Co-op puzzle theme for We Were Here Forever

We were here forever is the newest game in our We were here Series of co-op puzzle adventures releasing today on Xbox. You and a partner play the role of Antarctic explorers trapped in a sinister castle who must work together to escape! With the introduction of Cross-Play, we’re opening up a world full of new players to team up with. Whether you want to play with a friend or immerse yourself in the game and connect with a stranger, everything is possible. Communication is everything, and you need to trust your partner, as streamers Copacxi and Icharr_ beautifully demonstrate in our latest trailer!

Our design philosophy

What makes a good puzzle? We were here forever is the fourth game in the We were here series, so this isn’t our first rodeo. We’ll start with some basic principles of what an ideal puzzle for our game looks like: Every puzzle should be related in some way to communication and the different challenges and types of fun you can have with it. Describe symbols, guide someone through a maze, mimic sounds, say silly words and much more.

Simply put, if it doesn’t make you talk, whisper, laugh, or scream, then it shouldn’t be in our games.

riddle after riddle

Inspiration for puzzles can come from many places! From a movie scene, an idea for a cool mechanic, part of the game’s story, or even a completely abstract theme. The process of creating a puzzle is also very personal; Each designer works in their own way and may use different tools. Options include creating a prototype out of cardboard and board game components, sketching storyboards, detailed diagrams, making small movies or in-engine prototypes, and we’re sure there are many more. Origami models have even been made for specific puzzle environments!

In general we are always looking for the quickest and most efficient way to ‘prove’ the core idea of ​​a puzzle – what makes this puzzle cool and unique and does it work? Once we have faith in that core idea, we create more and more detailed prototypes with custom graphics, tweaks and updates to the puzzle design, place it somewhere in the world/story, and so on. There can be months between this first version and what looks like the end result!

Design Challenges (Spoilers Ahead!)

Finding the right puzzle difficulty is one of the hardest parts of puzzle design. We have very different types of players enjoying the series, often for different reasons and with different levels of experience. Each puzzle should be just as interesting for a series veteran as it is for a brand new player. There’s also a very fine line between a challenging puzzle and a frustrating one, and getting that balance just right takes a lot of testing, tweaking, and sometimes redesigning.

Put simply, if players get stuck, it should be because they’re not cooperating or communicating well, not because the puzzle isn’t clear or is too difficult.

Puzzles rarely make it from initial idea to implementation without changes. An example (with slight spoilers) is a puzzle where players have to communicate with a creature using sounds – players are separated while one has the “dictionary” and the other has to do the actual communication. This means trying to mimic the sounds the creature uses to communicate, with a player translating them.

This puzzle started with the idea of ​​mimicking sounds, but almost everything else changed. Originally, it was a kind of beatboxing challenge in which players had to match the rhythms of two different machines. Players had to use turntables and even something resembling a drum machine or sequencer! It soon became clear that this was really difficult and that mimicking more organic sounds was more fun, so a creature was introduced. The final ingredient that made it all work was the translation element: you actually spoke to the creature. It ties everything together and gives it purpose. But even with that figured out, it took a whole bunch of tries to get the details right – the questions/answers, the dictionary, the controls, and the difficulty level – before we arrived at the fun final version of the puzzle.

Try the puzzles yourself today!

But enough about how we made the game – We were here forever is out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, ready to dive in and explore! Grab a friend and team up to solve the mysteries of Castle Rock together! We were here forever is the biggest adventure yet, following three exciting standalone games We were here series, each a unique puzzle adventure to experience with a friend. We’re happy to say that even after three games, we still have plenty of great puzzle ideas – and long-time fans of the series agree We were here forever is the best game so far!

Find out if you and a partner have what it takes to escape or if you’re trapped in Castle Rock… Forever!