Hob - PS4 Gameplay Demo | PS Underground

JV: Here it is some stuff we can check out here.
But I want to show you since we were just talking about --
PATRICK: Oh.
JV: I'm a murderer.
RYAN CLEMENTS: Goodness, JV.
PATRICK: Bacon for dinner.
JV: Sorry, buddy.
RYAN CLEMENTS: Hello, my friends. And welcome back to
PlayStation Underground.
Thank you so much for joining us
because we are playing Hob on PS4.
It is coming to the console this year.
And I am joined by Patrick and JV from Runic Games.
Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
PATRICK: Hi. Thanks for having us.
RYAN: Absolutely.
It's our pleasure and thank you for joining us.
Now, we are playing Hob which is a gorgeous kind of atmospheric
and non -- I wanted to say non dialogue driven,
which is maybe the worst way to describe something --
PATRICK: That's not inaccurate.
RYAN: -- that it is a platformer,
action game, adventure game. There's a lot to unpack here.
But tell us a little bit about this demo that we're looking at
right now, Patrick.
PATRICK: Okay. So yeah.
This is something we just recently showed at PAX,
and the interesting thing about this is we call it a demo,
but it's actually just a slice of the game as is.
So that kind of gives the idea
of where we are in development right now.
We're showing a new area.
We're showing multiple new areas,
and we're kind of hinting at some of the bigger elements of
the game here and the dungeon
we're going to show in few minutes.
RYAN: And that's something that I think we'll be seeing a lot of
in this demo, but something that can't be understated,
which is one of the fundamental building blocks of Hob,
and I use that term very particularly,
is that you are kind of building and kind of creating and
modifying the world as you go.
JV, I'm very interested in your jumping.
There we go. Perfect.
JV: I've had a lot to drink. today.
There was a lot of coffee.
RYAN: Are you sure it was coffee?
Yeah.
As we can kind of see as JV interacts with the world,
the world itself is almost alive and mechanical in a way,
and it has a lot of really
interesting dynamic elements to it.
And that's fundamental to your guys' design.
PATRICK: Yeah.
You know, here's a good example, you can see kind of the stone
zipper over to the right of the screen.
It's separating these two areas.
That's kind of a big part, to give you kind of a hint how the
world's built up and how it's connected,
that there are different zones, and they have this kind of weird
connective tissue between them.
And what we're about to see is kind of how that's connected and
why it's that way because this world
is kind of a world that is built.
And it's kind of broken right now and disheveled,
and it's the player's job to try to fix that.
RYAN: And the thing that I hinted at at the start of --
that I so expertly hinted at at the start of our video is that
you guy's tell your story without pretty much any text or
any dialogue or, I would say, formal storytelling devices.
This is very much a visual story.
PATRICK: Yeah. Correct.
We do everything through -- the game is heavily based on
exploring and finding the environmental storytelling to
kind of clue you in to what's going on,
what the history of the world is,
and what the players role is in this world.
And we found that that's definitely a challenging way to
make the game, but I think it's turning out to be a very
positive thing because it's very much up to the player and the
players own pace to go through and discover things.
We definitely don't put our hands on your back pushing you
through or overload you with a lot.
So it's a very relaxed pace game in a weird way.
RYAN: It's nice to have a nice, relaxing game once in a while.
PATRICK: Yeah, it is.
RYAN: Do you feel like the limitations that you and the
team have put on yourselves to tell the story wordlessly and
through -- sorry, through visuals.
Does that kind of enable you to be more creative to kind of with
those limitations you really are able
to push yourselves in a new direction?
PATRICK: Definitely, yeah.
I'm not going to lie, it's very challenging because we don't
have the tool set that most games have.
JV: Yeah. It can be a blessing and a curse.
PATRICK: Yeah. To fill in the gaps.
So we've had to challenge and push ourselves
to find new ways to do that.
And with what you're seeing on the screen right now,
what is this large structure and what is this player doing?
And you can see that they're transforming it.
And the curiosity of what is it and what's in it and why does it
have these big chains and why is it so difficult to get into is
something that is kind of revealed as you go through,
we hope the player will pick up.
But, again, we don't beat you over the head with these things.
We just try to call them out and build the environment
to support them.
And I think the result is you get really cool stuff like this
that's fun to do and to see how things transform.
RYAN: So what are some of the lessons that you guys have
already learned in your development
when dealing with a wordless story?
