For the last 6 months or so, we've been working on our next project called Pathfinders. In today's first devlog, I want to talk about what the project is, how we got into it, and the things we hope to do with it, in no particular order. So let's start!

After the release of our second game Valanthion (which you can check out here), we took a short break to rest and focus on college. But there was a problem. We didn't know what game we wanted to make next. We knew we wanted to try and do it better than we did before, which basically means not just chucking in everything we wanted out of our dream game and actually try to do all the design, planning, and prototyping. But man was it easier said than done.

We decided we wanted to do something different: a game jam. It served a lot of purposes at once: it's fun, it'd be a great learning experience for everyone because everyone has to make a game alone, and it's basically prototyping a lot of ideas at once and see which works and which doesn't. Our previous experience with game jams have been really good too. In fact, our first game Protectors (which you can also check out here) came out of a game jam. Every time we did a game jam, there was a wave of creativity. We got fired up and we learnt a lot too.

We didn't just want any game though. We like to push ourselves, so we always try to make a different type of game each time even in our personal or college projects. And for our next game, there were several things that we knew we wanted to try.

• Mobile - we wanted to do a mobile game for the Android (and maybe iOS)
• Monetisation - we wanted to experiment with monetisation, something which we hadn't done at all before
• Polish - we wanted our next game to be more polished than our previous ones
• Casual - we wanted a game that was more casual and approachable to more people

And we got our answer.

What you're seeing above is a game called ZomTrol, our member Crouston's entry to the game jam. You take control of a bunch of zombies and they all move at once in the same direction. You move one zombie, you move all the zombies. The goal is to get those zombies to the buttons (goals) in the level. To do that, you'd need to: avoid humans (they'll die and we'll lose), trigger obstacles using levers and pressure plates to open paths, and coordinate their movements who all move at once and get them into position. It's a simple but challenging game. (But for me it was really hard. To this day I can't get through the final level, but somehow almost everyone else did.)

So we took that idea and ran with it. And thus, Pathfinders was born. So what is Pathfinders?

A 2D mobile puzzle game where you must guide a group of explorers out of an ancient temple... but they move at the same time, in the same direction!

We wanted it to be a game of planning and problem-solving. Each level would have: a number of explorers, a number of goals to reach, obstacles items, treasures to collect, and a target time. The core of the game remains simple: each of the goals must be reached at the same time to pass the level. There are several obstacles and items that you'll encounter as you play the game:

• Traps that kill you
• Obstacles like boulders that can be toggled using levers and pressure plates
• Timers that get triggered when you step on a pressure plate
• Keys that are needed to unlock specific paths or goals

There are also treasures and relics. Both are collectibles that you can collect in a level. There are always three treasures in each level and getting them gives you bonus rewards. They're always placed out of the main path that you would take to get to the goal so you need to do a bit of extra planning to get those treasures. Think of them as the stars from Cut the Rope. Relics aren't in every level. Actually there are only 5 relics throughout the game and they're hidden. Finding them will get you an even bigger reward, but it won't be so easy.

On top of that, there's a Target Time. This is an optional challenge for you to play (just like collecting the treasures). If you can finish the level under the target time, you'll get another reward too.

All these rewards are in the form of in-game currency (which for now we're calling "Coins"). Coins can be used to purchase skins for your characters to customise their looks.

But before we came up with all of that, first we decided to set some ground rules: Design Pillars. If you're not familiar with them, Design Pillars are like principles in how you design the game that you can't violate. All decisions we make in making the game needs to be in line with these pillars. They define how the game should be, basically.

• Short Yet Challenging - we want to make the game have short levels that you can finish in less than 5 minutes, but give enough of a challenge
• Unrepetitive - we want the game to feel unrepetitive despite its limited number of mechanics, doing this by using the mechanics in different ways and using them together
• Satisfying Progression - as the game progresses, we want the player to feel like they're actually progressing, getting smarter at playing with the mechanics
• Accessible - we want the game to be simple but not simplistic. Basically, we want it so that anyone can pick up the game and in less than 5 minutes understand what the game is all about

So far, we're reaching alpha (where all the main features are done). I'd like to show you some of what we've worked on.

So far we've created 15 levels, some of which we'll probably replace. We're planning around 60-80 levels and since we've developed some tools that make level making easier, we expect a lot of levels to be done pretty fast. We've finished implementing the levers, pressure plates, obstacles, and traps too.

That's our main character, Henry Jones. (Did you catch the reference?) He's a young but talented archaeologist and leader of this expedition. His trademark is his fedora hat. Our artist Nico experimented with several different designs until we finally decided on what you see. Some of his concept art below.

We've designed all of our screens, from the main menu to the shop. But we haven't made any of the art assets so they're pretty boring right now (but they do work).

That's about it for this devlog. If you're interested, we're going to keep this up with a weekly devlog where we won't just list what's changed in the project but also write about our experience with it and the reasoning behind them. What do you think of Pathfinders? We're open to anything you have to say about it, and if you got questions, feel free to ask us down below or on any of our social media accounts!

Thanks for reading and look forward to the next one! :) - Phobez