Jack Kutilek / Games

Jack's Sokoban

2022

An implementation of Sokoban with no pusher. Use the mouse to drag the boxes to the targets, making sure to keep the grass alive while you do. The game also keeps track of your moves in a timeline, which you can edit after the fact for more precision solving.

I like the feel of games like Rush Hour, both the physical and conceptual feel of dragging blocks around directly. I realized I could create an interface to Sokoban with the same qualities, and put together this prototype. It worked great, but needed a bit of streamlining. I implemented it in Godot and refined the interface - even better. Solving puzzles in sokoban had never been so effortless; I found it easy to enjoy puzzles that had overwhelmed me in the past. I want to play all sokoban-likes like this. One day, I will re-create some in this implementation.

I started adding more features to make it even easier to play: note-taking tools, predictive tools (which I ended up cutting), move sequence editing, and more. I have a long-standing dream of facilitating a fully deductive play-style for Sokoban. I was able to realize a lot of ideas from that dream in this project, but there are still plenty others that could be included - such as working backwards from the solution, and more sophisticated move sequence management and editing (to better facilitate entering moves out of order, as they are deduced).

There are lots of exciting places this project can go, but it needs some time to simmer before I get back into it.

Lizard

2021

Use mouse to do pushups and make the world go 'round!

Also originally made for the Paradise Train Jam, and continuing the approach to Haiku Games started with Sun Hands, this is the second of what I hope will be a series of tiny games about the sun. It was fun to rig this lizard for animation. I like that the sun/moon is attached to a pendulum-like physics system - it provides some physical play to go alongside the poetic play of the game's theming.

No Left Turn Mazes

2021

Standard, classic, grid mazes - but you can't turn left or go backwards. A puzzlescript remake of Clickmaze's implementation of the game, with my own level designs.

I really enjoyed developing different logical and visual motifs for these levels. I like to think of all state-based puzzles (like Sokoban) as mazes through abstract state-spaces - but importantly, mazes where logic can help you decide which turns to make without tracing through the available paths beforehand. Starting from classic mazes, No Left Turn Mazes is one of the smallest steps you can take in this direction, and it's fascinating how much intrigue you can get from such a simple extension of the rules. It is easy to watch yourself trace out the walls in the abstract state-space mazes defined by the levels.

Snakehole

2019

A puzzle game about snakes. Help the little snakes get to their little holes, then get to your own hole. Don't let any lizards get away!

I like how the player and the crates have symmetric mechanics - they are both snakes that grow longer when they eat and need to end in a hole! Inspired by Every Frame a Painting's video on 'F for Fake', I carefully organized the puzzle ideas I came up with, and ended up combining related ideas into single puzzles, which gave them a nice weight and cohesive, alternating themes. It's only 8 levels, and on the difficult side, but I'm proud of the density and consistency of intrigue I managed to string together in the game.

Movement Garden

2018

A small puzzlescript game where you have to sacrifice movement in a direction to make progress. Originally made for Ludum Dare 43 (theme: sacrifices must me made), then updated with some improvements and new levels afterwards.

This was my first original puzzle game that felt successfully realized. The puzzle designs felt very natural, which made them a lot of fun to work on. Also, without saying too much, I really like some of the tricks the game manages to pull off.

Jack no Puzzle

2018

10 custom-made Jelly no Puzzle levels, an exercise in puzzle design.

These are some of the first puzzles I made where I felt like I had some idea of what I was doing, though I still had plenty of questions and relied a lot on 'accidental design'. I focused on creating variety in the puzzles, and didn't worry about teaching any logical devices along the way - I assumed players had already played the original game.

Snow Cars

2018

A haiku by Cor van den Heuvel, interpreted as a game (made in Pico-8).

Three screens, for three lines. I think the simplicity and spirit of the original haiku comes through this translation more or less successfully. I've spent a lot of time thinking about 'haiku games', both before and after making this game. Despite its various flaws, the humble ambitions of this formulation of the idea continue to hold strong in my mind -- there is some magic here I still haven't fully wrapped my head around.

Grid Platformer

2020

A grid-based platforming mechanic with a single example level.

I put this together as a possible seed game for the third iteration of the Thinky Collective's collaborative puzzle game series. I enjoy the time-stepped nature of sokoban-likes, and am increasingly interested in movement as a core game (and puzzle) mechanic. I like the simplicity of this translation of platforming movement into the puzzle grid, and how many little ideas could fit into this example puzzle. But it was really too complex for a seed game, and a simpler version became the single seed for the two games: Ahoist Cratey and Indiana Hat and the Temple of Puzz.

Weather Game

2019

A block-pushing game with free movement, a light-based mechanic, and dreams of making the leap into the 'real world'.

I had been lamenting how contrived the thematic worlds of puzzle games often were, and wanted to find a way to imbue them with some poetry, something I could take with me after I was done playing. I thought I could develop a rule system in a sokoban-like, allow the player to internalized it, and then map it to a more relatable, less contrived situation and create some magic. Additionally, I wanted to further refine the free movement system from Ghost Game.

But the mechanics became complex and demanded a lot of puzzles, and since they were in service of this goal and rarely given a life of their own, the puzzles became, oops, contrived and over-wrought. I had overlooked the poetry already inherent in puzzles, and neither the puzzles nor the 'real world' poetry came up successful. Still, I like the sprites, the animated movement system, and even a handful of the puzzles. Lessons for future projects.

Sokoban: Cursor

2019

Sokoban, but you can freely move anywhere in the grid. It's still just sokoban though, the game keeps track of reachable space and boxes can only be pushed when moving from reachable space.

I was captivated by the idea that you could think of sokoban as about moving the boxes more than about moving the player - and wouldn't it be nice if you could just move anywhere and never got blocked or stuck? This was one of my first experiments in adapting the UX of sokoban while maintaining its ruleset.

Chess Thing

2018

Assume the form of the last chess piece you pushed. You are then limited to move like that piece. Cover all targets with chess pieces.

Diagonal movement is a bit awkward, but it was exhilerating to put something together in puzzlescript so quickly after having the idea - I probably only spent a couple hours on this in total.

Sokoban Levels

2018

Some simple sokoban levels.

This was an exercise in level design with plain sokoban. I was skeptical that sokoban could be interesting on its own (at the time), so I wanted to test my understanding of what makes an interesting puzzle - and how do you make them? Studying the basics seemed like a good place to start. Ultimately I think these levels are too clunky and big to be very interesting, but I can see the beginnings of some understanding of how to capture interestingness in a design.