The Design of Trust, or How a Game Designer Manipulates .

I. Preface: «Guiding the blind (or pretending to be one?)»

Do you enjoy being mistrusted? Think back to that feeling when you tackle a new, intriguing task — whether it’s assembling a complex model, solving a puzzle, or finding your way along an unfamiliar route—and someone hovers over your shoulder. They prompt every step, point out the obvious, never give you a chance to trip, to ponder, to find the solution on your own. Annoying, isn’t it? It feels as though they take you for a fool who can’t put two and two together without outside help.

Perhaps I don’t understand something about life. Maybe today’s world really does demand maximum safety and the minimization of any effort or risk. But when I look at the game industry — especially its mainstream sector — I see a trend I’d call design born of fear: fear of losing the player, fear of seeming too difficult, fear of being rated poorly for “obscurity.” And that fear breeds a monster: hyper-protection. Games that should be spaces for exploration, experimentation, and triumph become interactive manuals where every step is predetermined, every puzzle comes with an obvious answer, and any hint of autonomy is immediately stifled by a pop-up hint or a bold map marker.

Here begins my personal designer’s irony — almost a tragedy. We, the creators of games, tirelessly declare at conferences, in interviews, and in books that games are a unique form of interactive art. We speak of deep dialogue with the player, of crafting a one-of-a-kind personal experience through interaction. Then we return to our design docs and, with our own hands, strangle that very artistic potential. Exploration, interpretation, self-reflection — the very essence of interactivity and art — are sacrificed to mechanical instruction-following. We turn the player from an explorer into a courier chasing GPS markers.

Imagine a director who, before a film screening, hands every viewer a detailed synopsis explaining every metaphor and even allows the audience to ignore theater etiquette and chatter loudly throughout… It’s as if we panic that the player “won’t get it,” so we drape the interactive canvas with layers of hints, killing mystery, intrigue, and — most importantly — the thrill of personal discovery.

I’m far from suggesting that this entire “design born of fear” stems from malice or rank incompetence. Of course, market realities exist: the massive budgets of AAA projects require the widest possible audience, hence a low entry threshold. Retention metrics loom, where any player hesitation can be read as a potential churn point. Striving for “accessibility” all too often gets confused with dumbing-down the experience. All of that is understandable; I won’t argue with it.

(A good, very brief framework article on this topic and key D1/D7/D30 metrics, etc: «Retention framework: Keep your players forever»)

Yet my game-designer’s skepticism whispers: have we chosen the most straightforward, but not the most elegant path? Isn’t this obsession with player “safety” a symptom of our own insecurity — our lack of faith in the worlds we create, the elegance of our systems, the fear that without hint-crutches the player simply won’t find the “fun”?

Such an approach, in my view, doesn’t merely simplify the game — it risks devaluing the player’s agency, their capacity to think, analyze, and decide. It turns exploration from an exhilarating adventure into routine icon-clearing on a map.

Reflecting on this design born of fear, I can’t shake a thought: are we overlooking the most obvious and powerful tool? That innate force that urges a child to dismantle a toy just to see how it works; that spark that drives a scientist to new discoveries, an explorer to uncharted lands. It is the fundamental engine of cognition — a basic need of the mind — to seek novelty, fill gaps in knowledge, solve riddles. Without that internal motor, without this unquenchable ▇▇▇▇, there would be no science, no art, no progress. It is ▇▇▇▇ that makes us ask “why?” and “how?”, that turns passive observation into active pursuit. So why don’t we, designers of interactive systems, place a bolder bet on that very ▇▇▇▇?

Feel your brain trying to slot a word into those blanks? Even this simple guessing game — this tiny gap in the text — prompts you to tense up, analyze context, float hypotheses. Why? Because your brain can’t stand uncertainty. It was… curious. Exactly — curiosity. This small demonstration within a single paragraph shows how even a minimal mystery — a light stimulus to curiosity — instantly sparks our thought process, driving us to seek an answer. Isn’t a design that deliberately harnesses and rewards this innate pull toward discovery more elegant and, perhaps, more sustainable — a path to deep, meaningful engagement that arises from within rather than being imposed by external signposts?

This article is no manifesto against the AAA industry, nor a paean to “hard-core” or indie game dev. Instead, it’s my analytical dissection of an alternative approach I’ll call “Designing Trust.” It’s a cool-headed attempt, using a game designer’s toolkit, to understand a philosophy that consciously rejects hyper-protection — a philosophy that stakes everything on the player’s intelligence, observation, and tenacity; that turns ignorance, uncertainty, and the need for exploration not into barriers but into core mechanics.

To keep this discussion from remaining purely theoretical, we’ll dissect three notable specimens of this Design of Trust. We’ll peek under the hood of:

• Animal Well — a labyrinthine game where self-learning is woven into the world’s fabric.
• The Witness — a language-game proving that even the most complex rules can be taught without a single word.
• Outer Wilds — a mechanism-game where knowledge is the only key and curiosity the fuel.

My aim isn’t to turn the industry upside-down, but to offer another lens for analysis and design — to show that trusting the player isn’t just a pretty slogan, but a working design tool capable of producing unique and truly memorable game experiences. Let’s see how it works.

II. Part 1: Animal Well — “I See No Evil” 🙈

We have postulated that curiosity is a powerful, yet often overlooked, tool in the game designer’s arsenal. It sounds elegant, almost axiomatic. But here is the snag: the moment we shift from theory to practice, from general musings to concrete analysis, we collide with a fundamental problem. Curiosity is elusive. Everyone has heard of it, everyone has felt it, but no one can point and say, “Here you go — one hundred grams of curiosity.”

This feeling is deeply subjective. What ignites a spark of interest in one player — a strange symbol on a wall, unusual enemy behavior, a hint of a hidden passage — may leave another completely indifferent or even frustrated. Curiosity is born at the intersection of design and personal experience, of a player’s knowledge and expectations. That makes it devilishly hard to dissect in a static article.

Had I the time to expand this idea in video form, I could at least show gameplay: highlight exact moments, player reactions, the subtle visual or audio cues that nudge exploration. But text and still images are something else; in this article they are largely decorative. Trying to prove the presence of “well-engineered curiosity” with a screenshot, a GIF, or prose is like explaining the taste of a dish from its photo and recipe. You can list the ingredients and the cooking method, yet the sensation itself — flavour, aroma, texture — cannot be conveyed. (For those reading my second piece in a row: yes, I adore food metaphors in game-design talk!)

So I have chosen another route. Instead of chasing the feeling itself, we will focus on the engineering-philosophical side. We will dissect game systems, level design, and item design as though a design doc lay before us. Throughout the analysis you will see notes marked “[✎]” — our anchor points.

We will explore which decisions — and, just as crucially, which developer mind-sets — create conditions in which the player’s curiosity not only becomes possible but serves as a necessary tool for progress. The pictures you encounter are meant to illustrate the concepts, not to prove curiosity. Our goal is to grasp the architecture of a design that trusts the player and bets on their inner exploratory drive. And our first “patient” on the table is Animal Well.

The Philosophy of Animal Well.

Why this title? The metroidvania market is, to put it mildly, saturated. Yet Animal Well stands out not just for its visual style or atmosphere. It landed under my analytical scalpel because of creator Billy Basso’s deliberate — almost fanatical — commitment to deep, multilayered secrecy. This is not simply a game with secrets; it is a game built around them, where probing the unknown is not an optional pastime for completionists, but the core of the experience.

Watch the documentary «The Making of Animal Well» — highly recommended — and you will see more than a seven-year solo development saga. You will witness a philosophy. From the start, Basso bet not on action or punishing platforming, but on crafting a world that actively invites players to dig deeper, question the obvious, and experiment. He did not merely feed curiosity; he stoked it long before release.

Remember the very first teaser trailer: it hid a puzzle for a community that didn’t yet exist, something Basso himself teased out. That wasn’t marketing in the usual sense. It was a proclamation:

“This game is about searching for the hidden. Start right now.”

That approach — the developer’s faith in players’ intelligence and willingness to hunt — convinced me not only to buy the game but to plunge into it with the investigative thrill I’m describing. And the documentary’s closing scene, where asks:

“Are there still secrets in this game?”

and Basso, smiling and shaking his head, replies:

“I don’t know”

Is such a cherry on top. It is the perfect embodiment of Designing Trust: a world so deep and full of mysteries that even its creator cannot be sure the community has found them all.

Some may find these contextual paragraphs over-long. Yet they are essential. To understand why certain game-design choices work, you must grasp the philosophy behind them. Similar brief excursions will precede each of our “patients.” Forgive the necessary verbosity — it serves our chief aim: a thorough, meaningful analysis.

Level 1: The Map

In most metroidvanias, the map is your faithful companion — it clearly shows the zones you have explored, the links between them, highlights points of interest, and sometimes even hints at secrets. In Animal Well the map… exists. It records the screens you have visited, yet its informational value is deliberately reduced. Connections between rooms are often unclear, transitions may be hidden, and key forks or secret passages are not marked at all. The map captures your past, but it helps almost not at all in planning the future. Why?

[✎] — ❝The goal of the map is not to guide the player, but to serve as a basic visual log of visited areas. The main burden of navigation and path-finding must rest on observing the world and building a mental model.❞

This treatment of the map is the first step in shifting the player’s focus. The game is essentially saying:

“Stop staring at the UI, look at the world around you.”

And that world is designed to reward exactly that attitude. Animal Well’s level design is highly non-linear, especially in the early stages. Unlike many metroidvanias where the way forward is dictated by the most recent upgrade, here you have access to several directions from the very beginning. There are no “wrong” paths — only different vectors of exploration. You might run into a dead end on one side, backtrack, and find an entirely different branch that leads to a key item or a new area.

