We prefer to say that our groups at Piccolo Studio “craft” video games. We’re satisfied that video video games are probably the most highly effective medium to inform a narrative – and as sport administrators, Jordi Ministral and I take pleasure in telling them by what makes this medium particular: gameplay.
We launched Arise: A Simple Story three years in the past and, along with Private Division, tomorrow on May 23 we’re launching our latest sport, After Us.
Arise: A Simple Story was a young lullaby, taking part in with time mechanics to discover the recollections of a not too long ago deceased aged man. Now, constructing on sensible expertise, After Us is nearer to a conceptual opera. It’s a narrative about legacy and hope, by epic and atmospheric landscapes. It narrates the story of Gaia, a small nymph. She explores a metaphorical, surrealistic model of our Earth – the place people have spoiled all life types – in a quest to save lots of the souls of extinct animals.
Because of our sport design course of, it’s exhausting to suit After Us in a selected style. It is a mixture of platforming, puzzle-solving, and motion. But the person nature of those parts and the way they’re put collectively sit removed from style conventions.
“It is intentional. The approach we design video games, on the high there are the emotions and feelings we need to painting. As we go down into execution, we discover sport mechanics that emphasize them. Then we place them in an natural world designed from an inventive perspective, and we spend hours and hours fine-tuning all of it till all the things blends collectively effectively”, says Jordi.
Sometimes, and it occurs extra typically than we expect with video video games, the potion we’ve concocted doesn’t work and you will need to begin over from scratch. But more often than not, it does, and right here at Piccolo we try to provide you with concepts that defy the standard guidelines of sport design.
The Whale Hunt Case Study
Let’s take an instance! Gaia’s aim is to save lots of the souls of the final extinct animals, amongst which is an impressive humpback whale. We need gamers to really feel what this whale might need felt in her final moments. To really feel hunted. To achieve this, we place the motion on the seabed of a dried-up ocean. There are remnants of huge, rusty oil ships scattered on the bottom and above, floating within the air. Gaia is surrounded by patches of poisonous oil corrupting the seabed. She begins working. Giant harpoons then start to strike down from the sky, focusing on Gaia as she approaches them. A sheer sense of panic ensues.
Conventional design would clearly outline when the harpoons are triggered, how they assault and what you are able to do to keep away from them. “This is what video games are based mostly on, however this isn’t how a whale feels when being hunted. She doesn’t perceive what’s taking place. Harpoons preserve hurling themselves at her whereas Gaia runs and jumps. Danger isn’t one thing she will management or predict!”, explains Jordi.
Indeed, we deliberately blurred the best way harpoons are triggered, how they transfer and assault. There isn’t a transparent sample to keep away from them. Sometimes, you don’t see them coming. And sure, typically they kill the participant with out them absolutely understanding what occurred. We know this raises plenty of crimson flags in conventional design, however in case you do it with care, it really works. When it does, it’s a lot extra highly effective than any conventional method. Because by the (obvious) lack of clear guidelines, gamers really feel what they might perhaps really feel in such a scenario.
We like to attract inspiration from different media, like films, novels, or comedian books. So, for this “scene”, we took as reference the well-known last scene from Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, the place a lonely character is being shot with arrows by an enormous military. We wished to recreate the identical somber sensation of unavoidable hazards, unpredictable impacts, and the nerve-wracking tempo of the assaults.
Emotional Instead of Mechanical Rewards
But it’s not solely about hazards, enemies, or particular scenes. We defy conventional sport design in a broader sense: the sport doesn’t yield mechanical rewards to gamers, however emotional ones.
After Us options 8 principal animal souls that you will need to discover and rescue, however there are an extra 100 “non-obligatory” souls that you would be able to free. When rescuing an animal’s soul, situations of that species populate and brighten up the world. Freeing a soul entails exploring the mysterious world of After Us, singing to search out the place it’s hidden, or fixing environmental puzzles.
But liberating them offers you nothing from a mechanical perspective. “No factors, no powers, no XP. The reward of liberating an animal soul is… liberating an animal soul! And experiencing a world stuffed with animals wandering round,” Jordi states with a smile.
To us, and hopefully for lots of gamers, this design works. After all, what higher type of reward is there than an emotional one?
After Us might be launched on May 23 for Xbox Series X|S.
