Emma Withington reports from the London Games Festival…
Could World’s Adrift succeed where Sea of Thieves has developed scurvy? Or solve the No Man’s Sky conundrum? Either way, Bossa does something much more important than simply develop ‘yet another’ open world, by bringing you the first community crafted MMO – built and co-developed with the players from day one.
Let’s talk about Bossa
The London-based studio is a bubbling hub of creativity, nurturing staff and their audience of players to reach their full – sometimes untapped – potential. When Bossa was founded back in 2011, three core beliefs were to set the foundations for the studio going forward: “Everything we do, no matter what, has to be for the players; they are our first priority. No matter how we do it, creativity has to be the core of everything we do – and our other belief is that playing with the people who matter to you is much more fun than playing by yourself, or with strangers,” explained Henrique Olifiers, Co-founder at Bossa Studios.
10% of Bossa’s production time goes into new ideas via their Game Jams, as they stop for two days every month – jamming out potential ideas and finishing up with a playable version of the infant game to showcase around the team: “As a side effect it teaches us that not every idea is good, because we come up with some 7 or 8 new games every jam, so 60-70 games every year, and if one of them goes into production, we consider that to be a lucky year for us!” said Henrique Olifiers, “That changes our mindset on how we perceive creativity – and that creates a dynamic in the studio which is very unique to Bossa.”
Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread are both results of Game Jams, which have defined the studio’s signature moves with emergent, physics-based gameplay. Inspired by player stories and the community driven following behind these titles, they asked the question: “What can we do with this emergent gameplay, in the sense that people can have an experience that’s unique to them and no one else, and take that into multiplayer?” said Henrique.
Jamming out World’s Adrift and Grappling with Technology
With strong influences from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Skies of Arcadia, and Hayao Miyazaki – specifically Castle in the Sky – lead designer, Luke Williams wanted to evoke the idea of choosing your own adventure. World’s Adrift, formerly known as ‘Travellers’, was the result of a week-long Game Jam, in which the team set out to pin down what they wanted the game to be: “We began with the idea of ‘an adventure with friends’,” Luke explained, “we also wanted a mechanic that forced players to explore and stick together.”
This led to the team focusing on two core aspects that would be at the heart of World’s Adrift: flying ships and grappling; something that would create instantaneous fun and meant that no one would be left behind. “The grappling hook is one of the first things we built, and we needed to make sure that was enjoyable,” said Luke, “we knew that if players could have fun with the grappling hook, they would stick around for the bigger aspects of the game. Just moving around the world is fun, you can attach to anything! For example, you could see a passing sailing ship and sneakily hitch a ride, or even attach yourself to the (manta-ray) creatures that fly around between Islands.”
The grapple relies solely on skill-based progression and mastering momentum, there are no upgrades to improve the gadget: “We have that with Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread where the controls are consistent – they’re difficult – but stay the same; there’s no better hook in World’s Adrift, it is simply you improving” Luke explained. “The grappling hook is a pretty complex movement tool – you can drag trees down with it or even haul an engine across the desert!”
Luke tells us: “Some people just play World’s Adrift and say, ‘this is the best grappling hook in a game’ and swing about with it!” While players make like Spider-Man, doing whatever a spider can, it recalls fond memories of the much-lamented Spider-Man 2 web-swinging which continues to remain as a benchmark for the web slinger. Yes, it had speed upgrades and the like, but was a personal skill to develop. Sure, you could be faster, but still face-plant a building in spectacular fashion without personal skill: “Spider-Man 2 is the one we looked at, as it was considered the best web-swinging and definitely became a base-line of reference. We’ll be keeping an eye on Spider-Man later this year – he’s not taking our crown!” Luke laughed – possibly not, considering the past decade, but let’s hope Spider-Man gets his webs together this year!
Once the game had an identity it could showcase, Bossa decided to release a video asking the players whether they should go ahead and develop World’s Adrift:
With overwhelming positive support – World’s Adrift was safe to enter development, with a bit of a twist: “We decided that we would make that game together with our players,” said Henrique, “if they gave us the green light to make it, we will make that game with them. And since that day the game has been in open development – every big aspect of the game and every feature is discussed with the players, the fans, and the people who have been playing through the alpha and beta.”
Island Dreaming
During development players simply had access to the Island Creator, an advanced technical tool which has been made as user friendly as possible: “When we released the Island Creator, no players could even play the game, so they were really buying into the setting,” Luke told us, “it was quite surprising to see the extent of the islands we received! So, we doubled-down on that.” A mutual discovery began between the developers and the player community, and the foundations of trust increased over time: “We didn’t even allow them to place where the treasure was found initially, you know, because we were like, ‘do we leave that until last?’ But then we quickly realised they were showing us that – if you give us those tools, we can build for a purpose; we don’t just make pretty structures, we can build because there will be treasure down in this cavern and so on” said Luke. “So that’s what it’s evolved from; suddenly the more tools and trust we gave them, the more impressed we were with what they were creating – so we thought, ‘oh, we can give you more!'”
