This Year's Most Innovative Game is...

Hey, it’s Mark with Game Maker’s Toolkit.

You know the drill by now!

Every year, I use my last video on this channel 
to celebrate a game that did something different.

A game that was innovative, 
inventive, or just plain smart.

In previous instalments I’ve looked 
at masterful murder mysteries,

micro RPGs, and slithering snake-based adventures.

But this year, for 2023, I… need 
to wind the clock back a bit.

So, back in 2015 I made a video 
about the new Tomb Raider games.

Well, they’re not new now 
- but they were new then.

Anyway - the video was all about how 
dull the climbing is in those games.

Lara Croft’s heroic scramble 
up a cliff face is represented

by… pretty much just holding up on 
the analogue stick for, like, 5 minutes.

And since that video’s release… 
well, things haven’t changed much.

Alloy hikes up the mountains of Horizon with 
little need for the player's involvement.

And Atreus’s epic climb up the 
wall of Asgard might have been

terrifying for him - but it was no problem for me.

However, in 2023 we finally got a game 
that dared to do things differently.

A game that makes climbing… 
interesting and engrossing.

And so, without further ado, I want to tell you 
that this year’s most innovative game is… Jusant.

Jusant, from developer DON’T NOD, 
is a wistful, zen-like odyssey up

a mahoosive mountain - and the only way 
to the top is to start climbing.

This video does not contain 
any spoilers for Jusant, by the way,

so feel free to watch 
before you go play the game.

Okay, so like I said in the intro, one of my 
biggest bugbears with Lara’s climbing is that the

action on screen feels completely disconnected 
to the stuff you’re doing on the controller.

But Jusant tries something different.

Lemme break down how climbing works.

When we’re on a wall, we can use the left 
analogue stick to hunt for nearby handholds.

Moving the stick essentially shifts a 
cursor around in two dimensions - and

if that cursor overlaps with a valid 
handhold, the character will reach out.

This system allows us to freely pick whichever 
handhold we want - even picking between one that

is close and one that is far away, simply by 
moving the stick further away from the centre.

And yes, I did spend an entire 
day remaking the game in Unity…

for the benefit of this 10 second demonstration.

That, that probably wasn’t worth it, to be honest.

But here we are.

Anyway - if the character is reaching towards 
a handhold, we can grab it by using the

corresponding trigger - left trigger for the 
left hand, right trigger for the right hand.

That trigger must now remain held down, 
while we hunt for the next handhold.

So - this system ends up creating a 
deep connection between what you’re

doing on the controller - and what 
the protagonist is doing on screen.

You push the analogue stick 
out to hunt for handholds,

just like how the character reaches out their arm.

The rhythmic switching from the left to right

triggers mimics the hand-over-hand 
movement of real-life rock climbing.

And having to hold down a trigger at 
all times means you’re gripping the

controller… in the same way the 
character is gripping the wall.

You let go, they let go.

And DON’T NOD did want to go even further - an 
early prototype had you controlling both the

arms and the legs, using all four buttons 
on the top of the pad for hands and feet.

But that proved overly complicated.

The developer also wanted to involve the 
controller when jumping to far-off handholds:

the idea was that you had to tilt 
the stick opposite from the jump to

coil up and build momentum before 
releasing the stick to spring up.

But this proved difficult to teach and execute.

So in the end, the devs settled on holding the 
jump button to, essentially, charge up the jump.

Now, look, it’s obviously not 
essential for a game to have you

mimic the character’s actions on the controller.

But this sort of kinaesthetic design, 
as it’s called, has proven to be a

wildly successful trick for making game 
mechanics more immersive and engaging.

Whether that’s holding the button down 
for longer to make Mario jump higher.

Or pulling back on the analogue stick 
to reel in a ghost in Luigi’s Mansion.

That little up-down flick of the stick 
to do a manual in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

Or the infamous arcade stick inputs needed to pull 
off a fireball or an uppercut in Street Fighter.

And of course, we have seen 
this applied to climbing before.

