Interesting Game Design Problem

http://media.ds.ign.com/media/143/14304256/vids_1.html

To sum up for those to lazy to click the link, it a game where you write down any word, any word at all, and the game will draw it in the game world and you can use it to help you solve the puzzle. Talk about a god game!

Anyway, I think this presents a really interesting challenge from a game design point of view, how do you even begin to make an adequate system for so many possibilities of interactions? How would YOU do it?


I'd probably just go the lazy route and make some kind of editor where the user could make any object that wasn't already in the game.


My question is, if you write down something like "for(n=0;n<n+1;n++)" will the game break itself :rolleyes:

Just a lil comment for the game:
I wonder what happens if you write down boobs... :)

I'm positive that the user is limited to objects programmed into the game. As far as all the possibilities...

Just because a player writes something doesn't mean he can solve the puzzle with it.

Programming the beaver would probably be my biggest challenge. Does it cut down every tree in the level that it can reach? How is the starite attached to the tree?

It seems kind-of deceptive. An excellent design concept, but not as complex as it appears.

I have to agree that "write ANY word" is probably a lie. You can write any word but if the game does not know the word or does not have object drawn and programmed to do something then nothing happens.

There must be a random behaviour that doesn not solve the puzzle with the words that have not been programmed.
This is not an easy gameplay for non english speaking people, but it looks very fun.
It's a quite different gameplay but it reminds me this recent flash game http://armorgames.com/play/2265/z-rox where you have to enter a word to solve the puzzle.

It's a very cool idea, though probably not that fun after a while. The fun must be in how many different solve methods you can think of and seeing how they play out. I agree with Tony though, the "write ANYTHING" is just marketing doing what marketing does best (twist the truth).