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A side-scrolling narrative language puzzle game · 2024
Narrative Designer / Content Designer
Additional system design & Steam page
A missing cat leads a human into the world of the OctoCats. To find the cat and understand why it asked for help, the player has to learn an unfamiliar language through the objects, conversations and puzzles around them.
I co-developed the world, wrote item descriptions and arranged the game's progression around what the player could understand at each stage. I also designed supporting interfaces and created the Steam store page.
Best Puzzle Game · CUSGA 2024
Awards & jury ↗Winner, China University Student Game Awards
The start
Much of the team had already worked together on Space Bar Porter. We wanted to try a project that could grow beyond a weekend jam, so we entered CUSGA and spent several months developing it.
Our lead designer proposed language as the central mechanic, drawing on an interest in linguistics and Chants of Sennaar. I came to it through writing.
I wanted to explore the idea that language is a tool for communication, but cannot by itself bring understanding. Translating a word gives the player access to what the OctoCats say; understanding the people who use it still requires experiencing their world.
What it is
The player explores a side-scrolling pixel world, observes unfamiliar symbols and records possible meanings in the diving suit’s holographic translator. A guess can be revised as new evidence appears. Understanding a sign, an instruction or a conversation can reveal the next thing to do.
The language gives the game a soft knowledge lock: progress depends on what the player has learned. That made the order of encounters one of my main responsibilities.
What I have done / Narrative design
The world of OctoCat
The cat, Shiro, has travelled to the human world to seek help. The volcanic energy source sustaining its home is becoming unstable. The protagonist initially follows a missing pet; that small, personal concern gradually becomes a reason to help an unfamiliar society.
I worked with another narrative designer on the setting and its history. My writing connected the crisis, the ancient technology and the player's equipment, so that the things the player examined could also explain where they were.
Writing through objects
I used item descriptions to give ordinary puzzle objects a place in the setting. A green liquid smells faintly of seaweed; a recording disk contains speech in a human language. One detail belongs to everyday life, while the other raises a question about the world's past.
Green liquid / item description
“If you sniff carefully, it smells of seaweed.”
English translation of the Chinese item text.
I wanted these details to leave the player curious about the world without interrupting the puzzle for a long explanation.
A clock with eight numerals
Near the end of the game, the player must fill in missing OctoCat numerals on a clock. Reaching the solution requires two discoveries about the world.
Recognise what it measures
The hand moves with sunrise and sunset in the background. By watching those changes, the player can connect the device to time. The surrounding world supplies the context for interpreting the puzzle.
Reconsider a familiar pattern
Expecting a human clock with twelve numerals leads to the wrong answer. OctoCats have eight limbs, and their timekeeping uses base eight. Their clock needs eight numerals, with gaps for the player to complete.
This is the kind of understanding I wanted the game to invite. The player has to notice how their own experience shapes an assumption, then revise it through observation. Knowing the symbols becomes useful when they understand how the OctoCats organise time.
Content design
The path of OctoCat
I arranged the flow to limit how much unfamiliar information a player had to infer at once. A simple clue pairs an image with a word; a later clue places a new word among familiar ones. Frequently used words need repeated encounters and opportunities to check a guess.
I planned the route to supply those encounters before a puzzle depended on them. A new area could also make an earlier, unreadable instruction useful on a return visit.
- RecogniseObjects, numbers & shapes
Connect a visible thing with a symbol.
- ObserveActions & changes
Use what happens to infer what a word does.
- RelateGrammar & combinations
Read how familiar words change one another.
Encounter, learn, return
The July 20 flow diagram shows this structure in the planned INPUT region. The player encounters an energy well that they are not expected to solve on the first visit. The marketplace then supplies item names, prices and conversations, along with a working energy well that can provide a clue.
In a proposed prologue terminal, the player watches a figure point, walk or stand, then chooses the words that match: “left”, “toward the left” or “on the left”. A later door would bring earlier ideas together in a short quiz.
