GZ: Shape of the World was originally announced for Xbox One and PC back on June 1, yet you revealed recently that PS4 was also a platform. What was the reason for the delay of the PS4?
SM: I can't get into it too much, but I will say that I felt when I went to E3 this year, I felt that with anything with all these developers I was hanging out with, the indie devs I was party of Indiecade booth and I really kind of felt that by leaving PS4 out of the equation I was abandoning some of my community. So, I thought that was a huge blunder and I had to do what it takes so I tracked down a Sony representative and made it happen.
GZ: I believe when you're not working on Shape of the World, you spend your "free" time "working on a game that couldn't be any further opposite of it in Gears of War with The Coalition. How do you go from VFX and designing on Gears of War to your own game in Shape of the World?
SM: Um, so it's a fine line because I've been asked not to talk about my day job too much so I'm just going to skirt the question if you don't mind?
GZ: No, no problem. That's fine. What are some of the difficulties involved with making your own game opposed to working on a game like Gears which isn't your "baby," so to speak?
SM: The main difficulty is….time. I mean you have to actually get your hands in every level of game design. Level design, concept art, programming everything, right? So having to wear so many hats takes a lot of times. So it's something I've been trying to build efficiencies into my process. It happens to be I've developed a visual style that isn't very labor intensive, right?. It's not the same as HD textures, or high polygons or sculpted art. It's much more whimsical and it focuses just on good desing. The shapes are great, the colors are great, the designs and decisions are there. It has an artistic style but it doesn't actually require you to sink an entire day on like an eyelash, which is what you get in the AAA space.
GZ: Right
SM: Really like in AAA games you are very very specialized you can get locked into a very specific role. As an VFX artist I've got locked into fire for a while, got locked into smoke, just a specific thing because you got good at it and you want that consistency throughout the game when you go photorealistic. That's the most obvious and different contrast when you go Indie. You develope a completely different style that suits a much smaller timeline that allows you kind of dip your foot into every single element in the game.
GZ: Next is a two part question, what are you most proud of about Shape of the World and what one thing, if you had to pick, do you want people to know or experience from it the most?
SM: Honestly, like it's about, there's not a particular thing I want them to experience there's a felling. Which is that total immersive feeling where you just build your own story , exploring your own realm and seeing little surprises like it's part of your own personal play, know what I mean? And I guess that's what so cool about this little procedural system that I built, that I'm proud of. You walk through the world and it starts to build this very personal forest, this is your own forest. You can start to build bushes, you can plant bushes around, you can destroy trees you can actually do a little bit of creative work that makes you feel connected to this particular world and makes it feel like your own.
GZ: You mentioned you can destroy some of the world. Are you able to, what kind of interaction I would say do you have with the world? What would the reason be for you to destroy some of the world as it appears in front of you?
SM: It's not like a mechanical reason, right. It's not actually benefitting you. I mean sometimes. Sometimes you get stuck in a forest and you just kind of want to bushwhack your way through it. You can do that. All I'm trying to do is create the sensation that you're in a tactile, real environment. It's not just a floating camera on a set but you actually are there. You can throw rocks, you can plant lillypads you know what I mean you can touch things. And it's that tactility that makes it feel like you are there.
GZ: In the gameplay video we saw, we were very impressed. It develops as you're really close and not far off so it feels like you're truly there and you get to see it appear in front of you and, what I'm trying to say, was that reason of how close you have to be to an object for it to appear as opposed to it being farther away. Was that ever a major decision to decide on how far away you had to be to an object for it develop because we found that since we were closer to them when they evolved that we were more involved in the game.
SM: Oh Cool! I'm glad you sorta actually felt that way. That's actually, I haven't heard that feedback before but that's pretty cool. Yeah I Played with that space for a while. Like does it grow all around you, does it grow right in front of you? Does it grow 3 meters in front of you or 20meters in front of you? And I just kind of settled on a zone that feels like it's you doing it but you can see it. It fills up that camera space. So it's that balance of where you place the trees and where you settle on your camera zoom lense, what your field of view is. And just get you that sensation, something about where they sit right now just fills up your space. If you just keep walking it feels like you're walking through the tree, not like you're looking at a tree in the distance or the tree is forming behind you.
