New puzzle games we are working on right now
Sometimes we work on a few games at the same time. It may sound a bit strange for such a small team, but there is a reason for it. When I make a puzzle game I often get stuck at some point. I have the idea of how I want the game to feel but it does not want to come together in terms of UX and design and pushing harder does not help. So I leave it for a while and let it settle in my head. And while it settles, I work on another game. Then, when I get tired of the second game and I am ready to switch again, I usually go back to the first one and finish the parts I could not finish before. It really helps to look at the game with “fresh eyes”.
I think a lot of indie developers work like this, so maybe this is relatable to some of you. Right now we have at least four different puzzle games in different phases of development. And while we really like making daily puzzle games, not all four of the games in progress are daily. Today I want to talk about only two of them, because they are the furthest along and they already passed some early play testing. We tried them on a few friends who liked the games and it gave us confidence that we are going in the right direction. Both games are still far from finished, but we really hope to complete them this year.
A new word puzzle
The first one is a word puzzle. If you like Smartle daily word puzzles, a new game will probably feel familiar, because in it you also make words from letters. We are still not sure about the exact format and we are not even sure yet if it should be a daily puzzle or just a classic online puzzle game. We love the daily idea, so for now we are leaning that way, but nothing is decided.
The main difference from Smartle is the words you can make. In Smartle you build 5-letter words. In this new game we want to accept words of any length - two letters, fifteen letters, whatever you can find on the board. You make a word, you get your points for it and you keep going to make even more words.
I don’t want to say too much more, honestly, because I don’t want to jinx it. We like to keep some things to ourselves while a game is still cooking. But we hope it turns out nice, and we hope our Smartle fans will find one more reason to come to YesPuzzles and play word puzzles for free.
Our first two-player online puzzle
The second game is completely different and it is something we have never done before. It is a multiplayer game for two players. You can play it online with a friend or a stranger, or play against a bot.
It is a little bit like old board games. Think of Tic-Tac-Toe, where you try to put three marks in a row. Here you would need to have four in a row. And it is not a word game at all, it is another kind of puzzle, more about reading the board and thinking a few moves ahead of your opponent.
We are very excited and also a little bit nervous about this one. It is our first multiplayer puzzle, so we honestly don’t know yet if players will like it, or if there will be enough people on the site at the same time to play against each other. We will see. So far our family and friends have loved it. They gave us very warm feedback and pointed out a couple of things to improve, but in general they enjoyed the puzzle and the competitive part. Hopefully you will get to play it before the end of the year too.
That’s it for today, just a small check-in on how things are going on our side. If any of this sounds interesting to you, we would love to hear which one you are more curious about: the new word puzzle, or the two-player one. Tell us in our Discord, it really helps us decide what to focus on next.
Written by
Ana