What I Learned Watching Lighthouse Steps Get Played

I don't usually watch how people play the games here — it feels a bit like reading over someone's shoulder — but a friend let me sit in while she played the tower game for the first time, and I picked up a few things I hadn't expected.

The first was that she stopped much earlier than I would have. Every floor she climbed she seemed to weigh whether to collect right there, and more often than not she took the safer choice a floor or two before I thought she would. I'd built the game assuming most players would push further; watching her made me rethink that.

The second thing was smaller but stuck with me more — she liked that the floors were lit differently as she climbed, brighter near the top, dimmer near the base. I hadn't thought of that as a feature so much as a bit of set dressing, but it clearly told her something about how far she'd come without needing a number on screen.

I've since nudged the lighting a touch further apart between floors, just enough that the change is easier to notice without staring. It's a tiny adjustment, the kind nobody would ever write in and ask for, but it makes the climb read a little more clearly.

Mostly it was a reminder that I build these games alone, at a desk, guessing at how they'll feel to someone who isn't me. An evening watching one get played taught me more than a week of tweaking numbers on my own would have.