Two Point Hospital: balancing player feedback and flavour with barks.

If you have played any type of video game, you have encountered what we writers call Barks. Yes, in games every character barks, not just the dogs and no, barks are not throwaway lines, maybe we’ll talk about that in another post.

Barks are very unique to game writing. In other media: books, films, plays, everything is scripted. Therefore, you can plan every line a character will say, and nothing is left to someone else. In games though, the player has control of… let’s say a good number of things. Depending on how much your game is linear vs open-world you will need more or less barks, but they are still generally a very common task that writers have to tackle.

So why do we use barks?
They fulfill 2 essential roles:
– Providing players feedback, on their progression, on the dangers in their environment, on the game states….
– Adding flavour to our world: building the fantasy, the lore of the game, creating the vibe and conveying our characters personalities.

Barks are the game talking to you about your performance, about your objectives, or about the world you are in, and doing it with its distinctive voice.

Think Death Stranding, Sam walking alone talking to himself: “Sam, Sam, he’s our man!” or “Here we go again.” These barks embody our main character’s personality, they emphasize his sense of isolation by having him talk to himself. They encourage you to literally carry on and they give you a sense of Sam’s personality and sense of derision. Or think Starcraft and how Protoss barks differ from Zergs: “I feel your presence.” “I hear the call.” “Our duty is eternal.” This is so totally Protoss vs “Metamorphosis completed.” “For the Swarm!” “I will take essence.” Totally Zerg.

In any game that has actions the players may repeat, and / or where writers can’t predict when in the story the player will do them, that’s when we write barks. Think about any shooter game you might have played, you will always need to reload. We want to let players know they are running out of ammo, so we use barks. Barks in that context need to be short and efficient and not distract the players from what they’re doing or become so repetitive that they will annoy you. There are different ways to convey that information and each has a different flavour. They give us an opportunity to distill a little bit of the character’s personality or the world’s fantasy. You could say “I need to reload” or “I’m out of juice” if the weapon is an energy gun or “I’m dry” and they all mean the same thing: the player needs to reload but they taste different.

These days I’m playing Two Point Hospital, and this game has very unique barks that participate a lot in making the game what it is. The game does not have a storyline, but it does not mean that it is not immersive or doesn’t have lore, and that’s achieved through the art style of course, but very much so through the barks as well.
In Two point Hospital, the character giving you feedback on how well you’re doing and on what’s currently happening in that mad place is Tannoy, our PA announcer. Let’s look at a few of my personal favourites:

“Attention! Don’t feed the ghosts, they’re dead. Thank you!”

“Automated food machines need filling manually.”

“We’re sorry about the litter, that you dropped on our floor.”

“There’s a fire. There shouldn’t be a fire.”

“VIP arriving. Please prioritize their amusement over patient well-being.”

Even if you haven’t played the game, reading those lines will give you a sense of the game mood. It’s humoristic and it’s not a realistic simulation game. You can expect crazy illnesses and funny looking patients. Each of the lines above serves 2 purposes, the tone like we discussed and player feedback.

The first bark lets you know that you have ghosts roaming around the hospital. If you had not seen this because you were busy building and furnishing new rooms at the other side of your estate, you might want to have a look and possibly assign a janitor to take care of it before the ghost drags your patients screaming outside.

The second one is a warning that some of your automated machines are empty and need restocking, but again the way it’s written (and the way it’s voiced) contributes to the tone and the game consistency. I could go on like that with each of them. Barks are real writing, don’t ever turn down an opportunity to work on that!
In Two Point Hospital, they are like the binding agent of the whole game experience, because they are voiced and the rest of the text is written, meaning it’s a lot less certain that the player will ever bother reading it. If you manage to express the game’s personality through the barks, you may very well light the spark that will make the players want to read more about what’s written in the game.
Of course Two Point Hospital’s writers have done the job perfectly and you will not be disappointed if you pay attention to every single piece of text that populates the UI. Barks are just one element of lore, the one that is the most accessible to the players, but every other piece of text is written with that same sarcastic zing. Characters’ descriptions in the hiring UI will tell you that this doctor “Will work for peanuts” or that this assistant “Thinks their life is a romcom” or that this nurse is “Hangry”.

