#relation games

The games we’re making are relation games: games centered around existential questions and ways to relate to others. We also have a large focus on LGBTQ+ issues and characters. In 2019, we released a game called Knife Sisters, and this blog post, as well as a few upcoming ones, will be centered around what we learned from that process, specifically in regards to the characters and relationships portrayed through the game.

Systems made to evoke emotions

In relation games there are more things in play than “just” game mechanics. Players play relation games because they wish to relate and connect to game characters: it could for example be to learn about themselves and others, or to fulfill the need for love and/or sex. To fulfill that need through a game, the characters and the potential relationships need to correspond with the player’s tastes, preferences, and/or desires. Otherwise they won’t feel attracted to the game and its content.

The characters they will relate to will also be complemented by story and gameplay – and wherever there is gameplay, there is a system. Even the most story heavy games are based on systems. Those systems can be fairly simple or very complex, but they are always there. When you create a game, its content will exist within the boundaries and functionality of that game. What kind of choices can the player make? How many choices are there, and how will they affect the story? How is the story framed to fit the scope of the game? The answers to those questions are what makes up this specific game’s system.

Working with stories as systems

We are not always used to working with a story in relation to a fixed frame – usually stories are more flowing, and even if there is a structure (for instance, the three act structure), a writer can be rather free when it comes to assigning the story to the structure. In a game, this is not always the case. The system and structure of a game can be much more rigid, and thus affect the content and story a lot. The story and characters that are chosen to play a part in the game are there because they have a function in the system. The player is then using the system to cater to their own emotional desires/needs.

When you design a story based game, you probably have a story in mind, that you wish to tell through the game and the player’s actions. To make a game based on a story, one way is to break the story into pieces that can be handled by and understood by the player. The story pieces can be more or less scattered, but are nonetheless explored through gameplay. For the player to feel excited about it, the outcome has to be somewhat open (or at least, feel open).

There are probably an infinite number of ways to work with story in a game. We’ve explored it our own way – and in my next post I will talk about how we did it in Knife Sisters. Knife Sisters is constructed with the intention to tell a story about dependence and empathy. That affected what roles the characters in the game had, but the construction we made also had an effect on the story and player experience. The construction of a game is in part a conscious process – you make decisions based on what you aim to achieve – but since it’s also very complex, some of the effects of the decisions you make will emerge first when the game is played by others – and that is one of the things that makes game design so interesting.

In a series of posts about relation games I’ve been discussing game and narrative design from a relational perspective. I’ve been meaning to explore the role of player agency in games centered around relationships.

I also posed some specific questions:

Should players get a wide variety of romanceable characters to choose from, and be able to shift the relationships according to their preferences, or could it be meaningful to exhort players into having relationships they wouldn’t choose for themselves to convey a specific story?

I believe both these questions could be responded to with a yes… depending on what type of game you want to make. Catering to players’ wants and needs is one way of addressing relationships in games, and it’s probably the most common route to take – but it’s not the only one. In the end it comes down to what the purpose of the game is – is it to make players feel good and offer them the fictional relationships they want to have? Then covering a range of options that is as suited to the target group as possible would be the best thing. Players try to satisfy their needs while playing – and being able to shift the relationships according to their preferences will make this easier. But making players feel good isn’t always the goal. Sometimes you want to explore a certain issue that might make some players uncomfortable. For us, that’s fine – but that comes with an extended need for communication. Being clear about what to expect is important, as well as accepting that players might – or will – react.

Working with content warnings and information is one way to prepare players for experiences that they might not fully enjoy. Especially when you are working within a genre where many games are based on fulfilling the wishes and needs of players by letting them romance characters. Then, if you include routes where the relationships aren’t completely healthy or don’t go well, you might break the expectations of the genre, and players might need to have some preparation for that. As a creator of that kind of game, you would also need to be prepared that some design or narrative choices might have a – sometimes – unexpected impact on players. I’d say it’s impossible to completely analyze a game during the development process. Doing a lot of user testing might bring issues to the table before release, but it’s definitely not failproof.

