In recent years several game designers have taken storytelling in games to another level by making small personal tales the center of the experience. Some call them Empathy Games because they let the player feel what somebody else is going through.

1 Papo & Yo – Minority Media

Designer Vander Caballero quit his high paying job making big budget shooters to start his own studio: Minority Media. His first game tells the story of a young boy and his monster. The two love playing together, but the monster has an insatiable appetite for poisonous frogs that turn him into a raging bully that stops at nothing to hurt the boy. The story is a metaphor for growing up with an alcoholic father, and Caballero has made it clear that he is the boy in the game.

Papo & Yo resonated with many players that had/have to deal with the same situation. At the 2013 Game Developer Conference a talk by Caballero on this subject turned into a mass therapy session when several attendees took the opportunity to share their story and thank him for making the game. Caballero was one of the first to coin the term Empathy Games as a way to explain what kind of experiences he wants to share. He went on to create a game on bullying after this one (Spirits of Spring).

2 That Dragon, Cancer – Nominous Games

He looked painfully out of place in the limelight on the big stage at the 2016 Game Awards. Ryan Green just won the Games For Impact Award and was called to the stage by two happy, laughing presenters. During his acceptance speech Green broke down crying because his game That Dragon, Cancer was a deeply personal project about his son Joel who battled with terminal cancer for three years before eventually passing away.

Development on That Dragon, Cancer started when Joel was just diagnosed, as a way to cope with the new situation of constant hospital visits and continuous worries. Back then the Green family was full of hope, but after three years the events took a turn for the worst and the game became a monument for the little boy. “Video games offer the ability to inhabit another person’s perspective,” says Green. “ I think it makes a difference if there’s a piece of the creator’s heart encoded in the game for you to discover.”

3 This War of Mine – 11 Bit Studios

In This War of Mine gamers get to play a group of survivors in a city torn by a raging conflict. Cut off from the outside world they have no other option than to make the best of the situation by keeping their heads down and try to stay alive any way they can. That means trading items for food or medicine and keeping out of harm’s way of gangs looting houses and roaming the streets at night.

The team at Polish developer 11 Bit Studios has done extensive research by reading personal accounts and talking to survivors and veterans alike. They have captured the despair and urgency of such a dire situation in a tough game, which they themselves call ‘not fun’. Designer and writer Kacper Kwiatkowski doesn’t consider empathy a genre, rather a ‘player skill’. “Among other skills we rely on, I think empathy is the one that is most important for the overall experience.”

4 Fragments of Him – Sassybot & Mata Haggis

Dutch game studio Sassybot describes Fragments of Him as an interactive narrative experience. You follow the story of Will, a young gay man that recently died in an tragic accident. You get to know his backstory through his grandmother and his ex girlfriend, and you experience the emotional impact of his sudden death through the eyes of his devastated partner.

Fragments of Him is stripped of common game mechanics like puzzles so the player is free to explore the scenes and learn more about Will at their own pace. The experience feels more like a theatre play than a game. Narrative designer Mata Haggis: “I wanted to make an experience that spoke to players on an emotional level, but also one that reflected parts of my own life. As games creators, we often tell big stories of saving the world, but it’s the small, personal stories that are most important in our real lives.”

5 Papers, Please – 3909 LLC

In the multiple award-winning Papers, Please, the player takes on the role of a border crossing immigration officer in the fictional dystopian Eastern Bloc-like country of Arstotzka. You must review each immigrant and returning citizen’s passports, allowing in only those with the proper paperwork, rejecting those without all proper forms and sometimes detaining those with falsified information.

The player earns money for how many people they have processed correctly in that day, while being fined for making mistakes. As relations between Arstotzka and nearby countries deteriorate, the game takes an interesting turn and will put the player on the spot. Will you apply to the ever increasing pressure of the regime or will you help overthrow it?

The post Empathy Games appeared first on Submarine Channel.

