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Copyright ©2017 Chris Solarski (SOLARSKI STUDIO)

My second book was recently published by CRC Press. Titled, Interactive Stories and Video Game Art, I’m very proud that it has been described as gaming’s equivalent to Story, the classic book on screenwriting by Robert McKee, and endorsed by film director, Marc Forster. This article—kindly sponsored by the SAE Institute Zurich—explores a key concept that I developed in the book called the unreliable gamemaster. This article concerns the dramatic value of player-character motivation and in story-driven games. The featured  case studies illustrate techniques for adding a second narrative layer to game objectives, and how this layer can heighten player immersion.

SPOILER ALERT: before proceeding, readers should be aware that the article contains spoilers for the following films and games: Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Halo 4 (2012), Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016), The Beginner’s Guide (2015), Firewatch (2016), Gone Home (2013), and The Usual Suspects (1995).

Making a distinction between a protagonist’s wants and needs is a basic consideration for anybody who has studied screenwriting. To paraphrase artist, writer and filmmaker, Iain McCaig:

“Someone has a want, but obstacles must be overcome to achieve that desire, with the toughest being a hidden obstacle inside them (their need). In the end, the protagonist gets what they need but not necessarily what they want.”

Wreck-It Ralph’s greatest obstacle is overcoming his material want and realising his spiritual need in Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Rich Moore.

These motivations (wants and needs) are aptly illustrated by Wreck-It Ralph, directed by Rich Moore. The film makes for an interesting reference for the way in which storytelling is generally handled in games because it’s a satire of game design tropes. In a world where good is always good and evil is always evil, Wreck-It Ralph, a villain, dares to defy convention and become a hero. This want, he dreams, can be achieved by winning a medal. However, at the end of the film he overcomes his biggest obstacle, himself, and learns to become selfless and care for others—the true traits of a hero—which he achieves by helping Vanellope von Schweetz win a medal. This final show of empathy is Wreck-It Ralph’s hidden need, which gives emotional value to all his preceding, self-centred deeds. Based on this example we can refine our concept of wants vs. needs with the following statement:

Want (material) vs. Need (spiritual)

This is a general theme of most stories in film and literature because the internal conflict between a protagonist’s wants and needs is a powerful catalyst for overt drama—adding depth to a simple risk-and-reward narrative structure. You can also reference The Matrix (1999) and Neo’s want to remain a regular guy versus his need to accept that he’s The One; or Jaws (1975) and chief, Martin Brody’s, want to catch the killer shark versus his need to confront his fear of water. If a narrative focuses too much on fullfilling the want and not enough on the need, the audience will perhaps experience visceral gratification, but little spiritual fullfillment. In game design we must also acknowledge the wants and needs of the player when structuring a story. The motivations of the player and playable character need not be the same but the intended aesthetic experience should align if the story is to deliver its intended message. I will therefore refer to both the player and playable character as the player-character—a single entity—wherever applicable.

 
The overachieving gameplay objective (the player’s want) in PAC-MAN (1980), by Namco, is clearly depicted atop the screen.

Classic video games like PAC-MAN (1980) have a fairly simple task of aligning the motivations of players and playable characters. We must assume that Pac-Man wants to avoid ghosts and stay alive. The want of players is usually reflected in gameplay objectives—the overarching task players are given to perform. Objectives in classic games tend to be communicated through the user-interface (UI). PAC-MAN’s designer, Toru Iwatani (1955-2017), boldly stated the game’s overarching objective by inserting the word “HIGHSCORE” and an accompanying counter at the top of the screen. This objective is clearly a material want that encourages players to keep Pac-Man alive to better their score and jostle for the #1 spot on the leaderboard. While the player’s need—the hidden obstacle inside the player—is the time and dedication needed to master PAC-MAN’s gameplay.

The dialogue between a game’s designer and the player—as illustrated by PAC-MAN—is deliberately straightforward. PAC-MAN is a formal game so the objective of play must be communicated clearly if players are to understand the game’s rules and objectives and respond with correct inputs to win. The purpose here is pure play from which emergent stories are generated (“I was cornered by Pac-Man Ghosts but just managed to escape through a tiny gab!“). If a scripted narrative features in such a game it is merely a wrapper. The narrative could be interchanged with any other and the emergent stories would remain largely unchanged—such as the stories that emerge when playing Chess with medieval-themed versus Star Wars-themed pieces.

Echoes of this structure that consists of formal gameplay with a narrative wrapper is evidenced in many contemporary story-driven games, even though gameplay has a different status compared to games like PAC-MAN. In the case of story-driven games the narrative should dictate the shape of gameplay—not serve as a mere dressing—if the intented dramatic experience is to be evoked.

In Halo 4 (2012), by 343 Industries, the AI companion, Cortana, serves as the game designer’s mouthpiece—communicating a breadcrumb trail of objectives that players must overcome.

Take for instance Halo 4, which features Cortana—the player’s AI companion in the single player campaign. Cortana serves a similar purpose to a narrator by providing backstory and tactical information. More importantly, in the context of this article, she serves the same function as Iwatani’s “HIGHSCORE” because we can likewise perceive the game designer’s disguised voice when Cortana gives commands such as:

“They found the opening. You better get up to that relay, and fast.”

“Power core down. Shield’s weak, but still online. Take out the other two power cores and we can access the pylon.”

“Second power core offline. Good job, Chief.”

[…and so on.]

The player’s want is fulfilled in the final gameplay moments of Halo 4 (2012), by 343 Industries, when the Didact is defeated.

What is the player-character’s overarching motivation in Halo 4? The want is to defeat the Didact—the game’s primary antagonist who Master Chief (the player) unwittingly awakens early in the game. This want is, unsurprisingly, fulfilled at the game’s end, with the help of Cortana who sacrifices herself to save Master Chief. This unquestionable route to victory is a general trait of formal game design, which is humorously expressed in the trailer for Insomniac Games’, Sunset Overdrive (2014):

“Can you save Sunset City? Of course you can! It’s a f@*king video game!”

