Symmetry

Symmetry is a 2D puzzle game where the player control 2 squares at the same time, Everything is symmetrical... except you, the player. To beat the level it's pretty easy, you must fix that, moving around the squares in order to make the level symmetrical

This project was created as part of the 2025 Rattrap'jam of IIM Digital School.

The theme and constraint imposed was to create an interactive experience around one of the work of the film-maker Wes Anderson.

My initial thoughts going into this was to capture the essence of one of the film of Wes Anderson and trying to elaborate a game concept base on that, but I sadly found it hard to pinpoint a striking idea using this method, what I did was take a step back and catch something really simple and consistent in Wes Anderson works : Symmetry

Symmetry had already been used in many puzzle game but I tried to make something interesting off of it. I'm no artist so the goal here was to not set the bar too high and use the theme in a visual manner yes but mostly in a gameplay sort of way.

So I got the  Idea of using a symmetrical grid (Vertical Axial Symmetry, like in the movies) with symmetrical obstacles : Walls are red, the player cannot go through them and can only move the on the grid

Then we spawn the Player (In Blue) :

See ? Not symmetrical anymore

As I explained earlier in the intro you control the two Blue squares at the same time... and that's when it becomes interesting !

 
Did you ever played pokemon ? in the series there is a recuring Ice puzzle...

Where one input send you straight to the next obstacles, well I'll be implementing that here, because it makes the game more dynamic and give more options level design wise !

Then let's see one of the posssible solution for the earlier puzzle...

We had this at the beginning :

Here's one of the solution, we go Left...

...then Down...

...then Right...

...and finally Up...

GG the level is now Symmetrical !

Seems simple at first but this level is already kinda advance, it's actually quite hard to percieve it fast...

I think you're ready for a "little" challenge I came up with, I know it's not very practical without software but try finding the solution visually :

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Yes it's quite the task isn't it ? (to be fair it's probably a boss level type I gave you but I wanted to show you the potential of the puzzles ) here's a path I found :

I Highlighted the precedent position each time one of the blue square move for you to better understand the inputs

At last, Symmetrical!

For the game part...

Well a grid, some squares and that's all...right ? Should have been easy to dev but... suffice to say I failed miserably and got many technical issues making the game unplayable, I'll definatly make it a phone game down the line though because I really love the idea !

PS :
- The parameters of the grid are of course tweakable and there is always the possibility to add special blocks with special effects  down the line...

- The example I gave here are a bit too hard for the beginning of the game but it show promises!

Credits : Louis FOUERE