The developers at DON’T NOD were notably 
inspired by the way you clench the controller

in Shadow of the Colossus, in order to 
stay hanging on to each massive monster.

And Ubisoft’s Grow Home inspired the use of left 
and right triggers for the left and right hands.

What makes Jusant special, then, is doing all 
of this stuff simultaneously - and doing it

with a human character, rather than a goofy 
red robot that can bend in unrealistic ways.

Sidenote: It’s very much worth noting that 
complex wrangling of a controller can

prove problematic for players with 
certain types of motor impairments.

I mean, heck, I had to play Jusant in 
like 20 minute sessions because holding

the triggers down for so long played 
havoc with my repetitive strain injury.

So - hats off to DON’T NOD for also offering a

number of accessibility settings 
that can provide easier input.

Now - the simple control scheme 
is not my only problem with the

Uncharted-era of climbing systems.

You can’t make a game better just 
by adding in more buttons - or else

every game would have you walk 
around like you’re playing QWOP.

No - the real problem is that 
climbing requires next-to-no thought,

no problem solving, no decision making - 
none of the stuff that makes games great.

And that’s completely at odds with real climbing!

Like, did you know that in rock climbing, a 
route up a wall is actually called a “problem”.

And that’s because climbing 
isn’t just about strength and

stamina - but it’s about planning how 
you’ll move from handhold to handhold.

How you’ll shift your body, and 
how you’ll use different holds,

positions, and grips to get to the top.

That’s pretty tough to capture in a 
video game - but Jusant gets close,

with the use of two tools: 
the rope, and the piton.

So whenever you start a climb, the character will

automatically attach their rope to a 
carabiner that’s embedded in the wall.

This means that if you fall, you’ll get 
snagged by the rope and can climb back up.

But then you’ve got the pitons.

These can be wedged into the wall 
to create, essentially, checkpoints.

Now when you fall, you’ll be 
caught by your most recent piton.

You only have three to spare, though, 
so you’ll need to use them judiciously.

This puts you in charge of when and where to save 
- giving you more decisions to make as you climb.

However: the rope is not just a 
clever twist on the save system.

You see, the rope is not infinitely long - 
it is, in fact, exactly 40 metres in length,

and so you’ll need to ensure that you have enough 
slack to make it to the top of the current climb.

That might mean you have to take a shorter 
route - or work back on yourself to pull

out a nuisance piton that’s pulling 
the rope in the wrong direction.

And the rope is also a proper physics object that 
can get caught and tangled on different objects.

So at times, the rope is your saviour, but 
at other times it’s your biggest obstacle.

Though - DON’T NOD does make a couple concessions.

For one, there’s a little 
cheat in the player’s favour:

when you are close to a ledge, the rope 
will magically grow an extra five metres,

to avoid those annoying moments where the rope 
is just a little bit too short to make it.

And also there are these relay points which allow 
you to reset your entire rope to that point.

These are a nifty addition - relays 
give you a specific point to aim for,

so you’re not always simply going up.

And without the relay, there would be a 
strict upper limit on how long a climb

could be without giving the player 
some flat ground to reset their rope.

With the relay, though, DON’T NOD could add a few

epic climbs where you’re on the 
wall for significantly longer.

It’s such a relief to get to the top 
and finally let go of those triggers.

But there’s even more to the rope 
- because there’s also the way

that it greatly expands the available play space.

With climbing and jumping alone, you 
can only really explore the area that’s

immediately around you - there always has to 
be a viable handhold within jumping distance.

But the rope lets you go much, much further.

You can place a piton in the wall, abseil 
down, and then swing along the wall - this

gives you a massive arc to explore, letting you 
grab onto ledges far away from any handhold.

And later, the game takes 
this into the third dimension.

You might have to climb a wall, 
then dangle down beneath it,

and swing beyond the wall to another 
climbing surface further back.

And elsewhere in the game,

DON’T NOD adds in additional challenges 
- through changes in the environment.

Like - you can hit a button to make these plants 
sprout buds that you can use as handholds. Useful.

But if they’re in direct sunlight, then 
the buds will slowly wilt and then die.

