In this chapter we will see how Shadow of the Colossus manages to allow the player to fill the story with his own emotions and thoughts, without making the player feel like he is making up the story = Cues = Shadow of the Colossus storyline is simple, but the way it ressonates inside the player's head isn't. By leaving gaps in the storyline, the game allows the player “write” the story too, filling those gaps with ideas and emotions.
But the player never feels like he is doing the game a favor. It's not about creating a story because the game lacks one. “The story is there”, you just have to find it.
A simple image can tell a whole story, see how careful the boy carries the girl The game is not a empty canvas, it feeds the player with cues, but you're not left to your own devices, you're not making up a story because the game lacks one, its there, you feel it.
= The Rorschach Test = Rorschach or “Ink Blot test” is one of the most well know psychological tests, it works because people see things in the ink-blots. But what most people don't know is that the test not about random ink-blots.
Rorschach did a lot of testing with his ink-blots before choosing the final ones, he tested and re-tested lots of designs till he found “blots” that more or less would make people think about things within a context.
Shadow of the Colossus gives us a context. You're a boy (Wanda/Wander) travelling with your horse (Agro) carrying a unconscious girl (Mono), you enter a place called the Forbidden Lands and place the girl on a ritualistic stone table. Shadowy figures attack you, but your sword scares them away. You're greeted by a “voice from above” that tells you it may be possible to restore the girl's soul, but to do that you need to defeat 16 colossi.
the beautiful and peaceful travel to the next boss is a great way to give the player room to think and feel. The game gives us “clues”, it makes us think about something: The girl and boy look like the same age, what comes to your mind? Brother and Sister? Lovers? Friends?... What if she was Older or Younger? What if Wanda just threw her in the stone table instead of carefully placing her? Little details that guide our imagination.
And as the game progresses, we receive more and more clues. I won't spoil it, obviously. But the game achieves a rare balance between letting you “fill the gaps” and giving answers to its questions.
= Jackie Chan = Its hard to a human being to walk into any situation without expecting something. Everytime I watch a movie, I expect something and at the same time I have some preconceived notions.
Jackie Chan may look out of place, but he is a good example of how this works. Why do we watch Martial Arts movies? Because it fascinates us. Its the same logic behind “Youtube Trick Videos” being so popular, we like to see what our fellow humans are capable of doing. Tricks, moves, anything “spetacular”.
Jackie is a “movie star”, that means he made films before the one you're watching now. So that means you expect some things from him. So if you like him, even if a movie starts slow, you'll probably “give it a chance” instead of simply walking away.
Shadow of the Colossus convinces you that its minimalistic approach to landscapes is a design choice and not a limitation If you knew him back in his “Hong-Kong Movies”, you would probably expect to always see him performing his own stunts. So even if you didn't saw his face on a particular shot, you KNEW it was him.
And its because of this concept that some games are able to pull more risky moves, If you didn't feel like Shadow of the Colossus was well crafted, you could simply think his minimalist storyline was simply “lack” of story. Style and “intention” means a lot. And before you “get the job”, you gotta convince you can do it.
= Marketing and Context = Marketing creates hype, hype means attention, expectations. If a product has a very well crafted marketing campaign, we will expect something of it. Sometimes, marketing back-fires, because we expect the “industry” to try to hype things that we don't usually like. And thats why “word-of-mouth” is usually a very powerful marketing tool. In the previous part of this article, we talked about how important is to “convince” the player the game “can deliver”.
Now, I won't go deeper into “marketing” aspects, because this series is about Game Design and not really Advertising, but I hope that the idea of “convincing the player” either before the plays the game or in the first moments of it, came across... And how important it is.
Fighting giant Bosses isn't new, but having to do it with a small sword while climbing them is. Since we talked about advertising, Its only fair to talk about Context. Context is about “what has been happening”, every game released is placed in a context. Usually with the games released before it.
Shadow of the Colossus let you climb giant beasts in a generation where giant beasts were distant “bosses”, that you had to strike from far away with your gun or wait till it attacked you to strike it. You had to go close and personal against towering giant, a wish we all had for a long time, after watching many movies and playing games, that just made us wish we could do it.
And this something that seens forgotten in modern design practices, sometimes we just wish we could do anything and a game allows us to do it, no deep psychological explanation here!
Next Chapter we will talk about a different way of rewarding, not about cues or allowing the player to create part of the story. We'll talk about
Father Figures!