Co-op

After reaffirming our business deal, we said our goodbyes and I went home with exclusive access to Restart!’s repository. I spent a couple minutes analyzing the previous versions of the game, and that gave me some really interesting insights to Soejima’s creative process. At that point, I’d probably downloaded six or seven different versions of the game, and it was getting a little hard keeping up with all of the changes.

Through our message chat, she’d also sent me her game design document. The heart of ‘Restart!’. She actually had some pretty bold stuff written in there.

“I want to make a game with infinite replayability”, it was written as one of her core principles.

Isn’t that any game for a die-hard fan, though?

One may watch a movie as many times as they can, and each experience will be slightly different from the previous one. It’s the same with games, and it’s not something exclusive to the roguelike genre.

The story was still a bit barebones, but her character’s designs were all gorgeous. In a way, it somewhat exposed that her knowledge was reflected more in the visuals than in the narrative. I could only imagine what her drawing tablet looked like.

With all that and a bit more in mind, I sent her a question.

“Why do you want infinite replayability? You’re making a game, not a gambling machine”, I wrote.

[...]

As always, she was quick to come up with an answer.

“Hmmmm… I always get sad when you close one of my games for the last time on your livestreams. Especially because you always extract as much as you possibly can from them… It feels like a game is a limited experience, and it makes me think that they’re not real, just code on a screen. I don’t like that feeling. So, it made me think I want to make a game that never makes you feel like you’re closing it for the last time”, she replied.

Eugh, what a blocktext…

Still, that’s really thoughtful.

“So… You want to make your games have real impact, and stick with the players? That’s acting a little beyond the sphere of the indie arcade-like games you make, but…”, I texted her while trying to come up with something.

“What if you add a co-op mode?”, I finally asked. “That way, you can experience the game on your own, and experience it again with someone else. And everyone you play the game with will make it a different experience”, then, I argued.

Soejima was silent for a second. I didn’t blame her, a co-op focused roguelike is a pretty unusual idea. There’s not many in the market, let alone big titles. Still, that used to be the core of the old games that sat on real-life arcades. Fighting games, Run ‘n Gun, racing games… It was all about getting good on your own, then playing with your friends while gunning for a top spot in the leaderboard. That kind of retro appeal would fit really well with Soejima’s philosophy.

Then, a swarm of kaomoji began flooding my PC’s screen.

“You’re a GENIUS!”, she finally got around to communicating with words.

However, right after that message, Soejima went offline and stopped responding altogether.

Oh no, did I give her a heart attack!?

The silence on her part endured.

Well… Something must’ve come up.

I wondered if I’d said anything to offend her, and whether there was a pinch of irony in the whole genius thing. Either way, there wasn’t a lot I could do but wait for an answer.

“Are you streaming, son?”, my mother, Akemi Toki, barged in.

“No, mom. Come in”, I spun my chair a full 180 degrees so I’d face the doorframe where she stood, and took off my headphones, with the title screen theme for Restart still on full blast.

“I brought you a snack!”, mother excitedly ran to me, tray in hand, crossing the room in an instant.

However, a little over halfway through the room, my carpet folded before her feet, and she faceplanted the wooden floor.

Critical failure.

I could only take my hand to my forehead, in disbelief. Obviously, that wasn’t the first time such a scene had taken place.

“Ouch… Sorry, Toki… Your snack survived the landing, though!”, she gave me a thumbs up.

I couldn’t help but let out a little smile.

“You okay, mom?”, I had to ask.

“Yeah, yeah…”, she left the tray on my desk, right beside my keyboard, so as to not disturb me if I didn’t want to eat immediately.

On the tray, there sat an omelet. On top of it, a poor drawing of a trophy and ‘#1’, kind of jumbled together due to the fall.

“Well, I’ll be in the kitchen. Good luck with that new game, son!”, she said, closing the door behind her as she left.

So she noticed it’s a new one…

“I wonder if mom misses her idol days…”, I whispered between my teeth, and spun my chair back so that I faced my two curved monitors.

With the omelet staring at me, I put my headphones back on and immersed myself in the story of ‘Restart!’ one more time. My second attempt.

It’s the story of a young, androgynous, pixelized little person, and their first time leaving the house after a major, world-changing event. She wants to make friends, so she equips a paintball weapon and shoots as the screen scrolls automatically. The score is apparently the number of friends she makes throughout the adventure. Obviously, her friends are the ones struck by the paintball gun.

That’s not a very efficient way to make friends, though…

At the end of every level, she finds a white house and paints a mural on the side of it.

Isn’t that vandalism, though?

Still, the cutscenes are really cute.

It made me think. What is this character looking for, anyway? Was shooting people with a paintball gun a metaphor for giving their worlds some color? Did they want to make the world beautiful, or simply to make friends?

Maybe the two things kind of go together. That’s why I love Soejima’s games.