SlugGlove casts an accessibility spell in Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times

Tess: Good morning! Today we’re doing something a little different — a developer spotlight! To kick things off, we’re joined by Alice “SlugGlove”, the solo developer behind the upcoming game, Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times, or abbreviated to just Rhell for short. Rhell is a fun and whimsical puzzle-adventure game where the player combines spells to solve puzzles and explore the world! Alice, Tell us about yourself. What led to you to start creating games?

Alice: An overwhelming love of games! I’m autistic, and when I was a kid I was hugely obsessed with video games. I would think about them constantly, and if I wasn’t thinking about them, I was playing them! Over time, this led to me wanting to make my own game, and shifted my obsession from playing them to making them.

Tess: I know that exact feeling. I remember being obsessed with my Gameboy Advance and taking it with me everywhere with me as a kid! Can you share with us what inspired Rhell, and how did the development process begin?

Alice: I really wanted to work on a puzzle game since I always had a few ideas for it, but never did anything with them in other projects. I find puzzle games really unique in what they are, and that uniqueness, I thought, would be fun to work on myself! I think my ideas for what I wanted to do with a puzzle game and its mechanics ended up being really elaborate, and I kept increasing the scope of what the puzzles would be and what mechanics the player would have. Originally, it was just the four elemental systems — fire, ice, goo, and gas — and then interactions on that. For example, you could make something ice and then touch it with fire to make water. However, at the time, I was playing a few different puzzle games and found myself getting frustrated with how some puzzles have a fixed intended solution and don’t account for any experimentation or solutions outside of that specific idea.

Personally, I found this unappealing, as I enjoy the kind of puzzles that are up to the user’s creativity and problem-solving skills. From this, I decided that this is the kind of game I wanted Rhell to be!

So I remade it to include 40 elements instead! You can combine them to make unique interactions. For any puzzle, you can create a spell using five of these elements to create unique spell effects. You can cast fire, ice, grow, and wait to make an object transform into ice, come to life, grow in size, then have the spell be delayed. The element system now works like a selection of keywords to make spells.

Tess: I learned Rhell has a whopping 102 million spell combinations to solve puzzles! The game is truly committed to ensuring each playthrough is unique by offering puzzle freedom to its players. It’s fantastic for cognitive accessibility. Instead of being frustrated over a puzzle, it asks the player, “what if?” What if you shrank the obstacle, set it on fire, moved it, or stopped it? It’s amazing! Can you share more about the accessibility support in Rhell? Are there any specific features you implemented to improve accessibility?

Alice: Yes! So far Rhell has:

• Dyslexia-friendly font
• Assisted difficulty in the form of a guided character who leads the player to story points, treasures, or undiscovered areas
• Reduced flashes — Rhell doesn’t have any flashing lights, but it has bright lights that change colors
• Spell auto-aim (with two options: a soft assist or a hard assist)
• Colorblind mode (also includes a black-and-white mode) — Rhell doesn’t have color restrictions except for one puzzle

Additionally, Rhell has no time-sensitive puzzles! No puzzles require quick reaction times or for the player to tune in with the cadence of something. All puzzles can be played at the player’s own pace. Early-game puzzles are easily exploitable and have mechanics the player can ignore if they’re creative with spells, like transforming a barrier into water and swimming through instead of completing the puzzle in a traditional way.

As the game progresses, puzzles become more complex, introducing electricity circuits, conveyor belts, breakable keys, and more. While puzzles can still be completed in unique ways, they will have harder restrictions, making them harder to exploit.

Spells are in the form of Runes, which can be selected through the Rune Menu. Players select Runes and combine them to create spell effects. Players can also discover new Runes to add to their Rune Menu as they progress through the game!

Tess: I love a forgiving game that doesn’t force me to immediately figure things out, especially in today’s world where so many things vie for your attention. Let me have fun with figuring things out in my own way! What have been some of the challenges you’ve faced as an indie developer, and how have you overcome them?

Alice: Surprisingly, I haven’t really had any difficulty! For me, Rhell is a major passion, and I love making games. Anything I struggle with, I see as a fun challenge. The only difficulty is marketing and exposure, since I am a solo developer — and I don’t enjoy social media. It’s a lot harder to get people to notice the game.

Tess: That’s the number one complaint I hear from solo developers all the time! They just want to focus on making the game, not marketing. Marketing is a whole different skill set. With that in mind, what do you wish non-developers or even AAA studios understood about making an indie game?

Alice: That it’s really fun! I get to wake up every day and work on a project that I love. I feel so happy and fulfilled in an indie environment. And if others want to try it, I would say go for it! There’s no downside to trying something you think will be fun.

Tess: As you’ve progressed in your solo-development journey, how have you rallied folks to support you?

Alice: The Rhell Discord and fans have helped shape the game! The community is great because you get feedback you never would’ve thought of yourself. For example, adding the dyslexia-friendly font was suggested by one of my friends, and without that feedback, I would’ve never thought of it. The same goes for puzzles and in-game difficulty. While I can make the game and enjoy it, I also have all of the context for it, and it often takes a fresh pair of eyes to see a fault I never would have seen on my own.

When I was pitching for a publisher, Yogscast responded pretty quickly (within a day or two) and enthusiastically! They were immediately interested in the project and supportive. Compared to other publishers I pitched to, they were incredibly warm and overall passionate about games!

Tess: An excited community is really what makes a game, isn’t it? Think about some of the most popular titles in recent years: Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, Helldivers 2 — all of which have bustling communities across several platforms. And a supportive publisher also makes all the difference! What’s been your favorite part of creating Rhell?

Alice: Definitely the art! Rhell has been such a joy to do art for. I draw all of the NPCs and main characters frame by frame. There are over 10,000 frames of animation! Rhell is such a weird and whimsical game that I can get really silly with how I draw her, and I love doing that. Along with that, the level art is tons of fun to make too! With Rhell being a cartoony art style, there aren’t a lot of limits, so I’m often drawn to what inspires me creatively. For example, I changed a cave area last minute to a crystal cathedral because I was feeling more inspired by that design.

Tess: Alice, thank you so much for sharing your story as a solo developer and for telling us about Rhell. The full game is planned to be released March 19th, 2026. In the meantime, there’s a free demo on Steam right now! Go check it out. And you can join Rhell’s community Discord here!

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