The Immersive Environment Design of Captain Spirit
By: Tushar Deb.
Tags: Game Design, Gaming, Videogames, Storytelling, Game Development

GAMES UX

The Immersive Environment Design of Captain Spirit

Creating immersion through meaningful environmental interaction

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The environment of a game is what surrounds the player’s character and is a stage to the designed narrative and/or gameplay experiences that will emerge to the player. So a game’s environment should not just be about creating some physical space for the character to exist in; instead, it should be more about creating a believable environment that justifies and further empowers the narrative experience the game strives to convey.

And it doesn’t take a thorough game-analyzer to make out a merely playable environment from an immersive and lively one. Even a casual gamer can make out that difference; because an immersive environment is felt. And it feels real and meaningful.

So, how do you do this? How do you create an immersive environment and not just a lifeless backdrop?

(Left) Mortal Kombat 3 — Behind the Scenes. (Right) Sonya in Mortal Kombat 3. Source: NeoGamer.

Immersion through interaction

There may be a thousand ways to create an immersive environment; but in this article, I want to specifically point out how the prologue to Life is Strange 2: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit managed to create an immersive experience that really made me feel like I was in the room with the characters.

And Captain Spirit achieved the experience through relevant instances of meaningful interaction with its environmental setting.

The whole game is based on this mechanic of nonlinear interactive exploration to also uncover the narrative backstory of the small family and learn about their sad and affecting history.

Now, I know that the whole Life is Strange series is based on this exploratory mechanic, but Captain Spirit just hits differently. And maybe it is that way because every choice of interaction is relevant, meaningful, and not overdone.

Developers want to enclose the player in a meaningfully interactive environment but not exhaust them with over-abundant instances of non-relevant interaction.

(Left) Relevant Interactions in Captain Spirit. (Right) Mimicking Excessive Choice of Interactions.

Excessive choice of interactions will only clutter the screen and quickly exhaust the player from the idea of interacting with the environment.

Environmental storytelling and interaction

Stories can also be told through the environment itself without any interaction between it and the player. Environmental storytelling is when you convey deeper stories through narratively designed environments and specific placement of its inhabiting objects and characters.

But I also think interaction takes it a step further. Not an interaction that merely states the obvious that the player has already figured out but one that further rewards the player’s attention to detail with additional relevant information.

Chris looking at the bottle of perfume in his Dad’s room.

For example, when you walk into the Dad’s room in Captain Spirit and notice the bottle of perfume, had there been no option to interact, there is only so much you can assume about it. Maybe you won’t even pay much attention.

But when you do interact with it, this is what Chris says:

“I am glad Dad kept Mom’s perfume…Smells just like her…”

You learn it is the character’s mother’s bottle of perfume that his dad has still kept after his mother’s passing. The dialogue also reminds us of the sensory feeling of having the perfume there, especially one that smells of someone you love but isn’t around anymore. The interaction makes the existence of the perfume bottle more personal and relatable.

Now, simply adding interaction to any environment and its objects will not do the trick. Interacting with the perfume bottle creates a personal feeling because it is meaningful to the narrative experience. And that is the key-word here — meaningful.

Meaningful environmental objects

The environment of Captain Spirit feels immersive because there is meaning to almost everything that exists in it. Most objects don’t exist only because they look cool or are expected to exist, but because they add to the narrative experience and are born out of it in the first place.

Photos and trophies from the Dad’s early life placed on the shelf in the living room.

Take, for example, the trophies and the photos on the shelf. They don’t exist only to fill up space and make it look like an occupied shelf, but they really exist as a memory of what the Dad’s life was like once; chasing his dreams and building up to bigger ones.

The meaning in these trophies and photos get deeper when you see what is left of this once-motivated man who was never able to achieve the biggest dreams. He is left defeated, watching a basketball game, chain-smoking and drinking heavily to battle the reality of having lost a wife he really loved.

Charles, the Dad, sitting by the sofa.

The design of Captain Spirit’s environment and the placement of the objects inhabiting it are already done meaningfully, and the touch of interaction only adds to the experience.

And you’d be wrong to believe only story-driven games might want to aim for an immersive environment because a genre as opposite as fighting games has evolved to embrace this trend. Developers of fighting games have found that a touch of interaction adds life to their environments and keeps them away from only feeling like backdrops behind the stage.

Environment interactions in Mortal Kombat 11.

Another thing that adds to the immersion of Captain Spirit’s environment is the minor choices of interaction. Like the option to shoot the dad with a toy gun, do the dishes, the laundry, play with the scattered toys, or even make instant pasta for the dad. You might choose to interact with a few of these choices and not with the others.

Minor interaction choices in The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.

And while these minor choices don’t really affect the game much, they do create a sense of freedom and realism. They make the experience even more immersive when you choose to do something and another NPC acknowledges your act of choice. Just like the freedom you have to interact with most of the things in your surroundings, it’s there if you choose to utilize it.

Also, do not overlook the environment design of Captain Spirit that is very believable, to begin with. Finding car keys under the sofa, the indoor drying rack, or hanging beside the kitchen door, makes sense in the game world and adds a feeling of authenticity.

Captain Spirit’s believable object placement/environment set-up.

This only goes on to validate that the goal of object placement should not just be to merely fill up the environment, but also make sense within the context of the world. If the environment is not believable or convincing enough, the player will surely pick up on the awkwardness.

Chances are you might have not played this game and might think that the environment looks pretty ordinary and usual. But merely looking at a game’s environment is never enough to judge or understand it. It is only by playing and experiencing it that you get a feel for it, and learn how deep or shallow the environment really is.

Now, I understand that not every game can be, or should be, rendered interactively explorative, and I’m not saying that interaction is the only way for an immersive environment to be achieved. But Captain Spirit surely managed to create an immersive environment through interactive exploration, not to mention the good work of environment design that it builds upon.

It is worth pointing out that the feeling of immersion is not something that exists independently, and cannot be worked upon directly. It is just something that comes to be when many minor aspects of an overall good design work together to achieve it.

The feeling itself is invisible but is surely felt loud and clear when done correctly.