Gamifying Creativity in 'Chicory: A Colorful Tale'

[Music] thank you my name is Greg labonov and I'll be giving a talk today about gamifying creativity and chicory a colorful Tale um so just introduce myself pretty quickly my name is Greg labonov I'm a game designer indie game designer living in Vancouver from Philadelphia I've done a bunch of video games before the last couple I've done are like particularly relevant to the subject so what I did in 2018 was called Wonder song it was like a musical Adventure game where you play as a Bard it's a platformer where you can make music at any time you're sort of a walking musical instrument and things interact with your music in different ways and there's sort of like a story in puzzle solving element with that as well and then the most recent game I released was called chicory a colorful tale which came out in 2021 this one is a top-down sort of zelda-like painting Adventure game where the player explores this world like a

kind of zelda-like world and then they have this Magic Brush they can use to color things in so the world is black and white but the player can draw anywhere anytime and they're sort of like puzzle solving and Adventure aspects with that brush um so both those games kind of mix creativity mechanics with like Adventure game mechanics and after working on both of those I have quite a lot of experience in working with mixing creative mechanics with Adventure game stuff and that's why I wanted to talk about sort of the classic problem of um well what's something called sometimes called Quantified creativity which is known as a like curse problem I got really interested in this subject of Chris problems um from this talk uh by Alex Jaffe in a previous UDC called curse problems and game design it's really really good I highly recommend it um but yeah specifically he talked about examples in in this sort of like creativity thing I'm gonna now like kind of summarize what what he summarized with it um so the basically the idea is that you want to make a game that encourages people to be creative right um but games also like sort of

presuppose to introduce some kind of structure right they promised some sort of structure to a player like that's like what a game sort of is um and those things come into conflict almost right away because uh like things like you know advancing through levels or earning points or like leveling up progressing a character whatever these are all examples of extrinsic rewards right like rewards you get for for doing stuff from the game but um following your heart and expressing yourself and being creative that is an intrinsically motivated activity or something that people do when they are intrinsically motivated right some of you do like satisfy an internal need and it's supposed to be fun for its own sake um in fact uh it's been found like through through study that if you if you if people are doing creative tasks and they're expecting a reward for it they will tend to enjoy it less and they'll be less motivated to do it and they'll just be less creative in general um and like I've I've found a lot of game designers have found maybe you've probably found that when players are offered like both extrinsic and

intrinsically rewarding activities they will tend to pursue the extrinsic rewards like those will tend to subsume the intrinsic ones so like one example I could think of that is coming to a lot of games are like uh clothes that have stats on them like in RPGs so often players will you know come into conflict where they have clothes that they like the look of better and there's clothes that give them better stats and have to pick between them and almost always they're always going to pick the ones that give them better stats especially the game is like challenging or like the stats are kind of the point of the game right it's like the aesthetic ends up just totally not being important even though there are some players that really would enjoy wearing clothes that they like um so yeah so like this this is like the Paradox that I've like dealt with with a lot in my games and the way that I've kind of learned to frame it for myself is basically that uh like I think that creativity can't co-exist with logical problem solving like they just they just can't be mixed um so like one example uh that like showcases this specifically that I think is really interesting um was in a game called Crayon Physics um this is not that it's a rag on that

game because this is a really really sweet game um from a few years ago um but the idea of this game is that it's like a physics puzzle game the player can draw whatever they want uh and the things they draw become like kind of physics shapes that they can use to solve these puzzles where they're trying to get this like ball to the star um it's really really fun but the thing is that um players even though they can draw whatever they want what they will tend to do is draw like find one thing that they can draw that kind of solves the problem in this case like they're just like they'll just draw boxes in every level and they'll just do the same thing over and over again because they figured out like that's you know how to get to the how to beat the game basically right um and so the game like doesn't even though they can do a ever they want they're not motivated to do whatever they want so even though they can draw anything they're just going to draw stuff that solves the problems in front of them um whereas what I was interested in um was trying to find games that like motivate players to actually be creative and come up with stuff in self-express um so but anyway yeah I mean this is all a problem but don't worry because I fixed it

