Attachment and Loss

In Tutorializing the Game, the team learned about how the player's body as input isn't enough to give them a sense of presence.  The Wisp acknowledging the player's presence did and created the feeling of connection. If we continue to design interactions driven by player input and Wisp output, more attachment will form. Although the player might not feel like Wind themselves, they will feel attachment to the Wisp by blowing into the microphone. This design learning also helped us solve one of our greatest narrative challenges: how do we get the player to feel sad about losing the Wisp? How do we get the player to feel like the Wind? Our original design discussions put a lot of emphasis on how the story opens.

We asked: How do we want the player to feel about the death of the Wisp at the start of the game? This was an incredibly difficult question to tackle. In many other games about grief, they are about someone experiencing grief over the recent loss of either their own life, or a loved one. Although we as the player don’t necessarily feel sad the same way the main character is feeling, we understand that the main character is grieving.

In The Wind and the Wisp, we want the player to feel sad at the death of the Wisp, feeling like they’ve lost their own friend. But how were we to even build that feeling at the start of the game? It’s easy to get players to understand that something sad has occurred, but it’s difficult to get players to feel sad about the sad thing that has occurred.  

We zoomed out and examined “what is grief?”. It can mean a lot of things, but at its core it’s the experience of loss. So how do we make players feel as if they’ve lost something? How do we make the player feel sad that the Wisp is leaving at the end of the game, but also happy at the time they’ve shared together? Our design approach to building up towards grief was to start building attachment to the Wisp. To have players care about the Wisp so that when they inevitably lose them at the end of the game, they are sad.

We developed the core loop behind our interaction design. All blowing input should have some sort of Wisp reaction output. The interactions should feel like playing with the Wisp which will create a sense of relationship between the player and Wisp. 

We developed what we called Points of Interest. These are small, toy-like interactions scattered throughout the world that visually afford blowing. They are not mandatory interactions, but they player can choose to blow at them. These objects will raect and elicit a reaction from the Wisp. For example, a pinwheel that the player blows to make spin, and the Wisp will giggle joyously. These interactions can range from small ones (like the pinwheel) to very big and grand moments such as pushing the Wisp on a swing set.

The player presses 'E' to lift the Wisp onto the swing, and blows into the microphone to push them. We prototyped this early on with a handful of playtesters and quickly understood it's a feature that was worth continuing to develop. Players generally felt that it felt as if they were pushing the Wisp, and that it increased their connection with the character.

These small interactable Points of Interest were the key to the majority of the design. These small interactions that, big or small, when blown at give the player some sort of positive feedback (a joyous giggle from a pinwheel or swinging on a beautiful cliff) and create a positive bonding moment.

One playtester said: “I didn’t really understand the narrative but somehow I still felt moved at the end.” The goal of the game isn’t to have players feeling intense highs, and depressing lows, but to design an experience and space about beauty and subtlety. We designed for players to feel like they’ve lost something at the end of the journey, but can also experience the joy of having spent time with the Wisp. A bittersweet ending to a story about separation. 

If, at the end of the game, the player feels sad and disappointed to see the Wisp leave, we have succeeded in inserting them into the story and turning them into the Wind. It makes complete sense, and let us know our design goals had been met.