00:00
Hi.
00:00
I'm Alexander, a senior game programmer of This War of Mine.
00:03
This is how we turned a modern sim game into a
00:06
visceral experience about civilians at war.
00:12
At 11bit Studios we started with Anomaly series,
00:16
which were a games that inverted tower defense idea.
00:20
Then we moved into some mobile games,
00:22
that weren't really successful.
00:24
But everything changed for us when
00:26
we developed This War of Mine.
00:28
The game was developed by
00:30
a core team of about 20 people.
00:32
But at the end of the production we've
00:35
had 35 people on board finishing the game.
00:38
The vision of the game was quite clear from the beginning.
00:41
To tell a story about civilians at war.
00:44
The terrible conditions at war.
00:46
The war always happens at somebody's doorstep.
00:49
We wanted to create something more than a game,
00:52
something that can take serious topics into consideration.
00:56
Maybe raising some questions with our story.
00:59
The basic concept of the game came from
01:01
the description of everyday life in
01:04
the besieged cities like Sarajevo.
01:08
The people there had to hide themselves in
01:11
their homes during the day,
01:13
and look for some supplies during the night.
01:15
Civilians that were cut off from the rest of the world,
01:19
that had scarce supplies.
01:21
We wanted to depict the conditions of war,
01:24
of all the horrors that involved it.
01:27
The people faced those things,
01:29
and how did they cope with them.
01:32
These kinds of stories are still living inside our families
01:37
as we are in Poland.
01:39
We've heard a lot of stories from our grandparents.
01:42
So that was our main inspiration.
01:48
From the beginning this was our goal.
01:50
To create an emotional experience for the player.
01:53
We wanted to give the player a feeling,
01:55
that there is no safe place in the game.
01:58
The shelter can be raided by some bandits or deserters.
02:02
And it is exposed to the harsh conditions of weather,
02:06
winter,
02:07
cold,
02:08
wind and so-on.
02:09
The only thing we needed to adjust was the game mechanics.
02:12
Our main inspiration was Papers Please.
02:16
A game that told the story about the
02:18
difficult situation in our totalitarian country.
02:21
They used only game play mechanics to
02:25
involve the player into a system that
02:27
he wouldn't like to be at.
02:29
We chose the pencil-like filter,
02:32
like sketches from the pencil.
02:34
Which also distorted the image so that
02:37
there's always a tension in every single second of the game.
02:44
Problems showed up when we were deep into development,
02:47
and we had all the basic mechanics figured out,
02:50
and implemented in the game.
02:52
We created a good game about managing the
02:55
lives of the civilians.
02:57
We created systems that supported that.
03:00
Hunger.
03:01
Diseases.
03:02
Terror.
03:03
Raids.
03:04
We created a complicated inventory system,
03:08
that had some slots for every single item type.
03:12
And at some point we figured out that
03:15
this is not really what we wanted to achieve.
03:18
We realized that we made a game about management.
03:21
A manager of civilians at war.
03:23
A war sims as we like to call it.
03:26
We didn't want that.
03:27
Our goal was to created a story,
03:30
to tell the people that in war that everyone is a solider.
03:33
We wanted to show the player the
03:34
consequences of his actions inside the game world.
03:38
The player didn't have emotional
03:39
connection with the characters.
03:42
It felt like a good simulation of civilians at war,
03:45
but with no emotional impact on the player.
03:48
So we had to take a step back and
03:51
think what of these mechanics are really felt necessary for
03:54
the message that we wanted to deliver.
04:00
Our first idea to evoke some emotions on
04:03
the player was to set a trap.
04:05
To create a place where every decision the player makes,
04:09
is the wrong one.
04:10
We created a lot of behavioral patterns for
04:13
the characters in game.
04:14
Every character the player faces acts different.
04:18
They would either greet them or just ignore the player.
04:21
Some of them want to attack the player,
04:23
and steal their goods.
04:25
Some of them just defend the people they love.
04:28
But depending on what the player does in the location.
04:31
For example when the player steals something,
04:33
or beats somebody,
04:35
or is aggressive,
04:36
behavior of the character starts to be different.
04:39
They react on the players actions with aggression,
04:43
with fear,
04:44
all kinds of emotions and all kinds of reactions.
04:47
So we created a house with an elderly couple inside,
04:51
and when the player gets there,
04:53
looking for supplies,
04:54
the couple is terrified.
04:55
They don't do anything about the
04:58
player being inside the house,
05:00
aside from begging the player not to
05:02
steal their medications or their food,
05:04
because they will just die.
05:06
And the player who is also in harsh conditions,
05:09
really really needs food and medications.
05:12
He is introduced into a choice.
05:14
Whether he steals the medications and
05:16
the food from the couple,
05:17
or leave them behind.
05:19
But he is exposing himself to the dangers of war.
05:22
Without these supplies the people he is
05:25
taking care about are more likely to be dead.
05:28
So when the player steals the elderly couples supply,
05:32
and revisits the location later in the game,
05:35
he finds the couple dead inside their bed.
05:38
With the elderly couple's house we set an emotional trap,
05:43
and it worked.
05:43
Every single choice the player makes is wrong.
