The Valentine Watch
Just what is this game that I am working on?
On the outer reaches of the Royal Channel, far from the Mainland, the island of Valentine has seen its vast fortunes decline. While the boom of the industrial revolution propelled many of the nation's cities into new-found wealth, this great force of change drained the island of its prosperity. The young and able left long ago, seeking greater opportunities overseas. As conditions worsen, residents look for someone to blame. Amidst the unrest a great, unfathomable threat remains unseen. But hope is not yet lost... The spirit of Valentine will endure. If the community can band together, a new brighter future shall be forged...
—blurb, www.valentine.watch, 2018
“Community simulation meets turn-based tactics in Victorian England.”
This was my opener when pitching The Valentine Watch to publishers. Paired with the blurb above you gain a solid grasp of the mechanics and story of the game. While these elements comprise the skin and bones of the game, they miss something absolutely fundamental: the very soul of the project.
I have a hard time articulating what is missing but I believe we can begin to grasp its form by posing the following question: when playing any kind of videogame, if we possess a gun, why is our first instinct to shoot anyone that we come across?
An entire article could be dedicated to the exploration of this question; I will do so at a later date. In the meantime, I hope you can simply accept the fact that both players and developers have subconsciously embraced an absolutely insane system of expected behaviours for videogames.
If the laws of the game’s universe have no relation to our own then nothing can be gained from playing; there is no wisdom nor refinement of character to be had. Nothing is elevated beyond their pixels. The game relegates itself to that of a product.
It is an approach that lacks humanity.
A videogame that is an examination and celebration of the human character; that is the beating heart of The Valentine Watch.
I will explore this concept in greater detail in the near future. Ultimately these lofty ideas mean little-to-nothing if the meat of the game is lacking. As such I’ll spend the rest of this article discussing these other features.
Aesthetics & Violence
As an adolescent, I was utterly besotted with turn-based RPGs, particularly Tactical-RPGs. Pokémon, Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics were among my favourites. However, no single game could capture exactly what I was looking for: while Pokémon had an explorable open-world, its battle system lacked the depth and variety that I enjoyed; conversely, Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics had engaging combat but no world to explore.
I wanted a game that could do both. There were none, so all I could do was dream of what this game might look like.
In terms of aesthetics, I had grown tired of the boilerplate high-fantasy featured in the bulk of RPGs. Instead, I wanted to do something unique. I settled on the Victorian Era1 for a number of reasons:
Long- and short- range combat could be justified without contrivance
Visually striking
Familiar to most players
This setting was not chosen based upon aesthetics alone: I also considered the nature of the combat: just how are we fighting? Typically, every battle in a turn-based RPG is a deathmatch: kill or be killed. Such a strict objective grossly limits the possible outcomes of conflict while also discarding all moral questions (why are we killing everything?)
There is of no doubt that the application of law and justice was ‘loose’ in the Victorian Era. As such, if we allowed the player to assume the role of constable or sheriff or watchman2 it would give the player sufficient reason to seek out conflict without giving them free reign to unquestioningly slaughter: they are an arbiter of justice, not a soldier. They cannot unthinkingly kill (or can they?)
Tavern brawls and drunken debauch, not total war.
In the decade after these ideas took form, police brutality has forced itself into the public conscience time and time again. It will be interesting to see how players’ understanding of these ideas change when it is their responsibility to uphold justice. However, in a medium where killing is so natural, will players even be aware?
Synthesising Narrative & Play
Until my early twenties I had a lowly view of art. My perspective was disgustingly utilitarian, viewing them solely as products of consumption or as tools to ‘zone out’ or de-stress. I was well-fed on Hollywood slop and videogames during my childhood so I had little opportunity to challenge these perceptions.
With sufficient artistic exploration you will inevitably stumble upon a work of true beauty that reveals the sublime nature of great art. It is not an understatement to suggest that experiences such as these are profoundly revelatory. Now aged 27, I have experienced this sensation many, many times in all forms of art: fiction, film, painting, poetry. And yet I have only experienced this feeling with a single videogame: Undertale.