[✎] — ❝The world structure should give the player multiple valid exploration routes at every stage. Dead ends and obstacles must feel not like player errors, but like temporary boundaries of current abilities or knowledge, stimulating a return and a search for alternative routes.❞

This freedom of route choice, combined with a minimally informative map, forces the player to engage a different navigation mechanism — constructing a mental map. You begin to remember not icons in the UI but visual landmarks in the world itself: a strange statue, an unusual mechanism, the wall color, distinctive enemies in a particular zone. Links between sections are often non-obvious and demand active memorization:

“Sooo ok, that bubble lift leads to the ghost area, and that dark burrow drops me by the waterfall! Aha!”

The game makes your brain work, actively process and, more importantly, structure spatial information yourself.

[✎] — ❝Connections between key zones should be logical within the world, yet not always obvious on the map. Hidden passages, one-way routes, and locations that look similar yet differ in layout push the player to memorize routes and pay close attention to environmental details.❞

Ultimately, this approach to level design and mapping achieves its primary goal: it returns the player to the game world itself. Instead of playing by the map, you start playing by the world. You study wall textures for hints of secret passages, you listen for audio cues, you remember where enemies and traps sit. The map becomes a mere rough-scale tool — a sketch of scope or a direction pointer — rather than a step-by-step instruction sheet. In that space, free of interface diktat, genuine, self-propelled curiosity blossoms. You explore not because a marker screams “GO HERE,” but because “what if I squeeze into that crevice?” or “I saw a similar spot on the other side of the map — maybe they connect?” The labyrinth of Animal Well is crafted so that getting lost is not a punishment, but an invitation to discovery.

Thus, the first layer of our dissection reveals a key principle: Animal Well deliberately weakens external navigational aids (the map) to strengthen internal ones (observation, memory, mental modelling). This shift of focus from interface to world is a fundamental condition for awakening true curiosity. When the game stops dictating your path, you start searching for it yourself — looking closer, remembering better, forming hypotheses about links and possibilities. That state of active, self-directed searching is the fertile soil where exploratory excitement thrives.

But merely making the player look around is not enough. For curiosity to stay alive, it must be rewarded. And so we move on to the second design layer — namely, the tools at our disposal within this world.

Level 2: Tools as a “Swiss Army Knife”

We have plunged into the world of Animal Well, where the environment itself is a puzzle. But how do we interact with this intricate mechanism? Once again, the game departs from convention. Instead of handing out clearly specialized keys for specific locks, it offers a set of tools that at first seem simple yet gradually reveal an astonishing multifunctionality. This is not merely quality defeating quantity — it is design built on hidden potential.

Take the very first items you receive. Whether it’s the bubble wand, the yo-yo, or the disc, none of them comes with any description. You hover over an inventory icon and see… nothing. No hint, no cue as to its use. (And yes, if you are reading this and still haven’t finished **Animal Well* — what on earth are you doing here? Seriously, this game, and indeed every title on our list, deserves a completely blind playthrough.)*

Such a choice may seem outrageous to a player accustomed to modern standards. Think of any mid-budget or even AAA metroidvania — say, Ori and the Will of the Wisps or Metroid Dread. When you receive a new ability or tool, you almost always get a concise, precise tooltip: “Press X to do Y,” “This beam destroys Z.” It is convenient, it reduces frustration, it is… safe. Animal Well chooses another path.

[✎] — ❝The functionality of a tool must emerge first and foremost through the player’s direct interaction with the world and its systems, not through text descriptions or tutorials. Encourage an experimental approach to item use.❞

Why? Because description is interpretation. I can write “apple,” and half of you will picture green, another half red, and a third the logo of a certain company. Text always leaves room for misreading. Animal Well relies on a more intuitive channel of learning — experiment. The game seems to say:

“Here’s a thing. Go try it. Whack a wall with it. Throw it in water. Use it near an enemy. See what happens!”

It turns out that the bubble wand, which at first looks like an obvious solution for creating temporary platforms over chasms, can actually do far more. And the yo-yo, which feels a bit odd on first use, is far from a harmless toy. Soon enough — through a string of experiments (and the occasional accidental button-press) — you discover that bubbles can ▇▇▇▇ certain types of obstacles, while the yo-yo lets you ▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇ objects and even ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇ some denizens of the well in ways the game never hints at.

Notice the blanks again? I’m once more hiding specifics, withholding clear answers. Why? Because Animal Well does exactly the same! It doesn’t dump a list of every function for each gadget. It gives you a tool and a world full of systemic interactions, leaving you — and your indefatigable curiosity — to fill those “▇▇▇▇” with knowledge earned through your own experience.

As Tyler Sigman, creator of Darkest Dungeon, advises in his small yet influential article «Three Rules to Balance By», the trusty K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) works in game design just as well as anywhere else: the simplicity of things in no way precludes the complexity of systems.

Every tool here is a Swiss Army knife with blades of unknown purpose that the player unfolds alone, through trial, error, and those precious “what if?!” moments of revelation.

[✎] — ❝Tools should possess multiple, system-grounded functions that can be combined with one another and with the environment, creating scenarios the designer never foresaw yet that remain perfectly logical.❞

Balance, of course, matters. Make a tool’s functions too opaque and you doom the player to frustration. Animal Well finds the sweet spot: it offers basic, graspable uses almost immediately, yet leaves a vast space for discovering deeper, context-dependent interactions. A successful experiment rewards you not with an achievement pop-up, but with new knowledge, a new way to engage with the world — a world that has just grown a little clearer and deeper.

Okay: we have a world that forces us to look and think (Level 1). We have tools of unseen potential that invite us to experiment (Level 2). We stand in this enigmatic clearing with a kit of peculiar implements. Yet the game offers no explicit goal — no princess to save, no dark lord to vanquish. So what do we do? Why keep going at all? With that, we arrive at the very heart of Animal Well, the element that turns it from a mere set of mechanics into a hypnotic experience.

Level 3: Secrets upon Secrets

The answer is simple yet complex: the game invites us to unravel mysteries. Animal Well is a gigantic box of secrets wrapped in other secrets that, in turn, conceal still more secrets. Developer Billy Basso seems to have taken the metaphor of “hiding Easter eggs” and pushed it to the absolute limit (and yes, collecting eggs is literally one of the core mechanics, but that’s not the issue right now).

But here is what matters from a game-design standpoint: in Animal Well the value often lies not in the egg itself, not in the final reward (though those can certainly be handy, rounding off the experience), but in the act of locating it. The satisfaction comes less from obtaining another collectible and more from the moment of revelation — that “Aha!” when you finally grasp how to use that odd tool in that non-obvious spot to open a passage whose existence you only suspected.

[✎] — ❝The primary reward for exploration and solving secrets should be the sense of discovery and the understanding of the world’s mechanics, not merely material or utilitarian bonuses. Curiosity can be an end in itself.❞

So how does Animal Well craft this “secrecy” without reducing it to a routine hunt for identical Easter eggs? The key is layering. Secrets here rarely boil down to a banal “break the suspicious wall.” More often they demand a combination of observation (Level 1 — you must spot something unusual in the environment: a strange pattern, a faint shimmer, an object behaving oddly), experimental tool use (Level 2 — you must guess which tool to employ, perhaps in a non-obvious way), and an understanding of systemic interactions.

Picture a scenario (as abstract as possible to avoid spoilers): you see object A. Beside it phenomenon B occurs. You possess tool C which, as you learned earlier, can influence phenomenon B, but only under condition D. The secret will unveil itself only when you correlate all these elements: notice object A, grasp its link to phenomenon B, recall the non-obvious function of tool C, and create condition D to activate it. This is no longer “finding a secret”; it is solving a systemic puzzle using accumulated knowledge of the world and its rules.

[✎] — ❝Secret design must go beyond simple hidden objects. Create systemic riddles that demand observation, logical inference, experimentation, and an understanding of the relationships among various elements of the game world.❞

Such a multilayered approach serves several crucial purposes. First, it makes the search non-linear and unpredictable. You may notice a clue long before acquiring the needed tool or insight, creating long-term mental hooks you will return to later. Second, it rewards systemic thinking and experimentation, not just attentiveness. The game encourages you to think like a researcher, a scientist forming hypotheses and testing them in practice. Third, it constantly sustains intrigue: even when you believe you have scoured an area thoroughly, there remains that nagging thought: “What if I missed something? Could this odd thing actually be the key to something bigger?”

This structure doesn’t merely add content — it changes the player’s very perception of the world. Each wall, each pixel, each sound could be part of some greater riddle.

[✎] — ❝The multilayering of secrets is meant to create resilient exploration loops. The player must be able to revisit earlier zones with new tools or knowledge and uncover previously inaccessible or unnoticed interactions, thereby rewarding long-term engagement and systemic mastery.❞

As a result, the world of Animal Well ceases to be just a collection of screens and rooms; it becomes a kind of intricate cipher where any element might turn out to be a key. This engenders in the player a special state I would call “productive paranoia.” You start to suspect everything.

“That harmless statue? What if I shine a light on it? What is that odd sound? What happens if I come back here with another item? That wall looks too smooth…”

The game doesn’t merely hide secrets; it makes you believe that secrets could be anywhere, and that only your persistence and sideways thinking will unlock them.

It is precisely this depth and complexity of secrets — secrets that demand not just finding but understanding — that turns Animal Well from a metroidvania with secrets into a true exploratory labyrinth. We have learned to look (Level 1), to experiment (Level 2), and now to connect the dots and harbor suspicions (Level 3), solving ever more intricate puzzles the game throws at us. Yet there is still a fourth layer that envelops all of this and lends it a unique, hypnotic power…

Level 4: The Aura of the Unsaid

One cannot deny a simple truth: visually appealing things draw us in more strongly. Psychologists have filled volumes on the subject — our brains are wired to reach for what is bright, new, and distinctive. But does that mean a game must explode with color like Fortnite or blind us with photorealism to spark curiosity? Animal Well proves the opposite. Its pixel art is not merely a nod to retro aesthetics — it is a deliberate choice that serves a single overriding aim: to create mystery.