um and you can too so the rest of this talk is going to be me talking about some of the ways that I found basically to work around or solve some of these conflicts that come up with this stuff um and the first one is to just like have both things there and you don't like don't let them touch right um or in other words like you separate all creative tasks from things that give you progress so using my own games as examples um in Wonder song and chicory they are adventure games with stories there's like a beginning middle and an end there are places you explore and visit there are puzzles you solve along the way there are characters you help all this stuff are like like you get clear objectives step by step that get you closer from the beginning of the story to the end of the story and at no point in there do you have to do anything creative at all it's actually all really standard adventure games checks your stuff like if you played any Zelda game or Mario or something right you know you know what this is like but there are are tons of optional side activities there are characters that will ask you to make

art for them in chicory there's like art classes you can go and do uh there's just like lots of other stuff that is not actually part of the critical path all of those are fully creative tasks uh and yeah so they just don't touch they just don't touch you have stuff you do to progress the game and you've stuff you do to be creative um and I actually think it's really good that both exist because I found that players generally need agency in how and when they engage with creative tasks because um doing creative stuff is really exhausting um and you know like like I point out uh like when people are forced to do creative stuff they will not enjoy it like if anyone who has played chicory if you can imagine right if there had been a requirement like oh to get to this next area you have to color in 10 screens or something right I mean people just wouldn't enjoy it they would hate it they'd resent it they wouldn't enjoy doing it they wouldn't enjoy creating that stuff right they would just be like checking the boxes where is if you present them creative tasks that they that are like fully framed to them as

being an optional thing they know that they are choosing to do this optional thing they feel their agency like they know they have the choice to do that or not they'll enjoy the task way more they'll be more creative and expressive too because they know that like their progress in the game doesn't hinge on their ability to do this or not and that actually makes it way more enjoyable for them the option like so like I mean so problem solving typical game structure tasks basically I think inhabit a really different part of the brain than creative things do so like in a standard game structure right you're offering the player clear goals you're giving them progress um and these are things that like stimulate them mentally and then exhaust them mentally like solving puzzles and or figuring out the simulation or whatever you know navigating like a space whereas creative tasks they're best when they're free form and expressive you give them as few guidelines as possible and let them make stuff up it's really fun and it's engaging emotionally but also exhausting emotionally and when you give them the option to have both and switch between doing both types of tasks basically whenever they want that is like ultimate

power it actually I think makes players enjoy both of those individual tasks way more because like they are always engaging with problem solving when they have the energy to do it and then when they get tired of it they have a different type of activity to do instead um and so sort of flow back and forth between both both like gives games this like really exciting energy um to them and they're like you know when you generalize it this this much um there are a lot of games that do stuff like this so these are just some examples of games that you know they incorporate some type of freeform creative mode where you can sort of make stuff and then they have sort of an adventure progress simulation puzzle solving mode or something both go both modes exist in these games and they are both part of the standard experience so like a player will engage with both along the way um and I think it works really great like uh but so my like little like Greg Secret Sauce is that um for Wonder song and chicory the starting point was designing the creativity mechanic and then the puzzle solving Adventure stuff was sort of like

made using those as like the puzzle solving mechanic um so basically you're always doing creativity stuff and even when you're not so that even when you are not actually doing a creative thing like solving a puzzle in a dungeon it actually still sort of feels like it is creative and the line between these two things gets blurred a lot because you're using the same thing so yeah I think it actually tricks players into feeling creative and it changes their impression of the game like overall right because they they feel more like it is a creative game um something that happens all the time when I have watched people play chicory is they'll be like exploring around they're solving a puzzle they're on their way to something and then for some reason their attention gets caught uh and like like maybe they notice that there's some new colors in an area or they just like the look of a particular scene or something they'll just hang out and they'll start drawing um and they'll spend a lot of time drawing and like you'll almost like completely by accident suddenly they're just doing creative stuff when they were supposed to be solving puzzles in a dungeon I think the fact that like you can just these switches can just kind of

