Molly Medusais an upcoming indie puzzle game where the protagonist is stricken with a lonely curse that turns everyone around her into stone, friends and enemies alike. Over the course of the game, players solve increasingly challenging puzzles as they explore mind-bending environments filled with strange M.C. Escher-esque architecture that defies physics.
Game Rant sat down withMolly Medusacreator Niklas Hallin to talk about various aspects of the game including its level structure and overall design philosophy. Hallin pointed out that smaller-scaleindie gameshave some distinct advantages over larger, more ambitious AAA open-world games, and Hallin also discussed how linear level design is particularly suited for puzzle games where players need to learn the game’s progressively complex mechanics in a specific order.
RELATED:Cyberpunk 2077 Quest Director Acknowledges Concerns About Game Being Too Linear
Focused Games Like Molly Medusa Don’t Have To Rely On Repetition As Much As Open-World Games
A common critique of larger open-world games, such as those that followthe Ubisoft formula, is that they tend to be filled with a significant number of repetitive tasks. While this approach to gameplay can certainly be fun and engaging, it can limit the number of unique experiences found throughout the game since the vast open maps end up filled with recurring activities. Hallin says one of the key advantages to indie games of a smaller scope is that they can avoid repetition altogether, ensuring that each challenge players encounter is unique.
I don’t like it when you repeat the same solution more than once, so I have this thing where every puzzle is completely unique, and there are no repeated challenges. That does not work in a AAA environment where the game has to be 80 hours or 120 hours long, and they have to repeat content a lot. But when you’re working in an industry where it’s like “nah, it’s fine" we don’t have to make a huge massive game, we can make one where every single challenge is only a one-time thing, and then we move on.
While it can be a lot of fun clearing out dozens ofoutposts inFar Cryand similar titles, the repetitiveness can lead to comparatively few experiences that truly stick out from one another. Meanwhile, in more straightforward titles with very specific and unique challenges, players can often recall the details of particular levels that stuck out to them years after their playthrough. Since each challenge is different from the last, players also can’t rely on one strategy to succeed, which keeps players on their toes and makes for more thoughtful play.
Linear Puzzle Games Like Molly Medusa Can Consistently Evolve In Complexity
Hallin also notes that open-world games often have a rather uniform approach to challenges in their level design so that players at various stages can tackle any content they encounter.Exploring inSkyrim, for example, is largely the same experience whether a player is 20 minutes or 20 hours into their playthrough; players will generally just have stronger equipment and flashier spells. Linear level design allows developers to structure the game’s challenges in more interesting ways.
The big problem is if you can play the temples in any order, then every single temple has to be the first one. Every temple has to be level one. You can’t do a level two temple because what if they find that temple first? The thing is, once you get to level five inMolly Medusa, that’s some advanced stuff. The process gets really bizarre in level five, but that’s fine because you played all the levels up to that point, so you know what to do. If you go into level five and haven’t played the game before, you’re screwed. There’s no way.
Some recent games have managed to strike a balance between linearity and openness, such asBreath of the Wild’s open worldthat expands as the player progresses through its temples. Even so, a strictly linear structure is a classic game design approach that puzzle adventure games likeMolly Medusathrive with.
Molly Medusareleases on April 20 on Nintendo Switch.
MORE:FromSoftware: The Cases For and Against a Return to Linear Level Design
