I started with two ideas:
- QTE is typing a letter in a given timeframe
- multifunctional level design means reusing a level for multiple things
From there it kinda evolved: well words are just multiple letters, so let me do that. Then the multifunctionality was the tricky part so it just kinda started by having themed levels and the kinda baba is you inspired levels in the hub world, which led to the multi tiered secrets because I wanted to reuse the theming in as many ways as I could.
Having added that, I found out it had become too obscured through play testing and I needed a hint system, which led to the autogenerated nonograms from the level geometry (it picks a subsection of the level and you gotta solve that). And when solved you get a different hint from each level to help you progress! This allowed me another way to reuse the levels for the hints too so it worked out!
All in all i just kinda started somewhere then I had to think hard a few times to solve some problems or add layers which is how we ended up where we did.
In the end I don’t really think the platforming adds much and if I had to redo it I think I’d rethink the main gameplay loop a bit so it’s another base-game or perhaps only have it be a typing game. Though it would fit the theme less well that way I think it would be a better game for it