happen anytime it really does make the game really fun it works really really well um and I think people should steal this idea straight up I think if you own AAA game Studio or if you can pitch to one and someone made like a big budget version of like this kind of game structure I think you would do really really well uh but even if you don't have a big AAA game studio and you're just like personality person looking for some cool ideas I give you permission you should just take this like there's so many I think there could be a whole genre of games that just do this um but anyway okay moving on so you might be wondering uh if doing creative stuff doesn't give players progress in the game then how do you motivate them to be creative um and my favorite answer to this question uh is with storytelling and role-playing so basically what we do in chicory and wandersong is we create setups where players get to like deliver or give the punch line right so we give them like an open-ended prompt we ask them to draw something they draw something or make

something to make a song Whatever and then we give them like a really fun reaction to the thing they did or we like you reuse the thing they did in a different contexts like we give them some kind of fun interaction between those things um and so yeah like there's the basically the the players feel like they're in this really fun conversation uh with the game right uh and it gives them this opportunity to sort of role play uh to insert themselves into the world right to see themselves reflected in in the game space and that is just like really fun um all of the like like chicken wander song both there's basically built out of these little like like tons of little opportunities where players get to express themselves like like that example um and uh I think it you know like when even if uh you know it's never mandatory but when you give people the opportunity over and over again to express themselves like even the most curmudgeonly person will end up doing it um and I think that's great because my goal is to give people like yeah that fun satisfaction of being creative and getting to do that in like

a game context so um yeah I just think like this this sort of like like conversational back and forth between players in the game using their creativity is just a really fun part of it um so in chicory's 10 hour run time uh there are actually two places I broke my rule where there are there is a creative task that is part of like the mandatory goals to get to the end of the game but both of them are like like very deeply contexted with a story and role-playing situation so like one of my favorite parts of the game is a bit where um Pizza the main character on the left and chicory the mentor character on the right um they sort of have this uh like like so your your character asks chicory her mentor to uh like draw a picture of her and so she degrees drawing a picture of you and the two characters are having this sort of like heartfelt conversation with one another uh and then when the conversation is over and when she crease finished drawing you she doesn't show you the drawing she did of you instead she asks you to draw a picture of her first and then you show the pictures pictures to each other

um and yeah I think this is like it's a for me one of the coolest parts of the game because it really puts the player in the character's shoes where they are drawing a picture of someone else and then having to sort of share and compare their art with someone else which is a really like I don't know like fun activity um it makes the players feel like a lot closer to chicory the character because they've sort of done this like Mutual study with each other um and then of course the drawing that we they do articulation where we get to bring back later in the story so we get lots of value out of doing things this way um and you know like it's yeah I only I always think this basically only works be like as a creative mandatory task because it is something that has all these storytelling context to it um and of course also also we give players total flexibility to put as much effort into it as they want there's no like objection like you have to fill in this much of the picture or whatever like players can literally submit it by canvas if they want right so um there is no like actual mandatory amount of work to it it's just about sort of being in the moment and being in the character's shoes

um actually like all of the drawings that we asked players to do or almost yeah most of them are um they're basically presented as a request from a character um and this sort of format actually works really well I find because when you are making a drawing for another character um you have a comfortable amount of distance from the piece where you have this opportunity to express yourself but you also have sort of a goal in mind of trying to make something that will make that character happy which is a ambiguous sort of goal or structure but just enough that players basically get to decide how much they want to insert themselves into it versus like just follow exactly the guidelines they feel like the game wants from them um so they get agency there um but in doing all these tasks they also just engaged more with the story and the characters like they always feel more connected to a character drawing something for them like I think that's just cool um another side note so I think this is a good example of um something where uh narrative design works really really well to solve a problem that occurs in game design and I think there's actually a lot of really cool potential so thanks

