S4 Finale: The Journal
After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back to finish Season 4 of the blog with a new game pitch.
"journals" by gbSk is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
This blog disappeared for a bit because we had to move while our home was being remodeled, we had a second child, we had to move back home, I quit my job, found a new job, and am moving across the country. This post wraps up Season 4, but I have a few other fun posts in the works and intend to start writing more regularly again.
Each season of Play Kaizen includes six posts. Five posts cover One Cool Thing from five different video games. The Finale pitches a new game that incorporates the One Cool Things from Season 4.
Season: A Letter to the Future & “Player-Driven Memories.”
Hollow Knight & “Tools, Not Power.”
Celeste & “Complexity Plateau.”
Call of the Sea & “Isolated Flavor.”
The Witcher 3 & “Historical Footprint.”
This season really indulged in creating a sense of history in games while also exploring two principles of accessibility and progression. As I keep that in mind, I’m also inspired for this Season Finale by three books:
The Day the Crayons Quit by Daywalt: A children’s book that’s a series of letters written by the crayons complaining to the child who uses them.
One Woman Show by Coulson: A book written by a 25 year veteran of Metropolitan Museum of Art, in which the entire book is written in hyper concise cards, like the ones you see on the wall explaining exhibits or pieces in a gallery.
S by Abrams and Dorst: This is a book that has “hand-written” notes and messages between two people who are checking out the book from a library and communicating. It’s a super innovative, weird reading experience. A book, within a book, sorta.
The Hook
You move into your new home, an older house located in a small town. One with which you are not familiar, as you’re an outsider. As you’re unpacking in the basement, you find a battered box left behind from the previous owner, filled with old romance novels and thrillers like the ones you’d buy at the airport before a flight, alongside a well-preserved journal. You begin to read it and the quality of the writing and nature of the details transport you to a different version of the home you now inhabit.
Over time, you read through the entries - sometimes sequentially, sometimes you select a page at random - and begin to know the author and the people in their life. You learn their personality, their struggles, their sense of humor.
As you explore your new home, you use the details in the journal to reconstruct the home as it was (metaphorically as a memory, but in a “physical” game space), which leads to new secrets and a greater appreciation for the space.
But, as you read, and rebuild, you find yourself stuck in the midst of a mystery that is far from over. There is a chance to make right a tragedy, or fall victim too the recurring mistakes of the past.
The Journal should grip you as it reveals new details on every page. Strong narrative combines with an immersive mystery to provide a distinct experience that awaits your next plunge into its pages.
How it Plays
The Journal is a game best played on a Mobile device with headphones. It combines elements of the Walking Simulator Genre (ex: Tacoma), listening to a podcast, slowly building a residential space (ex: The Sims), and can be consumed in small chunks.
I think it’s useful to describe a series of play sessions.
[Session One]
The player pulls out their phone and taps the journal for a new entry. They can read it, or listen to a narrated version in the author’s voice. The player will be given a date (ex: June 4, 1983) and a “long tweet’s” worth of content. Some entries may be longer, some may be shorter.
Before the player closes their phone (they need to be somewhere and have to stop playing), they can take advantage of this journal entry. They might open the Timeline and write a brief note. They can see what notes they logged for August 1983 and see a picture forming. The player can tag the timeline note with the image of a character (ex: Involves Becky) which might help them solve a puzzle involving the character later.
[Session Two]
The player listens too another entry, which happens to take place in the Study in the house. The journal entry describes the study, including how the room looks, what you can see out the window, and some of the items inside.
[Session Three]
The player wants to “find the study.” This is a Mobile game, so the player quickly bounces between static images of empty rooms. Using the clues heard in Session Two, the player decides the small, northern-most room of the house must be the Study. They label it as such, and hear a chime indicating they are correct.
Session Two also detailed a bookshelf and a desk. Inside the study, the player can place those items in the room. There should be a visual indication that these aren’t really there, this is a reconstruction derived from what is read in the journal and in the imagination of your character.