This forces you to move fast, 
and use your pitons for safety.

At times, Jusant reminds me of the classic 
Tomb Raider games, where you have to size

up the space and decide how you’re going to 
use your different jumps to get from A to B.

A proper three dimensional puzzle game.

Though… I don’t want to oversell it.

Because, okay… I’ll come back 
to that thought in a minute.

The final thing that makes 
those old climbing systems

boring is that there’s absolutely no danger.

No stakes. No peril.

In this scene, where Lara Croft is clambering up a 
wobbling radio tower, she’s absolutely terrified.

But I’m just… not.

Changing the controls to be more engrossing 
might help me connect more with the character.

But I think it has to go further than that.

Earlier this year we looked at the 
mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics framework,

which shows how the game’s mechanics 
can impact the player’s behaviour,

which can, in turn, impact 
the player’s emotional state.

And so game designers can pick game mechanics 
that will put players in the right frame of mind.

Whether that’s making the player feel like 
a badass, or feel absolutely terrified.

And if you want players to feel scared,

then you probably need some 
sort of consequence for failure.

And in these sections, Tomb Raider just… doesn’t.

But, well, neither does Jusant, really.

For one, you simply cannot die in Jusant.

There are invisible walls to stop 
you from walking off a cliff.

And because you’re automatically attached to the 
rope at the start of every climb, then letting

go of the handholds will just send you back 
down - or back to the last piton you placed.

And even then… it’s extremely 
rare to ever fall off in Jusant.

The most likely reason would 
be to run out of stamina.

You see, completing a valid action will 
deplete some stamina - a tiny amount

when grabbing a handhold, or a lot when jumping.

Now DON’T NOD went through 
many iterations of this system,

including having independent 
stamina gauges for each arm.

A chunk system where if you 
deplete an entire chunk,

it wouldn’t regenerate until you touch the ground.

A system where you could only regenerate 
stamina while hanging from the rope.

And a system where if you run out of stamina,

you’d have to manually descend all the 
way back to the ground and start again.

Ultimately, playtesting showed 
that none of these were a good fit.

Some felt overly punitive, others 
disrupted the climbing flow,

and others were difficult to 
communicate to the player.

In the end, DON’T NOD went with something 
far more simple: your stamina drops,

but it can be replenished, at any 
time, by clicking in the left stick.

However, big actions like jumps 
will permanently reduce the size

of the stamina bar until you’re on flat ground.

So the more you jump, the more 
often you’ll need to rest.

This means that the only way you 
can ever really run out of stamina

is to completely ignore these obvious 
prompts to stop and rest for a second.

And so stamina management just ends up being… 
like, a little nuisance thing to nurse.

Never something you’re really worrying about - 
like you might in, say, Shadow of the Colossus.

And this means Jusant almost never makes 
you feel like you’re in any real danger.

But here’s the thing… that’s not 
what DON’T NOD was going for.

The developer tells me that the intention for 
this game was to make a peaceful experience

without pressure. A chill, atmospheric 
adventure - inspired, primarily, by Journey.

And so the developers deliberately removed 
aspects that would cause friction and frustration.

That’s why I don’t want to oversell 
the game’s problem-solving gameplay:

there’s some smart ideas in here, but nothing 
that’s going to cause you significant trouble.

And that’s because it would 
disrupt DON’T NOD’s intended flow.

And developer intention… is something I’ve perhaps 
struggled to consider in my previous videos.

Like, let’s go back to the climbing 
in Tomb Raider and Uncharted.

Were the developers ever actually intending 
this stuff to mimic real-life rock climbing?

Probably not.

As I explored in this video on mixing genres, 
the climbing sections are just supposed to be

something simple to do as a bit of downtime 
between the more involving combat sections.

And so, at times, I have criticised games 
because they haven’t incorporated some mechanic,

system, or idea… even though the games were 
never trying to do that in the first place.

I wanted Spider-Man to have a complex web-swinging 
system that took skill and effort to master.

But Insomniac just wanted every 
player to feel like Spidey from

the moment they picked up the controller.