Picture a pitch-black room — you see nothing, there is nothing to explore. Then picture a room flooded with bright, even light — you see everything at once, the intrigue disappears. Now imagine a space lit only by scattered pools of muted light, some corners brightly exposed, others sinking into deep shadow. (I could slip in a horror-game analogy here, but I will spare you …) That third room is Animal Well. Its restrained yet detailed visual style, with its specific palette and lighting effects, does not try to dazzle you with sheer brightness. Instead, it creates contrast, hints at what lurks in darkness, and makes you lean in, scanning pixels for anomalies.

[✎] — ❝The visual style should not simply be pretty — it must serve the primary design goal.❞

Had the game been too dark, it would oppress; too bright and cartoony, and the sense of enigma and danger would evaporate. Billy Basso found a remarkable balance: the world of Animal Well looks familiar enough not to repel, yet strange and alien enough to evoke a constant feeling:

“I am a stranger here, and I do not understand the rules of this place.”

That visual ambiguity is critical — it leaves room for the mind to wander. Our brains dislike voids and uncertainty; they strive to complete images, to supply explanations, to construct a personal narrative where the game withholds one.

The audio design completes the spell. Basso made a bold decision: Animal Well has virtually no traditional music. In its place are cavernous ambiences — hums, clicks, squeaks, the scrape of mechanisms, mysterious signals. Why? Because music dictates an emotional tone; it steers the player’s perception. Its absence instead amplifies isolation, tension, and uncertainty. You are left alone with the world, and every sound becomes potentially important — a rustle behind a wall, a distant rumble, a strange beep — any of them might be mere background or the key to a secret, or a harbinger of danger. No wonder the community spawned the theory that “the entire game is one giant piece of audio-music.” (See the video «There's Music Hidden all over Animal Well»)

[✎] — ❝Sound design — including the absence of music — must work in synergy with the visual style to reinforce the intended mood. Environmental sounds can serve not only immersion but also as non-verbal cues or integral parts of mechanics and puzzles.❞

In the end, the visual style, soundscape, and total lack of explicit story or dialogue merge into a single organism. The atmosphere of Animal Well is not mere wrapping; it is an active gameplay component continually stoking your inner curiosity. The game supplies no external goals, because within this world of enigmas and ellipses, you forge an internal goal of your own — to understand. Understand where you are, what happened here, how these strange mechanisms work, and what lies hidden in the deepest dark of the well.

(I will drop in one more concise article — «Storytelling with Interface» It outlines, in the wake of Dead Space and the boom of immersive UI/UX, what happened and what we can still learn.)

You might say that the first three levels we analyzed — map, tools, secrets — are the content of a book. But this fourth layer — the atmosphere of the unsaid — is the cover that makes you pick that book up and refuse to set it down until the final page… and then start hunting for hidden messages between the lines.

Animal Well: The Takeaway

Ok, we have dissected Animal Well across four key levels — the map, the tools, the secrets, and the atmosphere. On paper it looks like a perfect recipe for a deep, compelling experience built on trust and curiosity. Yet I can already hear a skeptical voice from the audience — perhaps even yours:

“Hold on, genius. If Animal Well is that amazing, that revolutionary in its Design of Trust, why have I barely heard of it? Why isn’t it roaring alongside the industry’s giants? Something feels off!”

And you know what? That is a fair question. If curiosity is so powerful, if ditching hyper-hand-holding produces such depth, why haven’t the big AAA studios — Ubisoft, Sony, EA, take your pick — rushed to adopt these principles wholesale? Why do we still wade through oceans of markers and pop-ups in multi-million-dollar blockbusters? Do they all somehow miss the basics of game design or player psychology?

Paradoxically, they do use these principles. Yes, you heard right. Techniques for stoking curiosity, weaving intrigue, and rewarding exploration do appear in AAA games. They are simply… different. Often they are woven into other systems, aimed at other goals (retention, monetisation), and frequently diluted by that very hyper-protection we have been discussing. But we will park that complex conversation until the article’s end, once we have more examples and context.

For the moment, let’s be honest: Animal Well is not perfect. I’d be a hypocrite to ignore the approach’s downsides and systemic risks that can alienate a lot of players.

• Lack of clear objectives: The much-praised “find your own purpose” can slip into plain loss of motivation. Many players need a tangible quest or narrative runway.
• Potential frustration: The line between “intriguing challenge” and “I’ve no clue what to do next” is razor thin. Animal Well walks it deftly, but a mis-step can trigger a rage-quit.
• Cryptic for cryptic’s sake: Some late-game secrets are so convoluted and demand such non-obvious steps that they can feel more like arbitrary gates than elegant puzzles. The border between “brilliantly hidden” and “impossible without a guide” sometimes blurs.
• Specific pacing: The game is slow-burn. It asks for thoughtfulness, backtracking, experimentation. For players craving velocity and rapid progress, that can feel dull.

I get why Animal Well (and, frankly, the other games on our list) can repel people. It demands patience, attentiveness, a zest for experimentation — qualities not everyone feels like exercising after a gruelling workday.

So, in the final analysis? Animal Well is a brilliant example of how a game can orbit the idea of trusting the player. It shows how familiar genre staples (the map), tools with hidden potential, a multilayered secret web, and a carefully tuned atmosphere can mesh to turn curiosity from a passive emotion into the active engine of gameplay.

Our deep dive into Animal Well was deliberate. The game distills many of the core tenets of Designing Trust. That means our next case studies will be slightly brisker — some concepts are now familiar.

But don’t be fooled! The journey only grows richer. Each upcoming title — The Witness and Outer Wilds — adopts these principles in utterly different ways, honing in on new facets and pushing them to wild extremes. We’ll see how a game can revolve around language without words and how knowledge itself can become the sole progression mechanic.

So, as we climb out of the well, we are not ending the conversation — merely refocusing our analytical lens. We have seen how to awaken curiosity by making players watch, experiment, and suspect. Now let’s explore how to teach them to read the world without writing a single line of text. Next stop — The Witness.

III. Part 2: The Witness — “I Hear No Evil” 🙉

We have left the dark, claustrophobic depths of Animal Well, where curiosity fed on secrets and ambiguity. Now we step onto the sun-drenched, deceptively serene island of The Witness. Here our discussion of Designing Trust shifts to a new plane — from exploring the hidden to decoding the obvious.

Let me say up-front: in place of The Witness this article could easily have spotlighted another outstanding puzzle game. The industry has given us plenty that challenge a player’s intellect — from the philosophical The Talos Principle and perspective-bending Superliminal to the meta-narrative The Stanley Parable. Each, in its own way, plays with our expectations and forces us to think outside the box.

But, first, this is my article, so allow me a bit of subjectivity in choosing our “patients.” And second — far more important to our purpose — Jonathan Blow’s game offers a pair of unique advantages that fit perfectly into the larger picture of Designing Trust we are piecing together. The Witness pushes the idea of non-verbal teaching and learning through observation to an absolute, almost frightening, perfection.

Sitting roughly midway in the article, The Witness acts as a unique bridge. If Animal Well focuses on exploring space and systems through experimentation, and Outer Wilds on gathering information and weaving narrative through knowledge, The Witness centers on the pure process of learning and understanding through observation and logic.

It takes one single core mechanic — drawing a line on a panel — and builds around it an entire visual language, a rule-set that the player must decipher without a single line of text, relying solely on intellect and keen attention to the environment. That makes it an ideal proving ground for studying how a game can teach the most complex concepts while placing full trust in the player’s capacity for self-directed learning.

Philosophy of The Witness

Again, by some “fortunate coincidence,” we are dealing with a project that spent a full seven years in development. Yes, The Witness, like Animal Well, is the product of long, painstaking work — though let me tug at the facts a bit: Animal Well is one developer, whereas The Witness was built by an entire team. Yet behind those years lies not just perseverance but Jonathan Blow’s very specific development philosophy.

Blow is known for an iterative approach in which game design evolves as the project takes shape. He does not follow a rigid blueprint; instead, he creates an “experience,” constantly checking how players interact with systems and adjusting them on the fly. I can already hear outraged producers and marketers screaming about schedules, budgets, and risk! And I agree, friends — from a business standpoint it can look like a nightmare (although, truth be told, most games go through this process; some studios are simply afraid to admit it). Yet it is precisely this exploratory method that often yields a uniqueness impossible to obtain otherwise. Each element ends up tuned not merely by a spec sheet (and yes, they definitely had those — don’t underestimate them!) but by the player’s feelings.

Blow’s main focus in The Witness is nurturing that wonderful sensation the ancient Greeks so aptly named eureka! — a spark that is usually the result of curiosity. The whole game is a carefully engineered machine for producing moments of insight. Its design deliberately follows a psychological pattern:

1. First, the game misleads you with apparent simplicity (“just draw a line!”).
2. Next, it dead-ends you by introducing a new, incomprehensible rule or a twist on an old one.
3. That forces you to stop, observe, rethink what you see, and form a new hypothesis.
4. Finally, when the hypothesis proves correct, a flash of understanding occurs — the catharsis, the very “Eureka!”.

Blow clearly asked himself: Can gameplay not merely entertain but actually teach players to pay closer attention, to look at the world from another angle, to think unconventionally? The Witness is his monumental answer. Many puzzles — especially those tied to the environment — are constructed specifically to “open the player’s eyes” to what was always in plain sight yet invisible thanks to habitual perception patterns.

