Friday Dev Update: Secrets in Salt

1:16 PM willsterling23 4 Comments

Have you ever had that feeling of excitement when you discover something new in a game that you didn't know was there? I have. And I love that feeling. That feeling is something we wanted to translate into the gameplay of Salt. We want Salt to be full of mystery, new places, and other things for you to discover.

In short, we want Salt to be full of secrets. 


Secrets are a really fun aspect of video games. They keep players intrigued and sucked into the world in which they are playing. It is our goal to continuously implement new secrets and mysteries that will not only clue you into the backstory of Salt, but also keep you wondering, "What else is there?" Because of this intentional design mechanic, we have to keep a lot of what we implement, well, secret. We don't want players to always know what's ahead, as that would ruin the feeling of discovering it for yourself. Salt is about you creating your own adventure and secrets are a large part of that. 

Not everything in the game is going to be a secret of course. There are a lot of things to look forward to as we push out updates and you'll be able to see that in our patch notes. Just keep in mind that not everything implemented will always show up in the patch notes. We are intentionally leaving things out, so that you can discover them for yourself. 

One particular aspect of this that I've enjoyed is watching players come up with their own theories. It's fun to see players find items and not know what they do or what they are for. All kinds of theories begin to arise (I won't tell you which ones are true), and it shows that our design mechanic is working. I believe that deep down, this all comes back to hand holding. I don't think players really want to be handed everything, but rather they want to discover and overcome challenges on their own. This allows their adventure to become their story and not something designed by the game studio. 


Be on the lookout for a new update within the next couple weeks! It just might contain a secret. 


- Will Sterling (Audio and Game Designer)

4 comments:

  1. Just a "Hi" to say that I'm really pleased to read your blog each week (even if I don't comment). So please continue to do it and thanks for that! :)

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    1. Glad you like the blog and we will definitely keep up the posts! Thanks!

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  2. Great game ! ( i loved finding the book on Leeroy ). I hope you continue to release great new updates ! And would there be a chance you release new items to put on boats such as a bookshelf for books you find ??

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  3. Great game! I like the fact that you guys are open to all of the players advice on new things to add and fix unlike lots of other gaming studios.

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