Hunt for hearts in a literary game; 5 questions for Hanne Marckmann
@Interactive Storytelling Meetup #9 –13 September 2016
Interview by Klasien van de Zandschulp
Hanne Marckmann is game designer, teacher at HKU (Games & Interaction) and owner of studio Cameleofant. Together with Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg she designed the literary game Hartenjager. In this game you are challenged to win the heart of Violet, one of the main characters of a book by Grunberg.
Hanne often works with the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum Arnhem where she created several game experiences in the museum to tell the stories of the history of the Netherlands.
At Interactive Storytelling Meetup #9 she showed us her view on how gaming can help stories become more impactful. We asked her 5 questions after her presentation:
1) You started the game ‘Hartenjager’ with the well known Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg. What was the influence of Arnon Grunberg in this game?
“Arnon Grunberg, his publisher, and myself, came up with the concept for Hartenjager together. When the Creative Industries Fund and the Dutch Foundation for Literature opened an open call for literary games, concept creation started. After a few brainstorms we wrote down the concept for a ‘letter bot’. In the choice of the theme ‘love’ and ‘dating’ you can clearly see the influence by Arnon Grunberg (as he just became the “Seksrabbijn des Vaderlands”), and also in the choice to use letters as the literary component. Grunberg wanted more than ‘a game’, and this is what we were all very interested in, so we moved into the direction of ‘the illusion of a human’.”
2) The game is created by a team of game designers, a developer, a writer. How did the collaboration work in this project?
“To be honest, it was all very practical and reasonably smooth. Since we all live and work elsewhere (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, New York… plus Arnon travels A LOT), we had occasional meetings, mainly in hotel bars, to get everyone on the same page and discuss the big design challenges. Grand questions, doubts and new ideas about the design were pushed forward until the prototype was finished. We first wanted to see if the idea had potential (and it had!).”
“I think games are not a storytelling medium like movies or books. In games time and empathy works different than in a classic story. A game always takes place in the now, while a story is mostly told as if the events had already happened.”
3) What is your view on storytelling in gaming? Are game elements helping a story and is a story needed to make a game?
“First of all, I think games are not a storytelling medium like movies or books. In games time and empathy works different than in a classic story. A game always takes place in the now, while a story is mostly told as if the events had already happened. Secondly, a game is always about you, the player, in the end. Players refer to their experience after playing a game not with telling how the story ended, but how they performed in the game. Thirdly, gaming and discovering a story ask different types of attention (deep attention for reading stories and hyper attention for gaming).”
Tip from Hanne: more info on games and stories:
http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/
“Games are designed to be a good experience — with surprises, learning and just the right amount of frustration going on — so are explicitly meant to become good stories.”
“But games and stories can work together in different ways. Games use stories to create interesting game-settings or challenges. In the most simple form: The thieve took the princess. Now rescue the princess! Stories in games give you a ‘why’ you are doing what you are doing. The other way around, games can become a good story after you’ve played them — like any other good experience for that matter. But games are, of course, designed to be a good experience — with surprises, learning and just the right amount of frustration going on — so are explicitly meant to become good stories.
There are of course lots of mixtures and experiments happening between games and storytelling. Just think for example of the first text-based adventure games and see how that worked out.”
Tip from Hanne: more inspiration and examples:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2108898-the-games-that-feel-more-like-watching-twin-peaks-than-playing
http://nielsthooft.com/literaire-games-2”
“In the game Hartenjager, there is even more story-game-mixing going on, because the main component consists of a story, written in uniquely composed letters, depending on how you perform in the game. You can experience the revelation of the story of Violets life as some kind of reward for your efforts. Besides that reward, you are asked to write stories yourself about your life in order to conquer her heart. Afterwards, the game can become a story where you brag about how it took you just a few letters to conquer Violets heart. It’s fascinating.”
4) At the moment the game is a prototype. You told us you are planning to develop it further. Do you have any specific features in mind that you want to add to this game?
“The most important change is that we are going to make an app instead of a browser based game. It makes the experience more pervasive and personal. This gives us an opportunity to charge a small price for the game so that we have some cash to maintain the game over the years. Besides that we also wanted to make the game more about writing good letters than about guessing a good subject to write about. That means we are changing the timing of the feedback loop and are adding a notebook to try out subjects. Also, in the prototype you can not ‘lose’ any hearts once you have won them. In the app you can. We will shorten the texts and change the interface. So yes: Lot’s of work to be done!”
5) In your presentation, you also mentioned the smuggle game in the Openluchtmuseum Arnhem as one of the games you created for this museum. Do you experience that these games will help the visitor understand the stories of, in this case, smuggling during WW1, compared to other ways to tell this story in the museum?
“Yes, games often teach you something else than reading a book or watching a (museum) presentation. In the smuggling game you can (sort of) experience the ‘how it is to smuggle’ by smuggling yourself. I am not saying we should throw away classic presentations in museums, but I do think that after having been a smuggler yourself, you look at all the information about smuggling differently. A game can change your perspective on the stories in the exhibition, in a game different rules apply compared to your ‘normal’ visit to the museum.”
A game can change your perspective on the stories in the exhibition, in a game different rules apply compared to your ‘normal’ visit to the museum.
