The author of the meditative games Flower and Journey told the Gamasutra resource about the creation of the game Abzu. We have translated the interview and are sharing it with you.
Abzu is a game dedicated to exploring the underwater world, and its task is to strengthen the ties between the player and the world around him.
Matt Nava, back when he was a high school student, once went scuba diving. That’s when he made friends with the sea lion. “Playing with that huge creature was a lot of fun,” Nava recalls. Since then, his love for the ocean has been living in him.
Part of this love for the outside world can be seen in the Flower and Journey games, of which Nava became the art director. The same love is the reason why he decided to name the studio Giant Squid (“Giant Squid” – approx. App2Top), and why the latest game of this studio, which was recently released on Steam and PS4, immerses the player in the rich and diverse world of underwater paradise.
“That sea lion greatly influenced the mood that we tried to create in Abzu,” Nava shares. The game immerses the player in a changeable world full of life and meaning.
The world should look like the real one
In order to truly achieve the effect of presence in the underwater world in the game, Nava and his team tried to ensure that all actions in the game emphasized the unity of the player with nature. “We wanted to make the player interact with the underwater world in a positive way,” says Nava. – We [wondered] – how to make the player interact with the sea creatures carefully?”
The answer was very simple. You won’t find any difficulties or excesses in Abzu. It rewards the player for curiosity and involuntarily causes admiration in him. You can swim in the center of a swirling flock of fish or touch the back of a huge creature with a light push of a button, and, giving him control, allow yourself to be whisked away in an unknown direction.
It was equally important to make sure that the world properly reflects the realities of the underwater environment. “We wanted all these fish to do something and make it interesting to watch them,” Nava emphasizes. ”So we introduced a simulation of the food chain.”
This feature will not necessarily catch your eye. Unless you look carefully, you will never notice the lovingly created ecosystem. You may never see a predator hunting for prey, or other small events at all. But they are there, and for Matt Nava they are very important. “The world should look like the real one. It helps to evoke in the player that reverent feeling that we are trying to achieve,” he explains.
Focusing on the Majestic
Reverence should be carefully guarded from some of the standard traps of the genre. In the case of Abzu, everything is determined by the place where the game takes place. Therefore, Matt Nava and his team kept in mind the question throughout the development process: “Does the player feel that he is interacting with the game systems, or does he not even pay attention to them, but instead feels that he is in the game world?”
Although a variety of information is available to the player in Abzu, such as the character’s health, the depth at which he is located, and the speed at which he moves, this information is not conveyed to the player through visible UI or HUD systems. By loading the player with the technical aspects of scuba diving, the developers would distract him from interacting with the world. Therefore, Nava and his team focused on removing everything that looked too much like a video game.
“For example, a player can quickly make a breakthrough. To do this, he needs a resource that is being depleted and replenished,” says Nava. The mechanics of the jerk are hidden in a certain way, the game does not directly tell the player about it. After the studio team tried different ways, they settled on imperceptibly replenishing the invisible measure. “As a result, the player has this mechanic and doesn’t have to think about collecting items,” Nava concludes.
Abzu is a game that does not try to tell everything at once. It’s about feelings, not data. About emotions, not about analysis. For the most part, the player just swims through different spaces, sometimes stopping to repair an old underwater robot and clear his way further. The rest is an unclouded exploration of the underwater world. The most that the game allows itself is a small, barely noticeable notification at the bottom of the screen that pops up to tell you what kind of fish you are facing. It remains for a moment to categorize, inform and remind the player that the bright corals and wonderful creatures that he sees are not creations of fantasy. They are real and they are majestic.
“The greatest escape implies a return”
The ocean in Abzu is a peaceful place. It is unlikely that you will have to hurry to reach some goal here, and the only moments when there is a feeling of rapid movement are when you are captured by the current and the current carries you through colorful landscapes of algae and underwater ruins. It’s easy to get lost in big places, but it doesn’t cause a feeling of something bad. You can escape from real life into the ocean. But you can’t stay in the water forever.
“I think the power of video games is that they can take you to another world,” Nava says. Abzu takes full advantage of this power and transports you directly from the sofa – to another world. “It’s wonderful to escape from our world from time to time, but it’s even better to come back from an imaginary reality, where the game took you, with something to reflect on and rely on in reality, in our own lives.”
It all goes back to that sea lion from years past. A man and an animal bound together by curiosity and fun. By sharing this experience and the world that created it, Nava hopes that the players will have a message that will be fixed in their minds – just like a diver who clung to the belly of a whale.
“The greatest escape implies a return. You’re coming back with something bigger. At Abzu we are trying to tell a story about the ocean. If you look at the state of the real ocean, it is clear that he really needs help,” Nava notes with sadness.
Nevertheless, Abzu tries to leave a positive impression on the player. “We wanted the players to come back with an interest in the ocean and with hope. That’s what I hope they’ll take out of the game.”
Source: Gamasutra