The Closing Ghosts

Overview:

  • When the player enters a book-based inner-world, these ghosts close the book, causing the player to be squashed in the book.
  • Careful thinking is needed to remain safe.

Description of the obstacle

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Around the library, the player will frequently see ghosts who perform no other activity than to continually open and close books. The ghosts are weak and so take a long time to close a book, which causes a loud creaking sound to be heard as the books are closed. This serves no interaction process, but it trains the player for when s/he enters an inner world that is located in a book.

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When the player enters a book-based inner world, these ghosts will come and try to close the book, which will squish the player. The player will hear the creaking sound which will provide enough time for them to escape. However, this will interrupt their exploration of the book.

There are a number of solutions the player can use to overcome this problem.

Big size techniques

The player can transform into the big size and scare the ghosts away. This, however, is only a temporary solution, as the ghosts will eventually return.

Normal-to-small techniques

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When normal sized, the player can place weights on the books. This will make the books too heavy for the ghosts to close. Hence, when the player shrinks, s/he will be able to explore the books freely.

Gameplay Qualities

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Solving the problem rewards the player with unrestricted exploration of the book.

How does the player learn the solution?

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The weights have an elaborate appearance that will attract the player’s attention and will play on his/her instinct and curiosity. The giant player approach will be derived from the player’s vocabulary and their past experiences with the ghosts. The drawback of the ghosts returning will be discovered through trial and error. Provided the player escapes the book in time, the experience does not result in a major loss and so will not be overly frustrating. This puzzle occurs later in the library, so the increase in the pacing of difficulty is acceptable.

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