i've been touching on the game Tunic here and there and the look + combat is really pulling me back to playing 3D Dot Game Heroes on the PS3. basically the only console game i commit any reasonable amount of time into. something about the campy Zelda vibe really resonated with a part of me that was enjoying the indie game experience at the time.

it's gotten me thinking about Satellite puzzles, if any. i want to focus first on combat and next on lore that helps shape the worldbuilding in the player's mind... but elements like designing a conlang (i've thought a lot about Splatoon here) and including small witty puzzles like Zelda games, Fez, and what i'm currently playing in Tunic would be representing a pretty important part of my identity in games.

most of my design work today was just answering the question of how to have a diverse selection of puzzles, not oversaturate the experience, reward players without the reward feeling mandatory, and most important, introducing the framework of the puzzle in some way so that when the real puzzles hit, players can follow it but still feel like they're thinking critically and discovering solutions (The Witness does this very well). this is all the foundation of what makes puzzle games great, and if Satellite could bear it, i would definitely approach having some of those things.