You could replace “Sunset City” with the overarching objective of most story-driven games. The rationale is clear: with a formal game design structure there must be a payoff. Players can’t be expected to play through X hours of gameplay and not be rewarded with their want. However, the downside of this structure is a loss in dramatic tension since the outcome is instinctively known to players from the outset. 

But what about the player-character’s need in Halo 4? If we examine the in-game action, alone, we find that Halo 4 demonstrates little concern for aligning the motivations of players and the playable character, Master Chief. Based on the formal structure of the game we can deduce that the need of players is time and dedication to master Halo 4’s gameplay and “unlock” all cutscenes. Does Master Chief share the same need?

The profound need in Halo 4 (2012), by 343 Industries, is revealed after the players want has been fulfilled—thus rendering it ineffective to the player’s own experiences.

We find that Master Chief’s need is much more profound, however, it’s mostly set-up and delivered through cutscenes—such as mid-game scene in which Cortana pleads: “…before this is all over, promise me you’ll figure out which one of us is the machine.” Another crucial point is that the need finds closure in an epilogue cutscene after the player’s final encounter with the Didact. During a sombre discussion with Captain Lasky, a battle-worn Master Chief laments the loss of his AI companion:

Master Chief: “Our duty as soldiers is to protect humanity. Whatever the cost.”

Lasky: “You say that like soldiers and humanity are two different things. Soldiers aren’t machines. We’re just people.”

[Dramatic music begins playing…]

Unlike Wreck-It Ralph’s toughest trial, which is the external staging of his internal conflict, the player-character’s need—to question their humanity—is absent in the gameplay finale. Instead, the decision is made on behalf of the player, rendering the need’s revelation completely ineffective as a dramatic device. A significantly more compelling solution would have demanded that players must choose between sacrificing themselves to defeat the Didact, or allowing Cortana to sacrifice herself for a greater good—thus placing the “big question” in the hands of the player.

Players of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016), by Naughty Dog, achieve their want of finding Avery’s treasure at the end of the final mission in a boss fight with primary antagonist, Rafe Adler.

The interactive narrative in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End shares many of the same shortcomings as Halo 4. Objectives are similarly implied, through the banter between Nate and his comrades—Elena, Sam, and Scully—during cutscenes and in-game action. The following are a few excerpts:

Prologue
[In-game] Sam: “Keep heading towards the island. I’ll try to hold them off.”

Chapter 1: The Lure of Adventure
[In-game] Nate: “Up and around we go […] Okay…nice and quiet […] Gotta get to that window.”

Chapter 10: The Twelve Towers
[Cutscene] Nate: “Alright, this route here should take us straight to the volcano.”

[…]

[In-game] Scully: “So, what are we looking for out here?”

Nate: “Well, the map shows all these structures around the volcano. Some abandoned outposts, a handful of watch towers. […] One of those towers is right on the volcano.

Scully: “With Avery’s treasure?”

Sam: “Fingers crossed.”

As with the commands issued by Cortana in Halo 4, the banter represents the disguised voice of the game designer, which defines the player’s objectives. And, as with Halo 4, there is a misalignment between the motivations of the player and playable character. The banter between in-game characters generates in players the want to find Avery’s treasure. During Chapter 20: No Escape, this want is substituted by the want to save Nate’s brother, Sam, but the narrative leads player’s to the treasure anyway, so the original objective is achieved. With such an objective-driven structure, the player’s need is, once again, time and dedication to master Uncharted 4’s gameplay and unlock all cutscenes.

A mostly forgettable cutscene during Chapter 19: Avery’s Descent, in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016), by Naughty Dog, is actually an important dramatic moment where players witness the awakening of Nate’s hidden need when he finds his wife, Elena, feigning death.

Uncharted 4’s narrative does feature a profound need, which is reserved for the playable character, Nate, and his tenuous commitment to married life with his wife, Elena—a commitment that conflicts with his loyalty to his brother. Nate who, like Sam, doesn’t know when to quit, “no matter the cost to others around him,” must put his love for Elena before treasure hunting. This need is ineffectively conveyed to players through cutscenes, with Nate inconspicuously making the important realisation long before the player’s final battle at the end of Chapter 19: Avery’s Descent.

A more fitting ending for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016), by Naughty Dog, would have challenged the player-character’s need during Chapter 20: No Escape when Nate is ready to give-up on treasure hunting.

Uncharted 4 could have challenged the player-character’s need in a more meaningful manner if the game had ended at an earlier juncture—during Chapter 20: No Escape—when Nate is ready to give-up on finding Avery’s treasure but his brother, Sam, wishes to fight-on. At this point Nate reflects on Sam’s want as if simultaneously commenting on the game industry’s preoccupation with reward-driven objectives: “We’re not those kids anymore. And we’ve got nothing to prove.” What if at this point gameplay demanded that players choose between destroying the mountain and forever losing the treasure, or going after the treasure and forever losing Elena?

By comparison, action films like Iron Man 3 (2013) are no better at challenging the spiritual needs of the protagonist (Tony Stark’s want to defeat the enemy versus his need to devote himself to Pepper Pots). Here, also, visceral gratification trumps spiritual fullfillment. We should therefore be aware of the standards that we’re setting by championing games like Uncharted 4 for their story when they’re structural comparible to an Avenger’s movie. Instead, such honours should go to the games explored in the following sections.

Having reviewed the wants and needs of players and playable characters in Halo 4, and Uncharted 4 it is worthwhile adjusting our original definition of motivation it to fit narrative structure of these two games:

“The player-character is given a want, but obstacles must be overcome to achieve that desire, with the toughest being the final level or boss fight. In the end, the player-character gets what they want while the need is experienced by the playable character, only—not the player.”

