The end of the journey

It’s been a while since it became clear that P8 is cancelled. Although I had already distanced myself from the working process and in way had closed this page of my life, the news caused quite the stir – I was convinced that the game was going to be great; especially knowing some of the people involved.

So, the time has come, to evaluate, put into words and give meaning to what happened for me in the last two and a half years.

Where do I belong?

I was invited in this project as a consultant from the point of view of a psychologist. Truth is, it was a bit blurry what that meant at the time, and it’s difficult to summarize it even now, because there are some aspects that I stumbled upon in the process itself and whichever concern the particular project and no other.

First of all, there’s no rule book. It’s not like you can call a colleague and ask something you’re wondering about. There’s very little information online, too. Psychologists are more involved in marketing research, user experience, players’ motivation and expectations; or as people who can make a career in game design, using some of their knowledge in psychology. As a working therapist – neither of those was my area of expertise. I had to discover on my own exactly where I could position myself, no one could appoint it for me.

Shortly, the main task was to find the intersection point between game design and various processes that take place in creating a game, and knowledge about the psyche and human emotions. I didn’t find appropriate to just outline the basics – what is grief, for example, or how do people cope with difficult emotions, what are the complications that one can face... Those you can find easily. The question was how to represent complicated theory and years of practice, so that it “speaks” to a game designer – which I’m not, so what do I know about their work? There you go with the first challenge – how do you build a bridge between these two different areas?

Individual approach

Moving on, there’s something else I discovered. Even if one can outline some basics, read some articles and watch some insights from professionals about psychology in game development, this information is not particularly useful, as it’s too general. So, the second challenge was to adapt every single piece of information, so that it makes sense in the specific context of this particular game. Of course, you can’t find that in a rule book – what your team is doing hasn’t been done before, not like this. This is exactly what it means to find an individual approach to a task.

Connection

Reflecting on what made things easier, it was the open-mindedness and creativity of my colleagues. I presume it was hard for them too – as I said, this cooperation was an uncharted territory. But what surprised me was how open and eager were they in our communication. It was pure pleasure, but most importantly – it gave me reassurance and courage, at times when I felt insecurity of how to approach certain tasks. I was given the space to make proposals, to participate in fields that border psychology, but aren’t exactly that, in order to expand the possibilities of my knowledge and its application in the whole process.

As someone who has always worked with conflicts and people’s difficulties, the “creativity chain” (as I called it) was a brand-new experience. It is extremely gratifying to see how an idea emerges, changes and finds its shape over time; it is passed from one person to the other, and then the other gives something back, and from one element of the chain to the next something appears at the end, which consists of the creativity and skill of all team members involved. This meaning of the phrase “team effort” I didn’t discern until P8.

At the end of that incredible experience, I was surprised to discover that my most valuable assets in the work with game designers aren’t different than those I use on a daily bases in my therapeutic sessions.

Social skills. The ability to listen carefully and read between the lines is a great investment; people say way more than one might think. If you can recognize the need, the question in their statements, that’s half the way to offering something solid and concrete that they can make use of in building the story, the characters, the conflicts.
Creativity. Some elements go well together, but you don’t know that until you dare to combine them. There’s invention and innovation in this process. It works with clients; it works with game design.
Practicality. I work with all kinds of people – ones who understand and trust me, and others who don’t. I’ve always aimed at finding common ground with all of them through the use of different set of “tools” in order to establish good communication between us. The ultimate goal – to get the job done; who cares if you’re familiar with something, unless you can communicate it to others in a constructive and useful way?
Curiosity. You can’t expand the borders of your abilities, if you aren’t curious. There were a lot of side aspects in my cooperation that I was eager to explore – it was never only about providing counseling, but also about learning enough to be able to combine elements - script, visuals, symbols, traits of the characters. I had to know a bit more about how game design worked, about what each specialist did. How does the story come to life? How do words become drawings? How do characters appear and why are they like this? How do they interact with other characters and in what way is this going to become a “playable reality”? And most of all, when all pieces of the puzzle come together, would that bring credibility to the character and story? All of this was fascinating to observe and participate in.
(And I really miss it)

Set of skills

Game over

P8 will not have the chance to be given what it deserved – a title, a name – colorful and meaningful. And of course, that brings a lot of disappointment and regret –

“Could’ve it been better? Probably.”

But what I’ve believed in my entire life, is that the journey itself is more important than the final destination. The impact this project had on me is something beyond words, a mark that will never be erased.

And that definitely counts.