GamesHow one developer tapped the Internet’s past to tell a timeless story of human connectionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesHow one developer tapped the Internet’s past to tell a timeless story of human connectionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Lucy Blundel)
You’re cast as 15-year-old Emmett, a big fan of the Kinmoku Shark gaming system, and in particular its killer app, Feudal Fantasy, an epic historical JRPG about warring ninjas. As a result, you’re a regular visitor to the console’s built-in social network, Videoverse. But with the forthcoming release of a new gaming system, Kinmoku’s hardware is facing obsolescence – and along with it, so is Emmett’s online community. That’s more or less the story of Wii U’s long-extinct Miiverse, of course, yet Videoverse’s pixelated, lofi presentation is more a throwback to AIM, MSN, Bebo, MySpace, and other fallen Internet giants of old.
Old schooling
(Image credit: Lucy Blundel)
Given these nostalgia-inducing reference points, we’re unsurprised when the game’s developer, Lucy Blundell (working under the alias ‘Kinmoku’), reveals the name of the project out of which Videoverse grew: Memories. Begun in 2017, alongside work on the console port of Blundell’s debut One Night Stand, Memories was to be a “semi-autobiographical” story of a young woman reflecting on her life. She wanted the story to handle heavy topics including bullying and the character’s journey towards discovering her asexuality. (Blundell herself identifies as grey-asexual.) Beyond that, though, there were many forms the game might have taken. At first, Blundell thought the young woman could be returning to her family home, old belongings conjuring up moments from her past. Another version was more conversational, having the character talking with a therapist. “I realised I was kind of finding myself whilst I was making this game,” she reflects. “Because of that, it kept changing.”
Meanwhile, there was a significant change in Bundell’s own personal circumstances. “I got ill in 2019 and became disabled,” she says. “It didn’t stop me from working on the game, but it was in the back of my mind and, because I was ill, I didn’t really work much that year.” On top of this, when the COVID pandemic struck, Blundell realised: “‘Oh, I’m telling a story that’s quite heavy and sad.’ I’m not saying there’s no place for stories like that, but in me, I just felt I couldn’t do it in this world. Everything felt quite bleak in 2020.” Seeking a more positive approach, Blundell found inspiration in one aspect of this difficult period. “At the time, we were mostly communicating online, through Skype and Zoom. I thought, you know, the Internet gets a bad rap, but I think it’s saving us all right now.”
And so the work, ideas and personal reflections Blundell had gathered for Memories were redirected into Videoverse, with a new online focus. Particular influences on the game included virtual pet website Neopets and also Habbo Hotel, a virtual space allowing users to chat, play games and buy furniture for their rooms. (Both sites, despite their age, are still active today.) “The biggest one, really, was DeviantArt for me,” Blundell says. “I kind of come from an artist background, and I was always drawing and uploading. I loved it and made some friends there.”
Emmett likewise contributes his own fan art to the Feudal Fantasy forum, a place that draws on Blundell’s experiences of online fandoms. “When I was really young I was into horse riding, so I was on horse-riding forums,” she says. “Then I switched to Pokémon, Sailor Moon and Final Fantasy. I was on those for a few years. But the biggest influence for me was World Of Warcraft, because I was obsessed with it throughout university. It was pretty bad, actually – I had quite an addiction to it. A lot of the characters in the Videoverse are like people I met on World Of Warcraft.”
Many of the game’s chapters begin with Emmett playing snippets of the game before heading to the forums to scroll through posts and chat with friends, which is where rumours of Videoverse’s shutdown first begin to circulate. The real-life parallels would be pretty clear, even without the title’s nod, but they didn’t inform Blundell as much as you might expect. “I was a casual Miiverse user, so I didn’t use it that much,” she says. “But I did love it. I loved its vibe. I loved its energy. I loved the shared drawings.” These were Blundell’s main interaction with Miiverse, joining the many users who posted drawings made with the Wii U hardware. Despite being an occasional visitor rather than a full-time devotee, Blundell “logged on for the last few days just to see what people were doing”. She remembers the outpouring of messages celebrating and eulogising the platform. “The warmth and the heart of the community was coming out. It was nice to see.”
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Subscribe(Image credit: Future PLC)This feature originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device,subscribe to Edge.
Subscribe
(Image credit: Future PLC)This feature originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device,subscribe to Edge.
(Image credit: Future PLC)
This feature originally appeared in Edge Magazine. For more fantastic in-depth interviews, features, reviews, and more delivered straight to your door or device,subscribe to Edge.
(Image credit: Kinmoku)
While Vivi is shy and closed off at first, as she and Emmett get to know one other, we learn more about her: she’s also 15 years old, living in London, and (naturally) a fellow fan of art and Feudal Fantasy, though not so much the combat. Over the course of the game the pair become close friends – or romantically involved, if you want to take it in that direction. Making both options available to players, and equally viable, was important to Blundell. “I love romance but I don’t like forcing people to feel romance. I love that stuff, but not everyone else does,” she says. “If you play platonic, in my opinion, you’ll get a bit more out of it, because you don’t [often] see male/female friendships in games. It probably added like another six months of work, or something stupid, because I kind of underestimated how much it would change. But it was worth it.”
As the relationship between the two deepens – in whatever way you choose to take it – Emmett learns that Vivi is disabled, another way in which Blundell worked her personal experiences into the game. “At first, Vivi was quite unlikeable, because she was going through a lot of pain. She didn’t really hide it. She didn’t fake a smile, and it was almost like she didn’t want to be there – which is kind of true. She wants to be out, like, living her old life. Vivi’s story reflects very closely my own feelings about my newfound disability. My frustrations, the lack of understanding, and how, all of a sudden, you get treated as a lesser. You don’t really realise how bad it is until it happens to you.”
This, ultimately, is what all those real-life reference points bring to Videoverse. Their familiarity allows Blundell to tell an emotional, honest story of what these virtual spaces mean to us, and the very human friendships and support networks that can blossom because of them. If you’re looking for evidence of how universally resonant these sentiments are, you need to look no further than Blundell’s inbox, months on from the game’s release. “I still get lots of nice messages and emails of people saying it touched them and they cried,” she says. “And it’s like, well, you’re crying? Now I’m crying.”
This feature originally appeared inEdge magazine. For more fantastic features, you cansubscribe to Edge right hereorpick up a single issue today.
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