The Art of Communication in Global Gaming

It’s a much bigger challenge than just getting players to lose themselves in the game and find their flow. Storytelling dictates how the player will interact with the space around them, the characters of the game, even other online players. 

When creating a land of stories such as in the WoU Game, we knew that we needed to really focus on how our global network of collaborators could all feel seen in one space—and how others could jump into this mix of culture to play along. 

Culture is far richer than just the languages we speak. Making sure that clothing, nature, and food all get represented authentically is a primary task for the game developers exploring localisation. At WoU, we have dedicated teams who experience these places firsthand to better understand everything from how nature grows and moves, to the intricacies of traditional prints and colours. All of these things help to communicate the themes of our game, but it got tricky when it came to adding language…

So, we are creating a game without speech. 

Okay, just inter-player speech… Our storytellers felt very strongly that they can build a game that communicates the richness of individual cultures but also creates a level and fair space where language cannot become a barrier to enjoyment. 

Technology can do wild and wonderful things. But the reality of adding real-time translations into a game that we hope to reach all corners of the world was slowing us down. It’s not to say we did think it would work, rather the further we developed our characters and gameplay the more we realised that adding text communication wasn’t key to achieving our goals. We want young people to be immersed in the nature, colour, and sounds of the world—adding too many more layers felt like more of a distraction than an asset. 

Naturally there are exceptions. NOLA our game guide will talk to players. This guide role has been created to steer players toward new opportunities and to make sure that everyone understands the foundations of how to operate their players in the world online. For this reason, we wanted to make sure one character was able to give clear instructions that would ensure players felt confident to look around and begin interacting with the space. We also wanted to ensure children learning in classrooms could access support from teachers. Players will be able to select how they get a guardian’s attention through various methods that include: typing messages in a one-to-one chat, or calling the teacher over for in-person conversation. 

But how will players be able to play together if no one can talk?

Written communication in games can sometimes become a cause of tension: allowing one person to dominate the conversation over younger or quieter players. Words can also unfortunately lead to young people’s information being used in ways they don’t fully understand. Thankfully, much like in real life, there are many ways to express yourself without words. 

One of the key ways we plan on connecting our players is through gestures and expressions. Our team is currently testing exactly which gestures young people need the most to express themselves with others. Much like in social media and texting, emojis now play a huge role in communication providing a visual aid to assist translating feelings. Our team wanted to push that idea further in our game and have movement play a bigger role in the signals. Finding the most globally understood gestures is key here as different cultures can have their own interpretations. It’s not been a totally smooth ride so far, a small error in creating one gesture led it to appear that one player was trying to hit another. (Don’t worry, it won’t be making the final cut!)

For the most part, playtests with kids have shown that not being able to talk to other players directly isn’t hindering any joy spent exploring the WoU landscape. Walking, surfing and flying through the skies already allows them so much to do that simple acts of gathering and combining resources is already showing us how kids can enjoy the peace and quiet. 

We’re so excited to see this new skill develop. If you want to be part of this new unspoken adventure then make sure to sign up to our newsletter to be the first to know more about—and to play—our WoU game.