Depending on the game you’re making, barks may well be what the players will hear and remember the most from their experience, because they are tied to actions that they will repeat over and over. They may seem like an detail, but Two Point Hospital shows how they can capture the atmosphere of your game and contribute to making it more fun for the players. Of course, humour applies in their context and their barks can be longer because the gameplay can tolerate that, while it would be much more complicated in an action or stealth game. Still their barks focus on doing these 2 things and they do it very well: Feedback + Flavour.

Barks will often stretch our creativity because we think there are only so many ways to say “reload” or “enemy there”, but if you think about it in conjunction with delivering game vibe and fantasy, you’ll see that it’s not just what you’re saying, it’s how you say it! A handy skill to have, both in game development and life.

March 24, 2021 0

Death Stranding, a winding journey that struggles to find the balance between faith and doom

I hear people say “it’s a love it or hate it game.” I am not sure.
I loved it and it frustrated me to a painful level at the end because it did not give me a sense of closure.

You have to love story for the game to hook you, because at the start, that is pretty much all you get. For the first 2 hours, gameplay is sparse, but the cinematics are dramatic, and the world breathtaking. Having watched the trailers before the release, I expected nothing less. Instantly, I dive into a world where life and death are carefully intricated. Whatever happened, it plunged civilization into a post-apocalyptic gloom and the living are staggering to recover.

Fragile is one the first NPC we meet and she introduces us to the lore and its rules, Timefall, Cryptobiotes, Chiral Allergy. There is a lot to memorize and pay attention to, but Sam and I are fully dedicated to our task. After meeting with the threat and getting out intact, I am given a baby in a bottle for company and to help me anticipate and prevent my next encounter with BTs (Beached Things, specters that are left stranded in the world of the living) but the pace lets me down. For the next 20 hours, the story I am introduced to takes the back seat and I am left to starve. So many questions have been handed to me, I had to understand what the hell happened on that beach. Why was I a Repatriate (someone able to come back from the Seam, a mysterious beach that joins the world of the dead and the living)? Why is the world ravaged and people scattered, disconnected? Mostly, how do we solve this?

As I progress, I’m only given more questions, characters’ arcs start to pile up with every new NPC: Die Heartman, Amélie and her cause, Cliff and his nightmares, Big Mama and her BT baby. I have more and more questions to memorize and I struggle to connect their individual stories while my main plot, the initial incident, the cause of the Death Stranding stalls and the stakes are slipping away from me.

Sam looking back — Sam and the crows fleeing Timefall

In total it took me a bit more than 50 hours to finish the game. I did very few side missions, I strolled, I hate vehicles so I barely used them. Here, in real life, we were in lockdown, I love to hike, this was perfect, it was my escape, the music was powerfully atmospheric, the landscapes reminded me of the highlands and my beloved Skye, the immersion was total, the mystery of the beach hooked me right up from the start. The game, as compared to what exists today on the AAA market, has very little violence in it, it has a dark background story that is slightly (erm) reminiscent of the ecological crisis we are living through. I related to it and I related to Sam. I’m an introvert, I like to be alone, I like to walk in the wild and let my thoughts carry me away until I reach a summit and pause to absorb the beauty of it with great relish.

If I am not the target audience, who is?

The first 10 hours went like a charm! I was back in the mountains, alone, in peace, I was doing good by delivering neatly packed gears to folks who needed it. There was a wonderful character that I got introduced to with a slick umbrella, and together we held our breath to hide away from this unknown, strange and gooey thing that tried to kill us. This giant handed creature perfectly incarnated the ecological nightmare that awaits in the dark, where no one wants to look.

