Recently I was reading Greek mythology, so when I saw the topic of room escape, I naturally thought: Can I make a room escape with Greek mythology as the background?
I hope this room escape contains some elements of Greek mythology itself, rather than a simple puzzle unlock. So I started looking for items that could serve as puzzles: Hera’s Peacock, Athena’s Medusa’s Shield, etc.
The golden apple is a popular story in Greek mythology. Paris, who was forced to become a referee by the three goddesses, also fits the theme of the escape room. So I chose this story as the background for this prototype.
As we all know, in the original story of the golden apple, Paris finally chose love and eloped with Helen. So, the role of the player is to solve the puzzle in it, help Paris find Helen and finally escape from here together.
This escape room is a reference to the Rusty Lake series. In the design of the puzzle, I prefer to make it in line with the development logic of the story, rather than blindly collecting and placing items. The order of solving the puzzle is: let Paris see Helen → let the peacock leave Hera and turn into stone → let Hera and Athena leave Paris → Paris and Helen meet → open the door to escape the room.
After the playtest, the player said that there is no problem in solving the puzzle itself, but those who have not understood Greek mythology do not understand why the plot develops in this way. “Why Helen wanted to leave the room?” I found that I was stuck in a typical designer’s mind when designing: I already knew what the background of the story was, but didn’t realize that from the perspective of the unknown player, they How do you know this game.
Therefore, it is very important to explain the causes and consequences of events in the dialogue, rather than immerse in the characters’ self-talk. Story designers should also jump out of their own inherent thinking, not immerse themselves in their own world, but seriously think about how a person who doesn’t know the game at all should understand the story in the game.
Play it here: https://lue2.itch.io/golden-apple