Emulating Experience

Interesting game mechanics for life simulations

One thing I did with Bad Writer that I really liked was that I was trying to emulate the experience of what it was like to be a writer (especially a short story writer), trying to make it in the big bad world of publishing. Usually life sim games don’t try to go this route- they base their mechanics on the work itself, and not the experience of the work. For example, most farm sims base their gameplay on planting crops, waiting for rain, etc. You’re rewarded (or punished) on how well your crops flourish, all of that. Certainly, games like Stardew Valley have more than that going on, but for the most part, the prime gameplay is the farming aspects.

Even the emulated experience of farmlife is more narrative based, and not emulation based. Their are scripted events for dances, seasonal festivals, etc. But they don’t try to create gameplay based on these aspects themselves. And if they do, it’s the usual primitive “kindness coupons” sort of gameplay. Very basic, not actual emulation of real life experience of making friends in town, etc, but instead a simplified “if I’m nice to you, you will like me. If I’m mean, you will hate me.”

Don’t get me wrong, these are all well and good, and tehre is not problem with that. It’s just not what I’m aiming for as a game developer. I want to try and go the non traditional route, use interesting mechinics to get you to feel and sense what it could be like to live in this situation. The sideways, in the margins experiential exerpeince of it is what appeals to me. Think of games like Passport Please. Even though the mechanics at first seem to replicate the droll tedium of the work itself, he between the lines experience of trying to do the right thing, to make enough to feed your family, to not get punished or docked pay…

Those are the lived in experiences, that is gamified as well, in interesting ways. As I said above, I did something like this with Bad Writer. A lot of life sim games or work sim games would take the experience of, let’s say, trying to publish a book or a short story, and make that the goal of the gameplay. Most likely to “make it big” in that feild, so it becomes a sort of wish fullfilment gameplay. You keep at it until you get the good ending and you’re character is at the top of their game, etc. Like indie rock bad simulators, etc. Most of the gameplay involves juggling statistics, getting better, etc.

But they don’t represent the lived in experience of what that’s like. In Bad Writer, the focus is on that experience. It’s about staying happy enough that you won’t get sad and give up. It’s about both resisting (and giving into) temptation to do anything else but write. It’s about finding ideas, juggling the needs of your wife and your own mental health in order to just keep at it.

I’ve very proud of this set up. It takes the focus off of “trying to sell a story” and places it instead on “trying to keep sane in this crazy world of publishing”. I’ve had a lot of writers contact me to tell me how this was exactly what they needed, that it inspired them to keep trying to write and get published, and that rejections where not to be taking personally. Exactly what I was hoping for! One writer even kept at until publication, which was fantastic.

I’m going for something similar with Monster Heart. Rather than gamifying the vetrinarian aspect of healing and caring for monsters, I’m instead building the mechanics on the social aspects of working at an amusement park, like a zoo, a funfair, or a renaissance festitval. When I was in highschool and college, I worked a lot of these places, and I remember my experiences so well!

And even though there will be game mechinics trying to emulate caring for monsters, the primary gameplay will be on these social experiences, since in my memory, that was what stuck with me. I’m going to use a complex system of storylets to control the games social flow and narrative experience. I’ve already created a storylet engine that will let me do it, and it works amazingly!

The idea is this- you are currently contracted to work the summer as a vetrinarian for Candlebook Island Monster Sanctuary. You have until the end of summer to prove your worth to head honchos of the island, if they like you they’ll renew your contract and you can stay on for a full year. Like any job, making sure the other employees like you is just as key as being good at what you do.

So, the storylet system will be interesting. Each NPC and monster has a set of hidden values and personality quirks. Some are grumpy, some are really nice, etc. You need to keep the monsters healthy and stay on the good side of a majority of the others there. You also have your own mental states as a character that affects all of this. If you work yourself too hard, you mind and body suffer, you become tired and grouchy all of the time.

This changes your conversation selections, so that their more agigtated and grumpy. Which then affects the NPC’s response to you. It’s a delicate balance, and if your social connection score drops too low, you’ll get fired. If you’re ability to care for the monsters drops too low, it will also affect everything else, and you will get fired too. It’s all about balancing yourself, your personal life, and what you’re doing.

I really think this will create a unique experience for the player, as well as multuple playthroughs, since depending on your choices, the game will change drastically day to day. It could’ve probably been done with traditional branching narrative, but I like the storylet way of going about this better.

It feels more natural, like the game is responding to play interactions and actions in the game, and not just pick a path and be done with it. It feels more like cooperative gameplay and a narrative built between player and game engine. Not that this is an AI, I’m coming up with all the stories and interactions myself. It’s just choosing what to reveal, etc to the player based on what they do.

Anyway, I’m still working full steam ahead on this one. Lately, this last month my dayjob has really picked up, so I haven’t been able to work on this as much as I would’ve liked. It’s starting to slow down again, so I’ll be back in it, working as much as humanely possible soon enough.

I’ve very excited about this game, and I can’t wait to show you what it’s like when I’m done. It’s going to be on the Nintendo Switch first, with an Itch.io and Steam release a few months after that. I do have to update the Monster Heart pages, since a lot of my ideas have changed since I built those up.

Hopefully, I might even be able to post a video of some gameplay in the next month, too.