for this and lots of different challenges of games where things that are generally accepted as like really tough game design problems could actually be solved by like a really cool storytelling idea um and there are a lot of great examples recently of games that do this it's like I think of the way that Celeste is a platformer that Rifts on like classic platformer design with its story or the way uh inscription riffs on slave Aspire or Rook like card games with its like kind of Storytelling as well these are both just really exciting examples that elevate like a classic known game design with with a storytelling context um and yeah I think if narrative designers are given opportunity to like like direct design stuff they're just really cool ideas so um you know just this this is me anyway moving on so uh if you are making a game that requires a player to make creative stuff like one very like obvious way to gamify that is to evaluate their art right so you give them prompt X and they deliver like their piece why and then you give them score z

um makes sense right but I think that this is actually like really not fun at all or definitely at least not as fun as people think it is um I think it's actually really degrading because it subconsciously encourages a player to um basically change like adjust their piece to improve their score right generally by changing a superficial element because the way they're going to be thinking about this is like oh I got this score could I get a better score right and then they're thinking about okay well how do I adjust this to better meet whatever algorithm is deciding how my art gets rated and then they're not thinking about expression expression anymore right they're thinking about logical problem solving um so um but you know actually you know even more importantly than that uh I yeah I think it's it's just not fun like it's not interesting um or challenging or subversive like if a player makes something they care about and the game just tells them that it's bad like it's just not enjoyable I think it actually just makes people not want to try um and the thing is that you never know how a player feels about something that

they've made um for you right you don't know whether maybe they thought it was a total joke but maybe they took it really seriously like maybe they really put their heart into this piece you don't know that you have no way to evaluate that and so there's just never a good reason to tell them they did a bad job um I think you should just always be nice but there is something interesting here right because they're like the thing that I think that is appealing about this experience that actually interests players is this idea that the game is like seeing what they did and then making like an observation about it um so we push into that a lot I think you actually can get a lot of um like a lot of like good interaction by giving players like kind of interesting observations about stuff they did so to use chicory as an example um like chicory has art classes in it and the basic format right is that you know we give them a prompt players draw sort of whatever and then we give them like an evaluation like an art critique afterward and the way that it works is right the player submit this drawing and the game sort of like does this critical analysis internally of it like it it divides it up into sections and just

looks for um like it makes a prioritized sort of list of just observations about it so it might say like oh this green color is the color you use the most and uh like this area is darker than other areas on this drawing and this area is lighter than other areas on the piece or whatever right um these are all just like objective things the game can like measure about the artwork and then it turns those like it adds like a little bit of judgment or evaluation to it and then like turns it into these kind of like statements about the piece that are like framed as an art critique um and things like this are really like gratifying and fun to hear as a player because right it makes really makes you feel like the game is noticing what you did and is reflecting that back to you and that is what is really really fun about it I'll also mix so like I'll mix comments like this that are like algorithmically generated with completely handcrafted comments that are um uh like like base basically on the prompts the player was given so a character might say like oh like my joy looks different from this or like I don't understand what's going on in this piece but I like that you know

whatever right so you kind of mix and mix those things together and the illusion altogether is something that um yeah really feels like the game is reacting to what the player is doing uh it's really satisfying um so last thing that I want to talk about um in this subject is about creating constraints for players um so like it's giving a player a constraint or like a goal with their piece um can be really fun but if you're scoring the player based on how well they meet your the constraint you give them then it basically leads to all the same issues I was talking about with like evaluating their art where you know then they're thinking about how to maximize their score for this evaluation and they're not thinking about like how to actually Express so just like the twist that I mixed this always is that rather than giving them like a constraint with like a goal to me we basically change their toolkit we change what's actually possible for them we make that the challenge right um because then it turns instead of a like the constraint is like part it's baked into the prompt there's no way for

them to fail at that right they're just given a box to work and they get to creatively problem solve how to do something creative in that space and they I am generalizing a lot but like an example that might be in chicory is um you know like uh you know you have to draw me a picture but there's something on the canvas already or or yeah you only have these certain colors where you're drawing on a weirdly shaped surface that like doesn't you know isn't a canvas or whatever right like there are tons of these um and also what I really enjoy about this too is that like when you give players really weird constraints that's always a really fun storytelling opportunity where like you can be like okay so there's a guy in the game you might as a designer say oh there's a guy in the game who wants you draw a picture that's blue and then you get to wonder like why does this guy want a thing that's only blue like and then you get to tell a story about like who this weird guy is that once things that's only blue like maybe if there's something nefarious going on I don't know the interaction between just sort of like weird game prompts and the storytelling opportunities and also just creating lots of different constraints for different sorts of art projects like

