How The Forgotten City Creates The Perfect Mystery

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Every year, I like to dedicate my last video  to one game, released in the last 12 months,   that I think deserves a much closer  look. A game that’s, perhaps, innovative,   or bold, or just absurdly smart. For 2021, there were plenty of games I could  have picked - honourable mentions later on - but   there was one game that I really wanted to  dive into. It’s called… The Forgotten City. Now, as usual, I’ll give you the elevator pitch,  and then give you a chance to ditch this video   and go play the game for yourself before  I spoil the whole thing. Sound good? Right, so The Forgotten City is  a time-travelling detective game,   set in a teeny Roman city at the  bottom of an impossibly deep chasm. GALERIUS: “Uh… Salve friend. I’m Galerius” The 20-odd residents of this place all live  under “The Golden Rule”, which basically says:   if one person commits a sin, then the entire  population will be punished. By death. Your job is to figure out who is about to break  the golden rule - and stop them before they do it. You’re given free rein to crack the  case: so you can wander the streets,   talk to citizens, find leads and rumours and  clues, and piece together the answer by yourself. But if you fail to find the culprit, you’ll  have to rewind the clock and start from scratch. GALERIUS: “Uh… Salve friend”. Though, now with new items and information  that might help you out on the next loop… Now, you might be thinking that this  whole thing sounds a tad familiar.   Going back in time to solve crimes? That’s  a bit Return of the Obra Dinn, isn’t it?   And how about piecing together information while  trapped in a time loop? That’s very Outer Wilds.   And what about interviewing the citizens of a  small city to find a culprit? A bit Disco Elysium,   and it also strongly reminds me  of last year’s Paradise Killer. And, yeah, you’d be right to think  that. Except, The Forgotten City   actually predates all of those games.  You see, this is actually a shiny remake   of an uber popular Skyrim mod - of all  things - from way back in 2015. It’s just   been completely overhauled and turned into a  standalone game, courtesy of Unreal Engine. But what came first is not actually all  that important - because what impresses   me the most about The Forgotten City isn’t so  much what it’s doing - but how it’s doing it. This is a game that instantly grabbed  my attention. It’s a game where I felt   a really strong sense of freedom - but  without feeling overwhelmed by options.   It’s a game where I was always making forward  progress, without dead ends or missed clues.   And a game that kept giving me surprises and  revelations… up until its satisfying ending. With one notable exception - did we really  need to bring wonky Bethesda combat over   from the mod? - uh, with that exception,  this is a fantastic piece of interactive   storytelling. And it was swirling around my  head for days and days after I finished it,   as I tried to figure out how  the designers pulled it all off. So, if that sounds interesting to you - this is  your chance to go get the game and play it. It’s   on Steam, and all the major consoles, and its  also on Game Pass as of this video’s release.   If you haven’t finished it and want to  check it - now is your time to leave. After the break, we’ll dive  deep into the game’s design. Okay, welcome back! So, as I said in the intro, The Forgotten  City held me rapt and engaged in five   key ways: an instantly engaging intro. A high  degree of agency - without being overwhelming.   Constant forward progression. Surprises  and revelations. And a satisfying ending. I wanted to know how it pulled all of  these things off - so I played it again.   And I watched some Let’s Players tackle the game on YouTube.  And I also reached out to the game’s designer and   writer, Nick Pearce, to find out more. So  I’ll be quoting him throughout the video. Let’s start with the game’s opening moments.  A high concept game like this one has a lot   to accomplish in its opening hour-or-so. It  needs to ensure that the player understands   where they are, what they’re doing, and  - importantly - why they’re doing it. A strong introduction will leave  players informed - but intrigued   to learn more. And clear on their goal -  while being motivated to accomplish it. So, Nick says “I carefully designed  the introductory sequence - which is   fairly linear - to include just the right  amount of world-building and story set-up   that [the player’s] purpose is clear,  before handing over the story's reins”. As such, as soon as we set foot in the city, we’re  given a guided tour of the game’s world, events,   and key characters. We meet Galerius,  who tells us about the time period,   the city, and teases some important gossip about  an upcoming election. Then, we meet Sentius,   who explains the golden rule, gives us our  mission, and explains why we should care. SENTIUS: “If you manage to prevent the sin  that breaks The Golden Rule, I won’t need to   bring you here, I won’t create the portal, and  you will never have been able to come here”. At this point, says Nick, “I've given [players]  the minimum amount of information to get them to   the point where they're intrigued to find out  more, they're motivated to want to help these   people, they understand that helping these  people is the only way to help themselves,   and [that] talking to each of these  people is going to be enjoyable”. So this is a great example of efficiency in  introducing a game. In a very short period of time   you have everything you need to start playing. Okay,   let’s talk about how The Forgotten City gives  you freedom - without overwhelming the player. So, now it’s up to you to solve the  mystery at the heart of the game.   