And once more, by “happy accident” (or perhaps simply because such projects are fascinating), there is an excellent documentary — *«The Witness Documentary»* by Noclip — plus a wealth of lectures and analyses (someone even assembled a playlist of virtually all his talks). If Blow’s philosophy interests you, highly recommends diving in.

If one distills Blow’s puzzle-design approach to its essence, nothing does so better than his own words, quoted in Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video «How Jonathan Blow Designs a Puzzle»:

“The more that a puzzle is about something real and specific, and the less it’s about some arbitrary challenge, the more meaningful that epiphany is.”

This fundamental difference between:

“I grasp the essence / I understand” and “I finally wrangled a solution”

Will guide our further analysis of The Witness. The game does not strive for you to merely “clear” a puzzle; it strives for you to comprehend the rule beneath it. That understanding becomes the key not only to the next panel but to a deeper perception of the entire island…

Level 1. The Silent Designer

There is a landmark — though rather old — essay by Greg Costikyan from 1994 titled «I Have No Words & I Must Design». In it, while groping for the essence of game design and a language of his own (which, at the time, essentially did not exist), he throws out the thesis:

Game ≠ puzzle, toy, or story.

The context in which I am about to use that phrase is different, and Costikyan himself arrived at other conclusions, yet the sentence still sounds provocative today — especially when we look at The Witness. A game that, at first glance, can be labeled “just a puzzle.” Absurd? Not quite. In this first level of analysis I will argue that The Witness is not merely a bundle of puzzles but something more: an interactive textbook for learning a new language.

Think back to the opening moments (or imagine them if you have not played). You are in a dark tunnel. Ahead is a dead-end and — a panel. No words, no sounds (almost), no hints. There is not even a visible interface. All you can do is run a line on the panel from point A to point B. Closed conditions, the simplest task. You draw the line. A door opens. You have taken the first step in learning this world’s “language.” More panels follow. Obstacles appear in the line’s path; the panels grow more complex, yet the game remains silent. You exit and see a path that splits, leading to a bunker door. On it — a panel with unfamiliar symbols. No solution. But the path continues to a small training ground.

Here the magic of The Witness’s non-verbal teaching first shines. On the first ground is a series of panels. Some show black and white squares. Through trial and error you grasp the rule: the line must separate them. On a second ground are hexagonal dots. Another round of experimentation and a new rule emerges: the line must pass through every dot. Two fresh “words” in your visual vocabulary. You return to the bunker door. Its panel has both black/white squares and hexagonal dots. The game wordlessly invites you to combine the two rules. You trace a line, splitting the squares while collecting the dots. Click. Door open.

What happened in those first thirty minutes? You did not simply clear a couple of puzzles — you began learning a language.

The first thing that strikes a designer is the extreme minimalism of feedback. In an era when games trumpet every success with fanfares, fireworks, and pop-ups yelling “YOU ROCK!” while showering you in meaningless achievements, turning themselves into casino-style stimulus machines, The Witness chooses the path of deafening silence.

Draw the wrong line? It merely vanishes or the panel goes dark. No jarring error buzz, no penalty. Draw it correctly? The panel lights, a cable glows, perhaps a door slides aside. That is all. No praise, no score.

[✎] — ❝Feedback can be only as much as needed to inform the player of success or failure. Excessive positive feedback shifts focus from the act of reasoning to an external reward, devaluing intellectual satisfaction. Failure should signal the need to revisit a hypothesis, not punish the player.❞

This choice is critical. It keeps the player from fixating on external stimuli. The sole reward is the act of solving and the feeling of comprehension. The game does not applaud you — you must applaud yourself for understanding.

I can bet my entire Steam library that Blow has read the MDA framework (Hunicke, LeBlanc & Zubek, 2004), which is why The Witness focuses on the aesthetic of Insight — the dynamic rewards you not with push notifications but with the pure “Eureka!” sensation.

Second comes the learning process itself. The Witness is a master-class in gradual introduction and combination of rules. Every new concept — colored squares, “Tetris” shapes, symmetry, and so on — is first presented in isolation. The game gives you a sequence of simple panels featuring only that new rule. You may experiment safely until its essence clicks. Then it begins combining the fresh rule with those you already know. Complexity rises not by piling on elements, but by forcing you to apply multiple logical conditions simultaneously, demanding synthesis rather than reflex.

[✎] — ❝Introduce new rules in isolation, letting the player grasp their pure form. Later complexity should come from combining the new rule with earlier ones, pushing the player toward integrated knowledge and systemic thinking.❞

Third — and most important — is the reliance on active deduction. The whole learning loop in The Witness mirrors the cycle familiar to any scientist or researcher:

• Observation: You face a panel or symbol you have never seen.
• Hypothesis: Based on prior experience and context, you guess what it could mean.
• Test: You draw a line according to that guess.
• Result analysis: If it works — hypothesis confirmed (at least locally). If not — return to step 1 or 2, refine, and test again.

The game trusts you to run this loop unassisted. It does not hint, does not nudge (certainly not with text). It merely supplies a structured environment for experiment and inference.

Contrast this with a typical tutorial — oh, the typical tutorial will get its beating — where text sprawls across mid-screen on a countdown:

“Press X to do Y.”

There you receive instructions. Here you gain understanding. You do not merely know what to do — you comprehend why it works. That is the gulf between “I wriggled through” and “I grasp the essence.”

(For extra context on why tutorials matter, see the charming micro-video «What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games» a sweet tale of a Hollow Knight newbie.)

Returning to Costikyan’s essay, he claims:

“But interaction has no value in itself. Interaction must have purpose”

In The Witness, Blow finds that purpose not in narrative, competition, or collection, but in learning itself. The aim of interaction is to decode the world’s language. Thus the game revives that pure, unclouded thrill of discovery we knew as children, when the world brimmed with mysteries and each revelation felt like a true Eureka! The Witness is not just a puzzle game — it is a simulator of learning and insight. The developer stays silent so that you can hear the voice of your own mind.

By now, the most attentive readers may have noticed … patterns. And is not talking only about seven-year dev cycles or the existence of documentaries (though that is amusing, isn’t it?). Perhaps you feel a whiff of déjà vu — that themes of observation, experimentation, and system-understanding keep circling back, as if the text is gently hammering a point home. Do not worry; it is not paranoia (not yet!). Simply keep that sensation in mind. By this article’s end, these strands will weave into a single tapestry. For now, let us continue our dive into the voiceless realm of The Witness.

We have seen how the game teaches its language. Next, we will examine how it turns the entire island into the page of that textbook.

Level 2. Architectural Design

Do you love beautiful buildings? I certainly do. There is something mesmerizing about the way an architect works with space, light, and form — guiding our movement, shaping our mood, telling a story with nothing but walls and volumes. Good level design does the very same thing: it is the architecture of virtual space. We game designers — hand-in-hand with our level-designer colleagues — build structures too, except our visitors engage with them far more actively.

Here is an intriguing fact: when developing The Witness, Blow hired real-world architects. Why? Surely not just to make the island look pretty and believable. Partly, yes — but the deeper reason ties directly into our theme of Designing Trust.

(And I never hide my sources from you, so this entire level is essentially built on the video «Architectural Approach EP.1 Gaming Architecture» and on a few fragmentary behind-the-scenes comments by Blow, such as «Architecture in The Witness - Jonathan Blow»)

Let’s think about it: architecture and environmental design in the real world manipulate us constantly. Color coding in a subway, intuitive pictograms at an airport, the placement of shops in a mall, even the width of a sidewalk — all are engineered to steer our behavior, often without our noticing. We go where we are led, we focus on what is highlighted. It is efficient; it tames chaos.

But wait … isn’t that the wrong direction for curiosity? Does a design that pre-calculates and guides every step leave room for self-discovery? (Author, are you out of your mind?) Opinions diverge here.

Path A: craft a perfectly tuned system — escalators carry you, signals tick on schedule, instructions are crystal clear. Maximum safety, minimum effort, predictable outcomes. Convenient? Undeniably. Yet where is the space for “What if I turn here?”

Path B: remember how our brains work. They are pattern-seeking machines. We see faces in clouds and on Mars [(pareidolia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia#:~:text=Pareidolia (%2Fˌpærɪ,meaning where there is none.); with two dots and a curve we instantly perceive a smiley. We instinctively hunt for connections, rules, meaning even where none may exist. The Witness exploits this aspect of human psychology to the fullest.

[✎] — ❝Level design should do more than enable navigation — it must act as a tool for teaching and contextualising mechanics, using principles of visual language, affordances, and natural perception patterns.❞

I believe Blow and his architects chose Path B. Recall the “desire lines” in parks — those dirt paths people carve across grass when planned walkways feel inconvenient. Users “hack” the system by following intuition. The task of a good designer — architect, game designer, level designer alike — is not to fight that impulse but to understand and harness it.

They shaped the island not just as a set of puzzle arenas but as a giant interactive environment brimming with visual cues, forced perspectives, and hidden patterns that echo the panel language. Architecture is part of the puzzle, not a backdrop. Blow’s “designing the experience as it is developed” matters because it lets him adjust those desire lines after watching how players truly interact with the world.

[✎] — ❝The game world should encourage observation beyond the immediate task. Landscape, architecture, light, shadow, and objects may hide additional layers of information or serve as contextual hints for solving puzzles.❞

That is why the simple yet potent trick of “place an enormous mountain in the island’s center” works perfectly. The mountain is not a quest marker; it is a visual anchor — visible from almost anywhere, yet the route to it is anything but obvious. Sometimes terrain exists not only for story but for mechanic.

