I wanted to design gameplay where everything affects everything. I was inspired while playing Hanabi by the “hitpoint” cards which can be placed together to form a horizon in several configurations.

My goal was to have the players “hand of cards” be their character build, hitpoints and also the level in which they play. The game should alternate between a slow and fast rhythm. During paper-prototyping with co-designer and producer Hiski Huovila we felt the cognitive side of gameplay was already working here.

Having the player build a level to reach a goal with progressively rising systemic difficulty while always sacrificing their strength is meant to create cognitive gameplay and interesting decision-making juxtaposed with fast-paced reactive combat.

The theming and atmosphere of the game feel unique to me and was born from collaborating with our fellow narrative designer Xueyun Zhang and lead artist Gege Fei.

I'm proud of the narrative system which tracks player actions and triggers "plot points" to be spawned for the player to interact with - or ignore - if they so wish. Plot points can be designated to spawn in selected conditions after a condition is met. An example: a plotpoint will only appear after the player has placed 20 rooms and they are in the exit-room. Plotpoints contain dialogue which I have mostly written.