by Dani Garcia
The Voynich manuscript is a medieval e book with unusual illustrations of unreal vegetation, constellations, ladies bathing in inexperienced waters, pages that appear to symbolize recipes to make potions, and texts — a number of texts — written in a language no one is aware of the way to translate. The e book is a thriller, and whereas there are numerous theories about what it could be about, in actuality, no one is aware of what’s it about.
With this premise, it is arduous to begin engaged on a recreation about this e book as there’s not a lot you’ll be able to know apart from it must be deciphered. I did not need to make a generic investigation recreation that occurs to have this e book as a theme; the sport needed to be particularly about this e book, however on condition that the texts are untranslatable, I may solely depend on the drawings of the totally different sections the e book appears to have.
And in addition, the truth that it’s a e book.
With that in thoughts, the very first thing clear to me was that gamers needed to have a e book of their palms, a e book they may browse in the course of the recreation as in the event that they have been finding out the true e book. I envisioned these sleeved clear sheets with playing cards in them, every card belonging to one of many sections the e book appears to have and organized so that you’d see two playing cards of the identical part everytime you opened any web page on the e book. These playing cards can be divided into 4 “sides”, so you’d rotate and flip them in the course of the recreation, representing your progress in deciphering every web page.
That may be the core and the action-selection mechanism of The Voynich Puzzle. I wished gamers going from one web page to a different, utilizing them to carry out actions, whereas on the identical time upgrading them, each to create development by having higher actions as the sport goes on, and to present gamers their very own endgame scoring targets.
Video games from Drawings
I already had the action-selection mechanism, however I wanted to create the actions themselves. The e book appears to have 5 distinctive sections, plus a foldable map with 9 circles in it. I wished to transform every of the sections into its personal mini-game, so I appeared for attention-grabbing patterns within the drawings of the true e book, discovering drawings consultant of every part that may be transformed right into a recreation someway. This cannot be simply seen within the closing model because of nice art work from Jorge Tabanera Redondo, who reinterpreted every web page in his model to make them look as spectacular as they now look.
Every part relies on a particular web page of the true e book, so the variety of steps the water drops can transfer on both sides on the baths part, the variety of leaf areas and their distribution on the botany part, and the variety of constellations and the goat itself of the astronomy part are all primarily based on the drawings as they have been within the authentic e book.
I needed to convert these particular drawings, with these particular configurations and variety of steps into video games that labored effectively, have been balanced, and have been totally different sufficient from one another. I additionally needed to make every little thing cohesive, not only a bunch of separate mini-games, as all sections of the e book appear to be half of an entire, every part associated to the others. To be able to accomplish all of that, I adopted these ideas:
Sections needed to combo from one to a different as a way to symbolize their interconnectivity. I additionally occur to love combos in video games.
The ultimate scoring additionally needed to be interconnected in order that gamers couldn’t deal with solely a single part.
As a substitute of getting sources within the traditional method, you’d have a restricted variety of every sort of token, and every token can be utilized in three totally different sections so that you’d place the tokens into a bit, then later be compelled to maneuver them to a distinct part.
And as I at all times attempt to create constructive interplay between gamers, I designed the sections in a method during which gamers would profit from what the opposite gamers did earlier than or after they positioned their items.
There was some trial and error with a number of the sections, particularly the recipes part that was initially on a participant board for every participant, however I feel the ultimate end result represents the e book as a lot as potential, contemplating its mysterious nature.
Deciphering the Ebook
The purpose of the sport is to decipher the e book, with deciphering within the recreation represented by flipping and rotating playing cards. I wished the act of adjusting the playing cards to be significant, not solely when it comes to the gameplay good points you’d get, but additionally in the way you needed to do it. In different phrases, I did not wished gamers to build up generic investigation factors that needed to be spent as a way to flip the playing cards.
A podcast I listened to whereas researching the e book was referred to as “The Voynich Puzzle”, and I apparently took that title actually as I envisioned this puzzle to which gamers can be including items, representing the information they’ve acquired and shared with the world (as many individuals investigating the e book have finished on the web). Magnifying glasses would additionally transfer across the puzzle, representing the investigation gamers can be doing primarily based on the final information shared.
I used the folded map within the e book because the canvas for the puzzle as it’s just about symmetrical alongside each axes, which allowed me to create a puzzle in which you’ll be able to place every bit in 4 places. This allowed me to create that attention-grabbing mechanism I used to be in search of, so as a substitute of upgrading the pages by spending generic information factors, gamers would wish to create particular patterns within the puzzle and transfer their magnifying glasses there.
Completely different Participant Counts
Having a recreation during which the items of different gamers have an enormous impact in your choices, I needed to fastidiously steadiness the totally different participant counts in order that the expertise was kind of the identical regardless of the variety of gamers. I additionally wished to keep away from having advanced methods, akin to a bot taking a flip in any case gamers had gone (besides, in fact, within the solo mode the place a bot is just about anticipated).
The best answer labored, which was to make use of playing cards to position the items of a non-player coloration on the board throughout set-up, solely in two- and three-player video games, to simulate the choices different gamers would create. To this point, in all probability probably the most vocal reviewer advocating for video games having good two-player variants preferred the answer, so I am pleased with the end in that regard.
Lastly, I need to thank writer Salt & Pepper Video games for suggesting this theme and for selecting me to begin their line of mid-heavy Euros, which I hope they proceed sooner or later, and thank all people else concerned in creating this recreation for working so good and so quick to make it a actuality this yr.
And thanks, in fact, to all of the playtesters of this recreation and of all my others, particularly to those that need to play the preliminary variations…
Dani Garcia