As I travelled to the West Coast to finish what Amélie couldn’t, I felt the same sense of slow pace and reflection that I experienced on my long hikes, I loved the silence and the occasional Helloooo! from distant holograms. I felt a sense of gratitude toward my fellow delivery pals for the climbing anchor they planted and left behind. I myself started to pack a little more than I needed so that I could participate to the reconstruction effort. Drop some ceramics here to build a road, or lay the spare ladder there to make our return back home a little bit easier. Once in a while I would be reminded of my good deeds. The notification told me how many people used the ladder or the road and I felt rewarded. I got that sense of unity by working with invisible players towards the same goal.

But when I crossed the areas of Timefall (a form of acidic rain that ages everything it touches), I was reminded of something else. The tone shifted from exuberant carpets of moss to dry and toxic no man’s land imbued with eerie specters. Timefall and the tarry goo were like wounds left by the cataclysm that ravaged our Earth. I felt I was stepping into the exclusion zone of Chernobyl. Walking with my hood on amongst the granite rocks, and seeing the rust gnaw at the slick and shiny cases on my back, I felt contaminated and I remembered the bleak and brilliant adaptation of HBO and Sky. Chernobyl is born of human error, societal malfunction, us trying to bite more than we can chew and being reminded of the forces we play with. Was it the same with the voidouts? Did we break something in the land and the weather, break it to the point that it forced us into isolation? All I am told is that all this is the consequence of the Death Stranding but what is it? What caused it? There is a rich background underneath the surface that I hoped to gradually uncover as it was my role to try and reconnect the land and its inhabitants.

As I progressed though, I learned nothing that helped me understand the catastrophe, instead we focused on a very archetypical villain Higgs, his actions and his threats. My taxing journeys through the land, feeling weary, invited questions of Nature and man-made chaos that vastly surpassed every threat Higgs was trying to make me care about. It made me ponder our societal dysfunction, transporting me from awe inspiring landscapes to nightmarish horror.

In a way, I felt my perseverance was tested the same way than when I was in the mountains and it was hard and I was tempted to turn back. The issue was, this is a game and turning back is very easy. It’s one button away. The temptation was great, especially when I reached a shelter and instead of feeling a sense of reward, I had to endure superficial, unnecessary dialogues which would answer none of my questions. I expected to learn about what happened more gradually, immerse myself into the intrigue at a pace that would fit that of my journey. Slow, but with a sense of progress, peaks and valleys. These islands of dialogues in the game between the initial 2 hours of cinematics and the encounter with Heartman in his massive alpine spa house frustrated and bored me. I felt I was not given anything to feed my curiosity, in the contrary the initial valuable information was being buried under secondary loosely connected stories. I had to power through cascades of tangled monologues from Die Hardman mixed with supposedly funny yet ineffective trash lines from random inhabitants. It felt like lines were thrown at me to keep me waiting, as if having dialogues in itself could carry me. They should have given me something interesting or kept it quite.

Eventually, Heartman tells me about the previous extinctions and there, he throws me a lifeline. I am with him again, I relate to the issue that I had merely forgotten and I feel what’s at stake. It hits very close to home, and I want to know what is that message that Kojima is wrapping in so many confusing layers of blather. I know now what he wants to question: our connection to others, the climate crisis, the horrors of war, our propensity to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, but what’s his resolution?

Not yet. I have to walk again through snow and craggy peaks. The survival aspect is more present now than ever in the cold. Even if I wanted to use fancy bikes now they wouldn’t carry me that far. I walk and I worry about my next step and the state of my shoes. I cannot fall, or I will never pick this up again. Thankfully my invisible partners in this venture have started to build a network of ziplines and I am eager to do my part so we can all eventually get there. I pack a bunch and move on.

Technology is our way to support each other. Working together in parallel planes, we build roads through jagged terrain and bridges over daunting rivers, but soon unused sturdy trucks start to spoil the environment, again. “Keep on keeping on” says a sign left there at the foot of the mountain to encourage me. How ironic is that? I too left a truck there to rot, and it felt terrible, like that loop of memories in which Cliff is trapped and in which BB pulls me. Is our unshakable resolve to carry on with our ways the greatest threat to our world and our very survival?

