LIT
Bend the Light
LIT: Bend the Light is a 2D puzzle game in which you guide your own light beam using mirrors and glas pieces to solve challenging puzzles in a magical world.
The goal in each level is to hit a magical star. Mirrors and glas pieces will make the light beam reflect and refract. Bend the light as you imagine. You will be surprised how crazy light paths you can create. LIT has won a first place at Deutscher Multimediapreis 2018 and was nominated for the Student Award at the German Developer Days so far.
Time
2,5 months
Tasks
System Design, UX, Level Design, Programming, Prototyping, Music, Sound Design, Trailer
Tools
Unity, Visual Studio, Cubase
Team
Malte Decker, Karolina Janowska, Carolin Müller, Julian Hellmann
Context
2nd semeter project at HTW Berlin
Coaches
Prof. Susanne Brandhorst, Prof. Thomas Bremer
Key Features
- Challenging puzzles: think out of the box and be precise
- Find out yourself how the light principles work
- Easy to learn, hard to master
- Multiple solutions for many levels
Unique Selling Points
- Unique: refraction has never been used in a video game before
- Light paths you’ll probably never gonna see in reality
- High replayability through multiple solutions for most levels
- Physically correct light with refraction and reflection
Awards & Exhibitions
LIT: Bend the Light has won the category „Games“ at Deutscher Multimediapreis 2018 and has been nominated at multiple major Prices (Zuerich Ludicious Games Festival, German Developer Price, …). We also exhibited LIT at various festivals: The U19 in Budapest, Gamefest in Berlin, TinCon in Berlin, exhibition at Deutscher Multimediapreis in Dresden, as well as our studies intern exhibition Hive:Five.
My Contribution
- Quick gameplay prototyping
- Programming of several mechanics (light beam, player controls, …)
- Level design of several levels, including a concept for all levels
- Full game audio: music, sound design, implementation (for the sound design please click here)
- Full trailer: concept, footage, cutting, music
Learnings
As this was our first bigger digital game, my main learning was to make quick decisions and to pull together, rather than discussing concepts too much and pushing own ideas. I also realised how important it is to work together, to give insight into your working process and how constant quick testing helpes to form the game.
Process
We developed a concept and a digital prototyp within the first two weeks. From there on we could constantly iterate with players, to work out a system that’s fun to play with. As we wanted to make a game lots of different people can enjoy, playtesting was essential. Key to our process was also to leave out the visuals at this stage and for everybody of us to be involved in the game design.
