Devlog #02
Every puzzle should tell a story
One thing has always bothered me about many point-and-click adventures.
They pull me into an interesting world, introduce a compelling mystery... and then suddenly ask me to spend twenty minutes looking for a coffee filter because someone ran out of coffee.
Or to combine random objects that have nothing to do with the story I'm trying to follow. At that moment, I stop feeling like a detective. I stop feeling like the protagonist. Instead, I feel like I'm solving puzzles simply because the game needs to slow me down. That's not the experience I want to create.
In The Morning After You, I'm trying to make every puzzle part of the story.
If Franz finds a key, it should reveal something about his past. If he opens a diary, it shouldn't just unlock another puzzle—it should uncover a forgotten memory.
If he solves a melody on the typewriter, it shouldn't exist only to challenge the player. It should mean something.
For me, puzzles shouldn't interrupt the narrative.
They should be another way of telling it. Whether I'll succeed is something only players can decide. But that's the goal I've set for myself from the very beginning.