There is so much warmth, beauty and nostalgia in video games at the moment. We’re seeing a whole generation of designers who may once have once worked on huge projects, but who have now taken leave of the mainstream industry to explore personal experiences and memories. We see it in Firewatch, influenced by the co-designer’s own knowledge of the Wyoming wilderness; we see it in Unravel, a game all about creator Martin Sahlin’s love of rural Northern Sweden; and we’ll soon see it in Knights and Bikes, a co-operative exploration game set on a fictitious Cornish island.
In this case, the memories belong to hugely talented artist Rex Crowle, once of Media Molecule, where he worked on LittleBigPlanet and its follow-up Tearaway. As a child in Cornwall he grew up amid the county’s tiny fishing villages, enjoying their wonky, cluttered architecture. As he recalls: “There were little cottages with impossible perspectives, tumbling out of each other with doors in the roofs, and all kinds of details and history nailed to their exterior walls.”
Last year, he teamed up with fellow LittleBigPlanet graduate Moo Yu, and the two conjured an idea for a project that utilised Crowle’s memories but also brought in other influences, including the movie The Goonies and Yu’s favourite role-playing game, The Secret of Mana. Knights and Bikes is set in 1987, and the tourist isle of Penfurzy is in trouble; one of its most famous myths has been exposed as a fake, and young native Demelza is devestated. But then an orphaned mainlander named Nessa arrives. Hoping to trace her family history, the two embark on a quest to discover the truth about the isle’s folk history and their own identities. And they do this on their bikes.
The game supports local two-player co-op, but can also be played alone with an AI helper. Importantly, though, as the characters explore the strange and evocative landscape, they must combine their different abilities. Demelza has a stomp which fells nearby enemies – and if she’s able to stomp in a puddle, the effect is more powerful; Nessa has the ability to make and throw water balloons, thereby creating the puddles.
According to Crowle and Yu, however, this interactivity depends on how the girls are feeling about each other at the time. Their relationship goes through peaks and troughs, and if they fall out, the nature of their interaction changes. “We want to tell personal stories through Knights and Bikes, and we want people to feel the tension and messiness of human relationships,” says Yu. “When they’re not seeing eye to eye, their abilities should conflict and might even cause arguments in the real world. I think that’s a great thing about game design. It’s about choosing the right systems for the experience you’re trying to convey.”
While Crowle identifies with island inhabitant Demelza, Yu feels his experiences are more reflected in the character of Nessa, who feels weirdly displaced on the mainland. “I grew up as an Asian American in southern California which resulted in me not really fitting in anywhere,” he says. “I wasn’t Taiwanese enough for my parents, but was definitely foreign enough to be the weird kid.” As an adult, he ended up fleeing to the UK to create his own identity – and he sees that same sort of journey in Nessa.
This is a role-playing adventure game, with some of the trappings of the genre – exploration, items, lore, battles (the adult inhabitants of the island have been possessed by ancient and malevolent spirits). However, it’s set in the 80s, with two heroes who travel on bikes and who flit between reality and fantasy – they need to muster their own weapons and armour through what they find, and apparently they’ll be accompanied on the adventure by Demelza’s pet goose and the pickled severed head of a fallen knight. “It’s about how the kids improvise in that environment,” says Crowle. “They might not have swords and shields, but they have ingenuity and imagination in a way that the adults around them do not. Some of that ingenuity is passed on to the players, to work out how to deal with situations together.”
The duo have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund development, and are hoping to bring in Kenny Young, Media Molecule’s brilliant audio designer, as well as film soundtrack composer Daniel Pemberton. Although there’s still much to be done, the game already looks gorgeous, with Crowle’s environments and character design influenced by Ronald Searle, Mary Blair and the production design of Paranorman.
While the game will draw plaudits for its singular looks, for Yu, the most important element is the collaborative gameplay, which is as much about the relationship between the players, as it is about the abilities of the characters.
“When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time playing long single-player games,” he says. “Now that I have a fiancée, I often find that I have to make a decision between playing video games and spending time with the ones I love. I want Knights and Bikes to be a game that brings people together rather than pushing people apart.”
Knights and Bikes is in development for PC, Mac and Linux. Release date TBC
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