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"Schrödinger's Phone" BitSummit Trial: Talking to the Soul at the Boundary of Life and Death

Ito

2024-07-20

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Author: Ito

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'We hope that through games, we can help people who have suffered the same trauma as us'

"Schrödinger's Phone" has a very special development background.

Three years ago, the life of independent game developer Achabox was changed by a sudden disaster. Like most ordinary people around the world, she could not go out as freely as she used to, and it was difficult for her to confide her distress to her friends. The changes at home also dealt her a severe blow.

In this situation, it was the caring words from the other end of the phone and the Internet that finally helped her get out of the haze. At this time, she realized for the first time: no matter how far apart we are, no matter where the other person is, as long as the words and emotions are connected, human beings can also be redeemed.

This is actually the opportunity for the story of "Schrödinger's Call" to be born - Achabox hopes to convey these difficult-to-express emotions to players through his own experience. In 2021, the project of "Schrödinger's Call" won the first place in the independent game creative competition held by Shueisha. While receiving 1 million yen in development funds, a production team called Acrobatic Chirimenjako was officially born.

Schrödinger's Phone

The Acrobatic Chirimenjako team consists of three core members: Seishi Nishino, who is responsible for music and script, Tameyoshi, who is responsible for programming, and Achabox, who is also the director and artist. The game producers from Shueisha Games have become their most effective support in development and promotion.

At the BitSummit Drift held in Kyoto this year, Shueisha Games brought "Schrödinger's Phone" to the scene. Its story with a strong sense of reality in the fairy tale was recognized by many players who came to the exhibition. We also took the opportunity to talk to the three developers about some of the stories behind the scenes during the game trial.

The Crossing Master (left), Achabox (center), and Tameyoshi (right)

As the game director Achabox told me, Schrödinger's Phone is a story about "listening" and "saving". In the game, the player's character "Mary" is the last listener in the world. At the beginning of the game, she has no memory, and she doesn't know where she is. She only has a black cat that speaks human language and an old rotary phone.

At the beginning of the story, Mary, who has no memory, can only complete her personality and the personality of the player in front of the screen step by step through the questions given by the black cat. In terms of the game mechanism, this design is closely linked to the story theme of each chapter. Every time the player has a better understanding of Mary's character, the phone in the house will ring. In the trial version provided on site, a female soul named "Lucy" called Mary, and a vague image of a sheep was generated on the other end of the phone.

When asked why they chose the concept of "Schrödinger's..." as the title of the game, Achabox told me that it was related to the theme of the game and had a deep connection with the gameplay: on the one hand, the characters who talk to Mary in the game are all souls hovering on the line between life and death. Only after the player understands their full picture through listening, will they understand the true ending of these characters - where their regrets come from and where they should end; on the other hand, this also represents the uncertainty of the image of the character on the other end of the phone - in each chapter of the game, these characters will initially appear as vague "animal" visual images, and only when the player really promotes the story, these "images" will gradually become clear.

In this way, Schrödinger's Phone is more like a visual novel with "light reasoning" elements - Mary is the protagonist of the story, and also a listener who has nothing to do with the story. Take the story that we can play at BitSummit Drift as an example: the protagonist of this story is "Lucy", and from her confession, you can understand the life changes she has experienced - she is a wife and a mother, and some of the choices she made have completely changed her life and the lives of those around her.

But for a soul hovering on the brink of life and death, Lucy could not find redemption for herself. So Mary took on the role of a "guide". As a listener, the player will replay the phone calls Lucy made in the past, unravel the story through numerous details, and guide the speaker's real life experience step by step.

You may have already vaguely guessed the true background of this story - this is a story about family and affection. The game uses the unique Hebei pencil style, coupled with gentle music, to gradually outline a clear-cut female image. The whole story is full of regret and touching. At the booth at the venue, many players were surprised by the unexpected ending of the trial version, and some even cried because they were too involved in the story.

But what’s interesting is that when I preconceived that “Schrödinger’s Phone” was a “tear-jerking film”, Achabox and the celestial being in charge of the script denied this view.

In fact, this seems to be only a feature of the first story in the game. As a plot-oriented game presented in the form of "chapters", the three are not satisfied with simply moving others. According to them, although the theme of the game itself is indeed "saving" and "helping", in this process, "tear-jerking" is not the only means to achieve the goal. In the future official version of the game, "Schrödinger's Phone" will tell and shape characters in a more diverse form, and there will even be some characters with more humorous or funny elements, and players will be able to gain emotional value beyond "touching" or "sadness" in this process.

Several people admitted that in the process of writing scripts and stories, they were more concerned about "how to resonate with players" and "whether the plot is attractive enough to players" rather than deliberately creating an atmosphere or compiling a tragic plot to infect others. Because only by achieving these two points can players really have the motivation to uncover the final truth of the story.

Of course, these things are easier said than done, but much harder than imagined, especially for an inexperienced development team like Acrobatic Chirimenjako. Tameyoshi told me that from the early planning stage to the finalization of the gameplay, they went through at least eight versions of modification and iteration, which resulted in the current balance between the gameplay and story of Schrödinger's Phone. The professional suggestions from the producer of Shueisha's games played a crucial role in the gradual implementation of the project.

At the end of the event, we also briefly talked about the development team's expectations for the Chinese market and players. We believe that as a country that is also in the Chinese cultural circle, Chinese players can also maximize their understanding of the information and emotions contained in this form of game. This game takes "characters" as the starting point and shapes the story in a form that will surely resonate with players, just as the original intention of developing this game.

Currently, Schrödinger's Phone is still in the development stage. Although the trial version released at this event does not support Chinese, the localization of the game has been put on the agenda. The game is expected to be released in 2025.