FunPlus’ Guillaume Colomb talks narrative, theme and how to "feed the brain"

• Guillaume Colomb called tone, theme and fantasy three major lenses to consider in developing deep games.

"When alignment isn’t there, a game can feel soulless," said FunPlus narrative director and cross-media director Guillaume Colomb during a talk at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona.

"Some games have a really deep story with a big theme, but I would argue even with the simplest game, you need to understand what you’re trying to say or what you want the audience to receive."

During the session, Colomb spoke about tone, theme and fantasy as three core elements in creating a deep and satisfying game. He suggested that tone is what "speaks to people’s hearts", and is established through the likes of colour choices, music and dialogue in-game.

Context and connection

Theme, meanwhile, should be the reason why people care about a game. Colomb advised developers to consider why they are exploring a given theme and why they want to tell a particular story.

"The theme speaks to the brain, so we need to feed the brain," he explained. "How do you do that? You give it things to think about. You don’t give everything already chewed up - you need to create thoughts and leave gaps in between, so that the brain will try to create connection."

Colomb argued that leaving gaps for players to fill this way builds an inherent sense of meaning, thereby creating a deeper experience.

Lastly, Colomb discussed fantasy in the context of player identity - who they can relate to in a game’s world.

"You want to create something that feels new and exciting but also something that the audience can relate to," he said.

"For example, my life has nothing to do with Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, but I can relate to his journey and his sense of burden. You’re offering something that audience can picture themselves in, that can help that escape reality."

Colomb went on to argue for aligning these three elements early in the game creation process, discussing and questioning the direction of a project.

"The first teaser is often focusing on tone - we give a feel of what the game will be," he said. "Then you have a teaser that can be more focused on gameplay mechanics - that’s a fantasy.

"Finally, if you have a bigger story, you have a trailer that focuses more on theme, that goes deeper into the meaning and the why behind it."

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