I organised the overall progression in collaboration with the other designers, who also authored individual puzzles.
Supporting system design
Tools for remembering and exploring
I designed supporting systems around the work of making and checking a translation. In my dictionary sketch, selecting a character brings up both a guessed meaning and the places where that character has appeared. Scene names and expandable screenshots let the player return to the evidence behind a guess.
A memory of the context
A definition alone can hide the reasoning that produced it. I wanted players to be able to reconsider a word after meeting it somewhere else, without having to remember every sign and room unaided.
Putting the interface on the character
For the map, I proposed a hologram projected from the diving suit's wrist gauge. Pressing M would make the character look down at the wrist as the map appeared. Opening the backpack would likewise begin with the character bringing it forward and setting it down.
I drew these sequences to communicate the relationship between an input, a character animation and the interface it opens. The sketches were proposals we could discuss and revise together.
I also revised the proposed item-use flow. Instead of sending the player into the translator's inventory and back to a puzzle, a contextual tray would show available items beside puzzles that needed them. The aim was to make trying an object more direct.
Finding a world we could both write
The other narrative designer and I did not always want the same story. I was interested in language as a way for people to understand one another, and in the thought that a language can be someone's last connection to home. My collaborator cared more about the OctoCats' charm and the attachment players could form to them.
Both interests belonged in the game, but our discussions kept reopening work. I would bring a version to the team; we would disagree about what it left out; another version would follow.
I asked us to talk privately about the ideas each of us most wanted to keep. We explained what we were proud of and looked for a version that could preserve those parts. When they still conflicted, I became more willing to let go of a detail so we could continue.
I still cared about the themes I had started with. I also learned to recognise why a lighter character moment mattered to my collaborator. That conversation gave us a way to make decisions and move the project forward.
The playtest and feedback
The game was shown at ChinaJoy in 2024 and later received feedback at the COREBLAZER exhibition. Seeing people encounter it outside our team exposed problems that familiarity had made easy to miss.
The COREBLAZER log for version 0.3.1(9) records each problem, the proposed fix and whether it was finished. Some entries were marked as resolved; others remained proposals.
Marked resolved
Clues the player can trust
The clock hint used an incorrect numeral, and two colour characters in the pipe puzzle were reversed. The team corrected the numeral from 2 to 3 and swapped the characters.
Marked resolved
A dictionary that stays current
Some puzzles were missing from recall, and edited meanings did not update immediately. The tracker records both as addressed. These fixes supported the player's ability to revisit and revise a guess.
Proposed
Enough evidence to infer a rule
The log proposed an arithmetic example involving carrying for the number-base puzzle, and a more familiar red-plus-blue colour combination. Their completion boxes remain unchecked.
These are team responses recorded in the playtest log. My role was design; the log assigns several of the fixes to programming. It contains no measured before-and-after results.
Presenting the game on Steam
I was also responsible for the Steam page. It needed to introduce the missing-cat premise and show the act of learning a language through play. The short animations make the process visible: explore, notice something unfamiliar and record an interpretation.
Best Puzzle Game · CUSGA 2024
The game won Best Puzzle Game at CUSGA 2024. The competition's 28-member final jury included Hypergryph co-founder OceanCat, alongside developers, games media and creators.
What I would change
From March to August, this became the longest independent game project I had worked on at the time. Several parts of my work were discarded and rebuilt. I had to learn how to revise my own ideas as the team's tone and way of working became clearer.
I did not get to develop every theme as far as I had hoped. The larger flow plan also contains branches and questions that remained open. In future projects, I would agree on what a revision needs to achieve before writing another complete version.
I also learned why a long project needs regular archiving. The team needed to be able to find the current setting and flow diagrams, check our decisions and understand what everyone was working on.
Next time, I would clearly label the current version, archive superseded drafts as we moved on, and record who was responsible for each change and why. That would let us revisit a decision without losing the reasoning behind it.