‘Conceptual Opera’ After Us Breaks Game Design Rules By Introducing Emotions

We like to say that our teams at Piccolo Studio “craft” games. We’re convinced that video games are the most powerful medium to tell a story – and as game directors, Jordi Ministral and I enjoy telling them through what makes this medium special: gameplay.

You can now download the release The Simple Story of AriseWe launched our first game three years ago, and tomorrow, May 23, we’ll be launching Private Division. Then We.

The Simple Story of AriseThe lullaby was an exploration of the memory of a man recently dead, using time mechanics. Now, building upon practical experience Then WeThis is more of a conceptual opera. It’s a story about legacy and hope, through epic and atmospheric landscapes. The story is told by Gaia, an ephemeral nymph. She explores a metaphorical, surrealistic version of our Earth – where humans have spoiled all life forms – in a quest to save the souls of extinct animals.

It is difficult to adapt our games because of the design process. Then WeIn a specific genre. The game is a mixture of puzzles, platforming and action. The individual elements of the game and their combination are far removed from any genre conventions.

“It is intentional. In the way that we build games, the first thing we do is to think about the feelings and emotions you want the game to portray. Then, as we get into the details of game design, we look for mechanics to emphasize these emotions. Then we place them in an organic world designed from an artistic perspective, and we spend hours and hours fine-tuning it all until everything blends together well”, says Jordi.

Sometimes, and it happens more often than we think with video games, the potion we’ve concocted doesn’t work and you must start over from scratch. Piccolo strives to create ideas that are different from the norm, but it happens most of the times.

Whale Hunt Case Study

Let’s take an example! Gaia’s goal is to save the souls of the last extinct animals, among which is a majestic humpback whale. Players should feel how this whale felt during her last moments. Feeling hunted. For this, we set the scene on the ocean floor of a dry-up sea. On the ground, there are rusty remnants from massive oil vessels. Gaia’s seabed is polluted by toxic patches of oil. She begins to run. Gaia then begins to run as giant harpoons begin to fall down. The scene is filled with panic.

A conventional design would define clearly when the harpoons were triggered, their attack style and what could be done to avoid it. “This is what games are based on, but this is not how a whale feels when being hunted. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. Gaia keeps running and jumping while Harpoons are hurled at her. Danger isn’t something she can control or predict!”, explains Jordi.

In fact, we deliberately blurred out the way that harpoons attack and move. There isn’t a clear pattern to avoid them. Sometimes, you don’t see them coming. Yes, they can kill you without the player knowing what has happened. It’s true that this is frowned upon in the traditional world of design. But if it’s done with caution, it can be effective. When it does, it’s so much more powerful than any traditional approach. The (apparently) unclear rules make players experience what they might feel in a similar situation.

You can get inspiration by watching movies or reading comic books. So, for this “scene”, we took as reference the famous final scene from Akira Kurosawa’s The Throne of BloodA lonely character gets shot at with arrows from a large army. It was important to us that the game evoked the somber feeling of unavoidable dangers, unpredictable impacts and the nerve-wracking speed of the attack.

The Emotional Rewards Instead of Mechanical Reward

But it’s not only about hazards, enemies, or specific scenes. We defy traditional game design in a broader sense: the game doesn’t yield mechanical rewards to players, but emotional ones.

Then We features 8 main animal souls that you must find and rescue, but there are an additional 100 “optional” souls that you can free. When rescuing an animal’s soul, instances of that species populate and liven up the world. The journey to liberate a soul is an exploration of the mysterious realms. Then WeSinging to discover where the item is hidden or solving puzzles related to environment.

You get nothing mechanically by releasing them. “No points, no powers, no XP. The reward of freeing an animal soul is… freeing an animal soul! And experiencing a world full of animals wandering around,” Jordi states with a smile.

We think this is an effective design, and hope that it works for many other players. There is no better way to reward players than with an emotional response.

Then We Release date for Xbox Series X|S.