This is true of many AAA titles that prioritise formal game design over narrative even though their promotional trailers and cinematics suggest an emotionally-complex narrative experience. Games are about player agency—not passive viewing—so the backstory of such games should be central to the player-character’s experience and expressed through their actions.

The reason why we studied how player objectives are communicated—via Cortana in Halo 4, and through cutscenes and in-game banter in Uncharted 4—is to highlight the game designer’s in-game communication with players, which is a key concept for understanding how the misalignment between the wants and needs of player’s and playable character’s can be solved for story-driven games. Halo 4, and Uncharted 4 are examples of a formal dialogue between the game designer and player based on explicit objectives and consistent rules with escalating difficulty for dramatic effect. The term I use for the role of such a game designer is the reliable gamemaster—an entity perceived within the game world that guides players to fulfil their want with fair and open communication of the game’s objectives and winning conditions.

Forrest Gump (1994), and The Usual Suspects (1995) exemplify the unreliable narrator device.

A key to solving the want vs. need conundrum (academically referred to as ludo-narrative dissonance) takes inspiration from a traditional literary device called the unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is a narrator—whether in literature, film, or theatre—whose credibility is questionable. Sometimes the narrator’s unreliability is made immediately evident, such as the slow-witted Forrest in Forrest Gump (1994), whose observations of the Watergate scandal and description of Apple Computers as a “fruit company” are clearly not accurate. Alternatively, the narrator’s unreliability can be revealed at the story’s end for greater dramatic effect—such as the spectacular revelation at the end of The Usual Suspects (1995). The gaming equivalent of the unreliable narrator, as used in Forrest Gump, and The Usual Suspects is experienced in two video game masterpieces by designer, Davey Wreden: The Stanley Parable (2013), and The Beginner’s Guide (2015), respectively.

The Stanley Parable (2011), designed by Davey Wreden and published under Galactic Cafe, is an exceptional critique of formal game design where players can actively question the game designer’s authority.

Players of The Stanley Parable are accompanied by an off-screen narrator who attempts to guide the them through a sequence of actions. However, the game’s level design allows players to “misbehave” and choose their own path—to the exasperation of the narrator who responds with comic effect. The tense dynamic between narrator and player is illustrated by the above scene where the narrator is heard saying:

Narrator: “When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.”

At this point the player can choose to follow the narrator’s instructions, or disobey and choose the door on the right. If the player chooses the door on the right, the narrator reacts accordingly:

Narrator: “This was not the correct way to the meeting room, and Stanley knew it perfectly well. Perhaps he wanted to stop by the employee lounge first, just to admire it.”

The narrator in The Stanley Parable is, of course, the game designer in disguise—much like Cortana in Halo 4. Only the important difference here is that the game designer’s motives are questionable and players have the option to act against designated objectives. The narrator’s reliability in The Stanley Parable is questionable from the outset while Davey Wreden’s next game, The Beginner’s Guide, reveals the narrator’s untrustworthiness at the end. In both cases, the role taken by Davey Wreden is that of an unreliable gamemaster—an entity perceived within the game world that conducts an informal dialogue between the game designer and player based on vague or questionable objectives for dramatic effect.

How does the unreliable gamemaster concept solve our want vs. need conundrum, which must consolidate the objectivity of formal game design’s emphasis on winning conditions, and storytelling’s emphasis on the player-character’s internal conflicts? By using this approach, players are encouraged to actively question their purpose in the game, which awakens their senses and makes them feel more present within the virtual world. Designers can misdirect players to a false objective (a want) without appearing unfair, while secretly embedding the real objective—the player-character’s need—into gameplay. An additional benefit of the unreliable gamemaster is that the informal dialogue between the game designer and player can generate dramatic tension as a result of the narrative’s ambiguity, without resorting to escalating gameplay difficulty.

The player-character in Firewatch (2016), by Campo Santo, wants to solve the game’s explicit objective concerning the mysterious figure that torments Henry and Delilah.

Take for instance Firewatch, by Campo Santo, which exemplifies the unreliable gamemaster concept in the form of Delilah who guides the player from one objective to the next. Unlike Cortana in Halo 4, Delilah remains a mysterious character that the player never meets. Her role is that of a fellow victim struggling alongside the player-character to make sense of the mysterious happenings. A dialogue excerpt between Delilah and the player-character goes as follows:

Delilah: Hey. You…you didn’t actually make that call, right? To the other lookout? It just stuck in my craw. I let myself imagine how f@*ked I would be if you’d if you’d been lying to me. But now that I’ve asked I kinda just wish I hadn’t.”

Henry (player-character): “Of course I didn’t. No way. They’re just trying to pit us against each other.”

The player-character’s need in Firewatch (2016), by Campo Santo, is planted at the beginning of the game but soon forgotten when the want becomes the primary objective of gameplay.

Delilah assists the player-character in solving Firewatch’s explicit objective, which is to solve the mystery of the strange figure who torments the two characters with actions that include ransacking Henry’s watch tower, and framing them for starting a forest fire. This want is fulfilled by the game’s end and the mystery is solved. However, on reflection, players of Firewatch will realise that the ultimate goal is not the explicit objective that they’ve been pursuing. The objective is, in fact, a need to empathise with victims of dementia—a fact that was hidden in plane sight all along.

In the heartrending opening of Firewatch, players learn that Henry’s wife, Julia, falls victim to an early onset of dementia. The eventual fate of Julia is what leads Henry to become a fire watch lookout. Framed in this context, the player’s experience of dislocation, fear and confusion as a victim of the mysterious figure is analogous to somebody experiencing dementia. Player’s therefore experience empathy through a gameplay form of allegory, because the playable character, Henry, can be said to represent his wife, Julia. The ability to interactively experience themes as complex as dementia is what makes video games such a powerful artistic medium.

