The Bird and the Tree - Development Post #3

Hello!

This last week and a half I was busy playing two co-op games in order to understand what makes co-op games so fun. And I the information I got pertained mostly to character development and character chemistry. The games I played were A Way Out and Brothers : A Tale of Two Sons.

Let's breakdown what makes these games engage their players with the story and what I learnt from it.

A Way Out

A Way Out is co-op game from Hazelight Studios and published by EA, which revolves around 2 convicts and their journey to escape the prison to go back home to their families. The character chemistry is incredible and makes it an cinematic adventure to play through. The main characters are very different and add so much depth and mystery to the game.

Leo (Left) and Vincent (Right)

The two characters are Vincent and Leo, although have different personalities, their shared goals creates a sense of empathy between them. Vincent is very calm, calculated and rational thinking man, while Leo is emotional, trigger-happy and has a low temper. The personalities play into level design as one of the scenarios has Leo smooth talking a nurse while Vincent sneaks around to steal some pliers.

The important things I learnt after playing the game was that the differences between the characters make it more fun when they interact. Although their a situation makes them react differently, they will make sure that the other one is fine after that.

Brothers : A Tale of Two Sons

Brothers : A Tale of Two Sons is an amazing game, set in a fictional world and tells a story of well, two brothers. The father of these two brothers is sick and is dying every day. The brothers have to make their way across a different lands in order to get to tree of life to find their father an antidote. The game is charming, the story is gripping and although the dialogues cannot be understood, both the brothers bring their own abilities to the game.

The younger brother, Naeee is agile and can climb into small cracks on his own, while elder brother Naia is strong and huge.

The brothers have the same goal in mind, yet have to take different paths to achieve this. The simplified controls are extremely nice addition, and Nathan Scott explains it very nicely in the video below.

The Inspirations

Simplified Controls

The best part about Brothers : A Tale of Two Sons was the controller configuration and how it allowed each brother to do a different action. This will make game play more easy to map out, and allow set pieces creations for level design too.

Most importantly, it'll allow the creation of levels through a story script.

Relationship between two characters

Even though the characters are different, with a shared goal in mind they unite and work together. This fits in the story of The Tree and The Bird already, where both of them want to get home, but one can't do it without the other.

In the next blog post, we'll take a look at how much programming progress has been made and go into little bit of the metrics in the engine.