there is just so much depth in that type of gameplay uh well I just went too far ahead sorry um there's so much depth in that type of gameplay like I think they're just basically yeah like it's a really fun way to make games um and a really great way to like basically get give players lots of things to do that are sort of like feel more meaningful so I don't know yeah free free games on tip um and in chicory so we had a really good we had a lot of good outcomes basically giving plays very open-ended props right there are actually no constraints we would just give them an open-ended prompt like Express Joy or draw like a cute creature or something and this is really fun because again players get to decide like how much to engage The Prompt and what they think fits that prompt and they can't be evaluated on these they're like not objectively evaluatable in fact sort of makes it fun um and yet it is fun right like you would think oh like there's no like you're just giving players space like why would they be motivated but it is motivating because it's actually just fun to make stuff and to express yourself um so yeah uh I uh that's that's that's

the gist and so I'm just gonna summarize um separate creativity from logical problem solving and game progression uh use story and characters and role-playing opportunities to motivate player self-expression um never score or evaluate art but do provide specific observations of choices that players have made uh and can create create constraints by varying the players toolkit that's the that's the summary so thank you everybody I was Greg um yeah I'm I'm I mean I I know I've finished it a little bit fast but I'm gonna I have yes this time now for questions and stuff if there are any sweet I don't know if I can I don't know if I can see the room or anything so I'm just gonna like listen for

um yeah hi great talk I was wondering uh uh I assume that you had some very interesting player feedback from this game given like the completely open-ended portions of some of it and I was just selfishly wondering if you had any like really favorite quotes that you've had from play tests huh really favorite quotes I don't about like quotes I definitely have it like a lot of really fun um I mean like like people who like like if I look like our Steam Reviews which is like a Pastime if I'm ever feeling down about myself I'll look at our Steam Reviews like there's always tons of really good comments people be like you know oh I didn't think I'm not an artist I thought I would hate this game because I don't like to draw but it turns I had a lot of fun drawing and I actually like got in touch with that part again and now sometimes I'm drawing for fun like on the side like that kind of stuff is really gratifying for me to hear um that comes in lots of different flavors I can't think of like a really specific quote about it but that kind of flavor comes up a lot and I do really

appreciate hearing stuff like that because yeah like it and I'm excited to get people like in touch with that that part of themselves uh through games I think that part is really cool um but yeah I mean everyone like the thing with it being open-end is that everyone who plays it these games they have like a really different experience some people really just don't Engage The creativity stuff like at all like a very minimum amount a very minimum amount and I think I think that that's okay because they still are exposed to it I mean they get a game they really enjoy right they play like a cool adventure game they get to the end of and they just do some creativity along the way and for some people that is like the most they want out of it and I think it's great that they can get that some people just forget to even finish the game and they just hang out drawing all day and that's really cool too um so I think I think both are great and I think like appealing to both is also great um and helps lots of people and hi I just wanted to ask I loved Wonder song and with a game like you said like some people don't finish the game there's so much to do in each area and and how you play around with the

main mechanic how do you Pace the content of the game because you remember in Wonderland there were like worlds and and how do you decide like this is enough and the player can move on I I I usually use story as kind of my my grounding framework for deciding stuff like pacing how to move people through stuff so we think about like what's going on in the story like how long has it been since the last like major story beat how long do you want to be until the next one and that's basically how we think about pacing things out um so yeah we want players to spend like I come from a comfortable amount of time in each space or as much time as they want but then there's always like that the drive the thing actually makes them move towards the ending is always like wanting to know what happens next so you sort of like Dole out like the story information uh at a good pace and that's like a whole other subject that's not really game design exactly um but yeah like I think the story helps guide basically players see this like emotional Journey Through the game and that guides how we Pace the size of like different areas and stuff like that

