SOLATI: Tethered in Time (with trailer)

[RootBound]

SOLATI: Tethered in Time
A first-person puzzle game in the epic tradition of Myst and Riven

After a cataclysmic event that nearly destroys the Earth, a small remnant of humanity awakes many thousands of years in the future, in a sealed-off community within a gargantuan alien spacecraft. Why are they here? Can they ever escape? A small band of those intent on escaping went missing years ago, but now they've left a message: the unseen aliens have time travel. Maybe the way to escape from this far-future prison is to prevent their imprisonment in the first place. It won't be easy. In fact it will be nearly impossible. But that's where you come in.




There's so much to say about this project. It's been such a long time coming and is still so early in development. How early?

ART: <1%
PROGRAMMING: <1%
STORY: 70%
PUZZLE DESIGN: 30%
MUSIC: 95%

I've been working on the music for two while I made... 5 other games? It's been quite the journey. I wrote a devlog about it here, the text of which is below, within the spoiler tag:

Spoiler

2/3/2025

The idea for this game started a handful of years ago, before I got back into game development, with the original intention to make it a novel. As I began to fulfill a longtime fascination with making games, though, I realized the story fit even better with the game medium, and that such a project could become what I've always wanted to do—make a first-person puzzle game like the Myst series, where exploring and interacting with an otherworldly setting progresses a compelling story.

The seed of Solati had been fully planted. But at the time the project felt like a distant fantasy, far too large for one person to make, and certainly beyond my own art and programming skills.

But I nurtured it with the things I could do—write story, design puzzles, and compose music. Over the course of the last two years, while I made Tunnel Vision and My Siblings, the Stones, as well as a total of five game jam entries, I worked in the background writing puzzle and story notes in a sketchbook alongside rough pencil drawings, and creating the music for the major game locations.

As I finished smaller games, my skills evolved much further than I expected, and all the while I kept Solati in the back of my mind as "The Big One," the game I would make when I had finally reached an advanced level. But before I got there, I kept tinkering with another larger game I'd had on the back burner for a while, the other passion project I'd long wanted to pursue—a low-res faux-3D Train Simulator.

In two aspects this game finally pushed me to the point where I could make Solati—art and programming. Even though Traction: 2.5-D Trainsim is very far from finished, its programming needs grew so complicated every step of the way that a first-person puzzler like Solati began to look much simpler by comparison, even though it would be a much longer game. In terms of art, drawing object after object for Traction helped me figure out both a style and a process, two factors that had kept me from diving into anything for Solati beyond pencil sketches.

So I started drawing character portraits and test backgrounds, one for each of the "realms" in Solati, to see how fast I could do so. And after drawing three or four of each, suddenly, the prospect of drawing a hundred of them didn't feel so overwhelming anymore. Complicated, yes. Time-consuming, yes. A marathon, absolutely yes. But doable.

What was more, after a two-year journey during which I'd grown massively as a composer, I had now finished nearly all of the music for the game, which reinforces the story and gives me existing mood and direction to help steer the art and puzzles of each environment. This means if I falter and again feel like the game is too big for me, I nonetheless have nearly a full hour of orchestrated music, close to the entire soundtrack album, that I can hear to experience the emotions of the story and, hopefully, keep me going.

It's hard to describe the feeling that yes, this can actually happen. I don't yet know whether I'll make this a commercial game or if I'll do a Kickstarter or a Patreon, or any other form of monetization. It's too early for that. And I will likely pause development of Solati at times to work on Traction. But now that I've cobbled together enough art to make a teaser trailer, I can say with certainty that this much is true: the journey has begun. It won't be a short one. A seedling takes multiple seasons to mature and establish. I hope you'll follow along with me as I make it happen one small piece at a time.

For now, here's the teaser trailer. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.

[close]

And yes, I cobbled all my existing art and part of the opening cinematic cutscene music into a TRAILER! Enjoy!

[MIGGO]

Early as it may be this looks and sounds wonderful!

[RootBound]

@MIGGO Thank you! I'm really excited to be finally working on it in earnest, even just one small piece at a time.

[CaptainD]

Most intriguing!

I must admit to not being a Myst fan, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one 

[RootBound]

I must admit to not being a Myst fan

@CaptainD I just watched a Myst walkthrough after not playing it for many years, and I have to say, the puzzles were much more far-fetched than I remembered. A HUGE part of the game (perhaps even the point of it) seems to be figuring out how physically distant elements are related, and the solutions are logical but (from a standpoint of how people in these places might actually function) COMPLETELY impractical. SO much of the game is carried by the beauty of the setting and the fascination of the story. That isn't a problem in itself, but wow are those puzzles difficult. I don't think they're unfair, but they are... close to that. (EDIT: This sounds very harsh but I say it lovingly, as a longtime fan )

For my own game, I'm certainly trying to avoid things like "a switch on one side of the island triggers something far away." At least, unless there's a story/setting REASON for it to be far away, and enough clues to be able to figure out how and why the two things are connected.

I'll admit, such puzzle design is VERY difficult, and that's the stage I'm at right now--refining the puzzles to be difficult but realistic, and how to give adequate signposting without telling the player the solution. I guess these are the perennial difficulties of puzzle design.

I'm really curious--do you have hard principles, best practices, or a consistent process when designing your own puzzles? I'd love to hear about all that if so.  (EDIT: I don't mean to put you on the spot though. No pressure if it's a long and complicated question to answer).

[CaptainD]

Looking back at puzzles even in games you loved (and maybe still love) is an interesting experience. I won't answer your question about my process / design here as that's more Critics Lounge stuff (or happy to discuss it via DM). Puzzle "difficulty" is extraordinarily difficult to gauge.

Back to the game itself, having enjoyed your previous games (albeit I don't think I solved all of the puzzles in Tunnel Vision!), I have confidence that you will create a game with more balance than (I felt) Myst had. 

[RootBound]

Great praise, @CaptainD , I'll do my best to live up to it! 

[The Last To Know]

When I read Myst or Riven I was tempted to close this browser tab... But I'm glad I didn't! This looks really cool and I'm curious where this is going.