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Exploring The Impact of Relatable Characters with Extraordinary Games
252 Plays2 years ago
Greg is joined by the game development team of " Midnight Dreams." They discuss the game's lore and the main character, Felipe, who has autism. Felipe's hyper focus and ability to enter different dreams are explored, as well as his astronaut helmet, which he uses to hide from the real world. The game aims to be inclusive and relatable to players with autism.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Player Engage podcast, where we dive into the biggest challenges, technologies, trends, and best practices for creating unforgettable player experiences. Player Engage is brought to you as a collaboration between Keyword Studios and HelpShift. Here is your host, Greg Posner.
00:00:16
Speaker
So we are coming to you live from Gamescom, where we are with the extraordinary games team who are building up midnight
Meet the Midnight Dreams Team
00:00:21
Speaker
dreams. We're going to let everyone here introduce themselves so you can understand who we're talking to. Hello, my name is Claus. I am a game developer about the game The Midnight Dreams. And I think that's it. Easy. Very good. Hello. How are you guys? My name is Rafael. I do the localization of the game in Portuguese and in English.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hello everybody, I am Yuzha. I help the game if there has a lead about the Chinese market. Hello guys, my name is Lorena. I am the magical co-sooter of the game and the general director. Hello, I am Fix. And like Klaus, I am a game developer.
Cosplay and Game Concept Discussion
00:01:09
Speaker
Great. So we have the whole team here and you'll see in pictures that everyone's wearing a lab suit. So I'm curious if someone wants to be able to explain this. There's four pink lab suits and one white one. So I'm told you're the boss. Is there a significance behind the lab suit?
00:01:26
Speaker
Yes, there is. We are using live lab coats because we are cosplaying our own game. In the game, you're going to see that when you enter in the game, one of the first shots, one of the first screens, you have a laboratory called Udabai.
00:01:44
Speaker
Okay, UWI stands for Universal Dream Analysis based on artificial intelligence. And we are using these lab coats just to show that we are real doctors, but not showing that we like to do experiment on kids, but we are experimenting on this kid because we are using his dreams, you know, to collect data to sell into the black market to create new virtual realities for people to live
Exploring Autism in Gaming
00:02:13
Speaker
in.
00:02:13
Speaker
very cool and I'm looking at the game right now they're giving out some keys here at games come at the community clubhouse and this is a game that I guess you want to describe it you said it's kind of like a few of the
00:02:26
Speaker
Okay, very good. So a little about the lore, guys, if you want to know about it. Okay, I talked about the lab called Yudabai. Okay, the lore is pretty much like this. We have a boy, his name is Felipe. Felipe is an orphan. He lives in an orphanage. And the orphanage is a shell company controlled by this lab. The lab itself tries to catch image.
00:02:49
Speaker
and sound from dreams of kids because kids, they don't have vices in their dreams. So it's easier to get images from them. And then you are playing with Felipe and living his vivid dreams.
00:03:07
Speaker
Felipe, he has autism, he has ASD, so Autism Spectrum Disorder. Being an autistic boy, he has hyperfocus, so everywhere you go, he looks at the most important places of the game. He focuses his attention to it. Okay, so he has hyperfocus.
00:03:29
Speaker
He also has the power to enter in other dreams because we don't have just one kid being experimented on. So he has the power to enter in different dreams. He also has a
00:03:46
Speaker
astronaut helmet because he likes space he likes he wants to be an astronaut one day you know but he uses to to hide his face because kids with autism they are more introspective and the helmet kinds protect him from the real world and then he can live on in the world he created for himself and that's pretty much it
00:04:10
Speaker
and the kid, the boy, like a autism designer, focus on routines and repetitive compartments, like I'm going to show in the game, autism characteristics in the territories, because in the case,
00:04:35
Speaker
It's a beautiful-looking game. It looks like, I think you mentioned, it kind of takes some elements from inside. It's a 3D-looking side-scroller, which is, again, beautiful-looking. They're building it in Unreal Engine. We often talk about the player experience. This whole concept of the podcast is about the player experience, and I love the fact that it's about autism. That's clearly something that's very relevant these days, important for people to understand. What was the reason you kind of decided to go down that route? Is there any specific reason?