Bringing what we've learned into Truer than You

When developing our new game Truer than You, we’re aiming to implement some of the things we’ve learned from making Knife Sisters. In this game, you play an androgyne character called Rin, who’s recently moved to an unfamiliar city to start a new life and a new position at the secretive company Truer than You, specializing in renting out actors for real life situations. There are rules you have to follow – for instance, you can’t have relationships with people you meet through your work – but that’s something that could happen anyway… and that’s how you get to know Ariel, Indira and Sylvester, the characters you can form closer relationships with.

This time we’ve chosen to have branching storylines following those characters, instead of having them complement a main storyline connected to another character (Dagger), as we did in Knife Sisters. That’s not only because some players objected to being forced into the relationship with her, but also because this game has a whole other set of themes than Knife Sisters, that we see could be better explored by connecting them to the characters. We think that this design will increase the desire to replay the game, and make the player feel more in charge of the story. Hopefully, people will also perceive it as less linear. In Knife Sisters, you do have a lot of agency when it comes to how each scene plays out, but not as much when it comes to affecting the main storyline’s course of events. This is perceived very differently by different players, but we’re eager to see what players think and feel when the story changes a little more.

What do strong emotional reactions to your game mean?

In the end, it’s impossible to cater to all your players’ wishes. So you’ll need to accept that people will get disappointed at times – but, like the player who wrote an angry message, they might come to enjoy the game anyway! Strong emotions connected to your game show that people have engaged with it. Emotions aren’t always easily interpreted, and the systems for leaving feedback don’t necessarily cater to that complexity. You might engage heavily with a game, but still decide to give it a “not recommended” review on Steam – because it left you with negative or complex emotions. But negative emotions also teach us things.

For me, I don’t think making players feel good is a goal, but rather to make players feel, period. To evoke many types of emotions, ranging from good, to sad or even angry. If we make a game that has the player coming back to it in their mind, over and over, then we have succeeded.

If fictional relationships feel real, as I proposed in a previous post, then we need to be mindful of how we utilize characters and relationships in games. Why are the potential relationships there, and what do we want players to feel?

Most often, we are not entirely free when we design a game – there are constraints. Being indie developers with limited budgets, there might only be so many characters that we could offer our players to form closer connections with. So how do we choose those characters and relationships? Here I’ll present some different approaches to consider when designing a relation game.

Characters representing functions or symbols

I think it’s pretty common to have characters display very different traits, which by extension might mean that the characters have different functions (gameplay- or story-wise) in the game. They might also be connected to some kind of already established symbol, system or archetype. Connecting characters, game components or content to existing symbols/systems is a very common way to go about designing in the first place, since it helps us conceptualize things and put them into context. It could for instance be using the Tarot deck to base game content upon, like Simogo did in Sayonara Wildhearts. Using something that is already established might also help players to more easily understand the game. This way of thinking can be applied also to deciding upon characters/relationships and their roles in the game, and I’ll take some examples below.

Three types of practices

In Knife Sisters, I wanted the dateable characters to represent different types of BDSM practices: namely being a top/domme, bottom/sub or switch. It’s sometimes hard to backtrack how design decisions are made, but this idea came very early on, and preceded the choice of characters – which means that the characters are designed to give the player the opportunity to explore different sexual practices.

I wrote more about the design of Knife Sisters in this post, and about BDSM in games here.

Three types of love

Another game that might be applying this is Hades, the relationship heavy roguelite where you battle your way out of hell – also one of my all time favorite games. In this CBR article, Noelle Corbett states that the three characters that Zagreus can romance could be seen as representing different philosophical conceptions of love: philia, eros and agape.

Philia is the one sometimes called platonic love, or siblingly love, represented by the relationship with Dusa.

Eros is the type of love driven by desire and sexual passion, in the game represented by the relationship with Meagara.

Agape is a kind of transcendent, persistent and unconditional love, in the game represented by the relationship with Thanatos.