This also revealed some untapped talent in players who may never have considered getting into games design: “Sometimes the idea of getting into games can feel quite daunting, but you realise when you give people access to the tools to express themselves, there are a lot of people out there who are good at this stuff and may not even know it,” said Luke, “that’s great, because suddenly – while they’re building a puzzle, dungeon, or starting an island – they say, ‘I like this, I really want to do this!’ Watching these people just get better and better and realise, ‘hey, I can open Unity now and understand it because it’s more familiar.” The Island Creator is free for anyone to access on Steam – why not give it a go!
No two ships, islands, or structures are the same in World’s Adrift: “With your sky ship you can build it like a galleon if you want – the way it flies, and handles is all down to you and what you make it out of. People are unique and creating all this crazy stuff, so there’s not a pattern to recognise; everyone’s creating a new environment to explore” said Luke. The hand-crafted, human touch is persistent in World’s Adrift, not only through the islands, but every wreckage or environmental change players make will remain permanently – as you try and piece together what happened to those players that came before…
Currently hosting a whopping 10,000 player-made islands, any consideration of procedural generated islands has been completely scrapped: “With so many player-made islands of high quality, we don’t need to use procedural generation at all!” Luke tells us. “We identified the problem with procedural early on, because you’re landing on a planet and the special items, the treasures for example, are no longer ‘special’ and are littered everywhere. So now, in World’s Adrift, if you see an island with a huge tower and find treasure in there, you don’t consciously think about it. Players aren’t going, ‘of course the treasure is on the pedestal at the back of the church’, they just go, ‘that’s where it should be’ and that is what drives the adventure.”
The Adventure
World’s Adrift is a vast physics-driven exploration game of your making, as you build your ship, travel between islands, discover and solve the puzzles of the world at your own pace. It’s not an MMO in which you find yourself quest chasing with the danger of falling behind, there are no quests – or even a map – just pure unadulterated adventure. Of course, you are not alone, other players inhibit the land, some friendly and others…not so much. With the Alliance set-up coming to world’s adrift, enabling groups of people to band together, expect to embark on some emergent politics: “The height in technology will allow you to claim an Island. Once you’ve built it up, then you can call that place yours; seeing your name come up will be like a badge of honour” said Luke.
Of course there are those of us who are interested in purely passive play, and while there isn’t necessarily a setting to protect yourself – Bossa is ensuring that there is little to no reward in randomly hunting down other players: “Yes, it’s a big challenge to curb that sort of thing; we have noticed that when a lot of players start off, they’re all very open to helping out each other and in early access, where players had explored what was on offer at the time, some started to think, ‘I’m just going to start shooting stuff now’,” Luke explained, “so, one of the big focuses is giving those players something to engage with and providing more reward to helping each other.”
There is also a protected region in your inventory to store resources you don’t wish to lose and no matter how many times you die in-game, you will always retain the blueprints you’ve learned from scanning the environment – other players cannot gain access to this from taking you out: “You can always build that amazing cannon or engine you found, or nice statue. You only really get the most out of the game by co-operating or chatting to people, so we’re really trying to expand on that” said Luke.
The Future of World’s Adrift
World’s Adrift is a true exploration game with Spider-Man‘s best bits, and looks set to dazzle us for a long time to come: “The Island Creator is always going to be used – it’s not the case of OK we’re done now!’” Luke tells us, “It’s going to be constantly evolving as the game expands and we’re going to be adding new areas to fit the new population. With new regions opening up like ‘The Arctic’ – we’re always going to need new islands.”
World’s Adrift breeds creativity en masse and truly is an art form. Regardless of its potential success, it is sure to leave its legacy behind, as a bold and positive mark on the industry; showcasing how games could be created going forward: “Every single ship is player-made. Every island is also player-made, there’s not another one like it – and in an exploration game that probably is the most important thing. There’s a lot of personality in there and that personality shows” said Luke. “One player described it as flying around an art gallery of a player’s personal projects, and what other game does that?”
World’s Adrift is publicly launching on Steam Early Access on May 17th and will be available worldwide for PC on the Steam Store for £19.49 / $24.99 / €22.99.
Check out the brand new trailer here…
Worlds Adrift is the very first true ‘Community-Crafted MMO’. The dedicated closed beta community have helped build the in-game world over the last 12 months alongside Bossa Studio’s in-house team. And this will continue, as new players arrive and explore Worlds Adrift, they will have the opportunity to craft the very objects that populate the scattered islands, while also helping to build the fabric of the world itself! Whether that’s at inception (via the Island Creator tool), or through in-game experiences, players can unite a group of wanderers or friends by forging ‘Alliances’, and set personal gameplay goals.
Head to worldsadrift.com for updates and more, and join the community on Facebook and Twitter!
Emma Withington – @EWithingtons
Follow the gaming team @FMyth_Gaming
