Jigsaw puzzles are cool again in Puzzle Axe: a game of monsters and music

http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/28/puzzle-­axe-­mobile-­interview/     Jigsaw  puzzles  are  cool  again  in  Puzzle  Axe:  a   game  of  monsters  a...
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http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/28/puzzle-­axe-­mobile-­interview/  

  Jigsaw  puzzles  are  cool  again  in  Puzzle  Axe:  a   game  of  monsters  and  music  

Image  Credit:  Trinome  

 

May  28,  2013  1:00  PM     Stephanie  Carmichael    

When  we  were  kids,  jigsaw  puzzles  were  those  funny  pictures  of  cats  and  national  landmarks  we  put   together  at  Grandma’s  house,  jamming  the  pieces  in  until  they  fit.  Many  of  us  have  moved  on  to  new   hobbies,  but  now  a  team  of  developers  at  Montreal-­‐based  company  Trinôme  is  reminding  us  why  they’re   still  cool  —  by  moving  them  off  the  table  and  on  to  mobile  devices.     The  project  is  a  twist  for  the  French  company,  which  usually  works  with  television  and  web  shows.   That’s  actually  what  Puzzle  Axe  started  as  before  Trinôme  scrapped  it  into  a  game.  This  isn’t  a  totally   new  excursion  for  the  group,  however.  Producer  François  Veillette  has  some  background  in  making  web-­‐ based  games  such  as  point-­‐and-­‐click  adventures  —  a  good  basis  for  the  “jigsaw  meets  adventure”  Puzzle   Axe  —  but  this  is  the  first  professional  venture  into  games  for  community  manager  Alphonse  Hà.  

“We  think  it’s  going  to  reach  an  audience  that  likes  to  do  puzzles,  but  it’s  also  going  to  reach  an  audience   of  people  who  don’t  typically  like  puzzles,”  said  Hà.     Veillette  and  Hà  showed  GamesBeat  some  early  footage  of  Puzzle  Axe,  which  is  still  in  development.   Below  are  a  few  of  the  ways  the  team  is  redefining  what  we  think  of  as  jigsaw  puzzles  by  turning  them   into  interactive,  fully  animated  adventures.    

Puzzles  that  tell  a  story   Illustrator  Samuel  Boucher  provided  the  concept  art  for  10  minutes  of  animated  cutscenes  interspersed   across  25  puzzles.  These  short  sequences  lend  context  to  the  scenarios.  Players  witness  how  the  princes   Andylion  and  Noxious  choose  to  use  the  two  royal  axes  while  their  father  is  away  on  vacation.  With  the   magical  heirlooms,  the  brothers  can  either  destroy  or  rebuild  the  world  around  them  by  breaking  it  into   jigsaw  pieces.    

  “Every  puzzle  mechanic  has  a  link  in  what  happens  in  the  story  and  what  emotions  we  want  to  convey  to   the  audience,”  said  Veillette.     The  levels  follow  the  narrative.  “In  the  story,  you  need  to  figure  out  who’s  going  to  be  the  legitimate  heir   to  the  throne,”  said  Hà.  “That’s  why  you  go  down  the  staircase  to  go  into  the  crypt  to  meet  with  the   Oracle”  —  one  of  several  characters  that  players  meet  in  the  game  who  also  triggers  the  whole   adventure.     “Puzzle  is  kind  of  the  natural  way  of  interacting  with  your  fingers,”  he  said.  “And  on  top  of  this,  with  the   digital  aspect  of  it,  you  can  do  so  much  more  that’s  interactive  [than  just]  putting  pieces  together.”    

 

Cool  physics   As  players  explore  the  kingdom,  they  interact  with  its  architecture  in  various  ways.  “Almost  every  puzzle   has  a  new  mechanic  in  it,”  said  Veillette.    

  One  puzzle  tasks  the  player  with  exploring  a  portion  of  the  castle  by  lighting  and  building  a  staircase   shrouded  in  darkness.  Players  must  place  torches  at  certain  points  to  be  able  to  see  the  rest  of  the  room,   which  isn’t  confined  to  one  frame.  It  keeps  going  down  —  a  jigsaw  puzzle  that  expands  and  comes  to  life   through  animation.     This  was  Veillette’s  favorite  for  its  “purity,”  he  said.  “I  like  it  because  it  explains  really  well  that  there’s  a   new  twist  in  the  jigsaw  puzzles.”     Another  puzzle  in  the  crypt  involves  constructing  a  glass  ceiling  under  the  pressures  of  gravity.  “There’s   a  right  order  to  put  the  pieces,”  he  said.  “You  cannot  start  building  from  the  top  because  it’s  going  to  fall   down.  So  you’ve  got  to  go  from  the  base  and  then  build,  build,  build.”    

