Beauty is heavily inspired by the classic 2D action-adventure games of yore—namely the classic Legend of Zelda titles as well as the 2D games in the Mana series. You can expect plenty of dungeon-exploring, puzzle-solving, enemy-smashing fun here—but there's also a few tricks up our sleeves.

Forming a Bond

Beauty is a game centered around connections—the bonds formed between Beauty and Beast, the protagonists and the NPCs they befriend, and even between the player and the player characters. So when it came time to design the game's mechanics, the notion of bonds were already at the forefront of the mind. It didn't take long for me to look towards the works of Josef Fares (Brothers, A Way Out, It Takes Two) for some inspiration. And suddenly...eureka.

Why make the gameplay focus on either Beauty or Beast? The narrative was equally shared between them, after all. So why not focus on both at the same? Instead of thinking of Beauty in terms of being a Zelda game...what if it was a Link & Zelda game?

Enter Beauty's main design conceit: the simultaneous control of its protagonists. Instead of opting for a co-op experience (although perhaps that can be explored as an optional feature for couch-hungry gamers), Beauty focuses on the challenges of multitasking as both Beauty and Beast.

And, to re-emphasize the Zelda & Link comparison, both protagonists serve very different roles in the gameplay experience. Beast functions more like your average action hero—tanking hits during combat while dishing out the lion's share of damage; Beauty, meanwhile, is more focused on supporting Beast in combat—instead taking a leading role during puzzle and exploration sections. The synergy of these two very different playstyles allows for a lot of creative mechanics and memorable action/puzzle set-pieces.

A rough sketch of the game's controls. Each character takes up one symmetrical half of the controller—having their own movement stick, attack (shoulder) buttons, and special ability (d-pad/face) buttons.

Take, for example, Beauty's supporting role during combat. Combined with Puck's magic abilities, Beauty could focus on providing healing, buffs, and combo setups for Beast, while also perhaps accomplishing a few different sub-objectives of their own. Enemies could drop magical energies that only Beauty could pick up—requiring players to intelligently weave Beauty through an active combat zone while Beast kites enemies around the field. Instead of conventional combat, Beauty might use magical projectiles to hitstun enemies or provide debuffs that Beast could utilize in his combat strategies; or maybe Beast could throw enemies towards Beauty, controlling enemy placement while also doing massive damage to foes.

The same is also true on the flipside. Beast could utilize his overwhelming strength and speed in puzzle sections where Beauty might be lacking. He could throw items, burst through walls, move heavy objects, ascend heights, or perform any other puzzle idiom that might prove interesting. Providing players (and the designers) with two unique characters to solve puzzles with simultaneously opens up the floodgates to interesting puzzle design and thoughtful ludonarrative integration.

Crafting a Diverse World

Of course, there's a lot more to a good Zelda style game than combat alone. Players also crave a unique and diverse world filled with interesting locales and set-pieces. Beauty pulls from real world myths and legends from around the globe, coloring the game's locales, characters, and mechanics with varied and unique influences.

Three major "zones" have already been developed for the game—dividing the world into fantasy environments with a European, Middle Eastern, and Far East flavor. A great deal of thought and research has gone into the particular fairytales from each of these cultures (pulling from sources such as the works of the Brothers Grimm or from the Arabian Nights). Although these stories already felt close to home for both me and Zhu, coming from Iranian/American and Chinese backgrounds respectively. We hope to fill Beauty's world with rich and interesting characters, enemies, environments, and mechanics inspired by these equally rich and interesting cultures.

A mock of the dialogue UI.

Beyond just settings, we plan to pack Beauty with interesting NPC characters that form the backbone of the game's moment-to-moment narrative pacing. Our protagonists will encounter many characters as they explore the world. The duo will learn of their backstories and problems, find ways to aid them through their quests, and eventually resolve their issues—learning more about themselves and their own relationship in the process. NPC characters will, of course, be themed based upon the zone they live in—often being inspired by characters commonly found in the respective folklore, although with some new twists to strengthen the world and stories of Beauty.

Zhu, a friend of mine at Kyushu University, approached me with the original premise for Beauty in the early months of 2024. They had crafted the outline of the game's narrative—its world, characters, and premise—but they hadn't given the gameplay design much thought yet. I was really taken by their idea and started dreaming up how I would implement such a premise's gameplay mechanics in my freetime. It didn't take long for me to come up with something that got them excited, and we were off to the races.

I've always desired to grow my game development experience through my prototype projects, so picking Godot as our target engine felt like the natural choice. I had finally built enough experience up to understand the rough shapes of both Unity and Unreal—their strengths, weaknesses, paradigms, and peculiarities—but the recently popular Godot had managed to escape my attention. On top of that, Beauty featured the least complex control scheme I had implemented up to that point (no VR or JoyCon hackery this time!) so using a newer, underdeveloped engine like Godot still felt like a safe choice. How hard could a 2D action game be?

Well, the answer is "not that hard"...but unfortunately time has ended up getting the better of both me and Zhu. They started their own job-hunt not too long after we commenced our work, while some deaths in my family sent me home to deal with certain situations. A basic Godot prototype commenced production, but both of us have had no choice but to put the project on hold until we can find work, settle our personal lives, and (of course) conquer the graduate thesis deadline which looms above us...

Despite development hurdles we are both still very passionate about the project. We often chat about new mechanic ideas, story beats, and character concepts that keep us very interested in making this project a reality one day soon. I'm sure Beauty won't remain just a fairytale for long.

Until then...