And maybe this is me getting older 
and wiser and realising that, hey,

not everything is supposed to revolve around me.

I am not the protagonist of reality.

Maybe this is from talking to more 
developers about how games get made.

Maybe this is from becoming a game developer 
myself - and having my own developer intentions!

Whatever the case, if there’s one regret I 
have about past episodes of GMTK, it’s this.

So instead of saying - hey, I 
wish Jusant was more challenging

or more punitive - I’ll instead 
take the game on its own merits.

Then I can look at the stuff I like about 
the game - the immersive control scheme,

the clever rope physics, the thoughtful 
checkpoint system - and stash that in

the ol’ toolkit as a good example to point to.

And for the rest - well, instead of seeing it 
as something for Jusant to fix, I can see it

as an opportunity, for another developer, with 
different intentions, to tackle in the future.

What I’m saying is - hey, Square Enix,

if you want to give the next Tomb 
Raider game a new identity… play Jusant.

It’s on Game Pass! It’s great!

Okay. Hello.

That got a bit weird and 
personal towards the end, huh?

But then I brought it back to Jusant 
before things got out of hand. Phew.

Thanks so much to DON’T NOD for 
speaking to me for this episode.

And for sharing those behind the scenes videos.

It's now time for some
honourable mentions!

Storyteller is a wildly ambitious puzzle game,

where you are given an empty 
comic book and a title.

Now you have to fill in the spaces 
with characters, objects, and themes,

to make a narrative that fits the prompt.

It plays on visual language and, well, story 
telling to make a completely new type of puzzle.

Terra Nil is a city-builder 
with a stark ecological message.

Instead of stripping a planet for resources,

the game is actually about undoing the 
greedy grubbing of a previous generation.

So you have to carefully plop down buildings 
that will replenish and revitalise the

land - and then pack everything 
up and bugger off back into space.

Shadows of Doubt is an epic detective simulator.

The game generates a city block, filled 
with hundreds of people who have lives,

jobs, relationships, and daily routines.

When one of those citizens is murdered, you’ll 
have to work the case in order to find the

killer - using stuff like fingerprints, 
CCTV recordings, and employee databases.

All neatly organised on a caseboard, 
complete with pins and red string.

Pseudoregalia is a Metroidvania 
that looks like a lost N64 game,

and has some of the best 3D platforming in years.

You can mix and match various moves 
- like a long jump, a ground pound,

and a wall kick, to navigate 
blocky obstacle courses.

And, if you’re good enough, break 
the game’s sequence entirely.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom deserves a 
nod for its brilliant Ultrahand system.

This thing lets Link fuse things 
together in order to make vehicles,

weapons, and problem-solving tools.

It’s elegantly designed, to make 
it easy to build whatever you want.

And it means you can play the game 
in pretty much any way you desire.

There’s a full video on the 
channel about how Nintendo made it.

Viewfinder is a mind-blowing 
technical masterpiece.

You can take a photo, and 
then place down the Polaroid

to summon the photo’s contents into the world.

That never stops being impressive.

And it’s also just a very good puzzle game with 
lots of clever twists on this central mechanic.

And Chants of Sennaar is a game about language.

You must decipher an unknown alphabet in 
order to make your way up a massive tower.

You’ll have to use contextual clues and leaps

of logic in order to guess 
what each letter symbolises.

And then do it all again, with a fresh 
set of glyphs, on the next floor.

Wow - turns out there were loads of 
incredibly innovative games this year!

Let me know if I missed any 
in the comments down below.

Thanks so much for watching 
Game Maker’s Toolkit this year.

In the last twelve months I’ve made videos on 
The Sims, Zelda, Banjo Kazooie, Resident Evil 4,

detective games, the MDA framework, 2D 
cameras, and Valve’s playtesting approach.

There was another record-breaking game 
jam, a new series about short indie games,

and four devlogs for Mind Over Magnet - 
which you can now wishlist over on Steam.

I’ll see you in January, for the - can you believe 
it - tenth year of doing Game Maker’s Toolkit.

Time flies when you’re having fun.