Installing a game bio-port in Existenz by David Cronenberg (1999)

Top 6 by Eric Bartelson

Future Gaming Trends (1/6):
VR Arcades

With consumer VR out for over a year now, it has still to fulfill its true potential. Sure, being strapped in a VR device is cool and all, but it gets so much better when you take the experience out of the comfort of your home and into a dedicated space where you share a VR adventure together with your friends. Around the world these dedicated spaces -or VR arcades- are popping up. Here you can play multiplayer VR games together. Fight hordes of zombies side by side with your friends or combine brainpower and solve mind bending puzzles while walking around freely. A backpack containing the necessary PC hardware is the ticket to a truly out-of-this-world experience. The ability to see your team members as digital avatars and have natural borders within the game coincide with the layout of the space you’re in so you don’t accidentally bump into each other or hit a wall make this a sure hit with players.

Future Gaming Trends (2/6):
Consoles are here to stay

Don’t believe the naysayers. Console gaming is not dead. It’s not even dying. It’s alive and kicking and doing quite well at the moment, thank you very much. Platform holders Sony and Microsoft have even found a cool trick to stretch this generation’s lifespan by releasing a graphical upgrade (PS4 Pro and Xbox One X). That way, the early adopters and fans will buy the machine twice and the console stays relevant in these changing times. But even without trying to keep up with the technology rat race, there is still a place under the tv. Nintendo proves just that with their underpowered -but star studded- Switch. The success of these machines pave the way for future consoles. So, expect a PlayStation 5 somewhere in the future and yes a 6 and 7 as well. Some day.

Future Gaming Trends (3/6):
Augmented reality

Pokémon Go made augmented reality the biggest gaming trend when it released last year and started a craze. Millions of people, male and female, young and old alike took to the streets in search for the little creatures that roam free in your own neighborhood. Dazzled by the millions of dollars of potential revenue, many developers jumped on the AR bandwagon. Apple also showed great interest in AR, with CEO Tim Cook calling it ‘an idea as big as the smartphone’ and introducing the ARKit to developers at the WWDC Apple event. Expect a lot of different uses of AR to be implemented in the coming years with games leading the way in innovation.

Future Gaming Trends (4/6):
eSports

eSports is big. And I mean BIG. But you can expect it to become even bigger in the years to come. Many (older) people have no idea just what an influence eSports has on a young(er) demographic. And looking at the traditional way of measuring sports’ popularity you might think the sceptics have a point. eSports hardly has a presence on television. But eSports doesn’t need an old world medium like television. eSports was made for (and by) the internet. Millions of viewers turn to Twitch to get their DOTA 2-, Overwatch-, League of Legends– or Hearthstone-fix. By the time that tv companies realize they want a piece of the eSports pie, it’s too late. Nothing to see here, move along.

Future Gaming Trends (5/6):
Brain-Computer Interfaces

Ever saw the sci-fi movies eXistenz and The Matrix? Remember how the characters got plugged into another reality through a connector port on their body? It’s time we get there don’t you think? Now in both movies the act of plugging in didn’t look particularly appealing and a connector port in the back of your neck or lower back is sort of a big deal just for playing a game. But this is strictly for the hardcore gamers. The early adopters, the ones that have been playing VR for over a year now and quite frankly are looking for something even cooler. Don’t expect it to take off any time soon, but in our search for more immersion, better graphics and the ultimate gaming experience our body and mind are the final frontier.

Future Gaming Trends (6/6):
Nintendo is going to rise, fall and rise again

Japanese game- and console maker Nintendo is as old as time (well actually they started life as a playing cards company in 1889). In their long and lustrous existence the company enjoyed remarkable success and some crushing defeats, but one thing is certain: Nintendo will never die. After bringing console gaming back from the dead (when a flooded console market caused the big video game crash in 1983) with the NES and SNES the company took a beating when the N64-successor GameCube failed to attract an audience. Nintendo didn’t take long to cancel the purple box and came back with one of the most successful consoles of all time, Nintendo Wii. Only to fumble again with the Wii’s successor the Wii U. Industry analysts have openly discussed Nintendo’s console strategy, instead suggesting to release their widely popular IP on other consoles. Last year Nintendo did release a Mario game on mobile phones but the company will continue to develop their own consoles and keep control over their own destiny. With millions of fans around the world and an incredible roster of game characters and game series, Nintendo can afford the occasional misstep and keep coming out on top.

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