The setting of Gone Home (2013), by The Fullbright Company, is used to misdirect players into thinking their objective is to discover the dead bodies of Sam and Lonnie.

Gone Home, by The Fullbright Company, also uses a variation of the unreliable gamemaster to misdirect players towards a false objective. The game has players following a breadcrumb trail of audio diaries and written notes that gradually reveal a love story afflicted with teenage angst, social pressure and parental disapproval. Fairly unremarkable storytelling. What makes the experience special is that the game’s setting resembles a haunted house, replete with a spooky boiler in the basement, empty hallways and occult motifs. Immersed in this setting, players expect to experience the hallmarks of a horror story, such as jump scares and a bloody ending. However, by the game’s end they are rewarded with genuine catharsis when they fulfil the explicit objective—the want—and learn that the love story has a happy ending. The hidden need is revealed to be the overarching experience of navigating the haunted house-style setting (an “unreliable environment,” to put it another way), which generates feelings of fear and isolation that are analogous to the experiences of an 18 year-old girl experiencing the uncertainty of her first love and sexuality.

What Firewatch, and Gone Home have in common is an explicit objective that motivates players to act and a second, more meaningful hidden objective. In hindsight, players realise this latter, hidden objective, was embedded in gameplay and evident all along—like a successful plot twist. The unreliable gamemaster therefore allows us to successfully reconcile the original definition of character motivation—as demonstrated by Wreck-It Ralph—with story-driven game design:

“The player-character is given a want, but obstacles must be overcome to achieve that desire, with the final obstacle heralding the player’s hidden need (such as empathy for the playable character). In the end, the player-character experiences what they need but not necessarily what they want.”

 

 
INSIDE (2016), by Playdead, demonstrates another variant of the unreliable gamemaster in which exposition is avoided altogether—leaving the task of interpretation entirely to players.

Another effective variation of the unreliable gamemaster is to remain silent, as in INSIDE (2016), by Playdead, which generates many questions through it’s visual design and staging but offers no answers. Irrespective of the exact techniques employed, you’ll find that a large majority of emotionally meaningful games to have emerged in recent years—including Braid, The Last of Us, Portal 2, The Beginner’s Guide, and Her Story—utilize the unreliable gamemaster concept.

But, to be fair to 343 Industries and Naughty Dog—the developers of Halo 4, and the Uncharted series, respectively—developing multi-million dollar games is very risky business considering the work involved to produce such high quality gameplay and graphics. Which is why it makes for a safer financial bet to stick to tried and tested formulas to meet the target audience’s expectations of big boss fights, action set pieces and explicit rewards. Additionally, imagine the difficulty of developing a sequel to Uncharted 4 if Naughty Dog had indeed given players two options to finish the game—requiring narrative designers to account for both outcomes. Series like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman Arkham all fall into this same category of video game storytelling, consisting of a narrative wrapped around what is clearly a formal game design structure. This works for formal gameplay franchises like the Mario series, but not in self-proclaimed story-driven games. No matter how glossy the cinematics and set pieces may appear—the formal roots of these games are very much intact.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016), by Naughty Dog, bravely features gameplay vignettes that offer players a more emotionally-rounded experience than if the game focused purely on action-adventure.

It is of no surprise that innovation in storytelling is strongest within the indie game scene where development costs are significantly lower and target audiences more open to new and surprising experiences. AAA is taking note, nonetheless, as evidenced with the gameplay vignettes scattered at a few points in Uncharted 4 (the salvage diving, and Crash Bandicoot sections, for instance). These vignettes give players a more rounded and emotionally-meaningful interactive peak into Nathan Drake’s family life—particularly the ending where players take control of Nate’s daughter, Cassie. Gameplay moments like these are an important primer for the existing target audience of such games—opening-up player expectations to the direction that storytelling in games will inevitably take as game development and the player audience matures.

Formal game design focuses on objective (as opposed to subjective) rules and player goals. These game mechanics are great at motivating players to action—to explore and interact with the game world. However, in the context storytelling, game mechanics also have their shortcomings because they gratify the player’s material wants by virtue of their tangible qualities.  

Storytellers in mediums such as film are well aware that the greatest narrative tool is the audience’s imagination. The same is true of video games where the player’s imagination has the greatest freedom to subjectively (mis-)interpret the rigid structure of game rules. While game mechanics are great at motivating players to act, it’s game art (visual design, voice acting, music, etc.) that can make something as simple as going from point A to point B feel treacherous, cheerful, solemn, lonely…

Like the traditional artist who should not mistake the brushwork for the painting, obsessing over the player’s mastery of technical gameplay should never overshadow their aesthetic experience of the story.

The next generation of game designers should therefore aspire to develop a greater understanding of traditional art forms; their aesthetic scope and interconnectedness; to appreciate the strengths of informal game design for stimulating the player’s imagination; to enable player-choice; and avoid exposition where possible. In essence, to be unreliable gamemasters—using storytelling techniques inspired by the above case studies to antagonize, mislead and silently direct players towards experiencing a hidden need at the game’s dramatic climax. In hindsight, player’s will come to reflect on a gameplay experience and realise that clues hinting at their need were embedded in gameplay all along—directly beneath their noses—in the same way that Wreck-It Ralph’s want blindly guides him towards the realisation that a medal doesn’t make a hero. In storytelling it’s more often the journey, not the destination, that matters.

Thanks again to the generous support of SAE Institute Zurich, and game designers, Claudia Molinari and Matteo Pozzi (We Are Müesli), and Madlaina Kalunder for their invaluable feedback. To stay updated about my latest work you’re welcome to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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About the author

Chris Solarski (SOLARSKI STUDIO) is an expert on art and storytelling in video games. His first book—Drawing Basics and Video Game Art (Watson-Guptill 2012) is endorsed by id cofounder, John Romero, and has been translated into Japanese and Korean. His second book—Interactive Stories and Video Game Art (CRC Press 2016)—has been described as gaming’s equivalent to Story, the classic book on screenwriting by Robert McKee, and endorsed by Hollywood film director, Marc Forster. Chris has given talks worldwide, including the Smithsonian’s landmark The Art of Video Games exhibition, SXSW, GDC Europe, and FMX. He is currently collaborating with internationally renowned artist, Phil Hale, to develop an indie game based on the Johnny Badhair series of paintings.

