TAG
#environmental-storytelling
0 reviews · 2 essays
Related essays
Walking and Deducing — The Boundary from Gone Home to Return of the Obra Dinn
The 'walk and read' experience Gone Home and Firewatch refined, versus the 'actively deduce' experience of Return of the Obra Dinn and The Case of the Golden Idol. Where is the line between them? A designer's reading of the fault line between walking simulators and deduction puzzles, with Her Story and Outer Wilds in between.
Puzzles that live inside the world — Tonda Ros on eight years of design: "no intended solution" and the melancholy Myst left behind
Two pieces today, both examining the design philosophy of Blue Prince (Dogubomb, Tonda Ros), the puzzle game that dominated 2025 and won Best Design at the 2026 GDC Awards and DICE Awards. First: a Game Developer interview (Bryant Francis, March 4, 2026) in which Ros explains how Myst's environmental storytelling of a past just out of reach shaped Blue Prince's somber tone, and how a single letter from Herbert Sinclair in the Tomb transforms the game from puzzle-toy to something heartbreaking. Second: a Thinky Games interview (Dayten Rose, April 10, 2025, launch day) in which Ros traces the game's dual origins in tabletop mechanics and Myst-inspired first-person design, and explains his core design belief: "intended solution" is a dirty word at Dogubomb. Put together, both pieces converge on the same idea — a puzzle needs to live inside its world.
