Elias here to talk about a really cool thing we’ve implemented for Demon Crush, Ukiyo-e Cutscenes! If you read one of our earlier blog posts about Speaking Without Speaking, you’ll know that during the earliest phases of our game design process, we decided to tell the game’s story without words. Conveying the game’s narrative without relying on words is certainly a challenge, especially when it comes to building brief, wordless cutscenes for a game with lots of lore.

The Lore

Demon Crush’s Game Writer, Kevin McKeon, continues to write a large amount of lore for the team to use as inspiration to build out the aesthetic features you see in-game. Every major character, every NPC, and even the flora and architectural elements have a reason to exist in Kenzo’s world.

For example, here’s some lore for the opening sequence, “Plants in Kenzo’s realm can consume Niei as well. Plants with a small amount of Niei, however, grow bigger and healthier, and store extra Niei in sap, seeds, leaves, or other parts of the plant, potentially giving them a faint blue tint, or even a slight glow. With greater amounts of Niei, though, the plant will burn itself out, grow into a misshapen version of itself, and ultimately die as a result.”

Figure 1: Niei is a primordial substance, which you can find everywhere, even in this forest.

Because the lore is so deep and covers a ton of history with interesting characters that have important roles in Demon Crush, the team made it a priority to reveal lore during a cutscene as players combat their way through Demon Crush’s plot in order to achieve their goal of saving the people of Gochima Village.

The Plot

Which brings me to one of the primary reasons that cutscenes exist – they exist to advance the in-game plot in a way that either communicates an objective/goal or they exist to act as a reward after a player achieves the objective/goal.

For example, when the player defeats a boss, it feels great to be rewarded with a cutscene that either teases the next level or shows the outcome of achieving the goal of defeating the boss.

Figure 2: Kenzo prepares to finish Nezumo in this epic fight scene.

Since it is vital to advance the plot when designing player progression in Demon Crush, our cutscenes are an important part of our toolkit when it comes to communicating player progression through the use of standard plot devices, such as:

  • Disrupting Kenzo’s equilibrium in his World by threatening the peace of Gochima
  • Giving Kenzo a strong call to action to defend the people of Gochima Village
  • Having a Niei amulet, which is an object of great power that must be overcome
  • Characterizing Nezumo as a powerful antagonist who must be defeated
  • Providing a plot twist after defeating Nezumo. 
    • Play the demo to the end to see the twist unfold in the final cutscene after winning over Nezumo! It’s worth the effort! I promise!

These are some of the plot devices we use to move the story along as Kenzo fights to fulfill his destiny in Demon Crush.

The Characters

Which brings us to the importance of revealing characters and their traits (think of characterization) to give meaning to a player’s choices being made to achieve Kenzo’s objectives and his main goal of defeating Nezumo. And because Demon Crush is designed to be a linear narrative with a defined beginning, middle, and end, there is no need to reveal too much about a character’s individual trait within a given cutscene. We do, however, make it a point to show the roles that the protagonists and antagonists play as we introduce the cast of allies, enemies, and NPCs in the game.

For example in the following scene, players will wonder why an Ashigaru warrior is chasing a Villager of Gochima.

Figure 3: Kenzo rushes to rescue this VIllager from the Ashigaru threat.

In fact when players watch this animation sequence, they may consciously or subconsciously  wonder who the characters are, why they’re in the scene, what they’re looking for, and why the set and characters look this way – the effect of all these questions makes for cognitive dissonance in a player’s mind, which is never good for a game that’s all about player progression through a tightly scoped linear narrative experience.

Cutscenes to the Rescue

And this is where a well-crafted cutscene rushes in to rescue players from their cognitive dissonance. If you look at the following storyboard from one of our artists, you’ll see that we’re attempting to answer a few questions by:

  • Revealing some of the game’s lore, which takes inspiration from medieval Okinawa
  • Advancing the plot by giving Kenzo a clear objective, which is to protect the people of Gochima Village from Nezumo and his army
  • Revealing key characters, such as the antagonists and the protagonist’s allies.

Figure 4: Our artist (Francisco Coda) illustrated this gorgeous storyboard.

After we storyboarded our cutscenes, the art team went to work and animated short films that revealed some lore, advanced the plot, and revealed our characters. What follows is a brief sequence of the opening cutscene.

Figure 5: A clip from an old opening cutscene that introduced the characters of Gochima Village.

And if you pay attention, this is a very short clip taken from a cutscene that was about 1-minute long, which is unfortunately too long for a game as fast paced and as action-oriented as Demon Crush. So, after screening the cutscene with the rest of the team, we decided to add a couple of more requirements to cutscenes, specifically, they must be brief and they must be wordless, which goes back to one of the original development principles that went into designing the game.

So, when searching for a cutscene style, we specifically looked for a style that would meet the following requirements.

  • Be brief
  • Be wordless
  • Reveal some lore
  • Advance the plot
  • Reveal character

And when we thought about it, the tradition of using illustrated panels made sense, because you can fulfill all these requirements without having to act out the performance. And that’s the key, if you have to act out the scene, that requires a lot more time and nuance than if you simply animate your panels. And when we searched for a panel-based storytelling device that made sense for Demon Crush, we found it in the tradition of Ukiyo-e.

Ukiyo-e

If you are familiar with the name Hokusai and his famous illustration called “The Great Wave”, you will know about the ancient tradition of Ukiyo-e. And aside from the fact that we can briefly display a Ukiyo-e tryptic during a cutscene event, we use the many layers in a Ukiyo-e illustration to communicate the lore, advance the plot and reveal the characters of Demon Crush.

For example the following cutscene reveals some lore of Demon Crush with Kenzo being charged by Niei, it advances the plot by giving Kenzo a clear call to action to save the Villagers of Gochima, it introduces Nezumo and his warriors as the antagonists, and it introduces the High Priest and the monks as Kenzo’s protagonist allies – all while being brief and wordless.

Figure 6: Our artist (Sergio Suarez) illustrated and animated these Ukiyo-e panels beautifully.

And because Ukiyo-e feels like a natural fit in the world of Demon Crush, the cutscene clearly feels like a call to action for players to begin their journey. Trust me when I say that later cutscenes will bell like a reward as you fight your way to victory over Nezumo.

So, what are you waiting for?

Get in there, beat those levels, and watch Kenzo’s story unfold in our expertly handcrafted and wordless cutscenes, the Ukiyo-e way.


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