Heya folks! It’s time to dive back into the Workshop, and today we’re putting the spotlight on a brand-new story driven campaign: The Awakening, created by Joost!
You might recognize Joost from last year’s Connectorless Puzzle Jam, where his puzzle Recycle took second place. This time around, however, he has gone considerably bigger, delivering a full custom campaign built around puzzles, atmosphere, and a much darker mystery.
The Awakening drops you into an unfamiliar world of trials, with an unseen figure constantly urging you forward. But almost immediately, something feels off. Why are you being tested? What happened to the people who went through these trials before you? And, perhaps most importantly, can you actually trust the person guiding you?
What follows is a more unsettling and mystery-driven take on the classic Talos formula. As you make your way deeper into the campaign, solving increasingly elaborate trials and searching for hidden stars, pieces of the story gradually begin to fall into place. The further you go, the clearer it becomes that there is much more behind these tests than you were initially led to believe, and that the answers you are looking for may be far more personal than expected.
If you enjoy The Talos Principle when its puzzles are wrapped inside a strong narrative mystery, The Awakening is absolutely one to check out.
And, of course, we couldn’t put Joost in the spotlight without dragging him down into the basement for a chat about how the campaign came together.
So, what are you waiting for? Subscribe to the campaign right now!
BASEMENT CHATS WITH YASEN
⚪ Hey Joost, welcome to the basement! You first caught our attention during last year’s Connectorless Puzzle Jam, where Recycle took second place. At the time, you were still relatively new to the Editor. What made you decide to join the jam, and how did it fit into your plans to eventually create a full campaign?
Joost: Thanks for having me! That puzzle jam was quite a while ago. At that time, I think I was only beginning to scratch the surface of the Editor. I had made only two puzzles at that point, I believe. One of those fit the requirements for the puzzle jam, and I thought: why not? It also required me to join the Croteam Discord server, where I met a lot of amazing people. So, all in all, it turned out to be a great decision!
However, when I joined the puzzle jam, I already knew I was going to make a campaign. There were still many things I hadn’t decided on though. For example, I didn’t know how small or large the project was going to be, and the storyline was still a work in progress. I have always preferred continuous storylines rather than separate scenarios. Just releasing one puzzle would feel very lackluster. I wanted to make something that packs a punch.
⚪ Taking on a full campaign is a massive step up from a single jam entry. How long did it take you to piece the whole thing together, and what were some of the biggest hurdles you faced during development?
Joost: It took me well over a year, and I must say I really underestimated the amount of work. At first, it all went pretty fast. But as I became more accustomed to using the Editor and more aware of the possibilities, the worlds I created became more detailed. Especially the decorating can take a lot of time.
There have definitely been many difficulties along the way. Some of those I managed to overcome myself, while solutions to others were brought to me by my great fellow community members on Discord.
A memorable problem was exceeding the mesh limit in one of the worlds, which made it impossible to continue working on it without making that limit a lot higher. This, in turn, had the unfortunate side effect of making that world extremely laggy and unstable, only in the Editor though, not while actually playing. Every time I selected anything, the screen would freeze for several seconds before I could do anything again. And then I haven’t even mentioned the crashes yet.
Most problems I had while making puzzles had to do with fans. They didn’t always behave as I expected! You learn a lot about things like these when you’re trying to make something work.
⚪ The Awakening leans heavily into mystery, with the player never quite sure what is really happening or whether the person guiding them can be trusted. What inspired the story, and how did you approach weaving it through the puzzles and environments?
Joost: The story is something that just popped into my head at some point while I was outside walking the dog. Before that, I had an alternative in mind, but I liked the current story better.
I absolutely adore the way in which the original The Talos Principle tells its story. You start playing and the further you get, the more information you are given. And not just in one way: you have the terminals, the QR codes and, of course, the sound fragments.
Obviously, the Editor does not give us the option to play sounds other than the standard music, but with terminals and QR codes I tried to tell a story in the same way the original The Talos Principle does. I like the mystery, to keep the player guessing.
For the story, I had a good idea about what I wanted to happen. The only issue was speed. I didn’t know how many puzzles and worlds I was going to make. At first, I planned for five worlds, but then the story would have to progress very fast, or I would have to make very large worlds to keep the player busy.
Up until World 3 or 4, I kept up with doing the story and world-building at the same time, but after that it became too complicated. So I wrote a lot of separate texts. When all the worlds were finished, I decided where to put specific parts of the story and also the QR codes in such a way that it made sense and followed a chronological order.
⚪ With 34 sigils and 14 stars spread throughout the campaign, there’s quite a lot for players to sink their teeth into beyond simply following the story. How did you approach the puzzle design and difficulty curve?
Joost: I had different strategies for creating the puzzles. Sometimes, especially for the earlier puzzles, I just started placing walls and added everything else as I went. Most puzzles, however, revolve around a specific idea. That could be a certain solution, an interaction between puzzle items, a player action, or it could even be a visual aspect.
Some of these puzzles were integrated directly into the worlds, while others I copy-pasted into the world and then made them fit in. This was especially useful for puzzles that I made early on but were too difficult for the first couple of worlds.
That was also part of how I approached difficulty. Obviously, difficulty is something very subjective. Some puzzles I thought were easy turned out to be trickier than I expected, and vice versa.
Although I initially aimed for steadily increasing difficulty, about halfway through I realized: okay, I’m not going to make every single puzzle more difficult than the ones I just finished. And so it happened that even in the later worlds, there are some easier puzzles too, which can be a breath of fresh air.
⚪ Now that The Awakening is out in the wild, what does the future hold for you in the Workshop? Are you taking a well-earned break, or is the Editor already calling you back?
Joost: I planned on retirement, taking my time to play puzzles from the Workshop made by others, but somehow the Editor is beckoning already.
While I still really want to play some puzzles made by my fellow creators, I have started creating a couple of puzzles again. My aim will mostly be to create a few more challenging puzzles.
Whether I will actually release them is a different story though, because I would want to pack them together with a short storyline, or at least some sort of narrative, and also work on visuals like I did with The Awakening. If it is ever going to see daylight, it will be a much smaller project.
⚪ Thank you for taking the time to join us in the Basement! Wishing you all the best with whatever the Editor manages to lure you into next. Before we wrap things up, the floor is yours, feel free to give a shout-out to anyone who helped along the way or share anything else you’d like to say about The Awakening!
Joost: Thank you for having me and, of course, for highlighting The Awakening! I would like to thank everyone who helped me along the way with advice and testing. These lovely people include, but are not limited to: Babaisyoo, chamdresser, DarkyPL, HardyP, Nazario92, Shlam and vOrtex.
And most of all, thanks Croteam for this amazing game.