Light and Shade
“Our blood was red… but theirs was golden.”
Boring thing out of the way first: we fixed this blog! You can now leave comments again. Please excuse that temporary accidental censorship and leave comments on AK’s recent write-up about CRPG design [AK: she really means ‘weird extended Frasier riff’, but she’s being polite] if you wanted to but couldn’t before.
Now for an art-centric update on Travelling At Night. I really want to get the UI right for Travelling. Here’s the new version we’re currently working with in Unity, featuring the all-important dialogue system:
The design takes inspiration from 1940s maps and identity documents while also bearing modern UX in mind. Please note it’s not final, and may change significantly! For example, the space on the left beneath Aubière’s portrait will probably be filled with AK’s ‘Aspect Pool’ system, which lets you strategically decide which failures to rescue by ‘forcing’ to success based on your character’s Signs and Passions. But I’ll let him talk about that design later down the line – and share how that will actually look in UI terms once we’ve implemented in-game.
There is a hitch to this UI, though. In Cultist, with the exception of the Mansus, even though huge numbers of different things happen in-game, all screenshots look roughly the same. This made marketing difficult, because you’re supposed to be able to offer people a menu of different screenshots showing the breadth and variety of your game to excite them. Showing people multiple Cultist screenshots was a bit like being Ms Bread at the Bread Shop on Let Me Tell You About Bread Day. Beautiful though I still think the game is, it all having the same environment was a bit of a drag.
Travelling is going to have lots of different, visually distinctive areas: a sun-drenched French sanitarium; a dusk-lit circus encampment; cabins on 1940s diesel-electric trains; a snow-girt Alpine fortress… This is great news for me as a marketer, a little daunting for me as an artist, and downright devious for me as a UI designer. We have to make a UI that gels with all these places and colour schemes, whether it’s overlaid on a touching scene between lovers in a garden at night or a climactic crowd-scene by the sea.* This, I think, is why games like Disco choose a dark grey strip for their dialogue window: black goes with everything. Except… I don’t actually think that it does. Certainly not in Travelling. For example, see the two screenshots below when overlaid on our night environment.
Some CRPGs – Gamedec springs to mind – designed different UI for different environments to manage this problem, but I’d rather avoid doing that if we can. I think there is one consistent solution we can come up with – we just need to find it.
Moving on, I think it’s high time you met monsieur le docteur. This is Dr Aubière, the insouciant psychiatrist in charge of the Sanitarium Aujourd’hui where Spencer starts the game. There’s a lot of cool inspiration going into the sanitarium – visual cues like art deco houses to open-air tuberculosis hospitals in the Alps – but the key thing to remember is it’s totally normal and everything is entirely above board. Which is why you don’t need to worry if Aubière is working for the Incorporates, influenced by external forces, or has your real best interests at heart. Phew.
“Bonjour. C’est moi. Le plus beau médecin de France. Faites-moi confiance.”
While drawing him I was thinking of a line from The Big Sleep: “The white made the ivory look dirty and the ivory made the white look bled out.” Is he a Chandler fan? Is the art trying to tell you something? Does his coat just need a wash? Well, you’ll just have to gosh darn play Travelling to find out.
Finally, I thought you might appreciate some experimentation I’ve been doing with Spencer’s facial expressions. We don’t know at this stage how much reactivity there’ll be in-game, but all the characters I’m sharing will be animated to some degree. We might want to show moment-to-moment facial expressions in dialogue, or perhaps different visual representations of Spencer that are affected by the choices you make in-game. TBD. One significant visual effect will be outfits, which, in their current pre-alpha condition, look like the unholy lovechild of BOOK OF HOURS’ crafting system with Alicia Silverstone’s virtual closet from Clueless. This will probably change. Probably. Regardless, Spencer is likely to have Big Feels about a number of things in-game and I’d like him to be able to express them somehow, so here’s me playing with Emotion. I find Whimsy!Spencer’s happy lil’ face an effective tonic if you’re having a bad day.
Click for a larger version.
More news soon on outfits, environments, Skills and more. Next time we’ll either introduce you to an upsettingly handsome Sanitarium orderly or Fraser Strathcoyne’s simply upsetting new ‘pal’ Annabelle. Stay tuned!
*Please note – so AK doesn’t think I am mismanaging your expectations – that neither of these situations are canonical or likely to actually exist in Travelling. Though there is one particular romantic subplot in-game that many of you will like… [AK: as long as you like things that MIGHT END MISERABLY. ]
I can leave comment now! yatta-!