GZ: From what it sounds like, we're all in for a treat with Shape of the World when it releases next year and we wish you the best of luck. Before we let you go, is there anything we may have missed?
SM: Well I just want to kind of point out two things. One, we got a kickstarter going and we only have one week left so that's a big deal. And the second thing is that, we, tomorrow are going to announce that I've seen tests, it looks great and we are going to support VR for this game! It kind of already works but I want to spend some time to get the control scheme feeling nice but I think it's going to be a pretty trippy VR product.
GZ: So, by VR you mean Morpheus on Sony and Rift on PC?
SM: Yeah, exactly.
GZ: Thanks again Stu for your time talking about Shape of the World, due out next year on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
SM: Oh it was a ton of fun. Thanks a lot.
Currently, Shape of the World is set for a first half of 2016 release on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Their Kickstarter ends June 30th which you can support here. Thank you to Mr. Maxwell.
Shape of the World was announced a few weeks ago on June 1st and quickly caught the attention of many with its new take on the exploration game genre. A new, evolving world that forms as you walk through was debuted in its reveal trailer as it's poetically rolled out in front of you like a red carpet. Initially announced for only Xbox One and PC, the studio and designer announced on June 22nd that Shape of the World will also be coming to PS4.
We were fortunate enough to speak to Creator and Lead Designer Stuart Maxwell who was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk about the game's inspiration as well as revealing that the game will indeed support VR on both Sony Morpheus and Oculus Rift. Check out the full interview below.
GameZone's Mike Bocccher (GZ): Shape of the World has caught a lot of attention with its exploration based gameplay that is "made as you go" — almost like Journey and Proteus shacked up and had a kid. What was the inspiration for this type of gameplay and how did you come up with it?
Stuart Maxwell: Well you know, just honestly I don't feel like there's enough purist exploration games out there. People are dabbling with that idea. Proteus was the first one that kind of struck my mind. I was like that's actually pretty awesome there's not even an interact button it kind of feels like there's a surprise around every corner. Journey's been a huge inspiration but it's a lot more linear. More scripted experience. I kind of wanted to situate myself kind of halfway in between and had this idea for sort of a brand new graphical look. Just really about the colors and silhouette. I thought that would be a pretty awesome universe to explore.
GZ: With a self constructing world that evolves as you walk through it and changes each time as mentioned, what is the end story? I mean, how do we know if what the game is showing us at that time with changing environments is what we need in order to proceed toward the end goal, or simply showing us something beautiful yet unrelated?
SM: I think, so okay the way I'm designing levels you'll sort of see a goal in the distance. You'll know where you need to go ultimately. But it's not immediately accesible and sort of on your way there I'm going to distract you off the path and kind of force you to get a little lost. And that's one of the things about this constructing environment. You see where you're going, you start walking and all of a sudden everything builds up around you and you can't see the forest through the trees. You're kind of thrown into a deep forest that isn't easy how to navigate and that forest grows and transforms and as you backtrack, it'll grow in a different way. So it's intentionally disorienting.
GZ: I'm glad you mentioned the background because from what we see, it appears the far background remains steady as the part of the world you are currently in appears and changes. Is there a limit to how far we can go with that background if, say, we just walk straight ahead? And if we do, how do we know where to go next?
SM: Yeah, I mean you'll see your goal periodically. I'm trying to make it so there's this contained arena of exploration. But this kind of gets larger over the course of the game so I'm kind of letting you off the leash a little bit level by level. You will ultimately get to your final destination but you sort of have to do a little bit of journeying to figure out how to get there.
GZ: The site mentions that the audio is directly related to our actions taken in the game. How does that work exactly and what type of music will we hear? I mean, if we just stop and stand still does the game go quiet since we're not taking any action?
SM: One thing that does happen if you stop and stand still the world starts to dissolve away again and you can, it may actually seem peaceful for a sec then you watch one by one the trees start to dissolve away into the ground and that comes with this nice, crispy, foresty sounds of bending wood and rustling leaves and a little bit of abstract noise just to kind of give you the soundscape. So it will actually be reactive. The soundscape to try and compliment that kind of natural vocabulary is a bit of an electronic score. It's partially electronic, partially world music sort of south Asian-inspired. Music that has drone and that kind of becomes the background tapestry of sound. And then of course where you go through more scripted moments where they bottleneck you and control the experience a little bit more then it picks up into actual tracks. Music. Music that can get stuck in your head. **laughs** Music, music you know?
