“Create a game about yourself” with Rémy Sohier

“Let's consider the game as a discussion with a player. But your creation is not specifically for the player. No, this game talks about you. You, the game’s creator. So is it even a game ? How could your own story can something powerful in your game ? I'll present you some experiments I made on this subject, and discuss popular games about autobiography and video games. I'll also share some design processes of this specific kind of game-making with you.”

Alineaire collective - rmshr.itch.io - Website

Interaction is constant a dialog with the player. Therefore, your game can be a powerful vector of your own experience for the player to experience in his or her own way. Rémy Sohier gave us a very personal tour, telling us how his life influenced the design of his games. Through these examples, we’ve identified a few ways of expressing yourself through your game’s design.

Strong Memories

Using a memory, simply as a story but not necessarily by retelling it: using a naive or fantasized version of your memory, of an event charged with emotions that you will try to convey through your game’s goals and rules. Rémy Sohier showed us one of his early works, Blue Bus, a side scrolling walk in the woods, reminiscent of a childhood memory mixing fear of the unknown and curiosity of what lies beyond the right side of the screen.

Play Blue Bus (Requires Mozilla Firefox)

Sharing a feeling

Games can be relatively frustrating or rewarding for the player, and you can use this as a feature, because it is an efficient way of conveying a strong feeling to the player. Rémy designed Public official, a metroidvania style labyrinth where graphics progressively glitch and transform the world as you play. The disorienting feeling, alongside with the sensation of being overwhelmed by the system you are playing against, is inspired by his experience with a faceless administration.

Play Public Official

A Game for yourself

Creating a game can also be a selfish act, a way to exorcise your own demons. Why couldn’t you make a game just for yourself to play? Catharsis can be found in many activities, but creating a game to deal with it on your own can be both powerful and fun. This is how Rémy came to design a reverse version of the slender-man, where you end up chasing him naked throughout your apartment.

Play Slender is in my Home

Following the idea of catharsis through games, Rémy created CoinCoin contre Minou, a mini-game in which you need to touch and trust your ally to win the game.

See Duckitty and the video below

To conclude, he emphasized that one of the most important things that you should keep in mind when conceiving a game is that “the player is an asshole”. He or she will always go around or break what you have anticipated, and injecting a personal touch in your games can help you keep control of it, and the overall player experience you create.

Use your own experience to make the user experience better.

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