something that I came up with in one day, rather I came up with the concept early on, and have refined it over time.

What is the core mechanic of Transmogrify?

You shoot enemies and turn them into objects to solve puzzles with.

You don't kill anything, and everything can kill you. You need to figure out how to advance with just the objects that are given to you.

You're some sort of weird, puzzle-solving pacifist? Sounds simple, and maybe isn't that exciting on paper. Here is an example of it in action:

So the first enemy there is a "Snail" as I'm referring to it internally, and he basically behaves like a Goomba from Mario, or any other basic enemy that just patrols back and forth in an area. Like all enemies in the game, if you touch him, you die.

You can shoot him to turn him into an ice cube. In the video, you see that I push him forward and use him as a stepping stone to jump off and reach the next area, which I wouldn't be able to do without him.

This sounds small, but it affects the gameplay in profound ways. In a lot of games, you advance by killing things, or by finding a key somewhere else that opens a door. What is going on here isn't that much different- you effectively "freeze" an enemy and render them harmless, and then use them as the "key" or helper object to advance.

The interesting thing about it that I will go into more detail below is that each enemy is different. Which means that what they transmogrify into is different, and how they interact with each puzzle element is different, and so on.

Why did I decide to stick with it, and what gives it potential?

Variety is the spice of life. And games. And...vegetables.

Just like the image above, I wanted a game with lots of variety in choices. And for this game, variety in choices meant presenting puzzles to the player, and letting them figure out how to solve them.

Early on, I present one option, sometimes two, for the player to solve each puzzle. This is to allow the player to acclimate to the game and practice the mechanics. Once they have that down, I am going to open it up with larger levels, more complex puzzles, and more ways to solve each puzzle.

How does it define the game?

This concept defines the game by giving the player lots of choices for how they solve puzzle, ways to execute on that choice, and creating an interesting "hunting and gathering" mini-game where you may have to go search a bit (or maybe sometimes more than that) for the right enemy you need to solve a puzzle.

This picture was supposed to illustrate having lots of choices being a good thing, but now I realize the person just looks confused and overwhelmed. Hopefully my game doesn't make my players feel that way.

How do you keep the core mechanic fresh and interesting as the game goes on?

This is another question I've asked myself over and over again. Even if you have a fun premise, the core mechanic can get tired and worn out by the end of the game if it is applied the same way over and over and becomes boring.

One way I am going to approach this is having "mutations" of enemies. A mutation is a variant of an enemy with different graphics and properties, and what they transmogrify into is also different. Let me give you an example.

The Snail you saw in the video above turns into an ice cube. Simple enough. His first mutation is a blue snail that is bigger and moves slower- and the ice cube he turns into is also bigger. This lets you climb to an even higher ledge than before.

Another puzzle element I have in the game is a concept of buttons and doors, but the buttons only open the door when they are depressed with something standing on them. So you can shoot a Snail, and push the ice cube on top of the button and it will keep the door open as long as he stays there.

How do I make this scale and stay interesting as the game progresses? One concept I am going to implement is a "super button" that is really big, and will only depress and open the door if a really big object sits on it - such as the big Snail/ice cube he turns into mentioned above. So you might run into one of these buttons and see regular Snails, but they won't open the door for you. You need to go find the bigger Snail and push him back to the button to advance.

Actual in-game graphics of the giant Snail referenced above.

I'll be going more into detail about the game mechanics, mutations of enemies, and puzzles in future posts. The game might seems a little strange right now, and I guess it is, but I think as I post more screenshots and videos, it will start to make a little more sense.

Cheers!