Noah Drews
The Lesser Canny
Project Goal
Create a perspective driven puzzle experience.
Description
This project was made in 24 hours for the Full Sail Hall of Fame 2025 Game Jam. The goal of this project was to focus on a unique mechanic system designed to enhance the concept of surrealism to create a simple yet mind-bending puzzle experience.
Creation Year
2025
GENRE
Puzzle
PLATFORM
PC
Winner of the Full Sail HoF Game Jam 2025!
Walkthrough Video
Mechanics
World Scaling Mechanic
Texture Projection Mechanic
Explanation Video
Design Concepts
For Lesser Canny we wanted to create an experience where the player has the ability to find the solutions themselves without the need for direct guidance. However, before giving the player that freedom it's important to establish the fundamentals on how the systems work. Given the 24 hour deadline we accomplished this by adding small diagrams near critical points that inform the player on how the mechanic works. By doing this only in critical points it gives the players freedom while making sure they understand the core principles of the game.
Lighting was used in areas of the level and placed in specific locations to draw the player attention to areas of the level they were meant to interact with. By doing this we can help guide the player to important areas without the need for direct feedback.
Color Consistency was a major focus in our efforts to guide the player through the level. We designed our game with blue as the universal indicator of object interactivity. Any object that could be interacted with in the game was the same blue color while any non-interactable was texturing using non-blue colors. By doing this we made it clear to the player where their focus should be in the level.
Pre-Production
A critical factor in the early planning stages for our levels was the concept of scale. Because we had to meet a 24 hour deadline we decided that a simple 1-2-3-4 pattern would be the best way to showcase our game. By doing such a simple pathing system it allowed us to control the complexity of information the player is experiencing at any given time and makes teaching them the core mechanics much easier.
The IPM if this project was intentionally kept very simple. By introducing mechanics one at a time in the first areas we ensure that the player is not confused between which mechanic is needed where. The middle sections of the game allow for variations of existing mechanics and practice time. This culminates in the final room which uses all the established mechanics with some combinations not yet seen in the game that establishes mastery of the mechanics.
Level design for this project was a very unique experience. The reason for this is because the nature of the mechanic systems focusing on surrealism and non-standard geometry makes planning a level layout very challenging until the system itself is complete and available for testing. In order to work around this while the system was still developing the design of the levels was made to be very simplistic to make changes easy to make in future iterations.