After a brief instructional opening, the game essentially sets you free. Go wherever you wish; explore the island in any order. It trusts that your gaze will latch onto intriguing architecture, a peculiar landscape feature, or a splash of color — and that your curiosity (and your pattern-trained brain — give it some credit!) will pull you onward. The island of The Witness is no corridor lined with arrows; it is a canvas, one vast page on which the player draws and writes their own path of discovery, reading not only the panels but the world itself.

Level 3. The Engine of “Eureka”

The elegance of many things in our world lies in simplicity. What is brilliant is often surprisingly concise. Look at the best-selling, most ubiquitous objects: the BIC pen. It has one function — to write — and it performs that function perfectly, reliably, accessibly. Or sandals — footwear worn thousands of years ago and, likely, thousands of years hence. Why? Because their design is simple, functional, time-tested. Such things possess a property that Nassim Taleb frames in his book — “antifragility” — they do not merely survive chaos but can profit from it, because their core purpose stays in demand and their simplicity makes them resistant to breakage and obsolescence.

Our minds often picture the future as radically different: flying cars, food in tubes, cryogenic pods — in short, Cyberpunk 2077, only flashier and with caravan-raiding on the side. Yet if you think about it, the most antifragile thing we possess may be the mechanism of thought itself: our ability to learn, adapt, and find patterns. Yes, the world changes at break-neck speed, and our brains — the same brains our many-times-great-grandparents had — do not always keep pace with technological growth. But the fundamental principles of how we learn, solve problems, and feel the joy of discovery remain unchanged.

We are discussing game design, not the philosophy of the future — so why bring this up? Because Jonathan Blow in The Witness seems to have tapped precisely into that principle of antifragile elegance. He did not erect a labyrinth of crafting systems, skill trees, or dialogue branches. He took one, basic mechanic — drawing a line on a panel — and focused on exploring its potential.

[✎] — ❝Depth of experience can be achieved not by multiplying mechanics, but by plumbing the depths of one or two key mechanics through varied rules, contexts, and combinations.❞

In The Witness you gain no new abilities or tools (save for a rare exception that proves the rule). From start to finish you possess only the power to draw a line. What changes are the rules that govern that line — symbols, colours, shapes, interactions with the environment. The game does not complicate the action; it complicates the understanding.

That strict focus — that limitation of interaction — paradoxically becomes the chief driver of Eureka. When you hold one tool and the instructions for it keep shifting (and must be deciphered), your brain must fire on all cylinders. You cannot “pick another key”; you must grasp how the single one works.

Blow, in essence, applies Bruce Lee’s maxim:

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10 000 kicks once; I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10 000 times.”

By polishing one mechanic to a shine and examining it through countless rule lenses, he makes the act of thinking enthralling. He did not need to juggle (or code) a monstrous web of interlocking systems. A pen and paper — a line and a panel — are enough to create a profound cognitive experience. If a perpetual-motion machine exists, am convinced it runs on exactly this principle: elegant simplicity and deep interconnection among a few elements.

[✎] — ❝Effective learning design strives not merely to hand the player facts or instructions, but to teach a method of inquiry usable within the game world. The reward lies in gaining competence, not just clearing a single obstacle.❞

Here, i believe, lies The Witness’s greatest achievement. The game proves that to craft a truly gripping intellectual experience you do not need sprawling systems. You need an elegant core mechanic and a masterfully designed learning process that trusts the player’s ability to think, observe, and comprehend. The game does not give you a fish; it teaches you to fish — and that teaching becomes more exhilarating than any fish you could catch. It is pure, distilled joy of discovery, packaged as a video game.

The Witness: The Takeaway

We climbed out of the deep well of Animal Well, where trust in the player manifested as encouragement to explore and experiment with a world full of hidden potential. We then wore our own “desire lines” into the sun-drenched island of The Witness, where that same trust took the shape of silent teaching — a faith in our ability to decode a complex visual language armed with nothing but observation and logic.

We witnessed how the right kind of immersion, stripped of UI noise, and an elegant, laser-focused interaction mechanic can not merely sustain curiosity but multiply the pleasure of that sudden understanding — the pure “Eureka!” moment.

And yes, I see you nodding. If you have followed my train of thought, you have surely spotted the red threads binding these games. Many of the design “rules” or “principles” teased out while examining Animal Well apply equally here — and vice-versa. Trust in the player, minimal feedback, learning through the system rather than through text … a pattern seems to be emerging, doesn’t it? Let us leave that curtain of intrigue half-drawn; game design is wonderfully intricate, and the full picture will come later.

Yet I cannot ignore the impatient voice from the back row, the one already itching in a certain place:

“Fine, I trusted your design! I wandered around, I drew the lines — and I’m BORED! Bored, you hear? Clearing outposts in Far Cry 10 is more fun! Shooting in Call of Duty 15 is more exciting! What, am I ‘broken’ now because I don’t appreciate this high-minded stuff?”

Of course not, dear reader! You are entitled to enjoy what you enjoy, and my duty as an analyst is to admit that The Witness — for all its elegance — carries substantial downsides that can make it feel dull or frustrating (sound familiar? yes, almost the same problems as Animal Well):

• Lack of clear goals — With no explicit story or extrinsic motivators, if the act of puzzling fails to grip you, the island soon feels like aimless wandering through beautiful — but empty — scenery.
• Potential frustration — Certain rules or rule-combinations can be far too hard for a given player. Stalling on one panel — or an entire region — can wreck pacing and kill motivation.
• Deliberate tempo — The Witness is slow and meditative. It demands concentration, patience, and a willingness to stop and think. Not ideal for five-minute sessions or background listening.
• The temptation to “peek” — This is the game’s unique Achilles’ heel. When you have bashed your head against a panel for ages, the “oh for *’s sake!”* impulse to open a guide is overwhelming. The moment you do, the magic of Eureka! shatters — you gain no understanding, only a **“passing grade.”

Confession time: I have never finished *The Witness* in the traditional sense. (Throw tomatoes if you must.) I first met it through play-through videos in 2016. Later I tried to finish it myself, hit a wall, burned out, and quit. Only while preparing this article did I rebuy it, replay a chunk, and grab a few screenshots. So yes — I feel these shortcomings keenly, and I cannot deny them. As ever, we will weigh pros and cons in our final verdict.

What, then, does The Witness contribute to our study of Designing Trust? More than any other game, it shines a spotlight on the fact that the act of comprehension itself — the instant of “Eureka!” — can be a potent, self-sufficient reward. Sometimes deep satisfaction flows from nothing more than understanding.

And with that surge of intellectual triumph — with the knowledge that our brains can indeed untangle intricate systems — we set course for our next destination. We are off to my favourite cosmos, where the rules grow stranger and the cost of failure skyrockets. A place where knowledge is not merely a prize, but the only way to survive. Fasten your seatbelts: our next stop is Outer Wilds.

IV. Part 3: Outer Wilds — “And I Speak No Evil” 🙊

Hold up. Before we go any further, I’m terribly sorry for this little pre-amble, but there’s something I have to ask. A-hem … You. Yes, you personally. Have you played Outer Wilds?

Please make sure. Are you certain it was OUTER WILDS? Not OUTER WORLDS? They’re two different games! Google it. Double-check. Look at the pictures! I’ve even attached a couple of screenshots just for you — see the difference? Be honest. Swear on your gamer’s honour — keyboard, mouse, game-pad, whatever you hold sacred. Have you actually finished Outer Wilds all the way to the end?

If your answer is “Yes,” I’m delighted you’re here! Welcome to our virtual camp-fire. Grab a marshmallow, settle in — we’re about to have a heartfelt, analytical, insider conversation.

And you. Yes, you, the one who just glanced away or started fidgeting. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? You’re not allowed in here! Door’s CLOSED. ENTRY FORBIDDEN. I’m serious.

Look, I could understand if you skipped Animal Well. It’s relatively new, looks like “yet another pixel platformer” — fine, excuses accepted. And The Witness? Released back in 2016, a bunch of lines on panels — I get it, the meditative pace isn’t for everyone.

But Outer Wilds?! NO WAY. If you haven’t finished it — OUT! NOW! GO AND PLAY IT. Only after that, only then, may you read the rest of this article. I’m serious. I’m not joking in the slightest. You’ll thank me later for kicking you out.

Here’s my Telegram channel t.me/slepokNTe so you don’t get lost, can come back, and know whom to thank afterwards. Yes, hit “subscribe.” And go play the game!

No, this isn’t a marketing stunt, nor cheap reverse psychology. I’m being as honest as I’ve ever been: a blind play-through of Outer Wilds is a unique, unrepeatable experience you mustn’t spoil. Even my careful analysis will inevitably touch on things you should discover on your own. Please, trust me on this.

All good? The uninitiated are gone? Only the enlightened remain? Excellent. Let’s get started.

Before diving into the Philosophy of Outer Wilds, I have a confession. I love this game with every gram of my designer’s (and plain human) heart. Doctors are told never to operate on family because emotion clouds judgment. In theory I should exclude Outer Wilds from this analysis or hand the section to someone else … But alas, it’s just me here — and who am I kidding, no one would write it the way I can!

This is my favourite slice of today’s autopsy, which means it will hurt all the more when we get to the criticism (yes, that part is inevitable). But first — analysis.

Those of you who have finished Outer Wilds — and I’m trusting only such readers remain — already know exactly what I mean.

… Aha! Caught one more scoundrel reading without “clearance”! DON’T YOU DARE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH! Seriously, do yourself a favour, friend. You’ve powered through half this article already — good job! But really, invest the time in the game, it’s worth it, and then come back to us.

So — are we absolutely sure everyone here is certified? Ready to tackle the philosophy? Let’s begin.

Philosophy of Outer Wilds

Humankind, for as long as it can remember, has wrestled with the question of meaning — the meaning of its own existence, the meaning of everything that exists. Mountains of philosophical treatises, religious doctrines, and works of art are devoted to that pursuit. Honestly, almost all conscious human activity is, one way or another, an attempt to grasp that very meaning.

