Eastshade is the just-launched open world game (featured on NWN last January) with a unique gameplay mechanic: Rather than roam the countryside killing random beasts and bandits to level up, you create paintings to advance:
"We were trying to create a game loop that shapes the experience we wanted players to have in Eastshade, which is basically to go slow, relax, follow their whims, and sight-see," lead creator Danny Weinbaum tells me. "Eventually we came up with this idea which allows the player to 'take' paintings, and we created quests around the player capturing certain objects, places, times of day, or a combination of those. This works in perfect harmony with wandering, because the slower the player goes and the more they let the sense of place wash over them, the better they will do at these quests."
Early players report reactions very much unlike those you'd see in more traditional games:
"We have heard absolutely wonderful stories from people—someone with severe hypertension who's using Eastshade to lower their blood pressure, parents who feel all the characters reading (reading is a popular pastime in Eastshade) is inspiring their son to read more, and people simply describing how moved they were by the game—these things are amazing to hear. It's particularly rewarding to see players talking to each other about the game on Twitter, Discord, in comments, etc."
All the player conversation suggests to him that the game about creation has transcended its actual creators: "It might sound odd, but the fact that people perceive the game as a piece of media to be recommended and discussed, with no thought of its makers, because the product itself is what interests them, is very rewarding."
However, it's worth noting that the in-game painting is not the central core of the game, which led to some interesting design limitations, when it came to simulating the act of painting:
"The player can adjust the aspect ratio (width and height of the composition), but beyond that it's essentially photography. One of the tricky points when marketing the game was communicating the fact that Eastshade is a game about visiting a cool place more than it is about the act of painting itself. We had no desire to make Photoshop: The Game.
"Eastshade is first and foremost an adventure game, where the world itself is the star, and the 'I spy' mechanic was a great verb to build engaging quests and stories around. Finding cool things isn't merely visual anymore, as the painting/screenshooting makes it part of the gameplay loop. The core progression is surmounting impasses and getting to new places which then unlocks more content.
"Making a world which felt like a living, breathing place—and one worth exploring—was our focus."
Available on Steam here, where it's attracting stellar user reviews.
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