Of course, I’m enthusiastic fan of Weather Factory games, but in fact, I also love reading about AK’s passion to the games, and philosophy of games. (I love Against Worldbuilding, and Snare of the Tree, too.)
I think there are many inspirations. Thank you very much!
AHHHHH! Sorry! I mistake!
I was going to comment on ‘The Palimpsest’, but I accidentally commented here. Sorry……
I would not trust Compassion Spencer with my Friday Night Kebab.
Ayez confiance. Tout va bien. Tout va très bien. It has the same connotation as that friendly bloke you’ve never met with his mangy coat calling you My Friend in an alley with one hand behind his back.
Being native French, I do not know if it is intentional, but Sanitarium Aujourd’hui sounds… Oddly modern. Let me explain: To my ears -bearring in mind I am NOT an expert-, French *likes* its articles. Especially the definite ones. Le Sanitarium. L’école. Pendant ce temps. All of these would be without articles in English: Sanitarium, full stop. School, full stop. Meanwhile, full stop. Yes, at this time IS valid, but less… spoken. I think. Stuffier, you might say.
All that to say, amputating the articles makes it sound more modern, more abstract to me: like VOGUE. Vogue what? No, just Vogue. Same here: Sanitarium Aujourd’hui. It’s like a nametag in a dusty bureaucrat’s file: Sanitarium SLASH Aujourd’hui, with its brothers Sanitarium SLASH Bobard et Sanitarium SLASH Cabriolet. It’s compounded, I feel, by the lack of rapport between the two nouns: Noun1 Noun2 feels very… modern. (Granted, we are exceedingly bureaucratic, but the people making the forms aren’t the ones naming things. They like LE LAISSER-PASSER A TRENTE-HUIT (Oh, another example with a definite article.)
And, in a similar but different way from the English, when it comes to institutional names, it likes its oddly quaint, understated names.
In Quantum Magician, the narration puts it thus: Les Maisons d’éducation correctionnelle, lit the Houses of Correctional Education, was the Congregate’s name for its penitentiaries. The closest word might be “Reformatory”, although it conveyed little of the graceful French irony.
Another example: La Maison, from The House, in Which… (La Maison, dans laquelle… , originally Дом, в котором…)
Bref. It could very well be intentional. I saw the blogposts about translation, and it is NOT easy business. Still, it Still, Ça ne fait pas de mal de partager ceci, n’est-ce pas?
For a less self-indulgent comment, the thing I take away most from this might actually be 1) That the backgrounds of the portraits are not left to chance (That was definitely one of Disco’s strengths: The portraits, including their backdrops). 2) The system to “recoup” failures which might concern something our character holds dear. Like a middle ground between a Gamemaster fudging the rolls (or more subtly: adapting encounters on the fly to the session and group) and the very deterministic Zork-approaches of LOOK CHAIR / LOOK DOOR / PRESS HANDLE / TURN HANDLE / TURN DOOR HANDLE / etc.
Looking forward to it, as is probably manifest by this point.
>Ça ne fait pas de mal de partager ceci, n’est-ce pas?
Bien sûr! And one of the reasons I find French harder than Spanish is that French rules about article use seem much less casual. (I understand this is how Slavic-language speakers feel about English.)
As a handful of people have spotted, the Sanitarium is based on/in this place:
https://www.culture.gouv.fr/regions/Drac-Provence-Alpes-Cote-d-Azur/Politique-et-actions-culturelles/Architecture-contemporaine-remarquable-en-Paca/le-label-architecture-contemporaine-remarquable-en-provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/label-acr-alpes-maritimes/Antibes/Antibes-Villa-Aujourd-hui
I wanted to make that connection visible (and I did also want it to feel sleek and modern in English, although I can’t speak for the effect in French). So the lack of an article is intentional. But as soon as I step away from English, I know my intentions can land unintentionally. ‘Travelling’ is pan-European so I expect I will be responsible for a number of clunkers over the next two years.
So merci de continuer à partager. I can’t promise to change things, because the English intention is foremost, but this kind of commentary is often useful and always interesting.
