Coffee Box Games The Pale Beyond
“It’s all man vs nature, which when it comes to gamifying that’s really been the biggest challenge of the project." - Thomas Hislop
Can you be an effective leader and still be loved?
That’s the question being asked by The Pale Beyond, a narrative driven polar expedition game being developed by the Belfast based studio Coffee Box Games.
“Without spoiling anything the games about leadership,” said Thomas Hislop the co-founder of Coffee Box Games and the creative director for The Pale Beyond. “You’re the second in command of an Antarctic expedition that goes wrong and your left in charge after the original captain goes missing,” he said.
The game is heavily inspired by the real-life polar expeditions of the early 1900s.
“Before this project I’d never really done any of my own research into the history of Polar exploration. It’s actually something my co-director Michael had more experience with. He had listened to some audiobooks as a kid that very much stook with him,” Thomas said.
Michael and Thomas decided that their team would be most suitable for making a game focused on branching narratives with good audio and art. Then Michael convinced Thomas to read Endurance, a book about the Shackleton expedition of 1914 which saw a 28-man crew attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent.
“Despite being complete nonfiction it was one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read,” he said. “It absolutely captured my imagination and after that what I really noticed was a setting and period of history that had been explored by books and film, but no one had really gone down that rabbit hole in video games.”
Thomas admits that it hasn’t been easy designing a game where the players opponent is almost solely the temperature.
“It’s all man vs nature, which when it comes to gamifying that’s really been the biggest challenge of the project. Going through different design iterations to figure out how to keep that engaging for players,” he said.
In regard to the gameplay Thomas has said that The Pale Beyond will be similar to games like Yes Your Grace due to how that game uses branching narratives and leader simulation. He also mentioned The Banner Saga’s character driven conversation mechanics as a similarity.
“In terms of other games though the team and I are more interested in looking to the real-life inspiration as much as possible rather than just looking at other games,” he said.
“I think taking something that has been expressed in one medium and re expressing it in another lends itself to more valuable content. Although it also creates more challenges I think it’s a good strategy to try and stand out in the indie space.”
The Pale Beyond’s website states that every decision the player will make will count. Plenty of games make similar promises but many of them are unable to deliver on said promise.
“When it comes to player choice, complexity and branching narratives there is perceived complexity and there is true complexity and the interplay between the two is really interesting,” Thomas said.
“Feeling like you have choice and actually having a choice aren’t always perfectly aligned and there’s times when you need to go for one or the other. TellTales The Walking Dead was great at making it feel like the players choice mattered as they were making it, but it didn’t necessarily deliver on the choices. The opposite end of that is having the most beautiful and complex branching story and it’s got all these ridiculous gears working under the hood which is all well and good but if the player doesn’t feel that complexity it’s pointless.”
Thomas says that the balance between perceived complexity and true complexity is what the studio is aiming for.
“The next leg of development will be taking the story we have and the design we’ve settled on and making the story conform to what’s fun to play,” he said.
“First and foremost this has to be a game, it has to be an interesting toy to interact with.”
Although nothing is set in stone yet, Thomas is hoping that the team will be able to release more information about the game to fans in the next 4 or 5 months.
About the Author
 Auryn is a student journalist who enjoys video games. Follow him on his Twitter @auryncx |
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