Contextual Statement:

Everlast was always intended to be a less of a game and more of an experience. To clarify,
if one were to consult Mihaly Csikszentmihalyis graph on flow to find the ideal player
experience for Everlast, it would be on the lower side of flow, on the precipice of
boredom. This is achieved by having no conflict in the game, by having an environment that
is visually interesting and by having music/sound that is designed to relax.
Everlast is not a game that focuses on challenge. The only thing that could be referred to as
a challenge is finding the path to progress, but that is almost always obvious as the player
is led by interesting terrain features that the player would naturally pursue anyway. There is
no active story in Everlast, it has what is referred to as an emergent narrative. An
emergent narrative is simply the player making up their own story by playing the game
(Beem, 2013). Does the player explore the land? Do they scale the mountain? Investigate
the strange artefacts around the area? Each experience is unique.
The player is always alone in Everlast, there are no other living creatures to interact with.
This was a decision fuelled by the desire to give the player a wholly unique experience
without outside influence. We didnt want players to feel as if they had to play the game
perfectly to impress someone else; the game forgives mistakes by having multiple
checkpoints which prevents the player from losing much progress if they fall from a high
area. Playing with friends or strangers online can be an extremely rewarding, but it has the
risk of players Griefing. Even the creators of a game that has similar ideas to ours, Journey,
acknowledged that griefing is a real problem with online games (Clark, 2014). They tried
to design around player griefing, but the only way to completely combat it is to restrict
player freedom, which we are firmly against. Even though Journey was a major inspiration
for Everlast, we decided that there were too many negatives to adding multiplayer
components to Everlast, and forwent it.
While designing the sound for the first level of Everlast I took heavy inspiration from
Marconi Unions Weightless which is exorbitantly referred to as the most relaxing tune in
the history of man (Sharma, 2012). While that is probably exaggeration, it is a very calming
piece. One of the key components that makes it so calming is the fact that it has a constant
rhythm of 60bpm (beats per minute) that slowly declines to 50bpm, a concept I mimicked
when designing my sound. This slows down the human heartbeat and a calming effect is
created. This beat is accompanied with constant deep bassy sound that is barely
recognisable, and the sounds of animals and nature. Both help with immersion into the
game and the state of relaxation Everlast is trying to achieve.




The level design in Everlast was a decision that absorbed a lot of time. Both Jihyuk and I
couldnt decide on what we wanted the look of our design to be, particularly relating to
the first level. Eventually we went through a massive upheaval half-way through the
semester; abandoning unnecessary realism of the first level for a more aesthetic
landscape. We used almost every colour when designing the landscape, but we were careful
to saturate the warmer colours, as vivid warm colours can overwhelm cooler hues
(nikneven, 2010). The second level was created with the idea that it is the final level in the
game. We wanted it to be small and have a mysterious air. I designed the music with that
in mind, consciously making sure I wasnt making the user afraid or unnerved. It is a very
small level with a simple power-up shape on the highest point as the objective, a direct
contrast to the previous level that had exploratory concepts in it. Any other hypothetical
levels would resemble the first level, so the second (last) level was to be unique. When
touched the player begins to lift into the air and the screen fades to black, only to take the
player back to the title screen, which allows the player to begin the game again. This
encapsulates the idea of Everlast and is the intent behind the name. The game never
stops or finishes, it simply can be played whenever the player wants, for whatever reason.
Everlast aims to encapsulate a sense of peace. The end result contains almost all of the
concepts we wished to incorporate into it, and all that could be feasibly added is additional
content with more depth than we had time for. I have learnt a lot about game design and
narration through Everlasts creation and while I feel that we have brushed the limits of what
can be created with a concept such as Everlasts, the lessons I have learnt from them will be
incorporated into any future games I design.
References:
Beem, M. (2014). Narrative Design in Video Games. [online] Gamnesia.com. Available at:
http://www.gamnesia.com/articles/narrative-design-in-video-games#.U56yR_mSzd0
[Accessed 4 May. 2014].
Chen, J. (2014). Welcome to Flow in Games. [online] Jenovachen.com. Available at:
http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/introduction.htm [Accessed 8 Mar. 2014].
Clark, N. (2014). Gamasutra: Nick Clark's Blog - Cutting Corners: Networking Design in
Journey. [online] Gamasutra.com. Available at:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/NickClark/20140312/212936/Cutting_Corners_Networkin
g_Design_in_Journey.php [Accessed 26 Apr. 2014].
Illustration.worth1000.com, (2014). Color Theory - Worth1000 Tutorials. [online] Available
at: http://illustration.worth1000.com/tutorials/161595/color-theory [Accessed 19 Apr.
2014].


Sharma, A. (2011). Band creates the 'most relaxing tune ever' - Telegraph. [online]
Telegraph.co.uk. Available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8830066/Band-creates-the-most-relaxing-
tune-ever.html [Accessed 29 Apr. 2014].
Union, M. (2014). SoundCloud - Hear the worlds sounds. [online] SoundCloud. Available at:
https://soundcloud.com/justmusiclabel/weightless-marconi-union [Accessed 16 Jun.
2014].