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thematic mechanic
By Corvus | April 17, 2008
I know we’re all busy, so I’m not going to continue flogging the design challenge horse, but I do want to continue the conversation started in this weeks podcast. Specifically, I want to address the unspoken question, “Gee, Corvus. This theme ‘n’ metaphor stuff is neat and all, but what does it have to do with video games?” Well, I’m glad you asked! It is my contention that you can express theme and include metaphoric elements within your game design without ever once using a bit of text. Storytelling via game mechanics is very, very, possible and I contend that it makes for far more compelling gameplay than stapling game mechanics to unwieldy blocks of text and dialog.
So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work on Jorinda and Joringel (J&J), shall we?
The primary theme of J&J involves love and death. Not only do to the couple steal away together, only to mope about as if they were about to die, but Joringel embarks on a nine day journey that echoes Odin’s nine day ordeal hanging from the tree of life. Odin “died” and came back with language. Joringel “died” and came back with love. The Death card in the tarot is widely held to represent transition and change. Death in J&J stands for much the same thing–shedding the old self in order to embrace love and move into a new phase of your life. In this case, that transition is of one from innocent love (philia or agape, depending on how you choose to use those terms) to physical love (eros) and/or marriage.
This theme defines the goal of our game narrative.
The secondary themes of the narrative can be expressed as any number of conflicts, represented by the witch in her castle on one side and the village where Joringel lives as a shepherd on the other. These tension-laden themes include science vs. religion, feminine vs. masculine and tradition vs. progress.
These themes define setting and conflict for our game narrative.
The specific metaphoric images used within J&J include:
The Innamorati (Young Lovers): I haven’t specifically mentioned Jorinda and Joringel as a metaphoric element up to this point, but clearly they represent any young couple looking to escalate their relationship. Their very trial is representative of the hurdles faced by all young couple on their way to (the) marriage (bed).
The Birds: The doves and nightingale both symbolize love and death. If pressed, I’d say the doves represent innocent love, while the nightingale heralds the approach of physical love. The third, unnamed, birds with the red necklace could be love birds and would represent the state of post-coital love or marriage.
The Witch/Castle: Potentially representing feminine power, science, tradition or some mixture of the three.
The Spirit: The spirit Zachiel represent the witch’s power over natural elements.
The Shepherd/Village: Joringel goes off and tends sheep when Jorinda is transformed by the witch. This represents the antithesis to the witch in her castle–masculine power, religion and/or progress.
The Songbirds: Maidens under the power of the witch, held captive in cages.
The Flower: Only by attaining the flower is Joringel able to overcome the witch’s power. This is not a destructive tool, but one which simply undoes the effectiveness of the witch’s spells.
These metaphors become the nouns of our game narrative.
Once broken down into such quantifiable elements, weaving these components together into coherent game design becomes quite the fun challenge. Today I’ll outline using them in a strategy/sim/civ style game. I recognize this is a bit too off-the-cuff to be a real design document, but I could put something more complete together if you’re a studio looking for a compelling design/story for your next game. Until such time as someone contracts me to design this game for them, however, my design ideas are licensed under the same Creative Commons License as the blog–that means you’re free to use it and alter it, just give me credit for the original idea and don’t make any money off of it.
Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady
Abstract: Players attempt to win the affections of a region’s young maidens on behalf of the town’s eligible bachelors. It isn’t easy, as spirits controlled by a nearby witch are turning them into songbirds and stealing them away. The game’s setting is folkloric European, with strong Germanic design elements. This is a pretty simple game that would work well as a casual web-based or downloadable title.
Player oversee the population of small villages, medium sized towns and finally sprawling cities. In order to ensure the continued well being of the populace, they must successfully marry off the maidens to the bachelors, while defending the youth from the spirits controlled by the witch.
In order to ensure productive and lasting marriages, players must wait to initiate marriage until the bachelors and maidens are mature enough to stay committed to the relationship. To this end, bachelors can be assigned tasks around the village–shepherding, masonry and delivery boy for example. Maidens can be tasked with shop-keeping, farming, or placed under the watchful eyes of married women.
Once a suitable maturity level has been reached, indicated by their appearance or a love-capacity meter, the player can relax their attention and allow these older, and wiser, men and women to mingle and fall in love. These more mature suitors will not stray into the forest during their courtship and their marriages most often are happy and last a long time.
Despite the player’s best efforts to keep them all busy until they’re ready, many bachelors and maidens will fall in love early. Once the characters have fallen in love, they will not fall out of love and will try and abandon their tasks to wander off into the woods and begin their romance early. This puts them at risk of running into the forces of the witch and could result in losing a maiden when she’s turned into a songbird.
When this happens, the bachelor will return to their assigned tasks and not be interested in other maidens. The player must wait until a blood-red flower appears in the forest and task these bachelors with fetching them and then with rescuing their maiden.
Bachelors with flowers make excellent wards against the forces of the witch, but once they’ve rescued their maiden, their flower loses its power and they return to the village and married life. These marriages are always happy ones and last forever.
Even if the player manages to keep young suitors safe from the witch (by having a flower-bearer protect them), these marriages are more often unhappy and do not last very long. When such marriages end, the women will enter the forest and become spirits, working on behalf of the witch to ensnare maidens.
Doves will appear in the forest when a spirit controlled by the witch is nearby. If young suitors are present, the doves will call out mournfully.
The presence of nightingales in the forest represents the number of maidens captured by the witch. The presence of lovebirds in the city represents the number of successful marriages. The player wins a level when the number of lovebirds has reached a predetermined amount that increases with each level. The player loses a level when the number of nightingales reaches a predetermined amount.
Questions? Thoughts? Additions? Clarifications? Let me know in the comments!
Tagged:fairy tale, game-design, jorinda & joringel, metaphor, sketch, storytelling, theme. | 2 Comments »
August 12th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
This could also be intriguing if one introduced the German tradition of the minnesänger and -lieder. They could either serve as a frame (setting up the love aimed for in the story that the player takes over) or an NPC which encourages the little Joringels and Jorindas to keep their love pure and true.
What brings this to my mind is that the minne und treue tradition often told tales of lovers (usually knights and ladies, which were then used to inspire others) who had to remain chaste and prove their civilized manner (in opposition to the natural elements face in the witch).
August 14th, 2008 at 6:51 am
That’s awesome. I was thinking that the mayor of the town would act as storyteller, providing feedback as to the state of the village and helping guide the player through the early stages of the game.