00:05:01
Speaker
Yes, I think this game is something like the inclusive, okay? We would like to have an autism hero here. What do I want to say? If our main character, Felipe, represents this... How do I say that? This niche, okay, represents this niche. And the idea, this, is create something inclusive, as I told.
00:05:28
Speaker
It's because the name of the studio, okay, we have a partner studio from France too, like he presented himself, Fix, from Studio Chloe. And the extraordinary game studio, we believe that everybody can be extraordinary, so it doesn't matter what kind of disorder do you have.
00:05:47
Speaker
Okay, so everybody can be extraordinary. And that's why Felipe is extraordinary and everybody can relate to him. In fact, if I can tell you, man, there was a YouTuber who played our game. And one of the main comments was a mom who said that she has two daughters with autism. And she cried because she could see her daughters in the game. She said, Oh my God.
00:06:17
Speaker
that the character wears like the same bag. Like in my daughters, they would love to have a hat like that to protect themselves from the real world. That's beautifully said. And I often talk with companies that do sort of content moderation. It's about including everyone, right? And I think between you see Microsoft comes out with tools for accessibility for players to be able to play.
Studio Journey and Innovations
00:06:40
Speaker
Sony's doing the same. And I think games like this that can resonate with
00:06:43
Speaker
different types of players that may have autism, right? It gives them a character that they can relate to and I think that's a beautiful thing that you're doing here. You guys are also out of Brazil. You're part of the Brazilian gaming market that I feel like is starting to grow. How did you get started? I don't know if we want to go around one at a time, but kind of what was the reasoning behind starting extraordinary games?
00:07:01
Speaker
Extraordinary Games starts with a few people, okay, and we have been doing things in Unreal about two years ago and I started to make the first build at the Midnight Dreams. In this first build I found a fix
00:07:23
Speaker
Fix is our partner in the France. I need to have in this game a camera assistant like the game Lear Nightmares inside is because the camera is not attached on the player is attached in the level and Fix did this great job for us. He make a lot of cameras in the game and he has
00:07:51
Speaker
He owns perspective and point of view the game before a show for the players. The game is more a cinematic view, okay? Because that we started...
00:08:07
Speaker
in Brazil as I told and we found a fix and we are chosen in about three or four months ago in the big festival is an event in Brazil okay and we are chosen for show our game in this event and we have the opportunity during the big festival to bring our gaming from here to Gamescom yes
00:08:35
Speaker
Fix, you can talk about how you entered in the game and what did you do and all that.
Publishing and Partnerships
00:08:41
Speaker
Just introduce yourself, Mengele. It's not complicated. Klaus contacted me because he had some problem to install an original system of camera.
00:08:56
Speaker
and by helping him in this way. Me, I come from the world of music and cinema, so I am used with all this technology, and I made a proposition to him to install a system of camera, give a more cinematic feeling in the game, and today the result is here in the game. That's it.
00:09:19
Speaker
Well, first, if you want to talk about, I mean, I'm very familiar with the big festival. It's something I tried to convince my company to send me to. And unfortunately, I didn't get that one. But maybe next year, I'll be able to go there. But that's awesome. Here, there's a lot of good indie games that are showing off there. And again, just the scene in Brazil seems like the place to be right now. What is your, do you have any specific goals while the games come this year? Yes, we have. We are an indie studio, an indie Brazilian studio, OK?
00:09:46
Speaker
and we're looking for publishers.
00:09:49
Speaker
who can help us to work with marketing to like, not to move, is supporting this game for consoles. We are Xbox partners, okay? We have this game, we are able to sell this game in the Xbox store, but we're looking for, share this game in others, other platform as well.
00:10:19
Speaker
But we are very happy to be in this Xbox partner to make this game in the Xbox in the future. As an Xbox player, I do hope you bring it to Xbox because this looks like a type of game that could be nice to just sit down and play on the couch. And again, it looks fantastic and we'll have pictures up after this, but it's a fantastic looking game.
00:10:40
Speaker
Actually, we talked to a person of Xbox today and she told us to go
Transmedia Experience and QR Code
00:10:45
Speaker
there tomorrow at Gamescom and talk to her. I really forgot her name because we talked to a lot of people here today. We are at ID Xbox so we can sell our game at Xbox. We are a very Xbox fan. You can see I have a Gears of War tattoo here and we hope to go to Game Pass as well.
