This year I wanted to do something different for EnigMarch (a puzzle design challenge where you make 31 puzzles in 31 days based on a series of prompts). What if I could somehow fit 31 puzzles into a text game? And hey, the deadline for Spring Thing was a few days after the last prompt. So I made a list of like 48 possible settings for a puzzle collection, and supermarket seemed like the most fun.
There are two kinds of people, and I’m the kind who loves grocery shopping. I love seeing what’s popular, choosing what kind of new snacks I feel like eating this week, gazing at a frankly ridiculous variety of pasta sauces, rolling my eyes at product tie-ins and disposable conveniences that shouldn’t exist. Yeah, I guess it’s pretty disheartening too. While researching for this game, I discovered that my local grocery store had multiple partnerships with online gambling apps. You can sign up and do some “gaming” in exchange for fuel points. It’s truly bleak!
So let’s put it all in the game.
I still had a couple weeks before March, so I decided to use that time to make the framework in Twine and write the story. The framework took the whole two weeks because I had to learn some coding stuff in order to set up the product category lists and answer-checking/logging more efficiently. So I ended up writing most of the story during March along with the puzzles. Luckily, it shook out pretty quickly once I came up with the MacGuffin.
After four years of making puzzles quickly for EnigMarch, that part wasn’t too hard. I did pull in some ideas I’ve had for a while, like Creatine Crunch, which was based on a fanciful test I remember from high school psychology class. That was probably the most polarizing puzzle, since you gotta have that aha moment—other than that, different people tended to say different puzzles were the most difficult for them. Although…probably my biggest goof was that the MagiMuffins puzzle in the very beginning, the puzzle that gates the entire rest of the game, unintentionally turned out to be one of the hardest. My first three playtesters specifically said it was super easy just like I wanted, but I made it a little easier anyway after a little more feedback, and it still frustrated way too many people. I gotta fix that in V2.
Anyway, it also helped that coming up with themes was so fun. Friends started sending me links to bizarre products (movie tie-in Italian sandwiches was an attempt to think of something weirder than Super Mario Galaxy deodorant). Every time I tried to think of surreal or exaggerated grocery store items (burger-scented candles), I’d look it up and the product already existed (Only Murders in the Building mystery flavor dip). So I took to strolling the actual (and virtual) supermarket aisles for existing weird items (nutrient-infused ice cubes) that have no business being real (My Doggy & Me hair dye was inspired by an advent calendar for dogs).
Some people pointed out that I didn’t actually put in 31 puzzles. Well, I tested a few others in the EnigMarch Discord that weren’t very good, plus I swapped in a new puzzle on the last day, and I also wrote cryptic crossword clues for the alt text of four visual puzzles, and shouldn’t that count for something?? But yeah. I had originally planned to have six sections with five puzzles each, but I fell behind. In the end, though, I think 26 puzzles made for a better-sized game.
It’s been a while since I was so uncertain about a game once it was finished, but Enigmart has grown on me. I’m really glad other people have enjoyed it, too. I was moved by the incredible care and thoughtfulness of everyone who wrote a review. I’ve stayed quiet, but I was taking notes on all the feedback for the next update (and maybe even for a sequel next year).
I’m also grateful to the kind and insightful people who helped playtest the game. Ally gave it a thorough scouring in the final days, which hugely benefited the puzzles as well as my mental state. Ryan discovered a devastating bug in the eleventh hour, which prevented a lot of chaos and embarrassment. And through the power of six playtesters combined, I cleared out a ton of confusing parts and wrote a hint system on the final day that made the game much more playable (after the removal of the aforementioned devastating bug).
This was my first time entering Spring Thing, and It was a whole lot of fun being part of it. Thank you to everyone involved!