Recently, I rewatched Makoto Shinkai’s Hoshi no Koe (‘Voices of a Distant Star’), for what may be the five billionth time. I find it incredibly touching, it’s probably one of my favourite pieces of anime, and along with the extra short on the DVD, Kanojo to Kanojo no neko (‘She and Her Cat’) has always managed to make me feel very emotional and pensive afterwards. Anyway, I had this thought afterwards: “I want to play a game that can make me feel how that film makes me feel“.

My next thought was what if a game were actually adapted from Hoshi no Koe – would the play experience elicit the same emotions as the watching experience? It does have elements which would traditionally work well in a game (mech space battles anyone?) – but really, that’s inconsequential to the point of the film. Therefore, the real ‘meat and potatoes’ of the game would have to be huge cut scenes, would they not? And, whilst I haven’t quite figured out where I ultimately stand on cut scenes (though don’t mind playing games where cut scenes are used sparingly), having huge great big stonking ones are not where games should be headed.

Okay, so what if the interactions between the protagonists (Mikako and Nobaru) were, well, interactive? Could there be some sort of manipulation of choices one or the other makes? Well, the answer to that, if we’re trying to end up with “a game that can make me feel like the story of Hoshi no Koe does”, is no. This is because to get those emotions, the choices would have to lead to the ‘correct’ ending, thus, you’re only providing the illusion of choice. Which, although it is a typical concept in many games, is again, not where games should ultimately be heading. You’re left with this entirely linear experience which really has no point. In short, you might as well just watch the film, right?

So this then got me thinking – moving away from the direct story of Hoshi no Koe, how could a game “make me feel like that”? There needs to exist something in the play mechanics itself that can give rise to those particular dynamics. Of course, part of this involved breaking down what emotions the film was making me feel, exactly. Good thing my research makes me think about emotions a lot; I’m getting quite good at doing that! Anyway, so I started writing some brief private notes about what could give rise to those emotions and that experience.

(I just realised what I’m describing here is a kind of crazy internalised version of the MDA process where I’m both the designer thinking about the mechanics and and the end user looking at my aesthetic experience wondering how to work backwards towards the dynamics. Hmm.)

Then tonight in my procrastination, I re-happened upon Steve Gaynor of Fullbright‘s Call to Arms 2008 to design a game to convey some kind of meaningful experience or expression. Therefore, I’ve decided I’m going to not only design but also actually prototype a game to do just that. I took my existing brief notes and reshaped them slightly (it’s not necessarily that Hoshi no Koe-esque anymore!), and wrote some more ideas down.

I’m not revealing exactly what the theme is yet (and I realise I’ve been very fluffy/fuzzy/whatever in describing what I’m trying to convey – but that’s intentional!), but I will do soon enough.

My working title is Collide.

Tags: cut-scenes, design fragments, emotions, game design, hoshi no koe, makoto shinkai, mda, projects: collide, prototypes