Storytelling and Expression

Heartland is trying to produce a certain feeling from a player in a very small amount of time. That bittersweet tone we were trying to create for the player and emotion we were trying to evoke can be seen in other creative mediums. Most prominently Poetry and 6 word stories. The reason behind the short form narrative of Heartland is due to the constraints of showcasing the game to the public in a showroom. Trying to capture the players attention into a narrative in a loud busy room would be almost impossible without a well thought out and heart wrenching story.

The first medium I researched was Poetry, which is defined as literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. Poetry uses rhythm and carefully chosen language to evoke feelings from a reader. This is incredibly similar to games in general where you replace rhythm for the most part with pacing. The way stories in games are handed to the player through audio, visuals and interactions can be incredibly similar.

Although I struggled to find some specific sources relating to how poetry evokes emotions in readers I was able to find some project 4 relatable quotes about general writing practices. “Emotion on the page is created through action and relies on surprise for its effect. That surprise is ultimately generated by having the character express or exhibit an emotion not immediately apparent in the scene” Stated by David Corbett, this line really resonated with me when reflecting on the creation process of the narrative for Heartland. We utilised this aspect of surprise he speaks of during one of our play-tests because our previous pitch had stated that our game would span many days. Whereas in the final state the player just controlled the farmer for the one final day the family would spend together before their entire lives and way of life would be changed forever. We were lucky enough to see this surprise play out exactly how we wanted it to during one of the play-tests we held and got great feedback on how that had made the player feel. To really get that player to feel the true impact of the ending of our game we had to make the player actually like the characters they were interacting with so they would feel a loss when they were gone.

Corbett further reveals ways to evoke emotion in pose, specifically to do with characterisation saying “to create genuine emotion when crafting a scene, identify the most likely or obvious response your character might have, then ask: What other emotion might she be experiencing? Then ask it again—reach a “third-level emotion.” Have the character express or exhibit that.” It took a huge amount of consideration of characters backgrounds and beliefs when crafting the narrative for Heartland. You would think that is surprising since it is such a short game and a short narrative. However adapting the characterisation process Corbett speaks of from longer form writing techniques we were able to create heartfelt connections between player and NPC (non playable character) members of the family. We used the characters stance on the current war, the stance on the other family members, whether they wanted to run or wanted to fight if things got that bad and also added some touching reminiscing on past events on the farm to tie all the members to that location.

Since Heartland was a clearly narrative driven experience taking these methods of evoking emotions from readers from regular prose like poetry and short stories was immensely beneficial to the final product. Since the player had such a short amount of time spent with the other family members getting that connection and relationship clear and correctly portrayed would not have been as easy without the research into short form narrative creation. Trying to frame each character in a positive way even in a quite upsetting and controversial subject setting such as war.

Since our games narrative was so close to a short story itself I decided to broaden my research topics and ended up finding some helpful information about how music is used to evoke emotion in listeners. The Scientific American online publication hypothesised that “Human movement has been conjectured to underlie music as far back as the Greeks. As a hypothesis this has the advantage that we have auditory systems capable of making sense of the sounds of people moving in our midst – an angry stomper approaching, a delicate lilter passing, and so on. Some of these movements trigger positive emotions – they conjure up images of pleasant activities – while others might be automatically associated with fear or anxiety.” This was something that was also taken into consideration in trying to portray the protagonist of our game, the farmer. To immediately gain a positive reaction to the farmer we gave him a limp, this made his gait unnatural and created softer staggered sounds when he walked through the grass of his farm. His natural tenderness made him approachable and showed his weakness in his injury leading players to empathise with both him and the situation his family was facing. More specifically this article helped us add minor auditory additions to heartland like a very faint battle raging in the distance which juxtaposed the calm quiet of the farm, bringing fear and danger and keeping the player anxious. This in turn would make the player feel anxious for the farmer and his family and play into the hands of the abrupt surprise ending of the game, enhancing the emotional aspects.

Overall researching both literature and auditory ways to evoke emotions in humans was undeniably beneficial to the end product of Heartland. Not just in the narrative but the supporting auditory tones and aspects which made the farm feel like a real lived in home.