UK studio Magicave has struck a deal to publish its Mindset puzzles in The Observer newspaper.
Versions of puzzles from its mobile game Mindset Go, which launched on app stores recently, will now be appearing in the publication every Sunday.
Mindset Go is a daily Venn diagram-based puzzler created by Magicave, a UK indie studio led by CEO Harry Holmwood, CTO Ed Thorley and creative director Ste Curran.
Curran, the game’s designer, says he was confident Mindset could work on paper and on mobile, and leaned on a few contacts to make that happen. “I showed the puzzle to [Observer contributor and author] Simon Parkin, who made the introduction to The Observer, whose puzzle editor Caitlin O’Kane fell in love with it immediately,” says Curran.
“We worked with her and their brilliant design team on the layout and some paper-specific Shape Sets, but it was pretty simple from there and The Observer’s rich history in the puzzle space made it a natural fit.”
Curran says he had the idea for a Venn diagram puzzler when he and his toddler were playing with Lego a few years ago. Four staff worked on the game for the “first year and a bit”, says Curran, and as soft launch approached the team grew to nine.
The game’s developers like to refer to Mindset as a ‘smart casual’ game, and say its mechanics make it “highly adaptable for different themes, branding and collaborations without altering its fundamental logic.”
“That’s extremely rare in puzzle design,” says Curran. “Inventing a genuinely new format is something you get to do maybe once in a career.”
The studio acknowledges that Mindset puzzles are relatively hard for a daily puzzle game, but says it put a lot of effort into onboarding and teaching casual players the game’s logic.
“We refined the tutorialised saga map and early puzzle design again and again through testing with a small group of friends and family – experienced puzzle-solvers and people who rarely play puzzle games at all,” says Curran.
“On the other side, we’ve got a small but dedicated community on Discord who have become absolute experts – much faster solvers than anyone on the team. Their appetite for mega tough puzzles helped us cater to both ends of the spectrum.”
And obviously that weekly appearance in The Observer will help bring in a new audience, adds Curran. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to extend the Mindset brand in a meaningful way. And, having an audience who solve Mindsets with just a pen and paper shows the elegance and simplicity of the puzzle mechanic.”