The 2018 Game Developer’s Conference will feature an exhibition called Alt.Ctrl.GDC dedicated to games that use alternative control schemes and interactions. Gamasutra will be talking to the developers of each of the games that have been selected for the showcase. You can find all of the interviews here.

Unicornelia teaches some fun, yet important lessons about mental health by having players wear a tent-sized unicorn outfit and work through aspects of their social/work life. Players must tap at big, fluffy pillow buttons on the inside of their unicorn body to minimize the size of some of the bad on-screen tasks while making sure to hit the important ones with their glowing horn. By choosing the right things, they can work to balance their social and work life, but the process can get a bit frantic.

This difficult balancing act was born of the real life stresses of Courtney Snavely and the team who worked on Unicornelia. Their silly take on it, playable at the Alt.Ctrl.GDC exhibit, may make many laugh, but through that laughter break down some barriers to talking about the mental health challenges that come from trying to keep up work and social lives when people are beyond busy. 

What’s your name, and what was your role on this project?

I’m Courtney Snavely, game designer and developer. There was also Jane Mitchell, game designer and hardware developer, Dylan Negri, game designer and construction, and Vivan Lee, fabricator. 

How do you describe your innovative controller to someone who’s completely unfamiliar with it?

We usually have to preface it with, “this is going to sound very weird.” Go into this giant unicorn body, and strap this horn on your head. Imagine you are a unicorn, a sparkle statistician. You’re having a hard time maintaining your internal turmoil with your external responsibilities. Use your horn to complete the tasks on the screen, and squeeze those squishy things to control your emotions.

What’s your background in making games?

We all have a more non-traditional background in making games. The team met in the MFA Design & Technology program at Parsons. I think we would all describe ourselves more as creative technologists who enjoy creating unique interactions for people in the form of large-scale physical games. 

What development tools did you use to build Unicornelia?

We are working with some bluetooth micro controllers, motion sensors, and serial communication with Processing. 

What physical materials did you use to make it?

The structure of the unicorn body is actually a tent used for the beach. We covered it in a felt fabric and lined the inside with a plush material. The internal ‘feels’ are also plush felt with conductive fabric. The monitor is surrounded by a structure embedded with motion sensors to detect when the horn is inserted. 

How much time have you spent working on the game?

Certainly not enough time. We will be investing upwards of 60-70 hours to prepare for alt.ctrl. 

How did you come up with the concept?

During the fall, we were all having a bit of a hard time maintaining our emotional instabilities while also keeping up with daily obligations and responsibilities. Instead of dwelling on this, we decided to funnel our energy into something fun and bright. For us, a unicorn was the epitome of the most colorful, silly, fun character we could create. 

What drew you to explore internal and external pressures through a silly unicorn costume? How does that alter the player’s interpretation of the (technically) serious subject matter?

I think discussing mental health, or handling your internal and external pressures, can often become heavy and intimidating. We wanted to create something that forces people to have fun with it. Our hope is by creating through our own struggles, we are able to make players feel more comfortable discussing their own issues. We also wanted to reward players for completing small tasks. Some days you only have the energy to cook lunch, or do laundry because of your internal emotions; these small steps should still be celebrated and rewarded. 

What challenges did you face in creating a full wearable outfit as a controller? In turning the subject matter into this fun, lighthearted controller?

The biggest struggle was: how do we get players to feel like they are a unicorn? We started with something smaller but then after testing realized we needed the full outfit to make players feel the full embodiment of Unicornelia. 

Why add bad tasks to trip players up? What do you feel that added to Unicornelia?

A lot of tasks throughout our daily lives don’t exist in a black or white area. We added these ‘bad’ or ‘grey’ tasks to make players logically think through how they are handling their external pressures. Listening to your internal emotions is important, but being successful (in the game) means also listening to external logic. Sometimes the tasks that we choose to ignore can actually be beneficial to our emotional and mental health. 

How do you think standard interfaces and controllers will change over the next five or ten years?

There will always be standard interfaces and gaming controllers, i.e. for Xbox and PlayStation. However, when you look where experimentation with newer technology is happening, at companies like Nintendo or the indie game community,  I think we’ll see more controllers that will allow a more harmonious experience when it comes to gestures by the user and feedback from the game. Players still want something unique and tangible that doesn’t quite exist in the purely digital space. 

Nintendo wants the Switch to appeal to more people, regardless of age or gender, but that desire also represents the device’s biggest obstacle. 

Speaking during its quarterly investor Q&A, a number of Nintendo heads weighed in on the risks facing the Switch now that it’s approaching the end of its first year on the market. 

One way Nintendo is looking to expand the age range the Switch appeals to is through products like Nintendo Labo. While the cardboard-creation kit is, on the surface, geared at children, Nintendo director and managing executive officer Shinya Takahashi says that Labo serves to introduce the Switch to parents as well.

“We introduced Nintendo Labo the other day as one way of addressing that issue,” says Takahashi. “By creating an environment where parents and children can play together, and where children can play under adult supervision, we hope to gain even the interest of people like mothers.”

The key to expanding the Switch’s appeal lays with finding more ways to leverage the unique features of the Switch and introduce new forms of play, explains the panel.

Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto says that the idea is to popularize the Nintendo Switch to the point where the device can exist between smart devices and other video game systems all on its own. That ideal situation would eliminate the bulk of the risk surrounding the hardware in its current state and open the company up to creating “new and very Nintendo genres of play.”

Burnout.

