Gorogoa doesn't have a firm release date, but it's supposed to come out in 2017. 'I want it to be clear, but not too clear.' 'The player can sense if I'm trying to tell a story that I don't understand,' Roberts said. Roberts told me the game will give you more clues as you go along, but some details will still be left to your imagination. Still, don't expect a Mass Effect-style exposition dump at any point. 'They don't feel like they're just to justify the puzzles.' 'Over time, I've preferred the idea that the scenes actually work as part of a story,' Roberts said.

Roberts felt strongly that the game needed a story so that the scenes had a purpose beyond accommodating puzzles.

I didn't get a firm handle on what was going on in my short demo, but I could tell that it was planting seeds for further plot development, even if the game has no text or narration to guide the player along. The art is fairly abstract, but there actually is a narrative happening in Gorogoa. 'When two tiles join together, I want them to feel like the miraculous transcending the ordinary,' Roberts said.' Once you figure it out, though, it's pretty special. I had to zoom in and out as the rock was rolling to get it to its destination, which introduced an element of timing that I never thought I'd see in this game. In one instance, by correctly adjusting the zoom levels on three entirely separate tiles and aligning them in the right way, I was able to roll a rock down a set of hills. The extent to which some scenes can be zoomed in on or out from is impressive, and it frequently introduced new concepts I would never have expected. 'In order to test that a puzzle works, I have to take the art to a certain point.'Įven in the half hour or so that I played Gorogoa, I was constantly surprised by the depth of the puzzles. 'Since the puzzles are all about pictures fitting together, it's much more difficult to separate the puzzles from the art design,' Roberts said. That means the puzzle design and the art are inextricable, which makes testing difficult. He didn't set out to do the most difficult thing possible he's just more adept with a pencil than with digital art tools. Each scene is hand-drawn in pencil by Roberts, which explains why Gorogoa has been in development for several years.

Gorogoa moth glass