thank you yeah hi um so if you could do away with every reason you had to keep the story at its current length and level of detail what do you think you would add to it I just like love the story so much oh wait okay so if I could if I could do whatever I want like if I could just do whatever I want a story and I'm not thinking about game design at all is that what you mean huh it's actually a hard question for me because um well so I think like like I don't know if you are familiar but the game I made wander song I think is like maybe one of the closest examples of this that I can think of where I think I that kind of was the game where uh Wander song is like not the most fun game at every part of it I sort of was I allowed myself to make concessions where I really want the story to matter so I'm going to use the game to sort of elevate the story and sometimes the game will be sort of frustrating where I want the story to feel frustrating or like like yeah like whatever right the I let I let that sort of be The Guiding Light so that's kind of my closest version of it it's hard for me to like totally extract them from

each other because like what I enjoy about the process of these things is how they are in conversation with each other so like I it's hard for me to just think of story in a vacuum without having fun like game aspects to it and the conversation between them I think is kind of partly what makes the stories like really really fun um if I wanted to do it without having game design I would just like try writing books but I don't think I would be good at or enjoy writing books you know it's a different sort of thing so yeah I don't know I guess yeah like maybe sometimes making concessions for like making the game less fun or the game design less interesting to make to present the story in a better light I think is like the the most concession I sometimes will make um in this kind of issue if that I don't know if that answers your question I hope it does thank you yeah hi uh so I'm just wondering in the kind of dichotomy you set up between like separating the problem-solving from creative tasks I'm wondering if you have any thoughts for how do you like encourage creative problem solving where

you want people to solve problems but like in creative ways or if maybe that's kind of doesn't quite fit in this framework it's it's like it's a really interesting question um and it is like yeah I think uh it's really really hard I mean it's like it's like the cost you get to making these things neat the more you just get into so many weird like you know it always it always never quite goes the way you want if I try to think of games that like are good examples of this like like okay so when I think of games that have really creative problem solving in it usually the things that seem to be motivated the most are games that are like extremely hard and therefore to solve the problems players will start working out of the box and doing unconventional things right but I think about like I mean you know recent example I'm sure we all are familiar with like Alden ring like the way that people play that game everyone plays that game in a very different way because they're faced with a very very difficult Challenge and that forces people to sort of like try different things right or like like act in weird ways like you know try to clip through

walls or go around corners or skip sections like they they will do things more creatively when they're sort of like compressed to a closer point a lot of roguelikes you know will also sort of encourage this type of thinking but I do think like you know like creative problem solving and that light it's very different from the type of creativity that I'm talking about so like I'm talking about you know self-expression and problem solving through self-expression is like really really hard to force I think right because you can't like if you if the game is so hard that like players are thinking about how to solve it logically then that is a different headspace I guess to be in um yeah it's a really it's a hard problem I hope that kind of answers your question yeah thanks thanks uh I'm kind of curious at what point in development and this might be more uh development sausage making question like at what point in development did you start showing chicory to people and and getting feedback um and you know evaluating whether your hypothesis of a game was worth pursuing

further that's a good question well so in in the case of chicory um I was showing it to like I had close friends here showing it to you like very very like right I I I wouldn't okay the very very first big question I had was just like can I make uh satisfying like painting mechanic using a game controller because that already sounded like that just wasn't gonna work um so I made like prototypes where the you know the player like an MS paint screen with a paintbrush and I was just trying different stuff like the physics on the brush and colors and stuff to see if I could find like kind of a fun version of that and I was trying that with people right away because I wanted to make sure that like the core interaction was fun so just from that I was I was showing it to people um but you know the thing is like that drawing is really fun like everybody every single human being at some point in their life has drawn and had a good time doing it you know like which you can't really say for a lot of activities so like once I had a little drawing app that you could use to draw with the controller like people did enjoy playing that I knew that was going to be fun the question was like how to sort of like

