The Altershas a lot going on: players are fleeing death by an encroaching sun, their base is a giant tire-like structure, radiation is everywhere, managing the base and advancing the main story is a heavy resource-driven adventure, and the only person they can rely on is alternative versions of themselves. Thanks to a valuable resource known as Rapidium and an advanced quantum computer,The Altersplayers are able to make a handful of “Alters” of themselves for a very unique storytelling and gameplay experience.
Of course, that storytelling and gameplay experience must go hand-in-hand.The Altersis a game where every playthrough is different, and every player’s experience with the game is going to be different too. Game Rant recently spoke with director Tomasz Kisilewicz aboutstorytelling inThe Alters, specifically in the ways that the game caters to an individual experience. We also spoke about the resources found inThe Altersand how, even there, Kisilewicz and the team ensured that it is a player-first experience.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Emergent Storytelling in The Alters
Q: Last year when I was here, I saw how the Miner will cut his arm off if you don’t give him drugs, right? I wanted to see what would happen if you kept him on drugs. He dies, right? And it lowered everyone’s mood. The quest pops up where it’s like, ‘Improve their Mood Before Something Bad Happens.’ I thought to myself, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ I was trying to get their mood up, but I wasn’t rushing it. Apparently, one of the Alters decided to kill themselves and everyone else. With that scenario in mind, I wanted to ask how y’all were approaching these game over scenarios because that was QUITE the game over.
Were you satisfied with it?
Oh yeah. I get why it happened, but I was not prepared for the ‘Oh My God Accidental Altercide.’
A:That’s the crucial thing withemergent systemslike this; it’s crucial for you to understand why it happened and allow you to change it the next time you try. I don’t remember an exact number, but we have a couple of different emergent endings to the story. The best comes from the different moods of the Alters because sadness and depression can lead to this massive suicide, but anger can lead to rebellion. you may hurt the main character too much by being outside, not maintaining the base, or not running from the sun and being burned by the sun. I think we had to define at some point in what ways this could go bad, and working with the different systemic elements, we had to design these failure states. I think it’s best when it comes from their emotions because that’s when you feel how deep the emotional system is. It’s so systemic; it’s not scripted at all. And with the Miner, you mentioned two options, but there are actually more options on how it can turn out.
I’m curious: did you reload the game?
At first, I reloaded the day, but that wasn’t enough. I ended up going back the full five days, but at that point, the event was over. I was so focused on the main objective and thought I could finish that and then deal with their moods. Nope, you have to take care of your Alters.
Day 2 of our playthroughs moved us into Act 2 and gave us random Alters, not the ones we had made the prior day.
Did you have the Miner today?
I did, and he had a prosthetic arm. The game said to put him in the contemplation room, and he began talking about Moby Dick.
That’s awesome. Just like the first, the second part of his quest can go down different routes, but reading Moby Dick is my absolute favorite. How far did you get with it?
I got it to where he finished the book and said he was still going to work, but he was not going to be obsessed with it.
You saw how he resolved his overworking and overcompensating. It’s basically a story of trying to overcompensate for things he lacked in childhood.
Q: I’ve seen this complexity with the Miner. Is it like that for every Alter or are some of them simpler?
A:I mean, that’s what we’re aiming for. Of course, when you finish the game, you’re going to tell me. I don’t want to overpromise, but yeah, we wanted to have thisvery specific character trait that defines every Alter: what problems it causes and what problems he needs to resolve for himself. Every Alter is a bit like the Miner, so they have some unresolved issues in their mind and we help them work through it. It’s specifically designed that way for everyone. Even the Doctor, Shrink, and Guard—these guys who kick in later on—their stories have as much depth as the Miner. Our doctor is super deep and one of my favorite stories; it’s sad, but also hopeful, where you just have to push through.
Q: I made the Guard today, and he was like, ‘My name is Johan Dolson.’ How did you approach making sure these characters are all Jan, but also different versions of him?
A:It’s a great question because I think there are two parts: the characters and the voices. Character-wise, we always wanted to make sure each Alter had a polar opposite. We actually put them on a graph, highlighting polar opposites and then some similarities among them. It made them feel like they were coming from the same guy because when you take a sample of a single guy from here and from there, they might feel very different. One might be more similar to this one, that one might be more similar to that one, and that all works. That’s where you feel like they could come from the same guy, but then you also have to differentiate their looks. That’s the easy part: grow a beard, shave the hair, or whatever. But the voice is so tricky.
We spent so much time, all the voice directors andAlex [Jordan, actor for Jan and all Alters]on the workshopping process. They spent hours in London, in the studio, trying to figure out a particular voice for each Alter that’s not too far away from the main guy because it could become too cartoonish or too realistic. It had to be stylized a little bit because, if it’s too realistic, then they blend together. You have to be able to close your eyes and know that that’s the Botanist speaking, right? So we used accents, different pitches of the voice, and tools like that, but all the same actor. you’re able to feel it, but each Alter has this flavor.