In the end, there is still so much that I don’t fully understand. It seems the lore created is so rich and throughout the game I have to learn its language Seam, DOOMS, Strands, Voidouts, Chirilium. Some of it contributes to the immersion in the futuristic world and its tech, but some of it remains confusing throughout.

At the end of the game, my main frustration remains the plot. The resolution felt shallow in the face of a catastrophe that felt so real. It did not live up to the expectations the core gameplay loop had me build over long hours of meditative walks, where I pondered the nature of death and our society’s excesses. When I thought I was starting to unfold the Death Stranding‘s mystery and the relationship between myself, my BB and its biological father, everything started to blur. I was shoved layers of convoluted details and the increased complexity of the story was the one route I was not given the tools to navigate. That intrigue I invested so much in, struggles to resolve itself and there is much left either unanswered or oversimplified.

However, looking back with the immediate frustration gone, I realize the plot did not matter that much. The narrative arc the team has carefully crafted does not add to the game message. At times it’s even distracting in comparison to the story the gameplay and the art are telling. The game remains an artistic, poignant, and jarring experience, strongly rooted in a political and social message. For the narrative part, you have to learn to let go. There is space for your own narrative in that world and that is what you should invest in.

The most powerful message I got from Death Stranding – and it still lingers at the back of my head – is that even when you’re gone, the consequences of your actions remain. It is our responsibility to think about what legacy we want to leave behind for the next generations and those who survive. The game teaches us about balance, it is our one constant preoccupation from start to finish. When that balance is tipped off, consequences have to be dealt with, crucial pieces of the world may be gone forever and while playing, you absolutely feel that. When the journey is so grueling it makes you care. When you hesitate and doubt so much to carry on, when your BB starts to cry through the controller because you fell, it makes you care. But you get back up, and you keep on keeping on.

Death Stranding is an experience of unity and perseverance. No matter how big the task, it gets accomplished one careful step at a time and every contribution matters. If we all walk in the same direction, if we support each other and pick up what someone else left off, then everything can be rebuilt.

February 27, 2021 0

ACNH: the joyful retreat where capitalism wins over ecology

A deserted island, the cutest villagers one could hope for and coconut trees that look like plastic toys from your niece’s dolls beach party set: welcome to Animal Crossing: New Horizons!

New Horizons, the latest edition of the beloved franchise features friendship, love, and gratefulness to be together on a wonderful island as its main theme, and it is Nintendo’s latest hit. Creating your own adventure on this island where you’re in control and NPC villagers look up to you, where you can live a happy free life shaking trees and picking up sea shells, has attracted more players at launch than any Mario or Zelda in history. It provides millions of players with a bubble where to retreat and forget about the growing numbers of infected people our real world is struggling with. It is also a germ-free space where to continue to meet and be kind to our real friends by sharing spare DIYs, or sending space rockets through the mail and help your friend complete an island that will perfectly represent who they are.

On top of that ACNH is one of these rare games that reinforces players positive behaviour taking a different, progressive stance on toxicity issues. ACNH is not focusing on just preventing player’s toxic behaviour, here players are rewarded for being nice to each other, for inviting each other to visit and for sending lovely gifts. In this game you can’t steal someone’s furniture, but the guest can pick it up and drop for you so you can take it with you when you leave. This is helping players’ communities bloom, be it to make your friends benefit from the best turnip price or to trade a tier 1 villager. People become nice as habit and will leave tips and prezzies after visiting as a gesture to thank their turnip seller host.

But sadly it’s not just about friendship, something else at the core of the players progression ties the game into a consistent player experience and that’s Bells. So how do you progress in Animal Crossing?

Well for me, that’s the sad part, you progress through a very cute debt system where Bells are your holy grail.

Remember the very start of the game? You are purchasing a vacation package, deciding to isolate on a deserted island and get a true experience of the wild. After that the game starts and your goal is to make the island prettier and more hospitable for yourself and the thriving community of NPCs that will gradually appear. To achieve that, the first step (and there is no avoiding it) it to take up a huge loan from Tom Nook (read Tanuki Mega Lord). From then on, your main motivation is to pay back this initial debt, then take on a new one to improve either your house or the island infrastructure, and so on and so forth.

