Untitled Game - DevDiary #2 - The Hard Cut

In gaming, there is a particular concept that always gets my attention.  It usually shows up in table top war gaming and card games, but also appears in video games, board games, and RPG's (both pad & pencil and digital).  It is a concept that will usually make or break a game for me.  If done poorly, the game will be broken, frustrating, too easy, or even sometime just unplayable.  If done, right, the game will be absolutely timeless.  This concept is what I like to "the Hard Cut."


Put simply, the hard cut is where the player is given limited resources, but a wide range of options on which to use said resources.  Take for example, the fantastic X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight.  In this game the players are given a limited number of "squad points" to build their squads.  If the player is smart, they will look at their available fighters, pilots, and upgrade cards, and combine them into a cohesive strategy to execute against their opponents.  Keeping with the standard 100 squad points, players will almost always be faced with a difficult decision of which cards or pilots to cut from their final squadron.  Do they take Wedge Antilles with Outmaneuver?  If they do they won't be able to afford Jake Farrell with the A-Wing Test Pilot and two elite upgrades and still have room for Lieutenant Blount who can guarantee a hit with any missile.  If done right, like in X-Wing Miniatures or Magic the Gathering or Net Runner or Faster than Light, this concept will have the player leaping up from their chair howling in victory scaring the hell out of their opponents and friends, or will have them ripping at their hair crying that they should have taken Keyan Farlander rather than Nera Dantels.

This is the hard cut.  I'm certain that it's called something else in different gaming circles, but regardless of what you call it, it’s a fascinating element that can have a player humming and hawing over a single choice and loving every minute of it.  This is also a concept that extends outside of gaming, particularly into writing.  It's one of the reasons that I enjoy writing and drawing.  Often the creator will have to make difficult decisions to cut something that they really like.  While the final product may have the creator looking at it with satisfaction or with disappointment, the piece of art and its creator will ultimately be stronger for this cut.  Be it because the hard cut worked gloriously in the work's favor, or because the creator now has a better understanding of the medium for future projects.

I bring this up because in working on the new project (yes, I still don't have a title for it), I recently had to make a hard cut.  This was no small decision regarding a game play element, a minor character, or something else inconsequential.  This was regarding a central protagonist.  One that I really liked and was, in fact, going to be the perspective through which the player learns of the new world that they've been introduced to.  This was a central character, critical to the original plot and tied to many important themes in the story.

In my previous DevDiary, I mentioned Archwood Ashland and how a magical rip in the fabric of space sends him through to another world.  I really liked Archie, and I loved the relationship that he was going to build with Auryon (pronounced as Orion).  Since Archie and Auryon are from two entirely separate worlds, they do not speak the same language, meaning that a lot of their communication, particularly through the earlier acts, would have been physical.  Hand motions, gestures, and pseudo-sign language.  Eventually, Archie was going to start to pick up on her language (although not particularly well), and they would start to understand each other, and even start to show feelings for each other as they traveled through out the land trying to find Auryon’s people.

Some of this relationship development was going to be reflected through their idle animations.  Early in the game, when left idle without pausing, Archie might pull out a book and start to read it while Auryon might find an bug or small animal to play with.  Overtime this animation would change.  Archie pulls out a book, and Auryon looks over his shoulder to see what he’s reading.  Archie would notice her, she would notice him and shy away.  And even later, Archie would notice her, she would notice him, and then Archie would adjust to give Auryon a better view of the book.  There would be several animations like this depending on the stage of the game and current location that they were in.

The relationship that the two build over time ties in with one of the central themes: the need for communication and understanding.  A theme which ties further into the idea of the scars and bad blood left by war.  Further, Archie and Auryon interacting with each other to solve problems was going to be an important game play element; and as previously mentioned Archie would act as the player’s frame of reference for this new world that they’ve been thrust in to.  This is why Archie was such a critical element to the story.

So why did I cut him?  Archie introduced several problems with the game that, at best, introduced plot holes or odd game play elements, and at worst, contradicted the themes of communication and several other far more critical elements in the game. 

First, I found an issue of perspective.  As the player character, Archie serves as the player’s medium to learn about his surroundings.  The things is, Auryon serves as Archie’s medium more than anything else.  This is two layers - and while that could be an interesting element in a game (playing with the idea of questioning whether or not Archie can really trust Auryon) - that would be a much better element in another game.  I experimented with the idea of either switching to Auryon’s perspective or allowing the player to switch between the two, but I found that both options eliminated the idea that the two wouldn’t be able to understand each other at first (because the player was looking through Auryon’s perspective, she would have to speak the player’s language and thusly Archie’s).  This would either eliminate the theme of communication, or I would have to change the story in such a way that made Archie’s importance to the theme either arbitrary or non-existent.  Either way, he would be useless.

The second issue that I found was much more uncomfortable and arguably much more critical than the first.  One of the main game play elements would feature Archie picking up and learning Auryon’s language through “Rosetta Stones.”  They were going to take many different shapes for the narrative, but mechanically would introduce new team work abilities that the pair could execute to reach new areas and solve puzzles.  How this would work, without mincing words, would have been Archie telling Auryon what to do and she’d do it.  In a game with a primary theme of working together and understanding each other, I cannot have one of the two main characters dominant over the other.  This would contradict all of the themes in the game.  Again, I experimented with the idea of being able to switch between the two, but that just goes back to the first problem, as well as making Archie’s presence seem mostly pointless.

The third is probably not as great of an issue as the previous two are, especially considering that there are plenty of examples of games and stories that have this element.  Despite being the player character, Archie is not the main character of the story.  Auryon is.  Auryon is the one trying to save her village.  Auryon is the one stepping into a position of leadership.  Auryon is the one who would ultimately overcome the majority of the challenges.  Again, this wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t for the language barrier.  Now we’re back at the first problem.

Archie isn’t the only part of this equation, though.  Auryon makes up the other half of the pairing; I could cut her instead.  Any writer - regardless of experience - will probably be able to quickly figure out why this wouldn’t work.  In developing character concepts, personality traits, arcs, back ground, etc… the character in question will often become so ingrained in the story thats being told that they can’t be changed in a dramatic fashion.  Obviously, to be an interesting character they have to go through development and an arc and change, however, the change that I refer to is more of a background change. 

Archie is a self-taught mechanic and a little bit of a scientist.  He’s experienced with World War I-era machines.  He’s out of place in a world that is, at best, in an early Renaissance-period - and that was the original point.  Auryon needs to be there for him so he doesn’t get eaten by some creature.  If I change that element, it’s not Archie anymore.  Auryon is already suited for the world at hand and makes much more sense in that role.  I designed her that way.  It’s far more logical to cut Archie than Auryon.

This is the hard cut.  I’m still at an early enough phase in the story that I don’t know if this is going to help the story or hurt it.  I really like Archie.  I really like Auryon.  Both are very good characters that introduce a lot to the story.  But with the intended themes, they both introduce problems.  When I look at the two separately, keeping Auryon would allow me to keep the main themes with very little modification.  Archie simply wouldn’t.  I'm saddened to see him go, and uncertain that I'll ever get an opportunity to use him again.  Such is the way of the hard cut.