GDC 2013: Big Storytelling, Small Budgets

et’s face it you guys, video games are expensive as all hell. They’re pricey to buy, pricey to market, and even pricier to develop; it’s destined to be a constant in this industry. Regardless of these daunting budget trends, there seems to be this misconception that enthralling experiences can’t be done without Scrooge McDuck Money Bins-worth of funding to produce it. George Backer of Hotsauce Interactive approaches GDC with the philosophy that experiences are produced from the skillful heart and not the wallet.

Video games weave a bright and fantastical veil of fiction over those who follow them as a medium. It is because of the amazing worlds that players travel to when they enter the space of most modern games that everyone throws around the perception of games needing to be epic and earth-shattering in their production. Sophisticated acting, writing, and technological advances are common elements found in blockbuster productions. But from a more humble scale, settings or stories aren’t required to be epic if you want the player to feel something. In fact, the act of building an engrossing and emotional world with all those expensive features or set pieces isn’t necessary to convey feeling, much less the physical world itself in some cases. Ambience is a mood before it can be described as anything else, something that can be established from the minimal aspects of a setting or even the actions of a character. The beauty behind engrossing storytelling is that it can be done humbly and better before production value would ever be considered to trump content.

The first step to engaging and ultimately cheap content, as cliché as it sounds when you first hear it, involves imagination and knowing how to apply it.

Backer goes on to highlight the first key factor though, that imagination does require some control; the message is not to limit your imagination, but instead to construct around the idea of coherence. Imaginative structures that span beyond the average conception is as strong as you want it to portray and can be that mix of interesting, yet appealing, but coherency is a must since it keeps things in balance. Now that you have imagination in drive, one of the most important factors of selling a compelling story also happens to be one of the cheapest: the characters. Characters and the areas that define them, be it their back story or even just their mannerisms, can convey these minimal yet charmingly endearing qualities that will flesh themselves out as vessels to channel said imagination. Backer then cites a very interesting example of this element in action at its most minimal and cheapest: the Companion Cube from Portal.

Backer sold his argument well. The companion cube nails all of the qualities of imagination that make it a stand out character. Let’s break down the Companion Cube's concepts: it’s an inanimate object that’s projected with sentient reason and feelings to act as a cipher to personify human tropes like friendship and hope, and possesses the quirks of not threatening or stabbing the character. Furthermore, this “character” is introduced to you from an omnipotent AI that slowly works to drive the player insane—crazy as shit but coherent sounds about right.

As you advance in the game, there’s a point where GLaDOS will eventually place you at odds with a situation in where you will have to sacrifice your companion cube -- an inanimate object that holds no sentient place, has now formed an significant attachment that’s been built because of the composition and dichotomy of humanizing the elements within the game.

This is then where he breaks down the suggestive cost of this particular event for development within the game.

The scene showcased, at most, 20 minutes of dialogue, use of the in-game graphics engine, and was mostly built as a level within itself that falls in line with the moving through the rest of the game -- an insightfully moving moment with little production cost.

The other example Backer cited was the indie cult classic, Thomas Was Alone. This Indie darling is composed of simple art design with Atari-like simplicity, pixelated graphics and chip-tune synthesized through freeware software with orchestral scores lumped within, and minimal voice acting. It has been cited to be one of the most compelling ventures among its contemporaries. The characters and their settings have nothing distinct about them beyond primary colors, and it goes on to inspire players everywhere to personify and articulate their own vision through fan art and fan fiction. Thomas was alone was developed with a free version of Unity, and the game engine itself has dipped into one cent of the budget. Already, the game was near completion.

Be it titles like Limbo or Kentucky Route Zero, the indie scene has always been friendly to the moth-whisking pockets. Beyond the facet of crowd funding or support, a life changing game is possible regardless of the size of your bank account, and will continue to be a growing trend to advance the realm of gaming for years to come.