The game uses characters with different functions to have the players explore different types of love and kinds of relationships. This diversity might motivate the player to keep playing, to experience all of its variations. It’s also perfectly connected to the theme of the game – that our relationships form who we are, and affect our fate.

(Connected to this: when I played Hades and Zagreus tried to romance Dusa, she told him that she did have feelings for him, but she wasn’t attracted to him sexually – something that Zagreus responded to in his usual happy-go-lucky way, taking it very well and saying that he respected her feelings. Me, who is very emotion focused, missed seeing a more emotionally affected response from Zagreus. For me, the game would have grown even more if Zagreus, all while respecting Dusa, could have displayed some disappointment or sadness that Dusa didn’t reciprocate his feelings – but maybe that’s just me.)

Connecting relationships to other game mechanics

I’ve been discussing connecting characters and relationships to the game design in a very high-level, conceptual way. Characters and relationships in games could also be tied to other game mechanics, meaning that the relationships will affect the outcome of other gameplay features (such as battles). This is also done in Hades, in the way that nurturing the relationships will unlock better companions, which could then be used in the battles. This has both ups and downs – the downside would be that you’re not given the chance to explore those relationships freely, instead you might feel obliged to do so, to gain more powerful companions. On the other hand, by encouraging the player to form relationships with all three characters (and then giving the player the option to make the final decision on how far to take it), they make sure we get to have one of the first openly pansexual and polyamorous main characters in a (more) mainstream game, which is amazing. 

That’s also one of the answers to a question I posed in a previous post of this series: Could it be meaningful to exhort players into having relationships they wouldn’t choose for themselves to convey a specific story? I think it’s definitely meaningful in Hades, even though I also objected a little to having it tied to other gameplay mechanics. It has to be done with an understanding that this will affect the player’s decisions and experience of the story.

Gender variety

Another pretty common way to make up a cast of characters – at least in queer games – is to work with gender variety. An example is Boyfriend Dungeon by Kitfox Games, where you can date your weapons in human form, consisting of men, women and non-binary characters (and they also have a character called Dagger… or, who is a dagger, rather). Gender variety could also be said to be used in Hades, where you can date a woman, a man and a Gorgon head (!). Of course, their gender is not the only important aspect of the characters – dateable characters also have differing personalities and traits – and when all the dateable characters are of the same gender, the variety of personalities might become the main factor that separates them – like in Amnesia.

Relationship variety

A complimentary way to think about characters and relationships could be to base it on the notion that it’s the relationships rather than the characters that should offer variation. When in an in-game relationship, things might work out differently depending on the player’s choices, and the designers’ values and norms play quite a large role here. If we have routes with endings that are supposed to be bad, good and in-between – how do we decide what’s a good ending and not? The Very Common Way™ of doing it is to have the romance be the good ending – they lived happily ever after – and the breakup as the bad ending (well, and sometimes death, too) – but should it always be that way? It definitely says something about how we value relationships, with a hierarchy where monogamous, evenly reciprocated, long-lasting love is the crown jewel, and other types of relationships aren’t as valuable. (An example of this is the somewhat derogatory term situationship that categorizes relationships that fall outside of this norm.)

When we did a user test for our game in development, Truer than You, we got this feedback from a tester:

I have some triggers around Rin’s thoughts about  Sylvester, when they think ‘well I guess I can think of him as a friend if he already has a girlfriend’ – but I don’t know how you plan to work with that, if that relationship will circle further around the infidelity thing, or, for example, end up in some kind of relational non-binary (where love and friendship would be the binaries). I would prefer the latter, but I’m biased because I’m a bit starved for such stories.

This response reminded me that all players do not want romance or friendship, but might actually want to explore the in-betweens.

It’s very easy to use our own values and views as a baseline, forgetting that other people might not function or feel the same way as we do. For example, if you’re a romantic, it’s very easy to make the ‘true love’ ending into the best ending – but does it have to be that way?

