The first version of Haus Rules had real physics. Put a triangle on a circle and it would roll off, bounce twice and land somewhere annoying. We thought this was charming. Our testers did not.
The game is about planning a home, not about steady hands. Every time a piece slid out of place, players stopped thinking about the puzzle and started fighting the controls. A few of them gave up on levels they had already solved in their heads.
Snapping, with a bit of weight
We still wanted pieces to feel like objects, so we didn't switch to a plain grid. Instead, every piece now looks for the nearest stable spot when you let go of it and slides there over a quarter of a second. If there is no stable spot, the piece wobbles and goes back to your hand.
That wobble turned out to be the most useful thing in the game. It tells you a placement won't work without taking anything away from you. No falling, no lost progress, just a small no.
What we kept from the old version
Circles still roll, a little. If you drop one on a flat roof it will settle into the middle instead of staying exactly where you let go. Players liked that once it stopped ruining their houses, and a couple of later levels are built around it.
Next time: undo, and why we're thinking about getting rid of it.
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