Gameplay Basics: Warmth

The other main gameplay mechanic of Down is managing your warmth. Caves are cold, and our hero is not prepared to explore the depths. Luckily for him, there are mysterious warm beams of light poking through the cracks of the cave walls. They not only restore his Warmth attribute, but his Fortitude attribute as well.

This wasn’t always the case. In the initial designs, I only had one way to restore each attribute. This felt limiting, however, and as I planned new puzzle ideas I realized that I would want to have warmth-restoring lights for the player to pick up as well.

Here you can see that the warm pick up light has no affect on our hero’s Fortitude. The light is too dim to be reassuring. I might make it pause Fortitude depletion instead of having no effect. In world this makes sense, since our hero is no longer in complete darkness, but cannot see enough to effectively plan his next move.

It should be noted that as above, all gameplay mechanic details are subject to change as game design, puzzle design, and play testing progress.