It’s an imprecise term for a very specific, endemic problem in game development, one often (but not always) caused by the industry’s proclivity for crunch.

Being a game developer is often an exercise in endurance: working on a creative project for years on end, there’s a constant pressure to push harder to see the thing through. A sense that the task is endless, but that more work might just get it done quicker. Financial, social, and cultural reasons make developers throw themselves into it, feeling guilty or lazy or afraid of what will happen if it doesn’t get done quicker.

Those pressures can and will wear a developer down, slowly crushing them without them even knowing it until it — is far too late. Burnout is an extremely serious issue for game developers as they work themselves ever-harder to see their passion projects brought to life, or through buckling down to get that huge game released on time. It is an insidious thing that devours minds and bodies with overwork, breaking the wonderful, creative people who want to bring their incredible visions to the world.

“Whenever you care about someone or something more than yourself, your risk of burnout takes a big leap forward.” says Jonathan Holmes, licensed independent clinical social worker. “Burnout is a slang term for when people get stuck in a behavior pattern that they were once able to thrive in, but over time makes them more and more anxious and/or depressed. Think of when a car spins its tires at high RPMs without going anywhere, and all you get from it is the stink of burnt rubber, but instead of your car, it’s your brain. That’s burnout.”

These overworking behaviors, often lauded or worn like badges of honor in the game development industry, often only serve to leave its creative minds in ruins, breaking people down. In an industry where people seem proud of working twelve, sixteen, twenty-four, or more hours during crunch periods that never seem to end, there are endless stories of burnout.

“I got thrown into the deep end and found myself trying to code multiple games by myself in a short amount of time, without any real guidance,” says Quang Nguyen of UK game dev Asobi tech. “As time went on, the time pressures grew and grew, as each milestone had to be reached, regardless of the various issues I was running into due to my inexperience. I went from working from home to moving into a small bed and breakfast so I could be closer to the office, meaning I could code from the first thing in the morning to the very last thing at night. Rinse and repeat.”

“My burnout spiral began when I felt like my experience as a teacher wasn’t being recognized by my peers – whether that was true or not doesn’t quite matter. I decided to work on games outside of my regular 9-5 hours,” says Jennifer Scheurle of Opaque Space. “I kept taking on more and more gigs outside of my full-time job to seek legitimacy and I never felt like I was quite doing as well or as much as others in my industry. A lot of regional awards and official recognition include questions on what a person does besides their regular job, e.g. 30 under 30 lists, so there is a general consensus on asking people to work more than the regular 40 hours a week.”

“On the worst nights, I would lay in bed with my laptop, glowing with GameMaker open,” says James Earl Cox III of Seemingly Pointless. “I was trying to sleep with it next to me, hoping that maybe I would wake up refreshed and ready to code something, but it mostly existed as a reminder that I wasn’t making anything anymore. There was an overwhelming wall of guilt. I’d fall asleep in a panic and wake up the same way, one day closer to whatever trivial deadline I was currently dreading.”

These stories can be the end of a game, though. The last straw for a project, and for the person behind it. As an industry, how can we identify the warning signs in our own behaviors? How can we sense burnout coming before it hits, and what can we do about it when it’s here? Most importantly, how can we stop it from happening to begin with?

Gamasutra spoke with a handful of developers about their personal stories of burnout, and how, as an industry, we can hope to heal and better protect from the awful practices that lead to it.

“Within the game industry, burnout is especially common”

“In graduate school, I was pushed to work myself to the bone, and I did — it was a year and a half accelerated Master’s degree program at the Guildhall at SMU,” says Tanya Short of Kitfox Games. “Although classes were of a standard length, assignments and projects easily ate up 60 to 80 hours every week for the whole 18 months. I’ve become very sensitive to how the quality of my work suffers when I’m not well-rested, physically and mentally.”

“In the latter half of 2016 and the first half of 2017, I took Sausage Sports Club to several PAX conventions. These being big marketing and networking opportunities, I of course wanted to push to make the game as polished as possible,” says Chris Wade of Luckshot Games. “Each time one of these events would come around, I’d spend 2+ weeks before the show overworking myself every day. That means long hours, not spending time with friends and my then girlfriend and just generally failing to take care of myself and living space. Then the event comes and there’s more crunch-like living with booth prep, setup and then having to be ON all day every day demoing the game.”

“At each convention, all of that combined to make me a ball of stress and anxiety and dead-brain and then I’d get home and be useless for a few days. And then close to useless for a few weeks. And oops now the next PAX is in a month. Here we go again.” he continues.

Every developer reached out to for this article could rhyme off at least one story of a time they had worked themselves into burnout, struggling to meet deadlines or fighting to push themselves to certain goals. It took minutes to find enough developers to fill an article, and their examples could easily go on for pages and pages.

“The medical community is intimately aware of [burnout], as many of them suffer from it themselves.”

Holmes illustrates a bit of what is happening to these developers, and many others, in burnout. “Though I’m not a medical clinician, I’m pretty sure that burnout has not yet become an official medical term or diagnosis. It’s a sad irony, but it makes sense given that it’s more of a slang term, one that the medical community is intimately aware of, as many of them suffer from it themselves. That’s especially true of people who work in the fields of psychiatry and behavioral health, where burnout among clinicians is both highly prevalent, and largely met without any sort of intervention for positive change.”

“There is a glucomate in our brains that gets burned every time we have to make a decision, with the more stressful decisions requiring more of the stuff than minor or inconsequential ones.” he continues. “Run out of that glucomate, and people may find themselves staring at wall for hours at the end of the day, unable to even decide to get up and go to bed, as they’ve run out of the chemicals you need to make even minor decisions like that.”

Medically, a developer that has been working themselves to the bone to accomplish a task in a far-too-small window may well have run out of the chemical in their brain that allows them to make decisions. They have pushed themselves into a position where even the smallest call is just about impossible. Considering how taxing this is on the mind, it’s a frighteningly common problem for game developers and the industry.