Monsters  battles   Puzzle  Axe  contains  a  few  puzzles  that  feature  monsters  —  like  a  rotten  chicken-­‐leg  beast  that  the  Oracle   summons  to  test  the  brothers’  mettle.     “With  your  finger,  you  just  tap  on  the  monster,  and  the  monster  falls  out  into  jigsaw  puzzle  pieces,”  said   Hà.  “And  then  after  that,  you  can  rebuild  [him]  with  other  pieces.”    

Eventually,  he  becomes  a  friendly  creature.  The  same  concept  applies  to  a  storm  scene  at  sea,  where   players  change  angry  clouds  into  happy  ones.   Through  the  dual  animation,  the  monster  becomes  what  Hà  called  a  “two-­‐faced  version”  of  itself.   “There  are  different  ways  to  play  with  this  one,”  said  Veillette.  “You  can  choose  to  destroy  everything  in   the  screen  and  build  it,  but  it’s  much  easier  to  destroy  just  small  parts.  So  you  see  half  of  the  rotten   chicken  leg  and  half  of  it  which  is  well  done.  So  it’s  really  funny  to  see  the  combination  of  those  two   images  together,  and  the  animation  makes  them  fit  together.     “At  the  end,  it’s  a  happy  chicken  leg,  and  you  eat  him,”  he  said,  laughing.    

Rock  ‘n’  roll   Another  puzzle  involves  arranging  identically  shaped  pieces  by  listening  to  the  music  notes  they   produce,  which  come  from  four  different  instruments.    

 

  “When  you  hear  the  melody  …  it’s  because  you  click  on  the  axe  to  hear  it.  So  it’s  like  a  magical  axe,”  said   Veillette.     Players  have  to  rely  on  sound  rather  than  sight  to  solve  the  puzzle.  Hà  considers  it  the  most  challenging   one.     “Every  piece  is  the  same  shape,  and  you  really  have  to  go  with  the  ear,  and  there’s  a  lot  of  different   sounds,”  he  said.  “And  usually  [with]  jigsaw  puzzles,  your  reaction  is  to  go  for  whatever  is  visual.  You  get   visual  cues,  and  that’s  how  you  put  things  together.  But  this  is  completely  different.”    

The  world  is  your  jigsaw   Players  also  construct  images  from  objects  that  don’t  resemble  typical  jigsaw  pieces.  One  scenario  takes   place  underwater,  where  players  put  together  scraps  of  a  boat,  which  bobs  to  the  surface.  But  before  they   can,  they  have  to  figure  out  how  to  prevent  a  fish  from  darting  out  of  its  cave  and  wrecking  it.    

 

“It’s  like  a  puzzle  within  a  jigsaw  puzzle,”  said  Hà.     Veillette  also  demonstrated  how  players  navigate  a  maze  of  their  own  creation  by  forming  a  path  across   the  screen.  The  “labyrinth,”  as  he  called  it,  grows  with  every  new  selection.  Players  may  encounter  dead   ends  or  have  to  cross  intersections  by  choosing  the  right  pieces.    

The  power  of  touch   At  one  point,  Andylion  emerges  from  the  castle  to  find  a  mouse  named  Bob  trapped  in  a  cage.  To  free   him,  players  fill  a  bowl  with  monsters  by  building  up  the  picture.    

  What’s  cool,  though,  is  that  as  you  move  pieces  around  the  screen,  the  eyes  of  the  creatures  inside  the   cage  follow  your  finger.     “This  has  nothing  to  do  with  gameplay,”  said  Veillette,  adding,  “You  see  that  detail,  and  this  is  some  funny   detail  that  adds  up  to  the  overall  vibe.”     Another  mysterious  element  is  a  butterfly  that  flutters  around  the  screen.  It  has  a  special  role  in  the   puzzle.  There  are  a  lot  of  these  little  moments,  said  Veillette.  “Sometimes  it’s  just  small  stuff  like  that.”   “With  the  iPad,  with  the  touch  devices,  mobiles  —  whether  it’s  iPhone  or  any  other  Android  device  —  it   doesn’t  really  take  advantage  of  the  full  power  of  the  touch  yet,”  said  Hà,  in  reference  to  other  puzzle   games  on  mobile.  “Angry  Birds  is  nice,  but  that’s  something  you  could  easily  do  with  a  mouse  and  a   cursor.”  There  aren’t  enough  games  out  there  that  maximize  this  potential.     “To  make  a  game  is  like  a  conversation  we  have  with  people,”  said  Veillette.  “You’ve  got  to  give  them   something  different  and  take  them  by  surprise.”  

 

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