Mission Statement

I founded Duck Matter Studios with the goal to create transformative games with a positive social impact. Or in other words: Games that matter

The approach of my company would rely on the metaphor of a trojan horse: Rather than selling the game as a serious game, which would immediately stigmatise its users, we would create games that are fun as is. The transformative component would be hidden deep within and develop as players would engage with our games.

Our first title, BallArena, would be a title about body dysmorphia and the challenge of self acceptance.

SELF EXPRESSION SCRIPTED SERIOUS FUN BallArena The Last of Us 2 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Thumper Celeste Minecraft The Artful Escape Rez GuitarHero Journey Tony Hawks Pro Skater Firewatch Gris The Stanley Parable Exo One

Challenges

Accountability

Creating a game which deals with the topic of mental health needs to be scientifically sound in order to convey the right message and avoid unwanted side effects.

Individual

The journey towards self acceptance is highly individual. Everyone is at the different point in their life, and so the experience needs to cater to everyones needs.

Low budget

Preproduction of BallArena started with a minimal budget. I was not sure whether we would get external investment and how much, so we would need to minimise costs

Marketable

Creating a game where you can't market its transformative core and therefore one of its USPs comes with some unique challenges when it comes to marketing

Strategy

Two core loops

Early on during preproduction, I realised that the systems would be structured best if we had two core loops: An extrinsically motivated toxic one, and an intrinsic healthy one, which you would be constantly drawn away from

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Project feelings

Going through such a personal journey takes feeling it. Video games are a multimodal medium with the capability to engage with it on many levels. We made sure to convey the message on each level, including the game controls.

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Generative nature

Keeping the content generative would allow us to minimise content production costs, but at the same time dynamically adjust to each players needs.

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Two core loops

Extensive research

I started by consulting a clinical psychologist, who would recommend me a series of literature. Next to that I would dive into social media, in order to get a big picture. I compiled all the data collected and brought it into relationship to itself. I decided that social context would be kept to a minimum since it would blow the game out of proportions and distract from the personal nature of the journey

Hey, I'm Nicki! I'm a clinical psychologist that has been working for the past 11 years to improve the mental health of my clients, both in. a single and group setting. I've been consulting the team with my expertise

Nickole Pichler

Systemic approach

Research data was then translated into game systems within machinations. It would take multiple iterations to replicate the expected dynamics while staying true to the source material. An key decision was where the line was to be drawn between parts that would be experienced by the avatar vs the player. I decided that acceptance would be modelled as a variable projected onto the avatar, out of concern that the system could cause harm to vulnerable players otherwise.

Bipolar

On a presentation layer, we would portrait both an objective, and an artificial reality which is constructed from societal expectations. Questioning assumptions is crucial to achieve self acceptance, which is why the game features both the 3D game world representing the ground truth, being obstructed by layers of judgement represented by the User Interface. The player must learn to distinguish those.

Follow the fun!

Having a solid theoretical framework is nice, but it will never hold up in reality. That's why regular playtests are so crucial. BallArena was tested throughout the whole process. As iteration times increased throughout development, it became more and more challenging to get regular feedback cycles in. It took many iterations for the game to eventually be craved for its fun.

Project feelings

Ambiguituity

Self acceptance is a journey that never feels truly safe. It can feel pleasant, but it can also be downright horrifying. We wanted to recreate this feeling in our game world. I directed Shelly towards an art direction which reflected those qualities. There is an eerie quality to the art style and I'm really proud of her work.

Hey, I'm Shelly! I'm a concept artist specialised in environments and props. I participated in many game projects before having the pleasure to participate in a such great game like BallArena!

Shelly Menville

Feel the difference

Video games are unique in their game feel, which is heavily driven by the haptics of the game controls, and how they translate onto the screen. As the player steers their avatar through the controller, they feel the undergoing transformation of the avatar. The game physics change, so does the reaction of the environment. The transition between those states is fluent, the same way a car transitions from an icy to a dry surface

Insert Coin

Rapid failures

I threw all my knowledge about clean software development methodology out the window and focused on hypothesis driven work instead: Each prototype - and eventually each iteration - was always driven by one single question, and in return code that would answer it as quickly as possible. BallArena would go through countless iterations of very different games, before it ultimately became a surfing game where you're supposed to explore the world. This was solely possible because of short turnover times

Generative nature

Emergence to the rescue

Creating content that accommodates to different personalities while lasting hours sounds like a money sink. From the very beginning, I modelled and tested the long term behaviour of the game through paper prototypes. This way I made sure that there were enough dynamics to constantly surprise the player - beyond the fun of the moment to moment interactions. This type of emergent behaviour would also be streamer-friendly, since each journey would end up being unique and individual.

Generative sound

Similarly to the art style, Wobblersound made sure to reflect the ambiguous nature in the soundscape. I gave them the extra challenge to adapt the music dynamically to the player actions. Given the subliminal nature of music, it would further reinforce the shifts in gamefeel through its tonality. At the same time it would serve as an intrinsically motivated tool for self expression, to the likes of musical therapy. Wobblersound did a great job at these requirements.

We are a passionate sound studio based in Vienna! We take care of the complete audio pipeline for games. When we heard the pitch of BallArena, we immediately were excited to jump right into the project!

Wobblersound

The world is yours

A game that evolves openly and dynamically needs a world that can accommodate for that. BallArena was conceptualised as an open world game where each player carves their individual path through it. Beyond certain storybeats, storytelling is mostly done through the environment, giving subtle cues about the backgrounds of the eerie environment, but ultimately yourself

Utilise your past

It was clear from the start that we wouldn't have the budget to create AAA assets. I decided to focus on a tech art heavy look, given that I have a strong CG background. BallArenas visuals are amplified by a terrain that keeps deforming itself as the player surfs it. One key challenge was developing a tessellation algorithm that would be efficient enough to run on mobile devices, while having enough fidelity for perfectly round waves.

The result

Sliced top to bottom

After 3 years of development BallArena finally made it into a vertical slice. The development was financed by the Austrian government through a state grant. It was an important milestone which enables BallArena to attract further funding.

Hey, I'm Marc! With more than 5 years of experience, I collaborated as a 3D modeler and texturing freelancer for indie game projects in Brazil and Europe. I've modelled those awesome towers you are seeing!

Marc Santana

Let's talk business!

The creation of a business plan was an important new perspective to my mindset. It helped me to think in more strategic terms and contextualise every decision in a business framework. Ultimately, this would focus decision making during critical phases of the project.

Market study

During preproduction I made sure to poll our target audience to estimate the games potential. We all were surprised by the positive results, but even more so that people understood what the game was trying to accomplish and where its inspirations came from, despite being very early in development at that stage.

We've come a long way!

So much has happened since this case study was published, the project has moved forward into a very exciting direction! 🤩 If you're interested into this project and are thinking about a future collaboration, how about we exchange for an hour or so?

Let's talk!

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How can design boost your revenue? (7 pts)

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It can be the USP of my services

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It can maximise the turnaround of key journeys

It can save the lifes of my customers

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