But, as this is a video game, and video games let us bend rules. The player can open a book on the shelf to find a note written in the introduction. Perhaps the game provides a mystical device (found beneath the floorboards), like the watch in Return of the Obra Dinn, to enable more cogent visions, reconstruct scenes that then play (like in Tacoma), or reveal secrets in the house. These things can reveals a clue, such as a major plot point in another room. But, the player will need to find that room, figure out who was there, and reconstruct it first.
As you can hopefully see, the player is reading and listening to narrative snippets, much like they would in a Walking Simulator or podcast. They are reconstructing a room, which unlocks new clues and new snippets. They are building a timeline filled with their notes, but also clues. The timeline is how they make sense of the journal, which may be vague and opaque at first without knowledge of the home’s layout, the people within it, their motivations, and more.
The key elements are a simple tap interface, rich audio stories, and the joy of deduction and player-driven elements. With these, The Journal takes the narrative and accessibility of a walking simulator and adds just a bit of spice. The hope is that the portability of the experience means players can dig in when they can, in 5 or 40 minute chunks.
The One Cool Things
I’ve pitched the game, but let’s take a minute to examine how our five Season 4 case studies all feed into this idea.
Season: A Letter to the Future & “Player-Driven Memories”: As a quick refresher, in Season, the player takes photographs, collects notes and sketches, and records the audio of the environment to build a scrapbook. It is only loosely tied to the actual mechanisms, but is still an incredibly pleasurable and neat experience.
In The Journal, the player is building a timeline, which is both the “clue board” with strings connecting motives and suspects from a detective drama, but also the player’s scrapbook. It is how they make sense of the journal and clues in a way that is their own. I’d love to imagine friends playing the game and texting each other images of snippets of their timeline.
Hollow Knight & “Tools, Not Power”: This is definitely the awkward turtle of this finale. In truth, when you pick five games, sometimes one doesn’t quite fit the pitch! I think we can leverage this. If you recall, Hollow Knight moves away from mild statistical manipulation and instead provides the player with big, bold new abilities that change how they play and approach each situation.
The rooms of a home serve a purpose: the kitchen is for cooking, the study is for quiet enjoyment and reflection, the dining room for entertainment. Perhaps we can tie new tools, new puzzles, or new vibes even in the narrative to these rooms. Therefore, entering a study isn’t just another part of the house, but something that feels differently and forces you to approach previous information differently.
Celeste & “Complexity Plateau”: I love how Celeste adds new wrinkles to its environment, not the player character. One level might add a double jump, but Celeste herself doesn’t have one. This means the amount of complexity is always constrained.
With The Journal, each room can be a somewhat contained puzzle that limits how broad and complex it is, while feeding into the overall narrative. The player can also be limited to certain rooms until they unlock prior secrets, which further limits the complexity. The home can start as a one-room studio, effectively, and evolve slowly into a mansion with self-contained wings.
Call of the Sea & “Isolated Flavor”: Typically, puzzle games mix their narrative flavor elements with the components of the puzzle and it can muddy the waters. Call of the Sea cleanly splits the two, which makes both richer.
The player can read/listen to entries in the Journal first as a consumer of entertainment. Then, return to tag elements for their timeline. Over time, the journal entries will be flavor, whereas the real game is contained wholly within the timeline. This clean delineation of the work space versus the play space will ideally make the game more enjoyable.
The Witcher 3 & “Historical Footprint”: Throughout The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red makes it clear that the world existed long before you showed up. There are characters familiar with you who discuss your past triumphs and mistakes. There are lovers, betrayers, friends.
One of the best aspects of a walking simulator is experiencing a history, discovering characters as a fly-on-the-wall, and constructing the pieces using inference and context. In The Journal, you are rebuilding the house, reconstructing the timeline, and fleshing out characters to discover their history and your place within it.
Season Four is finally finished! I still love the format of this blog and have Season 5 and Season 6 defined loosely. However, before I begin another season, I want to explore a few topics, such as my favorite games of 2023, thoughts on achievements, and releasing the initial Canon of Cool Things, aka this blog’s Mount Rushmore.