We’ve had a pretty productive summer over here in Sweden. It started with us doing a game jam for an upcoming title, which we hope to start pre-producing next year.

We have also been working quite a lot on the story for Truer than You, and are now feeling pretty confident about it. This story has been a challenge from the start, since it has so many layers, but after taking the time to focus on it lately, it feels like it’s under control, and we’re eager to tie it all together.

We’re also planning lots of fun things from August and onwards!

Steam Visual Novel fest

(Never mind that these colors hate each other!)

We’ll take part in the Steam event Visual Novel Fest on the 7-14th of August, with Truer than You as an upcoming title. We don’t yet have a demo for Steam, but we will be streaming a playthrough of the latest demo to our store page  – exact date and time TBA. We’d love for you to join us! <3

Devcom, Gamescom & Courage Cologne

We’ll go to Cologne in August to showcase Truer than You at Devcom on the 21-22 of August, and at Courage Cologne on Developer Night the 22nd of August. Then we’ll participate in the business area of Gamescom until the 25th, as part of the Creative Europe umbrella stand, having meetings about the game and future endeavours.

Tokyo Game Show delegation

On September 21-24 we’ll join the Greater Copenhagen delegation to Tokyo Game Show, going with more than ten indie studios and game tech companies from Skåne and Copenhagen. We’ll have meetings and network, and have a small joint booth. Since we had such an amazing time last time we went to Tokyo, we’re looking forward to it a lot! (Especially that I’ll get to celebrate my birthday in Tokyo once more!)

And then will hurry back to production mode to finish the game. ^^

Are you going to any of the events mentioned? Let us know!

Games that are about relationships and making tough choices in regards to other characters can evoke quite a lot of emotions. We have already talked a bit about how some players objected to being forced into a relationship with Dagger in Knife Sisters.

Another very emotional message we got from a player was about not being able to date a specific character, namely Ayana, Leo’s best friend. Leo and Ayana are very close, but depending on how you play, and how you communicate, there might be some strain on the relationship between them.

I’m going to show you excerpts from this conversation because I think it’s kind of interesting.

It all started with me getting a rather intimidating message, that read like this:

You know what, the Knife Sisters game should be reported, cause it’s the worst game I’ve ever played.

I thought there would be a possibility for Leo to have a romance with Ayana, (not the two ****** Vicki and Mo), so I’ll never play that game again.

At first I thought about just leaving it be, because it was clearly written in affect, but then I decided to respond anyway, so I wrote:

Hi! I understand your disappointment, but unfortunately, there isn’t an option to romance Ayana in the game, sorry!

Then the person wrote back:

Don’t think I didn’t like the game, (I wasn’t completely sincere before, I actually liked it).

I played the game once, got to the end and got shivers down my spine, and tears in my eyes, so I quit, then I regretted it, because I actually liked the game more than I thought, so thank you for one of the best games I played in a long time.

/…/ it’s just that after the first playthrough, when Leo got ‘together’ with Mo, I felt so bad because of how Ayana reacted, that’s when I hoped that Ayana was one of the people Leo could get together with.

So, the reason this player was upset was that they had such a guilty conscience for the actions they had taken, in the shape of Leo, that they wanted to make it up to Ayana by dating her.

To this I replied:

I understand how you feel, that it could’ve been nice to get to be with Ayana as well.

It’s hard to say why I chose it to be that way – but I think it’s got to do with that Leo and Ayana were very close, and Ayana was such an important person in Leo’s life, that Leo wouldn’t want to risk losing her by having a romance with her – if you understand what I mean?

And then I got this reply:

Yeah, you did an amazing job, (I hope there will be more games like this, but please give us more options). And yes, it’s so rare that such a good game comes out (and maybe that’s why I was a little……. well, I’m sorry for what I said).

All I want is that you keep making games like this. :)

Aww.

