Cosmic Top Secret: Do We Really Know Each Other?

[Music] taking for granted that games can be used as a medium of the communication just like literature film in music so on is of course not a revelation for you guys but how we're actually dealing with it in our development of our true story adventure game cosmic top secret my hope hopefully be inspiring for for you to hear about anyways that's why we're here and I'm director trainee like my parents work for the Danish intelligence fighting against the Red Menace this is producer Lisa sax lot her parents were devoted communists and might have been under the civilians of my parents and this is our program Christian talker who actually doesn't know whether his parents are spies or

not these are our found things that we want to share with you that reality is fun and inspiring that mechanics can edit reality and vice versa and that the personal aspect can be engaging we will try to talk to me document these points by examples from cosmic top secret which is developed as an autobiographical game about a woman it's actually me trying to find out what my parents worked for at the Danish intelligence during the Cold War and while on her mission she realizes that her parents are getting old and fragile and that they're not going to be there to protect her forever she needs to prepare prepare herself to manage without them and she thinks she needs to understand their secret lives to continue her own life the part the

point is that all parents and and all children have secrets Cold War spies or not and we asked if secrets do something to our relations maybe just think about it for now we will show you the trailer all about [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] at the end of it I'm sorry you don't go far to cool the girl mid more little bit of are far apart nothing comfort if the heart is changed now you're violent now dealing but who are you talking since what a terrific Albert Lin totally as a total we're at the habitat for tomorrow show nobody but you are merciful angel aunty [Music] [Applause]

[Music] documentaries celebrated worldwide and never earlier have the documentary experience such development and exploration of the form and content stories are subject to political social and emotional discussions and giving voices to experimenting artists devoted and dedicated journalists and filmmakers dramatizing and designing stories to keep an audience engaged the stories arise from reality and often exceeds imagination and if they were made up they would seem completely unrealistic in cosmic top secret the protagonist realizes that her dad worked for the Danish intelligence the a plot of the game deals with the actual investigation

of what he did there so what is so attractive about the real to us there's a dimension about this really happened which which means that this could actually happen to me it's an instant and identifiable dimension then there's all the free stuff that you experience it's a person's gesture its moods its lights its accidents its language and stop you could have never made up it would it seems so right and we think that it's because it's real the way dad's character in the game is animated is actually the real deaths gestures we took up the sound so you can really experience his gestures like this and of

course what I just mentioned that reality exceeds imagination in our a plot the protagonist investigates her dad's work for the Danish intelligence as I said and she also finds out that mom worked there too so and she even worked in a more classified position so that's kind of a yeah surprise also bomb trained the Danish Queen Margaret in mastering judo fencing and other military disciplines so in that sense the real never cease to surprise and inspire us and maybe you remember the last time you were telling friends about what you did last night or your summer holidays you're most likely trying not to be too boring and you passed on your experiences with our beginning a middle and an ending or imagine that you're a director or a

journalist and your attention is caught by something that could turn into be an amazing story you begin your research by talking to people and reading searching in ways you know and in the beginning you may not be that structured but your preferences whatever they are lead you from one point to another and while some things support your interest other doesn't you pick and you choose and the selection of reality has already begun so during the research and especially when telling people about what you're doing the structure of reality begins by passing on your work you do the same you do at the same time try to make sense to yourself always in retrospect about what you're doing you might choose to to let out what research went nowhere and highlighting what actually ended up covering uncovering the truth in films editing sound visual research are all

examples of tools you use for your design process you want to engage your audience and tell story the best way you can you have a design that helps you pass on the story and it becomes your reality so understood this way documentaries are designed realities and in this perspective the real story is just as suitable as any other story when designing games I probably do not have to defend our wish to work with games here but frequently we've been asked why we're not also doing a documentary film about T and her dad but from the very beginning we have been interested in our audience doing the story and not having it sold as a film and apart from the potential in the story of the developing interesting mechanics and vice-versa we'll get back to that we want our players to emotionally feel the

