A Deep Dive Into Square One
6 months ago
– Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 09:05:09 AM
Hi folks!
As with any game, there are some hidden aspects that didn’t make the cut to the main page, but we would love to talk about them. So in this update, we will take a deep dive into Square One’s base game.
Exploring the following:
- We will delve into Combos
- Show you differences in Sequences
- Explain the polyomino printing on the pieces
Combos
Veteran Project L players might know that one of its expansions was named after a Tetris mechanic called Ghost Piece. Square One’s combos are also directly linked to the smash hit of 85’. Just like in Tetris, filling the last row in multiple of your sequences at once, makes the pieces explode rewarding you with extra points! Figuratively, of course.
With combos, the game’s complexity shifted from single hard-to-complete puzzles to juggling multiple sequences at the same time.
Initially, we experimented with a linear scoring system where completing each sequence awarded you an additional point completing 1 sequence got you 1 bonus point, 2 sequences got you 2, and so on.
However, this approach didn't deliver the dynamic we would love. So we opted for exponential scoring instead.
Under the new system, completing one sequence doesn’t get you any extra points, but finishing two sequences earns you one extra point, three sequences earn two, and four sequences four.
This structure often puts you in front of a decision:
- Do I want to finish the sequence and boost my engine, but forfeit the combo points?
OR
- Do I rather keep it unfinished and aim to pair it with another one, to score combos?
Sequences Are The New Puzzles
Square One takes a new approach to its puzzling part. Instead of spatial puzzles, known from Project L, you have to complete rows in sequences, which by itself is no complicated task — All sequences have rows with certain requirements, you fill your pieces in from top to bottom, one full row at a time.
The intricacies come to light when you start working on multiple sequences at once to complete your combos and expand the victory point gain — In essence building your own puzzle out of the sequences you take.
To expand the creative options and ways to plan your actions. Some of the sequences have alternate paths for requirements. Which means that you can complete the row with one green and one yellow or one blue piece as you can see in the second row of the image above.
White Sequences
These are your base resource-gathering tools, as they don’t give any points by themselves and only reward you with new pieces. They are however way easier to finish than their black counterparts. This makes them perfect candidates for fast rotations and completion, allowing you to farm combos quickly in the early game.
Completing a 2 or even 4-point combo with just white sequences is doable and it's a valid strategy at the start of the game, but it’s not enough to win. To push yourself to victory you need to switch up the gear and take on the more challenging black sequences. Let’s move on to those.
Black Sequences
Instead of new pieces, black sequences reward you with victory points. If you aim to win the game you have to add some of these under your belt. You have to be careful though. Once you place a piece into a sequence, you can’t move it until the sequence is finished. Meaning that taking a hard 3-point black sequence too early can block a part of your pool for a couple of rounds, making you unable to rotate the combos quickly and precisely.
Ultimately, there are many strategies in Square One you can choose to follow. Some of us here at Boardcubator like to grind the edge of the combo machine, spinning white sequences and 1-point black sequences to gather the most combos.
While others build a behemoth out of challenging 3-point sequences and pair them with white sequences in a slower more calculated approach.
The gameplay becomes even more intriguing with the Joker Expansion, and its 4-point and three-reward sequences, but we will get into that next time!
About Pieces
There are a couple of questions about the new Square One pieces, starting with the most obvious one — where is the spatial element?
New players won’t feel the itch to ask this question, but it will most certainly cross into the minds of Project L lovers. If you want to read a more comprehensive update about the decisions behind these changes you can find it here → From Project L to Square One
In the early stages of Square One development, the initial idea was to have a polyomino piece exactly like in Project L. However after conducting multiple playtests, we found that the complexity of spatial puzzles made layering additional mechanics overwhelming. That’s why we narrowed sequences to "just a line of requirements," and changed the pieces into cubes with polyomino shapes printed on them.
I can hear you ask — “Why did you retain the polyominoes then?” — Well for one, they continue the Project L Universe and its visual identity. And the more technical game design reasoning stems from the effectiveness of the polyomino tree.
We played around with different systems of numbering and symbols. One of them was a linear 1-6 numbering, which directly tied the number of pieces to their “level”. This meant we only had 6 pieces in the game and reaching the top ones proved to be unnecessarily hard. Essentially creating a game with no diversity in sequences or pieces.
The polyomino tree does both. It gives us 9 pieces to work with, while also keeping only 4 levels. This system proved itself to offer the most intuitive and efficient method for manipulating game pieces. 
At the same time, it simplifies the processes of merging and splitting pieces — which is a crucial part of Square One.
In the original, when you want to get a different piece, you exchange 1 for 1 with the upgrade action. This is not possible in Square One, here you merge and split pieces depending on their value. This means you have to sacrifice multiple lower-value pieces to get those of higher value and vice versa.
Now you might ask yourself. Why would I sacrifice a higher-value piece? The answer is simple because the requirements are relentless and you need all types of pieces all the time.
In a way, the most important piece of the game is the tasty yellow cube, so splitting one pink level 4 to get 4 yellows can prove to be rather handy sometimes.
And that’s all for now! In the next update, we will take a look at the Joker Expansion and Joker Ambassador Pack. Both are bringing new mechanics to the game and we are looking forward to sharing how that works!
Stay tuned for that and until then, take care!
~ Michal, Marek, Jan, Sisi, Patrik, Petr, and Natálie