And how you go about it, is really up to  you - this is a remarkably non-linear game,   where you are free to work through the tangled  web of leads and rumours however you like. It’s   your choice who you speak to, where you  explore, and what threads you pull on. And while the game was still early in development,  this is exactly what would happen after the   introduction. Sentius would give you your  mission - and then completely leave you to it,   signalling that the guided tour was now over  and it’s up to you to pick the next path. But, Nick understood that some players might  need a helping hand. It can be overwhelming   and immobilising to suddenly give  players such a large amount of freedom. Like - I adore Outer Wilds, but I have to admit  that I totally bounced off the game at first   because I was just overloaded with planets  and people and dead ends and clues! Argh! So, Nick had Sentius give the player a lead: SENTIUS: “Oh, and one last thing. If I were you  I’d start my investigation by visiting Lucretia   at the shrine of Apollo, in the Forum". And this is a very smart way to  start the player’s investigation. You see, if you head towards the shrine,  you’ll actually stumble upon a couple   key bits of info along the way.  These bickering palace guards   talk about Sentilla going missing. And on the  steps up to the shrine, we may be inclined   to talk to Equitia, who gives us another  hugely important goal - “The Common Thread”. But let’s keep going to the Shrine of Apollo.  There, Lucretia will tell you that her patient   has died - but could have been saved with resin.  Which is being withheld by a chap called Desius. Because we can’t afford the resin, the  game gives you a different goal: steal it. Which, naturally, breaks The Golden  Rule, forcing you to restart the loop.   But, hey, you’ve still got the resin in your  pocket. Maybe you should give that to the doctor? Now, at any point along this entire path we can  leave and investigate for ourselves. We can ignore   Sentius’s lead and head in another direction. We  can, maybe, forget the Shrine of Apollo and do   Equitia’s task instead. In fact, we can even tell  Galerius to jog on right at the very beginning.   The point is - if we prefer to explore  for ourselves, the game gives us   really obvious off-ramps where we can ditch  the guided tour and play however we want. But if we’re feeling overwhelmed, the game  puts us on a rollercoaster tour that presents   us with some key information that will help us  out. We get given a bunch of different quests,   including the two that essentially lead to all of  the game’s different endings. And we get to see   first hand how the Golden Rule  and time loop systems work. So it’s a good reminder that some players  want to investigate and think for themselves,   and the game supports that entirely. But  others may find this level of freedom   overwhelming and confusing, so  the game provides a helping hand.   It’s up to the player how much they  want to follow orders… or rebel. Next up - I talked about how I made constant  forward progression in The Forgotten   City - without repeatedly stumbling into dead  ends and missed clues. So how does that work? Well, it’s important to look at the underlying  structure of The Forgotten City, which is   20-or-so… well, in Skyrim parlance they’d  be side quests. But the game calls them   leads. They’re rumours and requests  that may advance your investigation. For starters, there are often multiple  ways to hear about these leads.   Two or more characters may give you  the same clue to get you started.   And, likewise, there are often multiple  ways to advance these quests - like,   to get into Malleolus’s villa, you can jump into  the pool, climb these vines, or bribe the guard. It’s harder to miss a vital clue or hit a  dead end when there are multiple opportunities   to start and finish these quests. But I think the really smart thing is how all of  these leads are actually completely intertwined. Let me give you an example. The assassin  in the bathhouse. When you first meet him,   Fabia is crushed by rocks, and the assassin  tells you about a traitor with mismatched eyes…   before shooting you with an  arrow and triggering a new loop.   Now you can go back, save Fabia, lead the  assassin into the trap, and steal his bow. So working though this one lead, Intruder,  actually helps you with a bunch of other   leads - the clue about the traitor helps  you unseat Malleolus in Democracy in Action.   Fabia helps you find Vergil’s bully in The Sinner.  Saving Fabia will convince Georgius to change his   vote in A Virtuous Man. And the assassin’s  bow completes the lead Straight as an Arrow. One lead contributes to four other leads. And  this is not the only time it happens - in fact,   I plotted out all the quests in the  game and discovered that almost every   single lead is linked to at least  one other lead, in some fashion. And so the upshot of all this is that  whenever you make progress in the game,   it naturally and organically helps you somewhere  else - either by starting, progressing,   or finishing another lead. It’s not like you  finish a self-contained quest in an RPG and then   don’t know what to do next - that quest just  gave you a whole bunch of new paths to follow. There’s another benefit to  this, also: a sense of immersion   and believability. Nick says “In real  communities, especially small ones like this,   everyone knows everyone, and they're all up in  each other's business. So in The Forgotten City,   I made sure that each character refers to  their neighbours as often as is natural”. “The alternative - and this is something you  commonly see in big open world games - is   characters just exist side by side as  a series of disconnected individuals.   