Schools of thought abound, each offering its own answer —or refusal to answer. Existentialism says, “Exist first, then define essence.” Stoicism teaches, “What matters is not what happened, but how you react.” Skepticism asks, “Are you sure you truly know anything at all?” And so on, infinitely. There is no single correct answer; each of us may choose a philosophy, a way of knowing the world, a personal sense of purpose.

Bias is an inseparable part of perception. We view the world through the prism of our experience, convictions, desires. Yet, amid all that diversity, we share one impulse — the very search for meaning. Everyone, sooner or later, has pondered life and death, their place in the universe. Absolute objectivity in that quest is impossible. We are human; we are different.

And — with rare exceptions suffered by those with “main-character syndrome” — none of us is the center of the universe. The ability to see from another’s point of view, to step into their shoes, is a crucial step toward wisdom.

What does any of this have to do with Outer Wilds and, by extension, with game design? Everything. The entire Mobius Digital team seems to have felt those fundamental questions keenly. They built the game on a philosophy that strips preconception from the experience as much as possible.

In Outer Wilds I am not the Chosen One, not Dragonborn, not the savior of the galaxy. I am simply a curious explorer — one of many four-eyed Hearthians who are also trying to understand the universe. I enter not a static world waiting for a hero but a living, dynamic solar system that has existed and evolved by its own laws, utterly indifferent to me.

There is no pre-written protagonist with a grand destiny. The main character is me — the person sitting at the screen right now. My motives are my motives. My curiosity is my curiosity. No one hands out quests, no one plants markers, no voice booms, “Go there, save that.” I am free to do — or not do — whatever I wish. I enter this world and remain myself.

And this is not one of those situations where “when in Rome, follow their rules or break the game.” There are no rigid dos-and-don’ts that risk angering an invisible GM. The only rules I accept — after a short, entirely optional yet delightful tutorial on Timber Hearth — are the basic laws of physics in this solar system and a working grasp of my three tools: the signal scope, the scout probe, and the Nomai text translator.

The game hands me the bare minimum knowledge required to interact, and then — total freedom. A bold period is placed on that thought by the optional dialogue choice I’m offered after grabbing the launch codes:

“Tell me, what’s your plan once you’re in space?”

The fullness of every answer lies in its own freedom. Do whatever I like, fly wherever I want, explore however I please. The world will go on living, reacting to my actions — sometimes painfully — but it will not judge or shepherd me.

Once more: the game lets me role-play myself. I don’t adopt a class or persona; I remain who I already am.

Enough philosophy for now — though we’ll come back to it often. Let’s shift gears.

Want a joke? I genuinely thought Outer Wilds had dodged the “seven-year curse.” Nope! Count from the earliest student prototypes to full release and, sure enough, it took… seven years to make. Those coincidences are getting spooky. At least, I figured, surely no documentary was shot about it! Ah — right… «The Making of Outer Wilds» by Noclip. Damn. Once is chance, twice coincidence, thrice a pattern?

Apparently, fellow developers and designers, if you want to craft a game with a Design of Trust, guarantee a documentary, and wind up lauded in my blog, brace yourselves for seven years of dev-grind. See you around… 2032!

Jokes aside, the real production takeaway is that Mobius Digital was essentially a family. Designer Alex Beachum and programmer Loan Verneau are best friends; writer Kelsey Beachum is Alex’s sister; composer Andrew Prahlow another close friend. That closeness and shared vision permeate the game. Equally important: it grew from a USC student thesis that won a local contest and later the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Grand Prize. The seed idea was strong and pure, unburdened by commercial expectations.

Most crucially, from day one to launch the team held a single core statement:

“The central idea of the game is exploration for exploration’s sake.”

And the prime driving force had to be curiosity. As they themselves phrased it, Outer Wilds was conceived as

“A game that rewards the player’s inquisitiveness.”

Now, I think the picture is coming together. Those threads we pulled from Animal Well to The Witness are weaving into a clearer pattern. If you see it — shh, keep that thought for now. We’ll yank on every last thread at the very end. If you don’t yet grasp what “threads” I’m talking about — no worries. Let’s dive into the first level of Outer Wilds analysis.

Level 1. Physics, Time, Mechanics

Physics is a curious thing. On a basic, subconscious level it feels absolutely simple and clear. We don’t need textbooks to grasp that an apple falls down, not up; shove a rock downhill — it will roll; crash one bike into another — both riders topple. We’re born into a world ruled by these laws, and our bodies, our brains, are natural physicists-experimenters. We intuitively grasp trajectories, inertia, gravity without ever seeing the formulas.

Of course, physics also loves to break our brains. Popular-science channels, books — even reality itself — keep throwing concepts like quantum entanglement or dark matter at us, reminding us how little we actually know. But the basic Newtonian mechanics that run the everyday world (and most of the cosmos in Outer Wilds) are familiar.

That’s where Mobius Digital’s first stroke of genius lies. They didn’t invent alien laws; they took the physics we know from space movies, school lessons, and documentaries, and rebuilt it inside their miniature solar system. Yes, with some simplifications and gameplay shortcuts — nobody wants to spend hours calculating orbits like in Kerbal Space Program — but the essence stands:

• Your ship has inertia — accelerate and you’ll keep drifting until you brake or crash.
• Every planet owns a distinct gravitational field — near-weightlessness on asteroids, crushing pull on gas giants.
• Objects carry mass and momentum — they collide, bounce, fragment.
• Orbital mechanics (lightweight yet present) work — you can “park” in orbit or sling-shot with gravity.

Why does this matter? Because physics is one of those things we humans love to experiment with. We itch to probe the limits.

Outer Wilds hands us a sandbox for physical experimentation. The recognisable rules, multiplied by the impossibility of such antics in real life — most of us won’t be flying to space any time soon — spark the first, most primal layer of curiosity, built on a simple “What if…?”

• “What happens if I land on that comet?”
• “What if I aim the ship straight into the sun?”
• “And if I dive into that ominous black hole?”

The game never forbids these questions — it invites them.

[✎] — ❝Using rules the player already knows from real life or shared culture cuts cognitive load and instantly sparks experimentation based on intuition. The game needn’t explain what the player subconsciously understands.❞

In real life such stunts carry a hefty price. Here, though… wait, there is a cost: death. Nature wired us with brakes — self-preservation, fear of pain, dread of oblivion — yet she also gifted us adrenaline and imagination.

One timeless fantasy is immortality, the chance to retry without fatal consequence. Films, books, comics — the ‘Groundhog Day’ trope is everywhere.

I’ll dig into the narrative reasons for Mobius Digital’s 22-minute time loop in Level 2, but from a pure mechanics standpoint it is nothing short of brilliant.

Think of classic checkpoints or save systems. They let us retry, but they carry a big downside: they often devalue everything done after the last save. Die before the next checkpoint?

“Great, back to square one…”

Countless controllers have perished to that feeling of wasted effort. Death becomes an annoyance, a flow-breaker.

A time-loop — essentially a timer — annihilates that problem and serves two key purposes (DesignDoc’s fresh video «How Can You Spice Up A Time Limit?» covers timers nicely):

1. Diminish — but not erase — fear of death. You know that in twenty-two minutes (or sooner, if you really mess up) everything restarts. Death isn’t game over, just cycle reset. That knowledge frees you. It lets you take risks, attempt crazy stunts, plunge where it’s terrifying, because the worst outcome is a fresh cycle. The fear remains — no one wants to cut a great run short — but it no longer paralyzes.
2. Create a safe lab for experiments. Knowing the reset is inevitable turns each loop into a standalone research expedition. You have limited time to test a hypothesis, reach a location, observe a phenomenon. Progress isn’t measured in meters traveled or loot gathered but in information obtained (more on that in the next level).

[✎] — ❝To encourage bold exploration the player needs a “safe harbour” — a mechanism that lowers the cost of failure and frames setbacks as part of an iterative learning process, not terminal defeat. Give the player solid ground so they dare step into the unknown.❞

Those safe harbours extend beyond the loop itself — but we’ll return to that.

In the meantime, this is the last but critically important element, without which neither the familiar physics nor the ingenious mechanics of the loop would work so effectively. This is the scale of the world.

Be honest: did you truly enjoy wandering the procedurally generated sextillions of worlds in Starfield or No Man’s Sky? Probably not. The thrills came from handcrafted points of interest, quests, unique finds. Vast but empty space grows dull fast.

The devs of Outer Wilds knew that. Instead of chasing bigness, they built a pocket-size solar system where every cubic centimeter is meaningful and handmade. Every planet, moon, and rock is unique — its own physics, dangers, secrets.

That compact scale solves several issues:

• Makes the 22-minute loop viable. Within a cycle you can reach any point, study something, maybe hop elsewhere and still feel the tension. A larger world would turn the loop into pure frustration.
• Provides a seamless experience. Planet hops take minutes, not hours. No loading screens yank you out of flow. You remain inside that universe, sensing its cohesion and dynamism — a level of immersion most space games never touch.
• Allows deep craftsmanship. Content isn’t smeared thin; each planet brims with multi-layered puzzles, lore details, hidden ruins, quantum oddities. You glimpse a surface yet feel there’s more — caves, ancient labs, invisible phenomena. Because the world is small, that density feels believable, not artificial — our brains, as we learned from Animal Well and The Witness, love completing a convincing illusion.