What kind of things have maybe surprised you in the process?
PATRICK: You know, I think one of the biggest challenges is
trying to make sure that the player always knows where to go,
what to do next.
RYAN: Yeah.
Kind of important in a video game.
PATRICK: Yeah. So we --
RYAN: Whoa!
PATRICK: He's really on his jump game today.
So we do lots of little things.
We'll do things like we'll have creatures go in a certain
direction or calling your attention with movement to kind
of give you hints or birds flying a certain way,
or we make certain things pop out in an environment that is
otherwise kind of like overgrown and hiding a lot of the
elements, but we have something stand out
that catches the players eye.
And we use, you know, directional architecture to kind
of lead you around the area that you need to go to.
RYAN: And it also seems like, in speaking with the game's
visuals, which we definitely need to spend some time talking
about, but there's kind of a balance between organic and
inorganic in this game.
And I don't, of course, want you to spoil anything that might be
important to story, but was that intentional,
kind of you guys trying to balance out those two visual
pallets together in one.
PATRICK: Yeah. Definitely.
You know, we wanted to hint that there has been things here for a
long time that have kind of been left.
You know, part of the story is finding out is it abandoned,
what's happened, and nature's kind of taken over again.
So there are several different parts to the game.
There are different types of areas.
And some are more heavily based on old ancient architecture,
and some are more heavily based on the natural areas.
And then I think we do a pretty good job of mixing them in areas
like this so that you get the best of both worlds.
RYAN: Right.
Like that creepy, crawly purple thing that you just passed looks
a little different from the other parts of this area.
PATRICK: And those actually play a huge part in the game.
We're just, again, because this isn't a demo per se,
it's the game, you do see them here,
but we're not really going in depth with them.
RYAN: We're not discussing it yet.
PATRICK: Yeah.
RYAN: We're going to put our little hand
on the little scanner.
PATRICK: Yep.
RYAN: And see what happens.
We're coming up into sort of the second major section
of the demo now.
PATRICK: Yep. And this is one of the big areas
we're kind of introducing this time.
RYAN: This is like one of my favorite parts.
PATRICK: It feels so satisfying. Everybody loves that thing.
RYAN: Beautiful.
Now, I have to ask this because I'm sure the answer is not as
easy as anything that you say right now,
but how do you choose a part of a game for your demo?
How do you pick the part that players see that you expose,
you know, kind of a new audience to?
PATRICK: It's been tough for us because we've been trying,
at least the last couple times, to set a rule to not take the
time out to make a special demo but to just polish up portions
of the game and show those.
RYAN: Right. As they are.
PATRICK: And because it is the game,
it doesn't always show well.
It might be a slow-paced area, or there are might be not enough
combat or too much combat or vice versa,
so it's been tricky for us to decide that.
So we try to just at least hit a few bullet points that we want
in each area we're showing.
JV: As a producer it's always a good assumption to go into these
demos assuming we are going to sink a lot of time into this
even if it's part of the game.
PATRICK: Yeah.
JV: So, you know, we treat it with a good deal of just being
realistic as well.
RYAN: And you guys were at PAX recently.
Did you come away with any interesting feedback or kind of
fun lessons that you've had through new user interaction?
PATRICK: I think we -- I think this was considered one of our
most successful PAX's.
RYAN: Nice, congratulations.
PATRICK: We had a really solid build.
Thank you. We showed really well.
We were showing new stuff.
I think we -- it's kind of funny,
we hit an interesting spot where at the end of the demo we tell
you how many secrets you find and how long it took you
to get through this area.
And what it inadvertently turned into was a speed-run test in the
office to see who could get the best time,
and what we didn't realize is
that's what people wanted at PAX as well.
RYAN: Okay.
PATRICK: And so we had contests of people trying to get through,
and they would come back and play again
and try to get a better score.
So that was really interesting seeing a component we'd never
planned for the game turn out to be something
that people really enjoyed.
RYAN: And I want you to be able to talk a little bit about what
we're seeing here because this is another
fundamental aspect of Hob.
PATRICK: Yeah.
So this is a big part of the game here.
You've come down into this underbelly of the world,
and you can see there before that raised
it had trees and terrain on it.
And this kind of goes back to what I was pointing out earlier
in the demo, the zippers between the areas,
the stone zippers, and how the world is constructed,
and you're raising parts of the world.
You're essentially reawakening the machine that allows the
world to be built.
