Prompt 5:
Waterdrop’s Escape communicates its rules to the player through pre-level text, hinting at both the upcoming new rules for the level and how one can interact with them. The goal of the game is to get the water drop (player) through the pipe, without getting incinerated by lava. I had the urge to continue solving the puzzles in this level through my desire to better understand how the lava moves with the user’s movement. Although I never really could understand exactly all the movements, as I continued to play I got a better feel for different combinations of movements that would free spaces formerly covered by lava. The glass in the game almost subconsciously gravitates the player to move towards it, due to the fact that lava cannot move through glass, and that it’s a safe place for the user. The puzzles help convey the story of a lonely water drop trying to travel its way through the lava and to the pipe in order to free itself from the heat and death that is lava. The tile that acts as the player directly identifies with the story, as you are literally playing as the water drop that is trying to escape. The sound effects in this game also add quite a lot to the experience of the game. When the player moves the water drop through the level, each step makes a drop noise, as if the water drop is literally dropping. The sound the game makes when you die in lava, is very fitting to the puzzle genre, moreover the sound of defeat.