What do you make of this? As you might imagine, I’m very happy I got back to that player instead of just leaving it be, and having a bad feeling about it, which would probably have stuck with me for days. Sometimes it’s better to open up a conversation to try and see what lies behind an angry message. Sometimes, it definitely isn’t. So how to tell the difference? I don’t know. In this case, I thought back on working in IT support as one of my first jobs, and I remembered that sometimes when people wrote angry messages, they could turn around completely if they got a nice message back, and I sort of wanted to try it. In this case, it ended well.

But this conversation is also part of a bigger picture around how to handle relationships in games. I’ve learned some valuable things from the player feedback on Knife Sisters, that has got to do with characters and relationships, and this specific exchange has been part of that process. In my next post I will elaborate more on these findings.

When working on relation games, there are many things to take into consideration. I’ve already elaborated a little upon the fact that the choice of characters in relation games is very important, and will affect the players a lot.

When working on those kinds of games I have asked myself questions, such as if players should get a wide variety of romanceable characters to choose from, and be able to shift the relationships according to their preferences, or if it sometimes makes sense to exhort players into having relationships they wouldn’t choose for themselves, to convey a specific story.

Through our experiences working on Knife Sisters, I’ve understood that, even though it’s absolutely doable to coerce players into things, it comes with a cost, and that’s what this post will be about (there will be some spoilers so read with caution).

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the games we make, and what kind of games we want to make. When we started the new company this autumn, we also did a lot of business planning, working on the brand and so forth. Doing that kind of work is something I really enjoy, since it puts a frame around what we do, and makes everything more clear.

When it comes to our games, we plan ahead a lot. That means that as one game is in production, we’ll plan what the next game will be, and also have some ideas about the project coming after that. When choosing what to work on next, we always have a lot of ideas for projects to choose from (and the planning will always change, but that’s to be expected). The selection criteria for a new project looks something like this:

Does this project fit within the Transcenders Media frame: do the themes and mechanics line up with the kind of games we intend to make?

Will this project build on something we’ve previously done, design- or technology-wise?

Will this project steer us in a direction we want to go and help us become the company we want to be?

This way of thinking has also made it easier to see a recurring pattern in the game ideas that make us the most excited, the ones we tend to give a green light: They are almost exclusively centered around relationships. And that has led me to believe that (at least for the time being) Transcenders Media make games about relationships, and that’s about it!

Why make games about relationships?

Now, this is a huge question. Why do we do the things we do, really? As artists, there are most often some themes that are extra interesting to us, that we will always come back to, and explore over and over from different angles and aspects. For me, people and relationships have always been that kind of topic, something I can see even going back to my childhood and the stories I used to draw and write back then (and yes, I was pretty melodramatic as a child, too. This is from when I was seven years old).

The same themes occur also in the novels I’ve written: they’re about how to relate to yourself and others, how to connect and receive what you need. So the topics are kind of given, but different media forms offer very different opportunities on how to go about exploring the subject matters. And that’s where I think games are specifically interesting, since the player will be the one deciding on what to do in the game: it’s in their hands to decide how to use the device we have given them. They will explore the game world and, in this case, the possible relationships they can have in the game, from their point of view and experiences. Which means that, apart from regular gameplay mechanics, elements such as player psychology, projection and preferences will come into play, and I think the relationship between the player and its avatar becomes extra interesting in this case.

Relation Games

In the kind of games we make, the main point of the game is to relate to the characters in the game world and affect the relationships you have with them. This objective could be woven together with other gameplay objectives, or it could be the only objective the player has. 

There are specific genres of games that most commonly revolve around relationships, such as dating sims, visual novels and some role playing games. I haven’t found a good overall term for relationship centered games in game design literature of any kind (please let me know if you’ve seen any). But as I need a term for it I will call them relation games going forward.

I had quite a hard time choosing between relation games and relation sims, so I asked ChatGPT to argue for which one was the better option. I got the below response, which I do think makes sense. But when thinking about it, I chose to use the broader term relation games, because I want to encompass games from different genres and with different gameplay elements, and I felt that using the term sim would be too narrow.