The Making of Stencil Revamped

This is the project I've been teasing! You could call this page a devlog. I've tried not to spoil too much. Since every post here should include a puzzle, I've put the link to the project at the bottom.

    This all started about two years ago. I had an idea for a puzzle game where the player solved paper puzzles with input methods restricted by the tools they had available. These tools, called stencils, would be used for solving the puzzles as well as marking the puzzles on the grids. This led to me trying to create a language suited for describing puzzle rulesets. It would have to be nuanced enough to describe complicated ideas, but simple enough to be conveyable to the player.

    Stencil was a short game and did not take very long to create. It was especially convenient that I did not need to program because I had decided to present Stencil in a folder system. The main reason for doing so was because progression could be locked behind password-protected folders, whereas Scratch, the only language I was fluent in at the time, would allow users to peek under the hood at any moment. The "art", apart from a clock I had made before working on Stencil for a hypothetical society that used a different numbering and drawing system, was simple abstract black-pixels-on-white drawings that took minimal effort to make. There was also little in the direction of story: only an introductory three paragraphs and a closing text file that together leave more questions than answers. There were no characters except for those implied to have been residing in the area ages before the game takes place.

    Its puzzles started okay, but then slowly spiraled out of control. The first puzzle is simply a copied pattern meant to teach the player how to input solutions, which most players will not get around to doing because all other locked doors were gated by secrets. Then there's three sets for the "infinity" symbol and three sets for the "beams". Symbols were taught mostly through abstract pictures, many of which were inserted into the first area of Stencil Revamped. After that, the player finds a special set relating math to shading before finding another stencil in an unlocked drawer. This stencil is then used for three sets, all of which are closely related to already-established paper puzzles. Only three more puzzles can be found after these sets, and none of them have distinct rulesets, with one of them not even being a logic puzzle. It seemed I had managed to run out of ideas while surrounded by combinations of rules that had great potential.

    Let's fast forward to January of this year. I had some offshoot ideas and general structural ideas in mind for a full remake of Stencil. At least, I called it a remake at first when I really meant that I was going to re-make everything, even the puzzles, from the ground up. I had brainstormed a way to use the beams as a line-like input type for loop puzzles and wanted to have digit puzzles alongside shading puzzles, and for some time I wanted to find a way to convey that certain input types were acceptable in certain circumstances. I wanted to include Rule Pool as one of the final challenge levels; I had a hunch doing so would be possible, but it slipped my mind by the time I really started working on the project. However, the quality that I prioritized above all else was consistency, for which I only let myself slip in the first area. There was a sort of laziness to the more complicated rulesets in Stencil that left a bad taste in my mouth. I ultimately decided it would be least confusing to narrow down the input method to only shaded squares.

    Perhaps ironically, I didn't want the project to be entirely cohesive. I wanted every section of sets to have its own unique flair that represented the ideas of the sets. Although my earliest plans for area theming included sets with different input types, most of the settings I came up with made it into the project. The choice to also use different mediums quickly followed. Characters came much later when I was making one of the pictures for the third area. It just felt right to try and include a person, since I didn't want it to feel like a deserted area. Before making the puzzles behind the secret door in Stencil, one of my early ideas was to make the section beyond feel like some grand open world with lots of more interesting puzzles and at least one character who could be talked to by using folders as a dialog tree. I recalled this when deciding I ought to allow the player to talk to the person in the third area, which naturally led me to start inventing a story.

    Originally, the story was just going to be for a logic puzzle involving who works where. Much like how "Case" was a small inspiration for the story in Stencil, "Rise" was a small inspiration for the story in Stencil Revamped, albeit in a way that ship-of-Theseus-ed itself into not relying on that initial spark. I had also drafted a complaint template that solvers and characters could use and read, which didn't make the cut. The outpost wasn't even in the plans until after the first pre-release, but it's already begun to feel like a necessary piece of the whole. A few people were left in the dark who I could finally give names to and greet. It also allowed me to explain my thought process for most of the characters, which is why I've chosen not to go into detail about them in this post. 

    I've always thought, "If I make a puzzle book, the final chapter will be mashups and metapuzzles." I've always been fond of that design philosophy since it provides a very natural step up in challenge from the base puzzles. Thus, the final area of Stencil Revamped would have to be about mashups and metapuzzles. The theming for both the setting and associated character followed very naturally to me. I did originally plan to include a depiction of them, which would make the area name feel even more apt, but it ended up looking like too much work for something that wasn't a puzzle and might need to be discarded in a future version. I have to stop myself from getting too vulnerable.

    Now that we're almost caught up to the present, it's time to discuss the future. One way I was able to convince myself that pouring hours into this was a good idea was because I thought I would request donations on the project page. While puzzle games can easily be free or paid, rule induction puzzle books that aren't in print are typically free to download and don't even ask for donations. I like to imagine that Stencil Revamped falls into a grey area in between. It feels more developed than some rule induction pdfs, but it feels less developed than any game. However, I don't feel comfortable asking for donations for something where I don't even know if it's fun or quality to solve.

    I have reached out to two different puzzle communities, from which I've gotten one response from a handful of people and sustained feedback from one person. I cannot guarantee that any of them have solved puzzles past the second area, but I did find out that the symbol explored in the second area wasn't tutorialized very well, even with the provided hints. This led to most of the changes in the first early release version. I ought to remember two things. First, I wasn't giving test-solvers compensation for their time, many of whom are almost certainly preoccupied with other, more important activities. Second, despite knowing that everyone is their own worst critic, the opposite is probably true for people who sink their time into creating something big. I could wait another month to iron out the details and open donations the moment I make it public, but I'm not doing it for the money. In fact, at this point in time, I would take vast and useful feedback instead of twenty times the requested donation price.

    Just because I'm releasing it doesn't mean I don't plan to keep updating it. Obviously, if it continues to stump lots of solvers, I'll do what I can to make it more fair or intuitive. Once I'm confident, I'll establish a new label in the changelog and open it up for donations. But, in addition to that, I must confess that I've gotten back into programming. I used Snap to cook up a brute force program to run on the fifth set of the second area and used it to find a nonunique puzzle. Maybe, if I can continue to improve this program, something fascinating might manifest itself in the storeroom in a post-release update. It'll take a while to make, so maybe the plan should be to open donations once I push that update. I can at least guarantee that it would be worth it for all the new content it offers.

Until then, I'll just have to hope that this was worth it.

Stencil Revamped by hutt3