Attila Puzder

Designing a level around a metaphor

The first level represents Birth, so I designed its layout around the shape of a womb: enclosed, circular and free of sharp corners.
The two puzzle areas on the sides represent the sources of new life and can be completed in either order, so I gave them equal visual importance. Each puzzle activates one side of the central interactive element, reflecting how new life depends on both sources.
I used the blockout to establish the spatial relationships between puzzles and to make sure the player could understand the room before the final art was produced.
The blockout was also useful for testing other aspects of the level:

• player movement speed;
• scale of the room;
• and how clearly interactive elements stood out from the environment.

Making perspective part of the puzzle

In the Life Room, players observe moving stone cubes reaching symbols across a large gap. The symbols correspond to a six-string instrument on the opposite side of the room, and their order determines the solution.
A curtain of threads partially obscures the gap and encourages players to move along its edge. From a different angle, the relationship between the moving stones and symbols becomes much clearer.
This way, the player’s position becomes part of the solution, so they need to find the right perspective before they can understand the puzzle.

Iteration
Playtesting revealed that the original puzzle was asking players to make too many connections at once. I shortened the sequence to make memorizing it less demanding, made the stone cubes reach all the way to the symbols to make the hint more obvious, and decreased the density of the thread curtain to keep the symbols visible from more angles.
The final version preserved the original idea and made the important information easier to understand.

Designing without a standardized puzzle vocabulary

One of the main challenges of BIND was establishing a visual and mechanical language that matched the game’s concept. Our options were limited by the small art team, and we wanted the world to feel detached from any particular period or culture.
I applied the same restrictions on the gameplay to underline the otherwordly atmosphere of the game’s audio-visual elements, which meant I couldn’t use every-day objects such as keys, locks, levers etc.
I solved this challenge by setting in stone that each puzzle has to directly affect the environment and help the player progress further, which has become a hallmark of the game’s design philosophy and resulted in a unique player experience.

Given the abstract nature of the game, clear communication with the programming team was essential. To help them focus only on technicalities without having to deal with the game’s theme, I created purely technical progression charts with concrete and plain order of sequence explanations.

Hub-and-spokes Design

The second level features a central hub that serves as both a safe space and an orientational point.

After moving through dark, narrow corridors, arriving at the open central room provides a moment of relief. A healing statue is placed at its center that also serves as a landmark.

Multiple paths branch out from the hub, initially blocked by gates that require the player to solve puzzles or deal with enemies in a specific order. Each route eventually leads back to the central room. The statue’s green light is distinct from the game’s color palette, making it immediately recognizable from every entrance as the player returns to the hub.

Using perspective to communicate the objective

I wanted players to discover important information in a logical visual sequence so they intuitively knew what to do.
Early in the game, a lever beside a door appears to be the obvious way forward. When the player pulls it, the floor collapses, teaching them to be cautious around potential traps. The fall also controls the player’s initial viewpoint. After landing, players naturally look to the left, where I placed the keyhole for their next objective. As they continue scanning the room, they discover the closed door in front and finally the key on the opposite side, highlighted by a beam of light.

Redesigning The Main Interaction

Xibalba originally used an obsidian dagger for combat. As development shifted from survival combat to a more puzzle-focused horror experience, the dagger increasingly conflicted with the intended player behavior. Playtests revealed that players often tried to fight enemies instead of avoiding or outsmarting them.

The dagger was also designed for other purposes:

• To diegetically display player health,
• And as a tool players could use to draw their character’s blood to perform puzzle-related actions.

To solve the issue, I replaced the dagger with an ancient disc inspired by Mayan circular calendars. Unlike the dagger, this new object didn’t create false combat-related affordances, while it also kept all other properties of the weapon.