experience as as they do the story and merging the game and the documentary have been our base since we met in 2011 and began working on cosmic sub secret in the beginning it was just an experiment how to merge the uncontrolled and real with the very controlled and as you now have heard we argue that the dramatized story real or fiction is just as designed as any game and therefore could be just as suitable to be played and while we have been working with real sound products and visuals and designing a story in levels simultaneously with developing our mechanics we've been confirmed from tests that an x-factor in cosmic top secret is the real it's a dimension that attracts our audience and devote emotions when revealing the relations of the characters in the game so to conclude the real is just as designed as a game of course not all

stories are suitable for game development and that being fictional fact but a suitable story might as well arise from reality and to us the real continuously challenged and inspires developing a documentary game offers some unique challenges and stream of game mechanics beyond just having a story the pace that's based on true events and since this game is not just about seeing his family's secrets it's also about a quest to uncover them the game is partly documenting its own development but more importantly it has meant that the game had ats-v developed incrementally story and mechanics changing along with the real world events because of this we come to think

of the development of the game as having two legs that's the story and that's the mechanics they're both moving forwards and steps each step dependent and influenced by the other so a new development for example in the story could mean that the existing game mechanics would have to be changed or completely removed and as we're working with a story that takes place while we're developing the game this meant that real-world events could influence the story completely and each of fundamental changes not only in the story were throwing but but in the mechanics in the game and the other way around but we'll come to that in a minute in the first demo for the game the player avatar she looked very different from the other characters and specially from dead he was constantly running ahead he was a fast character just powering through the game and the player controlling she would run after him and served the world to keep him from

falling over the edge and in addition to this indirect control the game was controlled with a smartphone and the game itself was running on a computer and ultimately a lot of these novel mechanics were scrapped and the game we have now as most traditional of entry game collecting items and solving puzzles and this way of controlling the game with the smartphone it gave a whole feeling of immersion in the story and the whole wireless setup was very fragile and as you was a you were about to discover so was seen his father at this point in the development seen his dad fell and hurt himself during hand grenade throwing and he has that difficulties walking ever since and Serena says she began thinking about him getting old and fragile and says she found herself for the first time confronted with the fact that he will die someday some things she wasn't quite sure she was ready to deal with and not

a theme that was supposed to be part of the game's story at all and of this process of prototyping mechanics together with the story elements was not already going on at this point you likely wouldn't identify the importance of this discovery of this event but by including the physics of Pat's body together with the already existing paper world the emotional and the mechanical core of the game appeared so dad's injuries that would be more than one as shown in the game as pieces falling off the paper doll the player s she will then find these and return them to him as she learns more about a family and tries to come to grips with a father growing older but papers not only fragile it's also versatile and what was at first mainly the visual aesthetic of the game photos cut out everything made out of paper cardboard old documents

punched shape suddenly this became the basis for the mechanical core of the game as well and after we moved away from the problematic smartphone controls the team came up with the idea of Chi rolling into a paper ball the player rolling and flicking her through the game world it's not only a novel mechanic but it's also serves to symbolize that she needs the players helps remove through the story she cannot move on herself as a paper doll and gradually as the story progresses she gains more abilities and more mobility for example midway through the game as T's learning more about her mother's involvement with the military intelligence specifically her work for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force she learns to fly she folds herself into a paper plane and glides in the air flying over Poland to secretly take photos of Soviet installations this mission is

mimicking the real-life exploits of Danish spies during the Cold War this part of the game is significant because it brings us back to the truenicks concepts this story of the Danish bias in Poland was chosen over a number of other possible branches at this point exactly because it fits our perfectly into the paper worlds and our decisions our focus on these paper mechanics so the story rendered we end up with now is obtained substantially different because of this decision the subjects that would be researched the people that scene would go to interview all these things are concrete elements that were affected by a mechanics decision so not only did the real-world events lead to changes in the game mechanics but decent trend concern changed the story we are telling including the people involved the places so on so as Lisa ASCO was talking about we've not just been designing mechanics to fit into the true story narrative but

the mechanics were developed along the way they have also had an impact on the reality of the story Thank You Kristen and after the third and last point the see plot that the personal is engaging I wanted to combine the best we know from video games the controlling of the action the physical playing and the joy of succeeding with the sincerity and honesty we know from books films graphic novels and documentaries I was in particularly in love with the auto fiction genre as expressed by the Norwegian author now Scott being existentially touched by his eerie detailed descriptions of how he feels connected with the world its people its nature its history and this at the same time feels like taking care of himself instead of his kids and wife