get people to trick people into doing that as often as possible um then as long as I was succeeding at doing that then like the game was fun so I I didn't have yeah like once once I had like the basic format for like the idea of the the structure in mind for a game that was gonna do that I didn't actually have a lot of questions that it was going to be fun um I think like if you can find ways to mix this stuff like it it is just it is a fun thing and it's not used very often like if people aren't exploring the space that much so um yeah encourage it I had a question about sharing the creativity outside of the game like having tools go on social media and how it might change the motivation or the balances of the motivation and what your thoughts were on the right balance there yeah well so in Chicago like we we included a button that lets people save like a gif of the stuff they do and post that to social media that's like our extent of it we never like prompt people to share stuff like in the games of like a tweet this button I do think that that changes stuff because then you're

creative performatively um and I actually think that one of the strengths at least for chicory is that for players it can be a really private thing in fact like there were some streamers who I was um really looking forward to watching play chicory and then many of them were like actually I don't think I'm gonna play this game on stream because I'm having a really good time and I just want to like do something on Pace um and the game sort of like encourages that and I think that's actually like good I mean it's good for those people right individually I think it makes the game a better experience so those are two different types of motivations basically for making things making stuff to share with other people is also fun um there are lots of games that do that really well like uh like Jack box is a game I can think of that like is all about making stuff and showing it to people right or like telephone or something so like those are really great examples of games that do that I think they are motivating in a really different way though because you're not really like thinking about expressing yourself you're thinking about like how do I make the people in this room laugh or something which is different but interesting as well um and a totally cool space to explore I

haven't thought of like mixing that with an adventure game kind of format the way I have here but yeah yeah I I think I think I think all that stuff is really really interesting um and different ways of expressing this thanks hey Greg uh great talk and amazing game thanks um I I found when I was playing it like my how much I'd bother to cover in a scene would kind of fluctuate throughout playing depending on my Creative Energy and sometimes I just really intricately cover something and sometimes I would just they're like I guess I got covers and I guess it kind of went in line maybe like almost like role-playing like with the game um yeah I was interested in your what were your observations of people playing and whether that fluctuated and also kind of uh how do you account for people that might be like completionists and I definitely found a couple of times I was like obsessively painting something when I was like tired like creatively tired

but because I I wanted to to you know be a bit of a completionist right well so we we don't reward players for covering things and this is like really important to me and I mean I was hoping that it would mitigate some of that a little bit right because when you were testing this there were a lot of people that were saying hey it would be really cool if like when you color in the whole screen something happens you know like there's just like the character does a little dance or you get like a little star on the map or something right um and I like made really sure not to ever do that because as soon as you have that people will do all of them just like by necessity so I really tried to make sure that people knew that they did not have to do that like there was no you have characters appear though you don't you when you um yeah we we reward them but it was kind of meant to be like a surprise thing and they don't show up for coloring the whole screen they show like you might you might not even color the screen like very much and they might show up sometimes so it was meant to like disconnect that a little bit but yeah I guess it does sort of like it does it right I mean it's tough um but it was something I was concerned

about like something that we did separate to that um but we have things in the game that are sort of intended as like when you get to certain points in the story The Game sort of prompts you to take a break and that was another way that we were trying to say okay like if you've been playing for a while like you should maybe stop for a bit like you were trying to find ways to insert like ways to encourage people to do that but yeah I mean if if it's it's it's it's really tough to like completely stop people from doing it I mean you give people the agency to draw as much as they want some people will draw more than they want to because they because like they just kind of get into it um I have that problem playing lots of games um I'm I would be super interested to like figure out ways to do it but like to to mitigate that as much as possible because I you know when people are playing past the point of exhaustion it's like not fun for them and they they kind of loosen the experience worked well I found I did stop playing at those checkpoints a lot of the time awesome I I really appreciate hearing that then at least but yeah um it was something we were concerned about and something we thought about um I hope I hope that your experience was more good than bad oh no

it's like my game of the year okay sweet we're out of time thank you very much for joining us today yeah thank you for all the great questions everybody [Music]