And all of this underneath can then be raised to complete that.
And before you got to this area in the game,
you went through what we showed at last PAX,
which was where you re-enabled the electricity in the world so
now you can come down and actually turn on the machines.
So the player is kind of fixing things as they go.
And this is the first time we've really kind of shown a big area
of what it's like down here, which is a pretty big contrast
to the above; the lush, natural world.
RYAN: Oh, yeah.
Contrast not only in visual design,
but then you're playing with some slightly different gameplay
mechanics down here as well; right?
Now is this the first time that we're getting that environmental
warping mechanic that we just saw,
or is that hinted at earlier in the game as well?
PATRICK: No.
We got that earlier in the last demo we showed.
RYAN: Okay.
PATRICK: So you got it not too long ago.
RYAN: Okay. Okay. Good.
So it will be nice, familiar territory.
Oh. Hold on.
My favorite part of the demo is coming up.
PATRICK: Here it comes.
RYAN: What's going to happen?
[LAUGHTER]
RYAN: I hope that came through.
I hope people are wearing headphones
when they watch this episode.
PATRICK: That went in at the last minute because everybody
thought it was funny.
RYAN: So that actually -- I know it's so trivial in the grand
scheme of the vision that you guys are working with,
but with that said --
PATRICK: Yeah.
RYAN: -- how do you come up with something like that?
What was decided that, hey, you know,
we need a sound effect when the character drops
into this metal pipe?
PATRICK: We were sitting around playtesting and somebody said,
"There's no sound when he hits that.
We need a thud."
And then for the next couple of days when we sit around as a
group and play, whenever the player ran down,
everybody at the same time would yell,
"thud."
So then we just got a sound from our audio department,
and we put it in there.
And it's little touches like that,
you know, there's a million of them at end that kind of add up
to make the experience special.
RYAN: That's one of the amazing things about,
well, a lot of art in general, but I think specifically in
video games, where it is, you forget that it is just millions
upon millions of little things that are all built together to
form the cohesive whole.
And managing all that is I'm sure a Herculean undertaking.
So kudos to you.
PATRICK: Thank you.
A lot of it just kind of happens on the fly
while you're working on things.
It's not planned but then sometimes is a stand out in what
sells the moment.
RYAN: And you guys are a fairly small team; right?
PATRICK: Yeah. I think we're about 26 or so.
JV: Yeah.
I think we're 24 of the 19 folks
just on the development side of things.
PATRICK: Yeah.
RYAN: Geesh.
A lot of work to be done then for a small team.
PATRICK: Yeah.
Everybody has to wear multiple hats in the studio.
It's a good thing.
RYAN: That's often true for I think game development in
general, but how do you -- well, when you say that,
how do you guys kind of divide labor,
and what sort of work processes
do you feel works well for your studio?
PATRICK: Well, I mean, everybody has their discipline,
you know, their bucket they work within,
but then just giving feedback to the other departments and how
you can offer something else out,
and then just ideas start flowing.
And then if somebody can't do something but you can,
you know, everybody kind of just squeezes in and fills the gaps.
And, you know, that's part of being a team
is everybody chips in.
RYAN: I love it.
JV: In a small team you can't -- you know,
on a lot of larger teams that I worked on,
you need sort of central sort of managers and gatekeepers making
sure folks are kind of working on the right thing.
On a smaller team you're counting on every individual to
sort of take that responsibility for their own work.
It's like, "Hey, look.
That would be super cool, but I don't really have time for that.
I got this other thing to do."
You know, you don't really have a whole process around just
deciding what to do an a day-to-day.
PATRICK: Yeah.
This dungeon is the perfect example of that.
This is -- I built this dungeon, but there were several other
people in here doing lighting effects,
fog, adding extra movers, like, it really is a team effort.
This couldn't have been done just by one person.
RYAN: Now, one of the many ways that video games taps into film
are moments like what we just saw where you take the camera,
you frame a scene, and you are really
able to convey an emotion.
And that's probably especially important for you guys,
because as we said, there's really no dialogue or text to be
found, so you have to do a lot of framing
and a lot of visual storytelling.
But that's one of my favorite things in video games is when
you take a moment and you frame something,
and it's big, and it's beautiful,
and it's quiet.
PATRICK: Yeah.
RYAN: And I feel like there's going to be a lot of that in
Hob; is that fair to say?
PATRICK: There is.