00:11:06
Speaker
so when we talk about publisher and all that if we can have some help from Xbox with that which will happen tomorrow for sure because our game is good and people are liking it so probably you will play it my friend don't worry we have a transmedia experience I can show here
00:11:28
Speaker
For you. I don't know how you will show for the people as well We have a we have a record this we have a QR code on the screen right now, so If you scan this I don't know if I could scan it well Okay, okay What is this transmedia experience you assess the you debate laboratory like internet? Yeah
00:11:54
Speaker
Okay, and there is a login and a password here and you enter in this. This is my wife.
00:12:11
Speaker
And if you enter in the login and the password, you're going to access her things in the UWI laboratory.
00:12:25
Speaker
Interesting. Same password? Yeah, the password is here. Oh, there it is. Oh, look at that. Tricky. This shows you how good I am at puzzle games. To 6-0-6 as well. This is our dog. Oh, there we go. You're going to see here, you see all things about the Lorena here. You have the passing files. It's about the Felipe passing exams and emails and the project examination. He don't have access to this.
00:12:55
Speaker
This is very cool. So you could kind of have a second screen experience while playing the game You can also pull it up on your mobile start doing some side investigation on the side. Yes. Yes You got a game within the game having the mission It's not necessary to play the game. Okay, but it's more about the law we can put a lot of things in this kind of system like the thoughts like the videos like the audios things to talk more about what
00:13:23
Speaker
the UWA is doing here, what the UWA is doing with these kids, because this is Kaze Philippe, okay? Might be another Kaze, might be another Kaze here. Sounds like future games. Yes. Create the whole world. Yes. There is
00:13:45
Speaker
like there was a famous Brazilian YouTuber, his name is Max R.M.
Final Thoughts and Gamescom Insights
00:13:52
Speaker
You know, and while he was playing, he, he compared this files findings, you know, with Resident Evil, because to know the entire lore of the game, you have to find
00:14:05
Speaker
this keyer code and learn more about what is happening to know what is the germination project and to get to know more characters because we don't have just Lorena's avatar we have everybody's avatar in the game so you can meet the game's creators the game devs you know and also learn more from what you're playing and maybe who knows maybe you are being experimented and you don't know yet
00:14:33
Speaker
love it again I can't explain it's such a nice clean looking game it looks like it's a again I don't say relaxing because it's not necessarily relaxing looking game but it looks like inside but in 3d and more color obviously to it it looks fantastic I guess is there any final messages anything you want to say to whoever is listening to this about about the game
00:14:53
Speaker
A final message about the game? Putting him on the spot here. Where are we getting it? I just hope you guys put the game on our wish list. Meet us at the event on Gamescom. Okay guys, because we're gonna be there and we have keys to give you so you guys can play the build we...
00:15:13
Speaker
have made for you guys to see it, have fun. Okay. So my advice for you is, okay, play using headsets because the music that this French guy did, it's something awesome. You know, so please people play the game using a headset and joystick. Oh, and a joystick as well. Okay. Because the keyboard won't help you. You will die all the time.
00:15:39
Speaker
Perfect. Well, I really want to thank the Extraordinary Games team. Oh, more stuff. Go. I have one last thing to say. Now you should play in this part here. It's something inspirational in Crash Band Good.
00:15:54
Speaker
Nice. It's your time to try here. My time? Yes, yes. You walk here. If you hold here, you're going to sprint. And the button A here, you're going to jump. Only this come from here, come from here. I'm coming towards you. I got you.
00:16:13
Speaker
It's a little like because you use the battery not there. Yeah. Oh man, you would. Yes, you would. You should have jumped there, huh? Yeah. This feels like very much like Raiders of the Lost Ark here. I'm excited to play this game. So we can get it now wishlisted on Steam and grab a key? Yes. Nice. Pretty much. We'll catch you guys into gaming. This is awesome.
00:16:43
Speaker
Whoa. Almost, man. I love it. This is great. So we'll have information about the team here. Someone's calling me. I'm in a different country. I don't know how they're calling me. But I appreciate you guys stopping by and talking about your game. I'm excited to show everybody the game here. We'll have information. If you don't mind, I'll put pictures up on our blog that we have here.
00:17:03
Speaker
Game is Midnight Dreams. Check it out on Steam in Wishlist mode and maybe one day Xbox. Cool. Thank you so much guys for stopping by today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.