{"id":134633,"date":"2023-06-06T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/news\/?id=c8l2zi89"},"modified":"2023-06-06T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-06T01:00:00","slug":"behind-the-design-endling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2023\/06\/06\/behind-the-design-endling\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Design: Endling"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Endling<\/em> is all about survival in a changed world \u2014 and it\u2019s a powerful mix of medium and message.<\/p>\n

The game is a gorgeous adventure in which you play as a fox navigating a land charred by environmental disaster and human impact. Endling<\/em> is not subtle \u2014 particularly when the fox starts defending its tiny offspring from an ever-increasing array of man-made dangers. Still, it draws players in with beautiful visuals, lush animations, a moody soundtrack, and brilliantly intuitive gameplay.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a survival game, but a simplified one that focuses more on telling a story,\u201d says Philipp N\u00e4gelsbach, game designer and producer at HandyGames.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/div>\n

When creating such a game, balance is paramount. \u201cYou need to have cute scenes with the foxes safe in their lair, learning and growing,\u201d says N\u00e4gelsbach. \u201cAnd you have to have dramatic scenes to illustrate the real dangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an onboarding process that drops players into the heat of the action, the game becomes an open-world adventure that rewards exploration. That wasn\u2019t always the case; N\u00e4gelsbach notes that the game\u2019s earliest versions had a more linear structure. \u201cIt didn\u2019t suit the message as well,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to show the ecological impact humans have when you visit the same spot several times and see a river that\u2019s full of trash or a forest that\u2019s been cut down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Philipp<\/div>\n

To control the fox, players operate a simple one-thumb control on the lower-left corner of the screen. The game gradually introduces additional interactions, like the ability to climb or jump over an obstacle. \u201cThat\u2019s the moment people realize this isn\u2019t entirely a side-scroller,\u201d says N\u00e4gelsbach.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the fox itself. Endling<\/em> casts players as the animal in distress to create an instant sense of empathy \u2014 and their choice of animal was well-considered. “Foxes are some of the most adaptable animals in the world,\u201d says N\u00e4gelsbach. \u201cThey\u2019re not the biggest or smallest; they\u2019re in the middle of the food chain. But if they\u2019re close to extinction, things are really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s a survival game, but a simplified one that focuses more on telling a story.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Philipp N\u00e4gelsbach, game designer and producer at HandyGames<\/p>\n

<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Doing so required numerous design considerations. The fox needed to be adorable enough to engage with, realistic enough to feel authentic, and believable enough to navigate the apocalyptic landscape. The fox doesn\u2019t realize what\u2019s happening to the environment; only the player recognizes the meaning of factories, careening trucks, and men in hazmat suits. \u201cAnd the fox can only do things real foxes can do,\u201d says Naegelsbach. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t have the fox pushing buttons or solving complex puzzles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"As<\/div>\n

Extra attention was paid to the fox\u2019s kits, who grow and develop unique personalities as the game goes on. Each kit represents a player\u2019s life and has an instrument attached to it; when players lose kits, the game feels quieter and more lonely.<\/p>\n

N\u00e4gelsbach says the teams did make adjustments to ensure the game wasn\u2019t too severe, including the ability to replay parts of the story after a loss instead of starting over. The kits have only one owl enemy; they can\u2019t be directly hurt by humans or dogs. And the fox\u2019s cute bark is a mix of several different animal sounds. \u201cIn the real world, foxes aren\u2019t very pleasant to listen to,\u201d says N\u00e4gelsbach, \u201cand you shouldn\u2019t be annoyed by your protagonist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Endling<\/em> ultimately delivers a message that sticks around long after gameplay ends. “The message is harsh,\u201d says QA lead and producer Jan Pytlik, \u201cbut the game didn\u2019t need to be harsh too. We worked and fine-tuned and I think we hit the mark.\u201d <\/p>\n

Learn more about Endling<\/a><\/p>\n

Download Endling from the App Store<\/a><\/p>\n

Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.<\/em><\/p>\n

Explore more of the 2023 Behind the Design series<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Endling is all about survival in a changed world \u2014 and it\u2019s a powerful mix of medium and message. The game is a gorgeous adventure in which you play as a fox navigating a land charred by environmental disaster and human impact. Endling is not subtle \u2014 particularly when the fox starts defending its tiny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-developer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}