Hence another, obvious yet vital rule for exploration-centric worlds:

[✎] — ❝The scale of a game world must match the density of meaningful content and the exploration tempo set by core mechanics. “Bigger” isn’t always better. A compact, richly hand-crafted world often yields deeper immersion and more purposeful discovery than a giant, empty, or procedural one.❞

So: familiar physics ripe for experimentation; a time loop that removes paralyzing risk and sets rhythm; a tight but profound world tuned to those constraints. We’ve built the perfect playground for curiosity. Now it’s time to layer meaning atop that playground — a narrative layer that the previous games shied away from.

Level 2. Narrative and Atmosphere

Let me ask a question whose answer, after Animal Well and The Witness, seems almost obvious: why do both of those games so fiercely shy away from an explicit plot? To me the answer is simple — freedom of interpretation. Any told story unavoidably sets boundaries, funnels perception, narrows the space for personal conjecture. And if the goal is to trust the player to find meaning and forge connections on their own, a direct narrative can feel like an obstacle.

Does that mean that, in Outer Wilds — where story plays a central role — this freedom vanishes? That the game forces a single, “correct” reading of events? Absolutely not. The secret lies not in having a plot, but in how the plot is delivered.

First, the one crucial detail the developers themselves, in «Alex Beachum Designing for Curiosity in Outer Wilds», called their sole “concession” to the player: the Ship Log.

The greatest design risk — and simultaneously the stroke of genius — in Outer Wilds is the total absence of conventional progression. My character never gets stronger. My ship never gains upgrades. I unlock no new abilities. The only thing that “levels up” is my knowledge — about the system, its history, its rules. Information is the only resource that carries between loops, the only key that opens new doors.

Now, hand on heart — would you really enjoy replaying Memento’s protagonist, forced to re-assemble the universe from scratch after every death with no help at all? The team realised that a pure memory-wipe simulation would be unbearably frustrating.

Hence the Ship Log. It is more than a log; as the developers themselves admitted, the web of connections in this log (yes, that whole spider-web in the screenshot you see by the end of the game) is, in essence, a visualization of their own design document, their narrative structure. The Log auto-records every key inscription, observation, and signal and—most importantly—maps the relationships among them. It offers no answers, no “Go here next”, but serves as an external memory that helps you arrange scattered clues into a coherent picture.

That “concession” is vital: it preserves progression-through-knowledge while easing the cognitive load of remembering a galaxy’s worth of facts across cycles.

[✎] — ❝When knowledge is the main progression mechanic, the player needs a tool that organises and visualises what they have learned. It must offer no direct solutions, but act as a reliable external memory so the player can track links and grasp the big picture without excessive cognitive strain.❞

The Log never says “fly there.” It merely whispers: “You learned X, and that seems tied to Y, which was mentioned in Z.” A brilliant compromise: the unbearable burden of recollection is gone, yet the thinking remains mine.

Second narrative triumph: the tangled Nomai saga — and the mystery of the universe itself — can be approached from almost any starting point. Kelsey Beachum explains this at length in her GDC talk «Sparking Curiosity-Driven Exploration Through Narrative in “Outer Wilds”». Yes, the game drops a subtle hint at the outset: something explodes in the sky every twenty-two minutes. A fear-driven design would shout:

“Circle it in red! Add a marker! Trigger a cut-scene! Quest accepted: Strange Explosion!”

Outer Wilds trusts me instead. If I want, I can chase the explosion. Or aim for the giant water-vortex world. Or the planet crumbling into pieces. Or simply poke around Timber Hearth. There is no “wrong” path. The game says:

“Fine. Do what interests YOU now.”

Why is that so important? Why not lay down a clear storyline and push the player along a rail? Because when the player chooses his own investigative path, when he decides which mystery intrigues him right now, he stops being a mere consumer of content and becomes an active architect of his own experience. His journey turns personal.

Think of the phenomenon of games like Crusader Kings, RimWorld, or Dwarf Fortress. What hooks us is not the graphics and not a polished plot. We treasure the stories the player forges while wrestling with complex systems: “I seduced the Pope and it collapsed the realm,” or “my brilliant yet deranged dwarf accidentally flooded the fortress with magma,” or “three colonists fought off giant insects for a week, living on raider corpses.” These are personal sagas born of freedom of choice and consequence.

Outer Wilds works in a similar way, yet inside a pre-written tale. Its narrative is built so that wherever you fly you are guaranteed to find a puzzle piece — a Nomai inscription, a strange physical phenomenon, a signal — that is valuable in itself and hints at other fragments, other locations, other questions. The game does not drag you along the plot; it scatters breadcrumbs, and you decide which ones to follow.

[✎] — ❝When designing a nonlinear, exploration-driven narrative, provide multiple entry points and distribute key information so the player can advance the investigation in a relatively free order; every fragment discovered should reward the current exploration and motivate further inquiry by pointing to additional leads.❞

Coupled with the breathtaking atmosphere — created by the chosen visual style, the soundscape, the constant feeling of fragility and loneliness in space — with Andrew’s piercing melodies that will trigger flashbacks long after the credits, and even the silent camaraderie of your fellow Hearthian travellers (alas, we have no space here to dissect them), this approach lets every player walk from total ignorance to deep comprehension on his own road, collecting Eureka! moments and emotional baggage unique to him. As one saying goes:

“The important thing is not the goal, but the path toward it. Upon reaching the goal you always feel disappointment and melancholy.”

Yes, one can argue that this is partly a “bottleneck”: many roads converge on a single finale, a single answer to the central riddle.

Yet allow me one perhaps harsh thought, sure to draw criticism in an analysis like this — a thought that will carry us into the third and final level of our Outer Wilds examination:

We humans also know our ending. We all die. Does that make our lives — our journeys, our search for meaning, love, and friendship — a meaningless “bottleneck”?

Level 3. The Meaning of Curiosity?

I hope my previous question didn’t plunge you too deeply into existential brooding, because we still have a whole level to dissect — and it is precisely about that: meaning.

All those mechanics  —  the elegant physics, the cunning time-loop, the knowledge system, the nonlinear narrative —  are undoubtedly strong in themselves. Taken together they create engaging gameplay, a gripping story, a world that invites interaction. Yet what is the fundamental reason to play Outer Wilds? Why does the complete absence of external goals (saving the world, defeating a villain, collecting 100 % of the trinkets) not merely fail to harm the game, but — as I argue — actually help it reach such emotional depth? What, from a designer’s standpoint, is the MEANING OF CURIOSITY?

It seems that after our journey through Animal Well, The Witness, and now Outer Wilds, an answer begins to emerge. It is not lodged in any single mechanic, nor solely in the story or atmosphere. It lives in what those elements awaken inside us.

After much thought, analysis of these games, and reflection on my own experience, I arrived at a formulation that, to me, captures the essence. Allow me to present it as the final designer’s note — perhaps the most important in this entire discussion:

[✎] — ❝The strength of an interactive experience is directly proportional to the intensity of curiosity it inspires: only an ever-present “what if?” pushes players to uncover new mechanics, meanings, and emotions, transforming a game from a set of rules into a living, awe-inducing world.❞

Put simply: curiosity itself *is* the meaning. At least, in games built on Designing Trust. Outer Wilds gives you no mission because the very act of seeking answers — the process of exploration driven by your curiosity — is both the primary objective and the ultimate reward. The game doesn’t ask you to save the universe; it asks you to understand it.

That is why Outer Wilds performs, in my eyes, an incredible sleight of hand: it lets you live an entire life inside the game. But not in the way RPGs do, with leveling and quest logs; it is unique in its own right. The game allows you to walk the path of understanding yourself, to confront the grand mysteries of existence, to feel awe before the unknown, and, in the end, to find your own answer to humanity’s timeless search for meaning — through the experience of exploration for exploration’s sake.

Here lies both the game’s greatest magic and its greatest tragedy for the player: this experience is unrepeatable. Outer Wilds is a game you can never truly play twice.

(Those gathered at the campfire who have finished it know exactly what I mean. And you stowaways still reading — shame on you! You are robbing yourself of one of the most singular experiences our medium can offer.)

Once you learn the secrets of this solar system, once you grasp how everything connects, the magic evaporates. You can return, tour your favourite planets, but that pristine sense of discovery, that shiver before the unknown, that euphoric revelation — it will never be the same.

Knowledge is irreversible.

Which brings us to an important thought about the nature of curiosity and the value of unique experience. You can never recapture the childlike thrill of your very first favourite game. You’ll never quite feel the full excitement of your first trip to the sea again. You cannot relive the trembling of a first love. Those moments are unique exactly because they were encounters with the unexplored, fuelled by pure, unclouded curiosity.

And that is why curiosity is eternal. It drives us to seek new, singular experiences. No matter how conservative we grow, how set in our comfortable routines, somewhere inside us lives that child who wants to peek around the corner, take a toy apart, find out “what’s over the horizon?”

Games that dare to bet on that impulse give us something far greater than entertainment. They let us feel the joy of discovery again and again.

Titles like Outer Wilds, The Witness, Animal Well speak directly to this fundamental facet of our nature. They trust our curiosity, our intellect, our capacity to craft meaning ourselves. And in that trust lies their greatest power.

It seems the time has come for me to place a gentle period at the end of this exhilarating expedition through the worlds of Designing Trust — at least, for its main arc.

Outer Wilds: The Takeaway

I promised you criticism, and I keep my word. Ladies and gentlemen around the camp-fire, it’s time to take off the rose-tinted goggles — even if they shield you from a super-nova flash. I truly love Outer Wilds, yet we have to be brutally honest: for many players this game can feel… strange. Frustrating. Boring.

I’ve recommended it to dozens of friends. A good share of them, after a couple of hours flitting through this tiny solar system, still couldn’t find the point. The time-loop annoyed them, the Nomai texts exhausted them, they missed action, clear goals, shiny rewards. In plain terms, they were BORED.