It's especially important, you know,
also because of our camera angle is usually at an angle,
so when we want to highlight something,
we need to pull back and show it.
RYAN: Go, go, go, go, go.
PATRICK: And we want to give a bigger picture.
And, also, it is kind of a goal,
we want the player to feel small.
This is a big world.
You're in a big space, and we want to sell that.
So we do use those camera pullbacks and angles to
demonstrate a lot of that. Here's another one.
RYAN: I feel like there's a lot of close calls we've had during
this demo, but we're doing great.
JV: Being extra careful.
RYAN: We're doing great.
JV, you are a professional and a half.
I think I died at that point just now when I was playing this
demo earlier today.
PATRICK: It's a tricky balance between,
you know, we want the player to feel nervous in areas like this.
You're not supposed to be down here.
So we do -- you know, we make you walk on pipes and make you
do things like this that aren't natural so that when you do get
past them, it feels like an accomplishment,
and you realize you are on the right path.
RYAN: See, I like that, the idea that
you're not supposed to be down there.
That the idea of what's forbidden
and what's off limits --
PATRICK: Yeah.
RYAN: -- seems especially pertinent with this game.
And then I have to ask, and I'm sure we'll talk about it because
we're going to be talking later on as well,
but inspirations for this game are many.
PATRICK: Yes.
RYAN: But in terms of -- and I know some of -- because we've
already spoken, I know some of the gameplay inspirations that
your studio had.
PATRICK: Mm-hmm.
RYAN: But for telling this story,
where did this inspiration come from for this kind of
world-building, old forgotten area come from?
PATRICK: You know, it came from -- we started out I think with
the general type of gameplay.
We wanted adventure and platforming.
And then I think second was tone.
What tone do we want.
And that's a big part of Hob as you can see because this is
actually kind of a dangerous -- you can die in here,
but it's also kind of a very relaxed experience.
And we have a lot of that in Hob,
but this is very different.
And so we wanted -- especially if you can hear the drone music
going on, and you can see these god rays,
that's something we're really trying to sell.
It's different than other games in the similar genre.
We just wanted a more kind of ambient feel to the game.
And it's definitely been a challenge trying to balance that
and figure out where we lie within that.
So as far as -- there's definitely other games that have
tones that have inspired us.
You know, with the camera shots we're trying to do other things,
more of a cinematic feel in certain areas.
So it's kind of a mix.
It's something we agreed we wanted to do early on,
and we've kind of, even though we had our influences,
we found our own groove that is Hob for this.
So this feels unique to us.
RYAN: I don't think we've hit a game over screen yet,
so congratulations so far, JV.
JV: I'm doing okay.
PATRICK: Yeah.
RYAN: I say that now and then,
whoop, off the cliff.
I hope everyone was paying attention during this section
that we just passed.
There's a little callback later on.
PATRICK: Yeah.
And this was the point of this area to introduce and to sell
what is happening when what you're about to see happens and
why and how it works and the connectivity
throughout the world.
RYAN: And up, up, up we go.
PATRICK: Yep.
RYAN: Back onto the surface.
Now who are these cuties on screen?
PATRICK: These are our sprites.
RYAN: Which we don't want to talk much about?
PATRICK: Well, we've shown them in past demos.
They're definitely a big part of the game.
They're in the world.
They're not in this particular demo.
RYAN: Stay tuned.
PATRICK: Stay tune. Yeah.
RYAN: That's the message there.
JV: This is also sort of a combat-light demo as well.
And there's some stuff we could check out over here,
but I want to show you since we were just talking about that --
PATRICK: Oh, no.
JV: I'm a murderer!
RYAN: Goodness, JV.
PATRICK: Bacon for dinner.
JV: Sorry, buddy.
RYAN: Cruel and unusual.
PATRICK: But you can see this looks like the things that
you're interacting with down below.
RYAN: Put that in there.
Ooh.
What's going to happen? What's going to happen?
Whoa!
PATRICK: That should look familiar.
RYAN: He's like, hi.
PATRICK: And then there's a whole new area,
and that's our forest area.
RYAN: Ladies and gentlemen, that was Hob,
which is coming to PS4 this year.
PATRICK: This year.
RYAN: Patrick, JV, thank you gentlemen so much for joining us
on the show.
PATRICK: Yeah. Thanks for having us.
JV: Thank you.
RYAN: Absolutely. We'll see you next time.

Hob - PS4 Gameplay Demo | PS Underground

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