and this kind of embarrassing personal revelation could be the nerve in the game why not and provide us the players with a better understanding of our life situation and maybe another view on how to endure our own faults and limitations to achieve that kind of emotional engagement we need to make the player identify with the main character in our case it's T who's the connector between this specific story and the players own story we want the player to imagine secrets in his own or her own family and reflect on their personal relations and this is the first drawing bone from that wish we pretty soon realized that it had a we had a solid good story right at hand about my parents work for the Danish intelligence no matter the outcome how much I would be able to

reveal it would be a story about the process of finding out and it's easy to say now that it's a fantastic story while having spy parents of course that's super appealing but the point is that I did not know and I knew parts of it and somehow I didn't know because it was a secret and finally I did not realize the potential of it our point is that we might all have those fantastic materials within within our personal lives that could be used for all kinds of stories and games and before unseen combinations in our case we started structuring the game as an adventure game and with tools stolen from screenwriting we builded up the traumatic arch the idea is that the a plot is a bone of the whole thing that's where we set up the basic question that wakes up our curiosity

what exactly did that work with the B plot is the meat that's the little details in the authentic conversations between people that makes us laugh not because we are ridiculous but because we recognize it from ourselves how is it to drive the car with your dad for instance but in the end it's another question that is being answered it's the one that is expressed by the C plot will t be able to manage on her own without her father's without her father and will she come to terms with him and herself growing old those questions is reflected in what we might call emotional mechanics during the development process we prototype the mechanics and features of the game simultaneously as Christian mentioned earlier and we discover it the strong concept of the paper aspect and

the fragility of that going into pieces but also T the main character going into pieces caused by the sheer thought of losing her dad and for the player to use that negative reaction positively to solve the puzzle by the end of the first level we will not reveal how of course but just mentioned there's a shredder involved working with storytelling is a very straight format forward no no matter the format and at the same time totally complex the most difficult thing is probably to get to the core of what you want to tell what is it you want to tell the world and and how can you do it and how could you share that with your team I knew from the beginning that there was something in my upbringing something about being isolated and extremely shy that was very hurtful to think about it

was strongly connected to my relation with my parents the feeling of being dependent on them as well as wanting to keep them on a distance it's not a story about abuse a lack of being loved on the contrary it's very much about love and feeling connected yet being alone and being afraid of being left alone which ultimately happens to all of us when our parents dies Kosmic top secret tries to deal with those difficult feelings this is where the shredding mechanic became a core element of the game when the main character tee literally goes into pieces by the thought of her dad dying and even though I set out to reveal those family secrets that might explain why I still as a grownup feel like a protected child I'm not able to state that as a true fact I simply no longer believe it's possible to conclude that I've turned out the way I am the cause of my parents

and I've decided to let it be a question for the players to decide on their own in that sense it's no longer my personal story but hopefully a shared story that can be played as a game and now for the happy ending we will end our talk with this sweet cobble filin daughter who volunteered for testing and they are the first to have succeeded without any books or guidance though without his daughter's help he would not have solved the shredder puzzle the game will be released for iOS Android and meganne PC me and please support our existence by buying it and liking it thanks [Applause] so time for any questions I think we have time for one or two questions yeah

just go up to the microphone if you have any questions for any of the native speakers also feel make sure you fill out the evaluations for this talk it means a lot of things there any questions there's one there I think hi do you consider this close to a serious game do you know in the serious gaming yeah because it's a documentary gaming can you tell us a little bit about that well the question is do you consider this your game a serious game do you put it in that category we know it is close to being in that category but it was not the way we we worked with it we worked with more like an adventure game telling a story but with with real

and important issues you may say but not as like a serious game in that sense and and so since it's a documentary game so do we get out of there with more information about this situation yes yeah any more questions how has your family reacted to the game oh that's a good question yeah it's really weird to to see yourself as a video game character especially when you don't play that much games yourself so that's been yeah but it's also they think it's fun as well and interesting more questions

alright then thank you very much [Applause]