It makes the world feel shallow”. The Forgotten City, by comparison,   is that age-old dream of a game that’s as  narrow as a puddle but deep as an ocean. Okay. Next. I talked about how the game kept  giving me a steady stream of revelations   and surprises. And this is impressive,  because of the game’s non-linear design. As Nick says, “Generally, players are very good  at piecing together elements of a story to build   an understanding of the bigger picture. However,  there are certain story building blocks, or beats,   which - if found in the wrong order - would  make even the most intelligent players confused   or disappointed. For example, where they  ruined the setup for certain revelations,   or made the pacing feel abrupt.” So while the game does offer a huge amount  of freedom, the designer smartly introduced   “gates” to withhold certain things until  the player has met some preconditions. Like, you can’t tell Sentius who you think the  culprit is without first identifying a handful   of suspects. And Equitia won’t reveal the city’s  true nature until you’ve gathered the backstories   from a number of characters. And the Philosopher  in the underground tunnels won’t let you pass   until you know that true nature. And so on. Now, Nick says that “I was always  conscious that gates run at cross-purposes   to the game's open-world design  philosophy,” so decided to use them   sparingly and carefully  justified them in the narrative. But the benefit of these gates is that the  game doesn’t show all its cards at once. Instead, it gives you a steady stream of  surprises: the true nature of the city,   the history of the city, the  culprit behind The Golden Rule,   and so on. And, like a good page-turner  of a novel, these frequent mysteries and   revelations keep you engaged in the story  and wanting to find out what happens next. All the way up… to the game’s  ending. Or endings - there are   actually multiple ways to finish the game. For this, Nick says “the player  should get the ending they deserve.   In other words, whichever ending they  get should be an emotional reward which   is proportionate to the thought and  effort they invested in the game.” So you can get an ending pretty  quickly if you’re selfish,   but it’s not gonna feel great. To  get the most satisfying ending, then,   you’ll need to have become truly invested in the  game and helped out almost all of its characters. And that’s where Nick employed another gate: you  need the four plaques to open up the main temple,   and getting them all means solving  pretty much every mystery in the city. You’ll need to track down  Khabash, unseat Malleolus,   and figure out how to help  pretty much every citizen. And then, on a later loop, you’ve got  to make Galerius help out pretty much   everyone citizen. Which is pretty enjoyable  to mastermind. Time loop movies are often about   exploiting the loop, becoming empowered, and   having fun with it - and The Forgotten  City captures that sensation really well. As Nick says, piecing together this whole thing   “feels satisfying because you're  helping characters you really feel for,   and it's a fun surprise when everything  falls into place, and you realise that   all the good deeds you've done up until now  - which initially seemed like disconnected   "side quests" - suddenly come together to  help you pull off this elaborate coup.” So, there we have it. The Forgotten City instantly piques our  interest with an efficiently designed intro.   It provides a huge amount of freedom, but gives  some optional help if that’s too overwhelming.   By tightly entangling its many sidequests,  it means there’s always something to do. By   gating off key information, you’re not going  to spoil the story in the first five seconds.   And because the true ending is dependent  on you helping out most of the town-folk,   the finale is - if not a little  schmaltzy - very satisfying. This is the mark of a very smart storyteller,  who understands how narrative and gameplay   must be shaped by one another  to create a strong story.   Which is why The Forgotten City is easily  one of the best games I played in 2021. Okay, so here’s some honourable  mentions. Lightning round, let’s go! Toodee and Topdee is a dimension-flipping  genre mash-up where you swap between   a 2D platformer and a top-down  puzzler to overcome challenges. Unpacking is a house moving simulator where  the satisfying Tetris-like gameplay of   plopping down blouses and bog roll  slowly unveils subtle story cues. Before Your Eyes is a heartbreaking narrative  adventure where you can’t stick around for long   because time advances every  time you blink into your webcam. Wildermyth is a tactical board  game where your party of characters   are slotted into a big bucket  of randomised narrative moments. Unsighted is an all-round excellent  Zelda-like adventure game,   with a nasty ticking clock system that forces  you to spend your time - and currency - wisely. And Silicon Dreams is that bit from Blade  Runner where you interview someone and look   for subtle clues in their demeanour to  figure out if they’re a robot or not. It’s been a good year for inventive games!  I haven’t even talked about Inscryption   and Slipways and all the others worth mentioning.  And I think that’s the fun thing about covering   games - it’s such a fast-moving industry,  with so much innovation and creativity   every single year. I can’t wait to see  what incredible treats we’ll get in 2022. See you in January.
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Channel: Game Maker's Toolkit
Views: 381,690
Rating: undefined out of 5
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Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)
Published: Tue Dec 21 2021
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