At a time when many games are chasing sprawling open worlds and hundred-hour runtimes, Draknek & Friends continues to carve out a niche for thoughtful, compact puzzle games that value elegance over excess. The studio's latest release, The Electrifying Incident, offers a tightly focused experience that distills their design philosophy into a short, satisfying burst of puzzle-solving charm.

Set within a mysterious facility on the brink of disaster, The Electrifying Incident challenges players to delve deeper toward a malfunctioning reactor core using only a trusty mechanical grabber-arm. You’ll solve puzzles by rerouting power, moving boxes from a distance, and outwitting electrified hazards and locked doors. With meltdown looming and each room presenting a new twist, it's a short but tightly designed experience that rewards thoughtful play, all wrapped up in under 90 minutes.

To learn more about how the game came together, we reached out to the team at Draknek & Friends to ask about their design process, the origins of their latest puzzle mechanic, and how a small tech test evolved into a polished adventure starring their signature character.

Check out this month’s GSC Demo Disc to try the game’s demo, and read our review of The Elecrifying Incident to get our full thoughts on this bite-size brain teaser!

GSC: This is the second game featuring the Monster from A Monster's Expedition, and it even shares that as a subtitle. Are you building toward a larger series centered on this character? Is there a long-term vision for more Monster-led puzzle games?

D&F: In fact, the Monster from A Monster's Expedition can also be found making snowmen in A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, and driving the train in Cosmic Express! Whilst we don't have any specific plans to make an Expedition-themed series, this definitely won't be the last time you'll see the monster pop up in a Draknek & Friends game!

GSC: Each of these games seems to spotlight a single core mechanic"”this time, electricity. Do you usually start with a puzzle mechanic and build the theme around it, or does a thematic idea spark the gameplay concepts?

D&F: Often, the theme or the setting comes first. We start by considering what sort of a game we want to make – what world, where we want to put the monster next. Then we think up ways in which the traditional sokoban style can be twisted or subverted to create interesting levels and puzzles within this theme. 

GSC: The claw mechanic is really clever and feels great to use. Was that part of the original vision from the start, or did it evolve during development?

D&F: The Electrifying Incident actually began as a small game jam game created for the Space Cowboy Jam way back in 2014. That game very much began with the concept of the "mechanical grabber", but back then it was a cyber lasso that could be used to lasso and grab boxes from distances. We tweaked the design a little and made it a mechanical arm grabber more recently, but in terms of functionality, it remained more or less the same throughout the whole development process.

GSC: Why did you choose to make The Electrifying Incident a shorter experience, roughly 60-90 minutes? Was it a creative decision based on the puzzle design, or more of a production consideration?

D&F: The Electrifying Incident was our first time working with the Godot game engine. Because it was a tech test, we wanted to keep the production short and lean, so The Electrifying Incident was always going to be a shorter title.

GSC: Not everything makes it into the final version of a game"”was there much you had to leave on the cutting room floor? Do you think any of those ideas might resurface in a future project?

D&F: There are always plenty of ideas and puzzles that don't make it into the final version, but in this case, it's largely sections that were replaced with something better. That said, there is a part of the game that almost didn't make it in – I'm very glad we found time to add an alternate ending!

Thank you so much to the Draknek & Friends team for taking the time to answer our questions. Personally, I always enjoy learning about a game’s development, especially an excellent puzzle game that tests my wits!

The Electrifying Incident was released today, April 15th, 2025, and is available on Steam and itch.io.