If you saw our trailer, you know we say "one problem, many (many) solutions". One of the core ideas of There's Nothing Underground is that there can be puzzles and obstacles that have many possible solutions, possibly one we didn't even think about. The key to that concept is gadgets.
Gadgets are the tools that the player has to interact with the world of TNU. When we design a gadget we try to think of how clearly it presents itself (as we don't want tutorials or text descriptions), how fun it is to use and how it will interact with everything else. And when we mean everything, we mean everything.
Let's take our trusty hookshot. It's a staple of videogames: always fun, always useful. But so, how would a hookshot work in our game? When we design a gadget we try to give it as many uses as possible. So, in this case, we want the hookshot to be useful both to pull the player to something and to pull something to the player.
If you shoot the hookshot to something unmovable, the hookshot will pull our Gustav to it. This is useful to bridge gaps, gain elevation and so on. But if you shoot this gadget onto something movable, then that thing will be pulled towards you. This means anything movable, including platforms without gravity and such.
But there's more: the hookshot will leave its arrow planted into its target. So we made it so the player can use it as a platform to stand on.
Finally, the hookshot looks like it should damage what it hits. And so it can also be used as a projectile, to damage plants, barrels or vines.
And of course, our promise is that everything works with everything, which means that if you shoot a hookshot through an antigravity field you will see it twist its trajectory. Even when the effect is subtle like in this case, we believe putting effort into this details pays off.
As a designer, making sure that every tool the player can use has as many uses as possible is very, very hard. But it also, in our opinion, makes the game so much more creative and interesting.
So, as usual, keep following us for more news, announcements and info and don't forget to wishlist etc. etc.
Till the next time!