This can happen for financial or employment reasons, according to Holmes. “Any big money industry that a lot of young, optimistic people want to join is going to end up having a high burnout population. When supply for eager and willing applicants is larger than the demand for those jobs, employers will inevitably squeeze their staff as tightly as they want, without risk of ending up with unfilled positions in the company for any prolonged period of time.”

“Expectations within our industry, fear or missing out and crunch culture seem to be the most common themes around burnout,” says Scheurle. “We are constantly told that we are lucky to work in games, that our jobs are dream jobs and that we should be grateful to work in the field – this is especially true for prestigious franchises where there is a long line of developers waiting to take your place if you can’t take the pressure.”

This puts pressure on developers to perform. In the indie space, there will always be someone out there pushing to have a game out there before you, forcing you to work doubly hard to get your game out in a time when it will succeed. Otherwise, all of the years developing it will have been ‘wasted’.

In larger companies, a developer may feel that they’re easy to replace should they stop working so hard or complain that they are being overworked, as there are so many others looking to work in the industry. 

“Our corporate structures encourage trading in the quality of life of our workers in exchange for increased value to shareholders. As individuals, we buy into it because it’s a one-two punch of starving artist meets Silicon Valley,” adds Short. “We’re ambitious, intelligent, creative, and both North American and Japanese culture confuses industriousness (“working hard”) with actual productivity (producing results). I wrote an article on why some people choose to destroy themselves, from plausible deniability to sunk cost fallacy, but none of those are particularly unique to games.”

“We’re ambitious, intelligent, creative, and both North American and Japanese culture confuses industriousness (‘working hard’) with actual productivity (producing results).”

But pushing oneself too hard has become a part of games culture itself. In a culture that lionizes the all-night coding session there’s an almost romantic quality to overworking, when it is anything but healthy.

“Within the game industry, burnout is especially common,” says Holmes. “It may have to do with the fact that for a long time, embracing or even glorifying a lack of self care has been a big part of games culture. Of course, there really isn’t just one ‘games culture’ anymore, but that’s a whole other conversation.”

Of course, there’s that alluring feeling of “flow” that so many game makers push themselves to achieve during marathon work sessions. Once you’re there it’s great, but the effort you put in to do so may pave the way to burnout.

 “People who love to play, and eventually, to make video games are almost always driven by the urge to enter the ‘flow state’,” says Holmes. “The frame of mind where you are being challenged at just the right level to keep you fully engaged in an activity, a place that exists in the balance between being under-stimulated and overwhelmed.”

“For athletes, getting to that flow state can mean jogging at just the right pace, which can be great for their health… until they blow out their knees and can’t run anymore,” he continues. “After that, running will just damage their bodies more, while not running will leave them depressed and listless. Their ability to hit the flow state through running is destroyed by the physical pain and related anxiety that comes from their injuries.”

Ashley Godbold, senior programmer with GameSmart, can vouch for this. “Many developers, myself included, can get so hyper-focused on a task, that their own bodily needs are forgotten. I constantly forget to eat or drink, because I’ve been so ‘in the zone’. As you can imagine, my mental health is also forgotten.”

“Gaming and game development are different in that they offer both an opportunity to enter the flow state, and a naturally occurring anesthesia to any psychological injury you may sustain along the way,” Holmes concludes. “Anything that causes you to forget that you physically exist, and that your physical existence comes with physiological and emotional needs, can be like a pleasant-smelling poisonous gas. The smell masks the damage being done to you as you breathe it in. Similarly, the way games and game development transport us and immerse us can make us forget to take care of ourselves.”

The reasons burnout can occur are beyond numerous, and again, almost any developer can call up a time when they’ve overworked themselves for any number of them. It’s a constant problem.

Self-awareness

Knowing the signs of burnout could help, in theory, but it’s very tricky because the circumstances which lead to burnout make it often hard to perceive what’s happening, or hard to justify taking time for self-care due to the pressures that made the developer feel burnt out to begin with.

“What’s terrible about burnout symptoms is that it makes you feel exactly the things that push you towards burnout in the first place: You are irritable, constantly tired, hopeless and terrifyingly: unproductive,” says Scheurle. “Ironically, the more you burn out, the less work you actually end up doing while constantly feeling like and telling people about how much work you do. Burnout keeps you from working well, making you feel lazy and untalented. In that manner it is also hard to believe your friends when they notice these signs.”

Even so, developers owe it to themselves, and the work they’re trying to complete, to watch out for many of these signs.

“The most obvious sign of burnout is when someone seems flat and frustrated while engaging in activities that used to inspire excitement and optimism.”

“The most obvious sign of burnout is when someone seems flat and frustrated while engaging in activities that used to inspire excitement and optimism. It’s when people appear to be weighted down with a sense of burden as opposed to being lifted up by the feeling of opportunity when approaching a task that used to thrill them,” says Holmes.

“When things went wrong for me, I turned to making games. This worked fine as an undergraduate student when my university work was spread across multiple disciplines. Game making was mostly a hobby back then,” adds Cox. “When I started at USC, it became both a hobby and my full-time study. Now that I’m graduated, it’s a hobby and my job. It’s fine to include game making in both my personal and professional life, but there needs to be alternative releases.”

This is often how it goes: someone with a deep passion for making games suddenly finds that feeling turning to ash inside them.

“For me, burn out always sneaks up on me. It’s days before I realize I haven’t taken any breaks and have been working 10-13 hours each day on it,” says Tyler Doak, developer of Aces Wild. “It usually starts with me running into a difficult concept or implementation. Each day I make a tiny bit of progress, but if I work just a BIT harder, I can get through it. But that turns into a month of that and eventually I burn out.”

“On the other hand, it can happen when things are going great as well,” he continues. “I’m excited to work on it every day, so I put in a dozen productive hours each day, the game is gonna be great, but then eventually my body gives in and I’m burnt out.”

