Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design.
There are many games that designers describe as inspirational.
But few modern games can claim to be quite as influential as the quietly beautiful,
cult classic, Ico.
In interviews, game makers have said that Ico was instrumental in the development of
Papo & Yo, Brothers, Journey, and the upcoming Rime.
But also less obvious titles, like The Last of Us, Prince of Persia, and even Halo 4.
Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki said "that game awoke me to the possibilities of
the medium".
So what is it about this unassuming game that makes it so influential among our favourite
game designers?
Why does it resonate so loudly, when the game itself is so quiet and restrained?
You see, the game is about a boy and a girl.
You control the boy, Ico, and help the girl, Yorda, escape a castle.
Along the way you'll solve some puzzles, and fight shadowy monsters by whacking them with
a stick or a sword. And that is... about it.
Even playing it today it feels distinctly minimalist.
But this sort of bare bones design was practically unheard of back on the PlayStation 2.
There was no Limbo or Proteus back then.
But this jarring lack of features and mechanics was, of course, deliberate, as Ico designer
Fumito Ueda was using a game creation philosophy that he would later call "design by subtraction".
Early on in development, when the game was being made for PlayStation 1, Ico had a complex
combat system, a wide array of characters, and lots of areas like a village, a dense
forest, and a deserted island.
All of that was removed.
Not for financial or technical reasons, but in an effort to find the core of the game
and then ruthlessly prune everything that didn't fully support it.
The core of Ico, of course, is the bond between Ico and Yorda.
Themes of companionship, and looking out for someone in need.
It's a game where you have to hold a button down, to emphasise the feeling of holding
someone's hand.
So everything that is left in the game is there to support that core theme.
Take the puzzles: practically every puzzle in the game is only half completed when you
reach somewhere new yourself.
The other half is about making a safe path for Yorda to follow.
And in the combat, Ico can't die.
His only fail state - other than toppling off the side of a cliff - is to let Yorda
get taken away by these shadowy enemies.
Your safety isn't important, but Yorda's is.
Similarly, because this story isn't Ico's, he doesn't level up, or have fancy combos,
parries, or finishing moves during the fights.
He just swings his stick about in vein hopes of defending his charge.
Yorda is needed to open doors to new areas which we've seen in many games with tagalong characters.
But she's also needed to save the game, as the two characters must flop back on these
stone benches to store your progress.
So it sure would suck, and make you feel vulnerable and alone, if Yorda wasn't there for a large
stretch of the game, right?
Also, Ueda wanted to focus on the aspects of the game that sold the reality of this
connection and the world these characters inhabit.
So Team Ico focused its time on building an intricately designed castle that was interconnected
and felt like a real space.
And it focused on believable and expressive animation - inspired by Ueda's favourite Amiga
games like Another World, Flashback, and the original Prince of Persia.
(Yes. Prince of Persia inspired Ico. And Ico inspired Prince of Persia.
Video games are weird).
Plus, the team simply removed elements that broke the immersive feel, and might have reminded
you that Yorda was simply a video game character.
There's no health bar, no map screen or inventory screen, no static characters with dialogue
that loops unrealistically, and often no background music.
All told, you're left with a rare game that is distinctly about something.
And with nothing extraneous to dilute that message.
I think that's why it resonates.
This is not to suggest that all games become as minimalist and streamlined as this one,
of course.
The combat in Ico, in my opinion, is a little too simple and gets very repetitive.
Even Ueda himself admits that he might have gone a little too far in design by subtraction,
and his follow up, Shadow of the Colossus, has more elements and mechanics, as well as
health bars and music.
But it's also an action game without traditional enemies because what use are they, when the
core of the game is better supported in the fights with these titanic bosses.
It's more to say that in a time of kitchen sink design, where every game seemingly needs
to have two dozen guns, a crafting system, micromanagement, and hundreds of side missions,
it's worth thinking more about removing the stuff that takes away from the idea or mechanic
at the heart of the game.
Does Assassin's Creed really need tower defence sections?
Did Tony Hawk's Pro Skater really benefit from the addition of skitchin'?
An example of this in practice, is Fez.
Creator Phil Fish told Gamasutra that his quirky indie game once had hearts and Zelda-like
heart containers, and puzzles about redistributing weight - but he decided to remove them, and
other ideas, because they didn't prop up the central mechanic of rotating the world, and
the central theme of seeing things from a different perspective.
Ueda's approach to design, says Fish, "gave me the strength to butcher my own game, and
every time I did the game got better for it, tighter, more streamlined".
To other developers Fish says "take a hard, critical look at your game and ask yourself
what is necessary, what really has anything to do with what you're trying to accomplish".
Because it's easy to add features that you think are cool, or will increase the game's
length, or give you another bullet point on your Steam description.
But is it just diluting the core message of your game, and hurting your ability to have
your game be about something. To say something. To resonate.
Thanks for watching!
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