05:46
There is no right answer to that.
05:48
And that was the first time the player felt a
05:51
connection between his actions and the in-game world.
05:54
But that was not enough.
05:56
So we introduced the depression level system.
05:58
The player already cared about what he saw around him,
06:02
but he controlled his own characters like drones.
06:06
After we contacted some psychologists,
06:08
we created some archetypes for our characters.
06:12
The depression affected by a lot of actions like,
06:15
helping others,
06:16
stealing,
06:17
giving some resources to our visitors.
06:19
The altruistic character would like to help others while
06:23
survivalist wants to save all the resources for themselves.
06:27
You the player decides to steal something,
06:29
an altruistic character would be more
06:31
depressed after that action.
06:34
But a survivalist would say that,
06:35
hey I'm the most important character here,
06:38
I want to survive.
06:39
After a certain amount of traumatic events that can occur,
06:42
it comes to a breaking point.
06:44
So an altruistic character can become indifferent.
06:47
A survivalist can fall into paranoia.
06:50
The character gets sadder and sadder,
06:52
to a point when it had impact on game-play mechanics,
06:55
as they were slower when more depressed.
06:58
The characters could fell into alcoholism.
07:01
They react with some emotional problems instabilities.
07:04
They can run away from the shelter to find another home.
07:08
And they can even commit suicide if
07:11
the trauma is too big for them to handle.
07:13
Up to a point we he directly disobeys the player,
07:17
and the only thing the character can do is
07:20
just lay on the ground because
07:22
he lost all his hope for living.
07:25
This is a sad game.
07:27
So we thought that was it.
07:29
The player was overwhelmed by
07:31
the consequences of his actions.
07:33
It changed the drones that the player
07:35
controlled into a believable human-beings.
07:38
But that still wasn't enough.
07:40
There was something missing.
07:41
Michat Drozdowski our Creative Director
07:44
made an observation on that when the
07:46
player faces something that he does not understand
07:49
that seems random to him,
07:51
he feels that he loses control.
07:54
And the feeling of lost control is
07:57
an essential part of the game because
07:59
the player loses control,
08:01
he starts to pay attention to every
08:03
single detail that can help him.
08:05
He's trying to get a hint from basically anywhere.
08:09
That was the moment where everything clicked.
08:12
When they start to examine each detail a
08:14
strong bond between them and the game is born.
08:17
He starts to feel responsibility for them.
08:20
When the player characters go looking for supplies,
08:23
they can face a variety of dangers.
08:25
When the player characters visits for example school,
08:28
he can meet helpful civilians or deserters,
08:32
that can harm him.
08:33
Or can meet nobody at all.
08:36
The player couldn't predict what would happen at all.
08:39
For example player characters have different skills.
08:42
Like good at math.
08:44
Likes children.
08:45
The players were looking for the meaning of them,
08:48
but there is none.
08:49
The fact that the guy is good as a teacher of math,
08:53
that's not really help in this conditions.
08:56
That's useless during a war.
08:57
The only goal is to survive.
08:59
During the war horrible things happen.
09:02
And people do different things and
09:04
they have to live with their choices.
09:07
We wanted this to be a key concept of the game.
09:10
That there is no good or bad endings.
09:12
That the player has to live with his choices,
09:16
and the fact that he wins or loses is
09:19
only in his mind and his feelings.
09:25
This War of Mine was widely recognized by the press.
09:28
Not only by the gaming press but
09:30
also mass media like The Guardian.
09:32
Even some schools used the game as
09:35
an educational material to teach children,
09:38
about conflicts and harsh conditions of
09:41
civilians during the war.
09:43
I think that the biggest lesson for us is that,
09:46
we are able to prove to ourselves that games like
09:50
movies or books can also have serious topics.
09:54
Our message in This War of Mine is
09:56
that war is not something that happens in a far-away land,
10:02
in some fantasy kingdoms.
10:04
That it's something real and something that affects the
10:07
peoples' lives and makes people do things that
10:11
they wouldn't even think of.
10:12
It's an experience that leaves some unanswered questions.
10:16
And makes people think about the consequences of
10:19
their actions during the war.
10:20
The success of This War of Mine showed
10:22
us that the players are looking for something
10:25
more than just simple fun and games.
10:27
The game is,
10:28
as like we like to call it,
10:30
meaningful entertainment.
10:32
The emotional impact on the player is
10:34
something that has become a value for us.
10:38
For us going forward that idea and proved that
10:41
we didn't create This War of Mine by accident.
10:43
For us playing is a game about the
10:45
survival of society in harsh conditions.
10:48
At its core a city builder,
10:50
the player is placed as a governor of some community.
10:54
And the harsh conditions makes him to
10:58
make decisions that he doesn't really want to make.
11:01
If he survives he is left with the society he created.
11:05
And he might not be very happy to see his creation.
11:10
We have an idea at 11bit Studios that we want to
11:13
make games that we want to be proud to show to our children.
11:17
So we regardless of the theme,
11:19
regardless of the technology being used,
11:22
regardless of the story that is told,
11:25
we want to create some value.
11:27
And we want to pass that value to the people we love most.