“Emotional instability, irritability, general tiredness, dullness, disaffectedness…some people report a dread of going to work, or insomnia, but for me it manifests more as a narrowing of focus, an inability to process things like what is important and what is not important,” recounts Short. “I become a hard-shelled body, walking down a corridor of ice, towards some distant destination, unquestioning, just working. Some people seem like they always feel this way, but I wonder if some people have been burned out for years and never managed to heal completely. In a creative industry, if you can’t be excitable, curious, imaginative, analytical, intrigued, I’m not sure you’re actually doing your job well.”

“In a creative industry, if you can’t be excitable, curious, imaginative, analytical, intrigued, I’m not sure you’re actually doing your job well.”

“My sure signs of burnout are not wanting to get out of bed and the feeling of my brain actively resisting being at a computer or doing work. I’m generally excited to make things and be around people in an office, so when that changes I know something is wrong.” says Wade.

“Honest reflection of your mindset and health may help you to recognize your burnout more quickly. I tend to use ‘avoidance’ tactics when I first start feeling any mental or emotional strain. It takes me a little longer to notice my symptoms, because I am actively trying to ignore them,” says Godbold. “Because I know this about myself, I like to do ’emotional spot checks’ occasionally, where I reflect upon my current state versus my ‘normal’ state. I try to be as honest with myself as possible with these reflections. I have found this to be really helpful.” 

Sometimes, having someone else who is also looking out for these signs can make a huge difference. “We don’t notice it right away- but usually Adam [Saltsman] is the first person who notices something is super off,” says Rebekah Saltsman of Finji. “I don’t eat as much because it makes me sick. He has to talk to me about my parenting because I am not interacting with the kids in a positive and encouraging way when they are being mischievous (or let’s be honest- they are being awful). He notices I am not making dinners or planning dinners or we are super behind on grocery shopping. I yell a lot more. I notice I am burning out because I can’t manage my stress. I stop running which means I stop sleeping. I can’t catch up on emails- even the simple ones.”

Diagnosing burnout in yourself can be tremendously tricky, but Holmes says self-awareness is key if you want to stop it before it hurts your work or your life.

“Make it a habit to take your temperature in terms of your levels of stress and depression,” he says. “Even if that means just rating how much you got out of life that day on a scale from one to ten every night before bed, and taking a look at your cumulative scores at the end of each week, it’s still a start towards upping your self awareness. Watching your back can do a lot to keep burnout from sneaking up on you.”

Of course, this is easier if you have a friend or loved one watching out for you as well.

“It’s even better to have at least two people you can talk to about how you’re doing who can reflect to you what they see about your mental state,” Holmes continues. “Make sure they are people who you respect, and be willing to accept that they may be able to see aspects of your burnout that you are blind to. Like that line in John Dies At The End (and forgive me for paraphrasing), if your eye isn’t working, you won’t be able to use your eye to look in a mirror and see what’s wrong with it. You’ll need someone else to look for you. The same is true for your perception of yourself in the midst of burnout, so having someone you trust to help fill in the blanks can be a life saver.”

Short concurs, and recommends devs do their best to identify symptoms and course-correct early before they start to burn out.

“The earlier I catch it, the better. Even if there’s still work to be done, it helps me to be aware of when I maybe shouldn’t push that extra hour today, and explicitly push my brain to think about other things when I’m at home,” she says. “Sleeping is magic, but I find putting energies into hobbies (cooking, writing, sports) gives back more than you put in. My partner (who’s also a game developer) can help look out for me too, making sure I don’t check my work emails at home, and maybe even stay off the computer entirely.”

Game makers shouldn’t shoulder this burden alone. If you work as part of a larger company or even just a group of devs, the organization itself has a responsibility to help ensure the health of its employees.

“When a project starts it is imperative that there is team buy-in on how many hours you will work together,” says Saltsman. “If you are working remotely, spend time just working while in an online hangout. Keep your Discord voice chat on during the day. Don’t be alone. When you are up against a deadline, communicate when you are going to do reasonable development sprints. For example, when we have shows for Overland, we prep for 2 days of cleanup which might be 10-12 hour days instead of 8. We schedule this so everyone is capable of working together.”

“When you go too far and you can’t get yourself out of the hole- when you are burned- it is time to take an honest look at things,” she adds. “Are you almost done? Should the scope change immediately? Should you hire on someone ASAP? Is what you are trying to do possible with the resources you have?”

Up next: More on how to identify, prevent, and recover from burnout as a game dev

It’s crucial for a stealth-based game to maintain a sense of realism, especially with AI interactions. AI perception models have grown past a vision cone and hearing radius, which means they need to be programmed to react the same way a human would to a wide range of stimuli in a variety of simulations.

In this 2014 GDC session, Ubisoft Toronto’s Martin Walsh discusses the AI stealth models used on Splinter Cell: Blacklist and the reason for incorporating them, as well as highlighting issues that came up during development. 

Walsh describes Ubisoft’s overall strategy for giving consistent feedback to the player while maintaining realism, citing the importance of realistic perception and behavior from AI but also acknowledging that players need clear feedback to understand the model and the state of the AI.

AI programmers may appreciate that they can now watch the talk completely free via the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.

The game accessibility guidelines is a collaborative effort between a group of studios, academics and specialists who released a living document used by creators as reference for implementing accessible features to their projects. 

Even the inclusion of an assist mode similar to Celeste’s and could prove useful for developers seeking to make their games more accessible for a wider range of players. 

As well as including a full list of considerations (which contain the basic/intermediate/advanced guides), each guideline explores a facet of the most commonly requested accessibility features. For example, the basic guideline includes how to provide subtitles for important speech for any players who might be hard of hearing. 

More information about how the resources can be used are listed on the game accessibility guideline’s website here.