When it comes to the Guard, we also wanted to surprise you a little with them. From the Tree of Life, you’re expecting thisreally tough Kratos guy, but he’s got a rather thin voice and he’s just a calm man. He’s not really that tough of a guy. I think it’s a nice surprise and, again, why is he this way? You have to figure that out because you can’t read their entire life from the Tree of Life. You have to speak with him and engage in this storyline and figure out, ‘Okay, that’s why he’s this way. That’s why he doesn’t trust anyone, and therefore he thinks he can’t be trusted if he wants to succeed.’
Yeah, did you do anything else with him or just make him?
I started the Perfect Crime quest, but I never got to the end of it.
The Systemic Elements of The Alters
Q: Changing gears a bit, there are a lot of resources in this game. I was curious how y’all approached balancing the number of resources and deciding how many to have? How did you also do that without overloading players with them?
A:A lot of maps and a lot of work from our system designers. You know, earlier today I was showing the paper prototype, and the basis of it all is still translated from that prototype. We also haveexperiences withFrostpunkand This War of Mine, so having these economical, systemic designs is something we feel very good and familiar with. It’s a very iterative process of balancing stuff out, making mechanics and systems, and avoiding exploits. It would be very easy to exploit this system if we didn’t make certain blocks, like storage space and all that. It’s the process of balancing.
It’s always tough because you have very different players coming to the game with very different experiences, but with us, I think it’s even tougher becausethe game is a hybrid mix of genres. We feel like many people who will play The Alters might have never played a strategy game or an economically-demanding game, and we want it to be accessible for them as well. That’s why, in the final product, you will have separate difficulty switches for the economical challenge and for the more adventure-style challenges like anomalies. We decided to differentiate it because there might be strategic players who don’t want the action-adventure elements, so they can lower that, and action-adventure players who want to enjoy the story but don’t want this economy to be so demanding.
Q: Speaking of that balance, would you say it’s more of a narrative game with survival elements or a survival game with narrative elements?
A:I hope it’s 50/50, to be honest. That’s what we’re aiming for. We really want it to be a survival challenge and not just survival systems that are flat and don’t require anything from you but also for it to have a very strong narrative that could work even without those economic systems. There’s agood narrative gamein there, even if it were just a walking simulator or something, but thankfully we have both of those legs. Of course, the balance is probably going to depend on who you ask, but our aim was always to make it 50/50.
Q: What can you tell me about the overall act structure? Is it a classic three-act story?
A:Yes, we very purposefully wanted to put in this ancient theater structure almost, right? It’s Acts 1, 2, and 3, and we have three big locations in the game. However, there are things in between. I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, but even the prologue is about an hour of gameplay before you reach the first Act. There are journeys in-between but also some surprises, but it’s purposefully done this way because we wanted to stay on top of the narrative.
We wanted this classic structure for the main narrative with some branching and different endings, but underneath the Alter storylines, their quests, their problems, and decisions made from that, there’s the systemic emergent narrative that comes from the various systems, like the suicide you mentioned, but under that is this instant decision system. That’s what we call it when you have this decision between better food or worse food, additional radiation or not, avoid enriched metals or not, and things like that. All of it comes from the systems and also the dynamics you create by selecting Alters.
For example, if I have the Botanist, I will suddenly have a situation I wasn’t expecting that could never happen with other Alters. That’s very emergent and very systemic. I really love that we have this in the game, and spanning it across a classic structure helps us control the main narrative but also adds flavor. It shows why games are so cool because we can still tell a story like this with very systemic stuff.
Q: Since I was here last year, I wanted to ask what the past year of working on the game looked like?
A:Last year, we finished the game, and it was fully playable from start to finish. We started doing extensive playtesting, figuring out what worked great and what we still needed to improve. We spent a lot of time polishing stuff and adding content. Even when the game was fully playable, not all of the dialogue was in there and we were still adding content, but the biggest change over the last year was expanding on some of the exploration and survival mechanics. We changed the approach to the day counts during each act because we felt people, for example, were too rushed to do the main objective at the beginning of the Act because they always had the counter. We decided to change it to where, first, the sun is far away. This tells you that you have time to focus on Alters and other objectives, but then it’s getting closer and the counter kicks in.
Another thing we took the time to expand on was anomalies. Last year, we only had one type of anomaly. I don’t know if you remember how it worked, but this time around, you saw different kinds, different ways to interact with them, and how you can destroy them. That was added in the last six months, and it works pretty well in the game.
We also expanded the research tree a lot and added new modules and new methods of automation for replayability. Not only can you experience a different story, but add a little more variety to the builds of your base. Do I go auto-mining? Maybe I’ll get radiation repulses, better shields for the base, better space things, all things like that.
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