When We Made... If Found...
actually look at you. And even with that little bit of work, with the help of the animation and really smart designers and engineers, with everybody working together, you could tell from the very beginning that Chris Wallace takes a look thereally gravitate she was a character thatbehind people would scenes oftoward.” Dreamfeel’s If Found… a Quillstarring really becomes a fully fleshed out character with unique visual novel a transgender the help of the game’s strong world-building. As an woman, steeped in Irish culture interloper in Quill’s world, the player experiences it not through her eyes, but as an observer watching as she lives her life in her familiar setting. It’s a strangely intimate feeling, and one which gives way to joint apprehension as both the player and Quill enter new, unfamiliar areas. “When you go through Mousetown and you see Quill run through there and you see Dreamfeel, that she hasisaahometown, f Found… from developer visual novel the feeling of her very leaving it, of that town maybevia being in an almost literal sense. Presented the in danger, givesdevice you more a bond,”the Alderson “If take framing of a of notebook, player says. doesn’t that partcontrol was leftofout, wouldn’t feelinstead like there was it. direct theyou narrative – but erases muchThe to fight for. central Everything that we’ve done, the mood game’s mechanic is the act of erasion. settings, taking one area toand thebeautiful next andartwork, letting From the textQuill itselffrom to the distinct you rest and take in this environment… all supposed presented as sketches in protagonistIt’s Kasio’s notebook. to It’s exaggerate andthat accentuate moodtheme that you’re a mechanic ties into that a central to the feeling. all erasing ties back into how you are connecting game,It of the past and beginning again –with Quill toldand viaher theworld.” main thrust of If Found’s narrative of Above: Llaura McGee, a transgender woman returning home to her small Dreamfeel SAME QUESTION EIGHT WAYS Irish village. Collaboration the development of Moss Beginningwas life key withduring a two-person development team ,
I
notback just in within 2016, thethe team team itself, grew buttowith fivethe people help (alongside of external playtesters. some freelancers) People were onceoften publisher brought Annapurna in to feedback became on involved in the project around 2018. The small team is appropriate, given the game’s narrative – which juxtaposes an epic adventure of a space explorer attempting to prevent the end of the world with the smaller, more personal story at the heart of the game. And while the team grew as the project progressed, it all began with just two people: with Dreamfeel’s Llaura McGee drawing inspiration from artist Liadh Young’s sketches, who provided the art for the game.
the game and asked questions about their experience – even if most of these questions were actually very similar. “External playtests were mostly about ‘Okay, how do people feel when they play? Do they like it or not like it?’,” Alderson explains. “At the end of playtest we would ask the same question eight different ways. The question is really ‘What didn’t you like?’, but we would ask it differently: ‘What pulled you out of the experience? What took you out of the headset? If there’s one thing you could change what would it be? If you had two weeks to finish the game, what would be the thing that you’d fix?’ “Those help bring a playtester into their comfort zone, because no one wants to play something that people put a lot of care and love into and then turn around and say ‘This is what with I didn’t it’. says So it takes a little while “It started melike andabout Liadh,” McGee. “I loved to get the comfortable, wewith found seeing the playtester rough pages she wouldand draw all that her finding different to asktime theIsame means sketches and atways the same really question wanted to make eventually get the good stuff game after the fourth ayou collage like game. Soreally a diary based was a or fifth time ask something it. natural fit,you there’s really personal about a “I don’t and thinkallanyone in our studio has ever made a notebook the doodles and scribbles. game like originally this, so I think it’s important you trust the “It was a witch’s diary andthat I realised I could take process. this masking You trusttechnique playtestingI and was you playing make around sure that withyou inallow code yourself to erase some the time diary.and freedom to try something and “The then mechanic keep going. wasTry awesome something so new we decided and branch to out, make but also theuse whole yourgame experience aroundfrom it. We games also that had you’ve these zooming made before mechanics and you’ll which be fine. leantAsa long sense asof you’re scalehaving and apocalypse. fun too! We enjoyed What kind playing of story Moss would throughout we have theinentire a game process about and erasing I think that a diary reallyduring helps.”the end of the world? As soon as we asked ourselves these questions, we had the seed of the game.”
ERASING THE NARRATIVE The erasing mechanic is one of the more unique elements of the game. Beyond its thematic importance, it makes for a very tactile experience – making use of the touchscreen on both Switch and mobile platforms, as the player rubs out the game’s narrative, one page at a time.
54 | MCV/DEVELOP February 2021
54-57 MCV965 When we made V4 FINAL.indd 62
29/01/2021 09:38
