Note: This article came to be as part of an interview/chat with the Wait! Life is Beautiful solo developer, 'Egor Perviy' the majority of the words are his (though originally in Russian). It was then typed up into this form with his approval. As such, please read this article as if it were coming directly out of his mouth.
Since this article will cover some sensitive topics, I want to give you a trigger warning/notice. Though you will not find any shocking content here, this game is about suicide (but in a way that we hope will help people understand it, notice the signs from their friends and loved ones, and to break the taboo of talking about this subject.
Before you read on, do check out the animated trailer for Wait! Life is Beautiful! as it puts into perspective the story and themes of the game far better than words can describe, and will also give you a good idea of what to expect from this article.
With that nicely laid out, let's dive into the heart and soul of the developer and see what he has to say.
How I ended up in “suicidal” Gamedev
We were at a bookstore with my mother and on that day we were there to buy school supplies. The weather was hot, I wanted to go home, my mother was on edge, tired after a long working day, and I simply followed her around. The study books were so hideously colorful (who makes kids' books look so sleazy?). The shelves arranged in endless rows that were almost shapeless. We went around in circles while “elevator music” played from the speakers.
I think it was that sort of melody that could be playing in an elevator. But don’t ask me how I know it – in my elevator, there is no music. And sometimes there is no light.
When I almost started to decay into mold I could only think about going home, then I saw THE BOOK! I took it in my hands and looked into its soul, it was big, heavy, white, and had a toy car on the front cover. Black letters radiate with magical glow: “How to make a 3D game”. I had been dreaming my whole life about this particular book and at that moment my mental decay stopped. The air became clear and the world gelled, my heartbeat was so loud that I could feel it pulsating in my head muffling the elevator music. I could hardly breathe, but I got a grip and showed the book to my mother explaining that I’d found my dream. My reason to live. My way. Mom looked at the book, then at me, then at the price tag, again at me. Her voice was tired: “No.” We took the notebooks and left.
As you can understand from this small digression, I thought about making games 15 years ago. During these 15 years, I did nothing even slightly connected to game dev, due to various reasons.
Then 2016 happened and I made my first step: I downloaded Unity. I drew pixel art for the first time in my life and I had my first experience of clicking somewhere just to make stuff suddenly disappear forever. I ended up watching hours and hours of video guides.
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GSy3F2z_SX0?enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamedeveloper.com" height="360px" width="100%" data-testid="iframe" loading="lazy" scrolling="auto" data-gtm-yt-inspected-91172384_163="true" id="79326101" class="optanon-category-C0004 ot-vscat-C0004 " data-gtm-yt-inspected-91172384_165="true" data-gtm-yt-inspected-113="true"></iframe>...After creating several things that will never be published and gaining some experience (or it’s better to say, getting an idea of what game design, storytelling, and programming is), I started my search for inspiration to find the theme of 'The Game'.
Gamejam “7 deadly sins”
While surfing the Internet and reading through numerous game dev forums, I stumbled upon a tiny hackathon that had a catchy topic and thought: this is it! (the “it”). So I worked on the idea of a game about suicide when I saw the title. Well, technically, killing yourself isn’t on the list of deadly sins, but in religious teachings, it guarantees that you would go straight to hell, doesn’t it? So there you go: suicide equals deadly sin, right? Well actually, no. My over-broad interpretation invoked the wrath of one of the event judges. Though wrath is a deadly sin, so I had that going for me!
Short indie film “Lime-blossom tea”
The best fuel for your own creativity is someone else’s art, but don't get me wrong, I do not mean stealing. So, I went to a local short film festival in Saint Petersburg and was deeply impressed. I personally think that it is a tragic loss that the event will never happen again due to some laws that prohibited it. However, it doesn’t stop me from sharing with you the short film that I’ve taken my concept from, check it out here.
Life is Strange
During that time I was also playing this game (Life is Strange) and after mastering my skill of searching through garbage (in-game), I stole an interesting idea from LiS. At some point in the game, a girl wants to jump from a roof, the main hero tries to talk her out of it while having no possibility to rewind time and safely pick proper words. It’s the only scene in the game when you can’t just rewind to choose the right option. You say something wrong – the girl dies.
Personal motives
This point is intentionally the last because I don’t like to talk about it. But you’ve probably already guessed that no one thinks about these themes just for fun. Unfortunately, depression and a suicidal tendency was a part of my life. I had a close friend who took his own life, I too live with depression and have to admit to several suicide attempts.
But it was these things that helped shape my direction, as I thought: why not put the thoughts of self-destruction to good use and create something meaningful out of it?
So when I got the subject, I had a strong desire to do something that would make people talk. There is almost no discussion on this topic in our society which is insane as suicide as a phenomenon is tightly intertwined in our lives. From Anna Karenina from the compulsory literature course at school (Yesenin and Mayakovsky are also here) to a huge number of mass culture figures, news of those suicides already seems to have become the norm. Not to mention the culture of generation Z, which is literally based on depressive humor, nihilism, and the unwillingness to live.
So I’ve got a theme and felt an aching need to make something that people would speak about.
To put it short, it hooked me, I felt a burning desire. I knew in advance that it would not be a masterpiece, but even in the worst-case scenario, I could definitely do something really meaningful, and socially significant, if I may.
The first prototype and a couple of tips
To think everything through is almost impossible. The ideas that you have in your mind are surely awesome and adequate, but as soon as you start working on implementing them, you’ll start seeing plenty of technical limits and inconsistencies. Allow me to reiterate this wisdom for the thousandth time for you: prototype! Add in your core mechanics and features, the earlier – the better.
In 2 weeks, I had a barely working prototype with 1.5 suicides and a bunch of grammatical errors in the texts. It was nice that one of the judges mentioned I had an interesting concept. However, others couldn’t launch the game at all, and some even condemned me for incorrectly choosing the topic. Overall, the experience was positive, the gameplay seemed solid, and I, of course, liked it.
The first screenshots of the prototype — minimum details and only basic mechanics
In case you dream about making a game or already are making one, here’s a useful development trick: plan your resources. Especially if you don’t have much. I had absolutely no skills so I’d chosen to do it in pixel art, moreover back when I started it was trendy. The output is okay and if you are not a skillful artist I would recommend that you start with the easiest art style and make it your own by coming up with a few unique features for your game. The best examples of this approach are: The Beginner's Guide, Slander and SCP (legendary games made out of almost nothing). The rule “less means better” is virtually fail-safe. When you have very limited resources you have to be creative as it helps your project stand out. Ironically, limits help makers finish projects, while also maintaining emotional balance and preventing from going minus on production costs.
The concept of the prototype was simple: every day, the main character comes to the bridge that is a suicide hotspot, then he tries to deter people from jumping.
The process of "deterring" looks like this:
<iframe title="Embedded content" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VmtO_TIbUQc?enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamedeveloper.com" height="360px" width="100%" data-testid="iframe" loading="lazy" scrolling="auto" data-gtm-yt-inspected-91172384_163="true" id="361775373" class="optanon-category-C0004 ot-vscat-C0004 " data-gtm-yt-inspected-91172384_165="true" data-gtm-yt-inspected-113="true"></iframe>Mini-tip: never underestimate the power of color. If you can find a suitable color scheme, even the most minimalistic game will look SOLID. Here is the article, and you can just use