GZ: Well, that's good. Now it seems that you are putting exploration first, which, ironically, is nearly a first for exploration-based games. How big is the world in Shape of the World?
SM: Ok, so the world's not completely mapped out and finished yet so we're going to have to see. There's a demo level that takes about 15 minutes to see an area and that's designed to be a small, contained space. Almost like an introductory space.
GZ: Now, obviously this is so much more than the dreaded phrase "walking simulator" with the evolving world sort of rolling out like a red carpet — almost poetically in front of us. Can you give us an example of some of the goals we may encounter in Shape of the World?
SM: Um, yeah, I mean so you'll see two major goals. One of them is these seeds that are on the ground. They are a sort of row of spheres you kind of collect up with a little burst. Basically I'm at the point now where I feel those are placeholders. I want them to feel like seeds are fertilizing each other, more plant based. Those things you don't see that kind of pop up as you'll explore. They kind of just pop up as you explore the world. The purpose of those is to expand the natural environment. The other goals are these gates. They're seen in the logo almost like the upside down V
GZ: I was going to say the letter A but yeah, same thing I guess.
SM: Yeah exactly. There's actually like five different meanings for it and one of them is Delta which I like and Delta means change. That's kind of what happens when you go through one. It completely changes the biome around you, almost the vocabulary of the trees.
GZ: I want to get back to the "new every time" part of the game. If I walk through part of the world and some trees appear, I go a little further then turn around. I walk back in the same exact direction I just came, yet those trees are no longer there, but instead it's a mountain or bushes for example. It's incredibly intriguing as you truly never know what's next, but I can also see how it may be confusing for players. Is this accurate and what was the reason for this part of the game?
SM: You know, games really like to make it not confusing traditionally right? My focus is kind of not making it not confusing. I like the feeling of getting lost in the forest, right? There's no consequence, it doesn't matter where you go because you're eventually getting to where you need to go in the game. It's about getting lost, getting you into the experience and not rushing to where you need to go. Technically, you can speedrun this game but it's not the point in any shape or form right? It's about more like getting immersed and getting intuned with this forest. It's your own personal version of this forest
GZ: Almost like you don't know where to go until you don't know where you are?
SM: Yeah, that would be ideal. Ok for me when I was a kid my mom and dad took me to this gigantic hotel in the Rocky Mountains in Canada it's called the Banff Springs Hotel. It's like a castle, it's absolutely enormous even to an adult, but I was like 10 or 11 so it was like the biggest place I'd ever been. And my parents went to the Christmas party like a corporate Christmas party they were there for and kinda let me wander around the hotel by myself. And, I don't think parents would do that sort of thing nowadays. That was just an incredible amount of freedom and something I think that stuck with me. The cool thing is I would get completely lost. I didn't know which way was north or if I had to take a left or a right to get back to my room. And you panic, this has never really happened to you before your parents are always guiding you around. But you know you just keep wandering and eventually you find something that you've seen before. So, that terror is gone but so is the excitement, right? So I would immediately just run up all the stairs I could, run through all the stairs I could and try and get lost again. So it's that philosophy that I carry into games. I think it's an interesting experience to get lost. As long as you're within the comfort of an interesting place and it's not challenging. That's the desing part of it, allow the player to get lost but not frustrated.
MB: That's a fine line, actually. You kind of need, it depends on the individual player how much they can take. It's a very interesting philosophy that we don't hear too much of with these new games. Almost with this "bigger is better" philosophy.
SM: And you know, I've actually playtested the game with all sorts of personality types and you're right, there's definitely a person that is totally content with just wandering. No motivation or goal required. On the other end you have people who are strongly goal driven. They're looking for the goal, they're looking for the end trying to get there as fast as they can. You know, I'm trying to ride that line where I give a little bit of goal and reward for a person but I also try to encourage them toward a more meditative space.