As in John Locke‘s vision, everything that nature provides and that is not the private property of another person is yours to claim. Everything that you can collect on the island is yours to sell and help pay back Nook services. You collect bugs and fruits and pick up the “weeds” as they are not desirable, not even permitted, if you want to achieve one day the island top star rating. So what players do is basically appropriate and “rearrange” that nature and wilderness they came in to seek, to replace it with paved streets and snack machines, all purchased with the Bells acquired selling nature’s goods. In Animal Crossing there is only one way forward and that’s Capitalism.

The game teaches you to borrow money and to work to pay it back, the island evaluation system will reward islands where the player has build fences and infrastructures, where villagers’ delimited gardens are stuffed with cute BBQ and retro dinners chairs. Pastoralism, minimalism or ecology goes against your progression. In New Horizons, like in our modern world, social status is acquired through the accumulation of goods. Of course, purchased furniture will grant you more points than DIY and the most expensive the better! For those who miss the thrill of the stock exchange, there is even Daisy Mae who grants you access to the Stalk exchange where you bid on the price of turnips driving players to build additional rooms only to store the most pricey root vegetable there is and get a chance to become a multi millionaire. There is even a loyalty program called Nook Miles, where the more you spend the more you are given points you can then use to buy say, travel tickets to other deserted islands and scavenge all their fruits and minerals to make more Bells.

Thanks to these features, no one can say there is nothing to do anymore because there is always a way to earn Miles with the never ending daily challenges. Wasn’t it a nice message though to have nothing to do on this little island? Shouldn’t we encourage players to do more of nothing and be creative on their own and contemplate the little things rather than act according to what will bring them Bells or Miles?

At one point players can even terraform their land, you no longer just do the best with what you’re given but now you’re so mighty you can completely alter it to your will without much second thoughts.

Despite this Lockean idea, ACNH tries to instill in its players a notion that respecting and supporting nature is important (again it’ll reward you in Nook Miles). On Earth week for example, it encouraged players to plant fruit trees and seed flowers. The problem is that the 2 hardly coexist as the reward is always in the form of a currency. In the same week players were rewarded for weeding and cutting trees just as much as they were for planting them, and their motivation in both scenarios is to earn Miles, not do what’s respectful of the environment or to see something cool that would come from nature, the island or Earth. There is no penalty for leaving trash on the beach, and players are encouraged to colonize their whole island and leave nothing untouched, because if you don’t, well nothing new or exciting really happens, you don’t attract villagers or visitors and the untouched area doesn’t evolve or reward you like the altered area does.

Why not use this opportunity to truly inform players and reward positive respectful behaviour that they will then transfer to their daily habits? The game feels to me like a missed opportunity to inform and reflect on our society and its priorities in a fun way. Why not encourage players to leave a space of their deserted island truly untouched and see what magic could happen there? Why do we have to act on this deserted island as if we owned it all like most people do already in real life and has lead us to the catastrophic state in which our planet is in?

I wish the game did not just pretend to care about the ecology but provided an opportunity to illustrate a cohabitation between the nature and the human-built world. I wish the game would hint at the rewards of working with nature and get inspiration from it rather than encourage us to keep building and accumulating more and more. Isn’t it time yet for games to suggest an alternative to our money and status seeking societies? The very controversial game Mountain, back in 2014 excited and fascinated us writers with its ambient melancholic internal dialogue. It encouraged its players, or passive witnesses of the seasons to feel for this mountain where cars and garbage come and crash down from nowhere. A game as successful as New Horizons, played by millions of players both young and fully developed adults, presents such a huge potential to touch players and ask today’s central question of the impact and responsibility of our life styles on the state of our home, our once upon a time deserted island.

Animal Crossing first appears as the cute getaway from daily life only to play by the same old rules. It reinforces the standards and values that have lead us to behave as if we didn’t have to share our planet with other species. It is a relaxing escape in this time of pandemic but only if you don’t think too much of what its reward system subconsciously trains us to consider progress.

May 28, 2020 0