While you’re here, I’m curious about how the French and pseudo-French in Disco comes across to a native speaker. (To an English ear it works nicely, it makes it feel historically grounded and a bit classy)
It’s my pleasure, and I stand corrected since the Villa exists after a fashion in our History. And as always, opinions can vary quite significantly even within a Country: I’m told people can be very cross about Pain-au-Chocolat VS Chocolatine; but that is not a war which makes me take up arms, while on the other hand I have Breton blood, which means that to me butter equals salted butter, in the same way that Wizard = Hat. Hat = Wizard. Also, I’ve been known to name things using the cybersec placeholder names of Alice, Bob, and Charles before; so it’s not my business to dictate, just comment.
As for Disco’s use of the Language, it’s actually quite transparent to me, and does indeed come of more as a historically grounded text which just happens to involve French names and accents. Because the prose is such a delight, and that I played more without voice acting (though probably played end to end twice the Final Cut), and that its usage never sticks out as token -Disco has a very *patina* feel to its entire world, to borrow one of your expressions-, it is that very rare nearly transparent use that gives it life without distracting. This makes me think of Discworld again, actually; although very different, Pratchett’s clear use of straightforward vocabulary and phrasings nonetheless weave together into some very poignant moments – and then it steps back, unnoticed. Feet of Clay comes to mind: Not, Thou Shalt Not. I will Not. You Owned yourself. There were no Words between you and the World.
All of these words and structure are probably collège level (A false friend; it means Middle School here). And that’s factoring our infamously atrocious grasp of English. And yet, it sticks out and I can paraphrase it on the spot from memory.
Disco’s use of the Language feels like that. It’s as deceptively skillful and thoughtful as, hm, Deus Ex’s breathing animation: It’s very obviously there, and gives it texture, but it never pulls you out. So secondary belief is maintained, and that is high praise. A counter exemple would be the persistent Ese, or Abuela, that pepper or haunt the speech of some Latino-heritage characters, and which when too systematic, are more… apparent.
Although I’ll qualify this in that I’ve gone native on English more than my average compatriot.
Personally, I know I crack up more when I spot Québécois or Belgian divergent phrasings: Nonante, for example. Or, I’ve seen a text which wanted to use Gallic for Emphasis and replaced Fuck me with Fourre-moi, and I nearly chortled. It’s not bad per se, but it’s much more… obvious. Disco’s world feels like it legitimately might have been another History. I’ve not researched it, but given how accurate the accents also are (and I normally have quite the allergy to bad French accents), I would hazard a guess they put in serious homework on getting it Right. It’s extremely impressive to me how seamless the non English words slip into English-spoken sentences, because that is not easy for me at all, even after years of presentations. Names -both Proper Names and groups, buildings and items, (Martinaise. Grand Couron, Révachol, the Débardeurs Union. The Coupris Kineema. The Armistice. )- are the use-case that most readily comes to mind about Disco’s use. Then is accent and tone in dialogue. Only then actually appear idiomatic vocabulary, trailing the pack, and in fact no example springs to mind.
Wait, there it is – Bourgeois. Which is in a queer spot like Travelling itself, but more importantly, I’d hazard gains more power from the restrain showed in avoiding overuse the rest of the time. Like the difference between constant close ups, and two per film.
That’s probably quite enough, so good luck with everything!
Big fan of how different feelings appear to generate or remove different styles of facial hair. Very expressive whiskers, that man.
Beautiful stuff, as always!
I am curious whether you’ve thought of using the same UI design for each location, but allowing each location to have its own UI color palette. When you move to a new location, the game can read in that location’s UI color palette and adjust the UI accordingly. (Or perhaps it reads the current location when it opens. Depending on your use.)
I absolutely love seeing what you two are up to!
I really like the papery colours you’ve got for the UI because I think it has an ‘edge of the page’ feel that stops it clashing the same way the negative space of a coloured drawing doesn’t clash. And the overall art style is a great mix of feeling very Secret Histories and more traversable.
At the moment it seems completely obvious to me that one key inspiration of “Travelling” has to be Thomas Mann’s “Der Zauberberg”. (For those, who don’t know it: Please read a synopsis of it and try not to think about “Travelling”. I find that pretty difficult.) But I’m really curious if this is all one big coincidence or if it is by design.
Big Zauberberg fan here (and we had the 100th anniversary of the book last year), so I wouldn’t mind seeing two literary things I enjoy, Mann and AK, come together.
Oddly enough I started reading it last week! So either one big coincidence, or it’s an unconscious response to Mann’s effect on the cultural landscape.