The High ConceptAt the very beginning, we decided to idealize a world that could fit the story we were willing to tell. And that creative - and pleasantly long - process resulted in what we today call our High Concept.
Bravery’s High Concept goes far beyond the time and place where the story takes place. It goes beyond the narrative and mythology of the world we created. It is more than the sum of creatures, characters, spells and different regions and biomes.
Our High Concept is how the player feel every single experience he will have within the game. It is the atmosphere of a world the player knows nothing about. It is the anguish and torment of losing a character to some absurdly beautiful creature. It is to realize that bonding with a character can be really dangerous, as he/she understands that death comes easily - and that it happens for a reason. The High Concept shouldn’t be confused with game feel. It is as hard to explain as it is to understand, but when you do, you start to see the game through a whole new light.
Analyzing these concepts is probably a useless attempt to illustrate what I am talking about here, but I’ll try: If you look at the images, you will see two different concepts of the same character. At the first one we can clearly see where the inspirations came from: a strong “Barbarian” born and raised for battle. Axe and cape, skull belt and muscles. That concept was made before our High Concept birth. All we had was a story to tell and some indispensable character classes. We are looking at a victorious warrior, and that’s it.
Now, if you take a good look at the second image, you will see that it is the same character. The same strong man. But built after we had our High Concept learned by heart. We are now looking at a lumberjack. Or a butcher. Or even at a serviceman, a farmer, a tamer. We can be looking at a father. In this image we don’t know anymore what we are looking at. We see a strong man, we see blood. But we don’t know for sure if he was fighting. We can’t know if he won or lost that fight, nor why he was fighting at first place. We can’t tell if he enjoyed it or not.
We almost can’t tell anything about him. Almost nothing told or given. No obviousness. Nothing.
Stories - specially RPG ones - are generally romantic. Heroes defeating beasts, victims saved from villains, characters that never die. Good and bad, right and wrong, all too easily given to the player. Even when we have a plot twist and the main character goes rogue and turns into a monster, that is still it: a good person turned into a bad person. That’s not what Bravery is about. We’re telling a story where good and bad are conclusions. They are perceptions that the player may - or may not - have.
Bravery goes beyond a genre deromantization. It is the deromantization of every heroic story ever told.
That is what our High Concept is all about. Each player will build a story of his own, based on the encounters and pieces of information given to him throughout his gameplay. Each player will have to experience the game to understand it, and each understanding can be unique.
Caio Fernandes |
@fernandesmcaioProducer & PR -
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