And I understand them perfectly — just as I understand why another GTA, a linear shooter like Call of Duty, or a straightforward RPG with quests and skill trees will outsell it by an order of magnitude. Designing Trust, especially in the concentrated form we see here, carries a price and some heavy drawbacks that echo all the way back to Animal Well:

• High entry barrier for the incurious – if a player lacks an inner drive to explore and unravel mysteries, the game has nothing to offer. It gives no treats to those who wait for external stimuli.
• Potential frustration from the loop – while the loop removes fear of death, constant restarts, especially when you’re on the verge of an insight, can be infuriating.
• A lot of reading and cross-checking – gameplay largely boils down to reading Nomai inscriptions and juggling a web of facts in your head. That’s simply not for everyone.
• Moments of stagnation and confusion – much like The Witness, you can stall, unsure where to fly or how to bypass a hazard/puzzle. The Log helps but won’t hand over answers.
• Deliberate tempo and lack of action – the game is meditative, unhurried – despite the loop. If you crave adrenaline, you’ll find none here.

“But doc, if there are symptoms, can’t we treat them?” – you might ask. Could Outer Wilds be made more “accessible” without killing its soul? Could we strike that ideal balance between trusting the player and lending a hand?

Of course I have an answer! And here it is: Qjbknpqjwpahu, jk oejcha wjosan ateopo bkn oqyd w ykilhat iwppan, uap eb ukq ynwygaz pdwp heppha Ywaown-yeldan nezzha, E’hh chwzhu odwga ukqn dwjz kran kj iu Zeoyknz! Dana'o pda hejg: dpplo://zeoyknz.cc/WUMvdXQmGF

What can I state with certainty after dissecting Outer Wilds? That this game is the quintessence of “Designing Trust.” It proves you can construct an entire world, an entire story, an entire breathtaking experience on nothing but curiosity and knowledge. It shows how mechanics (the loop), narrative (the Nomai saga), and exploration (freedom + the Ship Log) braid together into a seamless journey where the player himself, driven by his hunger to know, becomes both hero and engine. Outer Wilds is a monument to human curiosity and to our knack for carving meaning even in the face of an inevitable end.

Yet the fact that pure Designing Trust can be hard for the mass market doesn’t mean its principles can’t – or shouldn’t – be applied wisely and sparingly in projects of any scale, AAA included. Perhaps the future of truly deep, compelling interactive experiences lies in hybrid approaches, in the careful balance between guidance and freedom, hint and mystery.

Now that we’ve finished dissecting our three prime specimens, it’s time to gather every observation and weave them into a set of overarching conclusions in the final section of this article.

V. Conclusion: “Time to See, Hear, and Speak!”

(Slepok and I genuinely thank every one of you who has read this far! He’s been standing here posing since the very beginning — just for you! 👀)

This has been a long and — I hope — captivating journey through worlds built on trust and curiosity. If you’ve reached this point, you are either a truly curious reader or a fellow designer who loves game-craft just as much as I do. In either case — bravo, and my sincere thanks for walking this road with me.

But a simple thank-you isn’t enough. You deserve the distillation, the answers that have been shimmering in the air throughout this piece. It’s time to tug every one of those red threads some of you have already spotted and feel them tighten into the full pattern that lay hidden behind our separate case studies.

(Maximum analytic & systematic mode: ON)

We began with the pain — the sad fact that many games aspiring to be “interactive art” often degenerate into interactive instruction-following, suffocating the very essence of interaction: discovery.

Then we dissected three unique specimens of Designing Trust:

• We descended into Animal Well, discovering how deliberate disorientation (via a bare-bones map), opaque tools that provoke experiment, and multilayered systemic secrets can weave a hypnotic web of exploration, forcing the player to rely on memory, observation, and wit instead of on-screen markers.
• We stepped onto the sunlit island of The Witness, where an entire visual language teaches the player intricate rules with not a single word. We saw that the pure act of learning can itself be an elegant, self-sufficient puzzle whose grand prize is the Eureka! of understanding.
• We launched into space with Outer Wilds, witnessing knowledge become the only resource and the key to progress. A time loop, nonlinear narrative, and boundless freedom — anchored by the Ship Log — turn the game into a profoundly personal quest for answers driven solely by inner curiosity.

These titles are not random curios, nor mere flashes of lone genius (though that, too). They are living proof that a design built on trust in the player’s intellect, perception, and innate curiosity is not only possible — it is astonishingly effective at creating deep, meaningful, memorable engagement. They don’t dole out fleeting “fun” via blinking waypoints; they generate that unique, personal experience at the seam where system meets player effort — the very experience we invoke when we speak of games as art.

Throughout the analysis I jotted design principles — those margin notes helped us structure the thought. They number quite a few (by my count, exactly 22 — symbolic, no?). Each was a rung on the ladder toward broader, perhaps more elegant conclusions. Without those rungs — without the “fishing rod” we assembled piece-by-piece — the final “fish,” those principles, would be airy abstractions. Now, I hope, they feel concrete and applicable.

So, what can we — as designers — take away? What practical beacons does Designing Trust provide? Here are my “notes to self” (and to you):

1. Dole out information, don’t drown the player — Instead of smothering them in hints, markers, tutorials, craft a purposeful information vacuum where it makes sense. A touch of ignorance, a pinch of uncertainty, is the best spur to active exploration. When the player earns knowledge through observation and experiment, that knowledge is priceless.
2. Teach through systems and space, not text walls — Shape mechanics, interfaces, and environments so they themselves hint at rules, possibilities, dangers. Let the player experiment, fail safely, and deduce patterns. The thrill of “I figured it out!” dwarfs ticking off another tutorial checklist.
3. Braid curiosity into the core loop — Exploration and experimentation shouldn’t be “something for later” or “only for completionists.” Make them essential — or at least a vital optional path — to progress or survival. Reward not only with loot, but with information: lore insights, hidden mechanics, systemic synergies.
4. Ambiguity is a tool, not a flaw — Use intentional vagueness, implication, visual or mechanical ambiguity to intrigue, to hint at depth, to make the player doubt and seek alternate solutions. The craft lies in distinguishing a fine, deliberate mystery from plain sloppy design.

…

And finally — perhaps the single most important principle underpinning everything else, one that demands not only skill but a dash of courage:

…

1. TRUST THE PLAYER — AND TRUST YOUR DESIGN! Stop panicking that the player “will get stuck,” “won’t understand,” “will rage-quit,” or “will post a bad review.” Yes, they might stall. Yes, they might not grasp things immediately. Some frustration, moments of wandering in the dark, that specific, relatable feeling of “what on earth is going on?!” — these are not design failures; they are an integral part of the discovery process. If your world is intriguing, if your systems are elegant, if your puzzles are fair — the player will find their way. They will search, try, and think. Give them that chance. Trust their intellect and their curiosity. And, just as crucially, trust yourself and the power of your design. Don’t rush to bolt on crutches where an elegant solution can be designed.

Personal Reflection & Take-aways

Do you remember the image we began with — the director who fears the audience won’t grasp his brilliant film and therefore hands out cheat-sheets before the screening? After dissecting games that dared to remain silent, mysterious, unwelcoming (and still gathered a fiercely loyal audience!), we, as game-designers, must ask ourselves honestly: have we become those prompter-directors? Has our industry’s obsession with tutorials, markers, pop-ups, and “streamlined” player paths become a symptom of our own insecurity — insecurity in the strength of our worlds, in the player’s ability to think and explore unaided? Maybe these crutches are not for the player at all, but for us — a guarantee that someone will at least reach the end of our “presentation,” even if they never grasp its heart?

Now, a cold shower for the dreamer-designer in me. Yes, we work in an industry. Yes, games must sell. Yes, onboarding matters and retention metrics are real. Does that mean Designing Trust is the sole province of basement indies? I say — no. The problem isn’t markers or tutorials themselves, but their mindless, bloated, often lazy use. Every game is now forced to be “for everyone,” and that pressure breeds these “solutions.”

Perhaps our industry chose the easiest path to “accessibility,” not the most effective. Instead of investing in intuitive systems, readable visual language, and organic learning through play, we slap on pop-ups. Is it faster to ship? Maybe. Cheaper in the short term? Probably. But do we lose depth of engagement? Do we create an army of click-followers, players who mindlessly chase markers and drop the game the moment the external stimulus fades?

A critically thinking designer must ask: Isn’t a deeply invested player — one who uncovered the world’s secrets himself — more valuable in the long run (loyalty, word of mouth, active community) than someone we led by the hand from start to credits, who’ll forget the game a week later? We need balance. We must treat accessibility’s root causes, not just plaster them with a blizzard of hints and “forty-second-rule” pop-ups.

(And isn’t it funny? No matter how safely the industry lays rails, that drive for curiosity still breaks through! Right now everyone whispers about the enigmatic **Blue Prince* on the horizon. I haven’t touched it yet — articles don’t finish themselves! — but I feel the pull and will dive in the moment this piece is done.)*

Games are indeed a unique interactive artform. Yet interactivity dies where freedom of choice and discovery ends. Our job as designers is not only to lay rails from A to B, but to craft labyrinth-worlds, riddle-worlds, ecosystem-worlds that invite players to dig deeper and make sense of their laws.

Perhaps the highest manifestation of design mastery is not to teach the player something specific, but to rekindle that primal spark that drives him to learn and discover on his own, even after the screen goes dark. If we succeed, the player won’t merely finish our game — he will live his own story of discovery inside it. That is, I believe, the loftiest form of interactive art we can reach.

So let’s build systems that trust this fundamental human drive. Maybe in that trust lies not only the key to deeper “interactive art,” but also to steadier, longer-lasting success. And that, my friends, is a thoroughly pragmatic goal, isn’t it?

See you where the secrets are even deeper → t.me/slepokNTe 👀

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