Far from a masterpiece, Undertale’s greatest accomplishment lies in its ability to wholly entwine its gameplay and story: interacting with game mechanics (i.e. playing the game) is wholly indistinct from making choices that affect narrative outcomes. This is where all other videogames go wrong: the divorcing of mechanics from narrative is the greatest disservice that has been inflicted upon the medium.
My major grievance with Tactical-RPGs was their total lack of cohesiveness: almost always, these games are nothing more than a string of battles interspersed with cutscenes. Their worlds do not exist as spaces outside of conflict; they are nothing more than positions on a campaign map after their battle concludes3.
With no world to explore there is no serious world-building; such a constrained environment make it next to impossible to tell a good story that serves the medium well. When these games are little more than a series of battlefields, how can any decision you make have any emotional impact beyond simple win conditions? You are simply choosing which board to play on and which pawns to play with.
When narrative is so dislocated from mechanics the two inevitably lose track of each other to the point of whiplash. Advance Wars is profoundly guilty of this4.
This conundrum is avoided within The Valentine Watch by integrating its turn-based combat system into its open world: when the player is not fighting they are free to explore the island and meet its residents. While the world is “open” it is also tiny: the same amount of streets, squares and alleys as you would expect in a real island town.
Conflict within The Valentine Watch may transpire anywhere at any given time; the only distinction between the states of combat and peaceful exploration is the rate of the passage of time. Both components are surprisingly complementary: combat can be sought by exploring more dangerous areas, for example.
The player chooses when they place themselves in danger. Conversely, fearful players may avoid certain areas or certain people altogether.
No encounter is compelled; there is always an invisible choice in The Valentine Watch.
Story & Themes
So far we have discussed mechanics and environment. But what of the story? Naturally the choice-driven nature of the game makes it difficult to examine specifics. Instead, we will talk themes:
An ageing man looks up to the stars.
He wonders to himself, “are they still within reach?”
— tagline, www.valentine.watch, 2018
Our real world is in a terrible state of malaise; most would agree that things are not quite how they used to be. Visions of the future inspire dread instead of providing us with hope. We are spiritually exhausted. Nihilism is entrenched into every facet of life; many simply choose to roll over and die (figuratively and sometimes literally). Is there nothing more that we can do?
Taking place during the Industrial Revolution, The Valentine Watch intends to capture the exact same unease, lack of purpose and lack of identity. On the Isle of Valentine, all the young have already left; only the old, lazy and ill remain. In such a place, how can one live a fulfilling life, let alone pursue greatness?
You play as Walter Shallot, a bald, plump, middle-aged man. An accountant by trade, he is fatefully thrust into the position of Head of the Watch, the island’s proto-police force. Having spent most of his life cloistered away in his office, hiding behind documents and papers, he now has an opportunity to change. Perhaps he will be forced to change, whether he wants to or not…
Where do we go from here?
This summer and autumn I have been working on dev tools for my engine. I am at the stage where everything character- and world-related (levels, items, clothing, people) can be modified in-game. Next I will create a similar set of tools for in-game dialogue and script editing. Once complete, I will focus entirely on producing a fifteen-minute vertical-slice demo. This demo will feature the opening segment of the game, polished to a standard fit for a full-release: no bugs and no missing features.
This fifteen minute slice is already “playable” yet wholly unfit for play: all mechanics are present, few are finished. Once I have written these dev tools I believe it will take four months to make this demo absolutely perfect.
When it is complete, I will release the demo online. This Substack will then be used as a vehicle to fund the full release (see my initial post for more details).
This game has been a long time coming. Assuming I can release my demo at some point in 2024 it will mark exactly fifteen years since I first sketched Walter and had the first inkling of what this game might be. Fifteen years for fifteen minutes of game. A truly ridiculous proposition, one that I would not have any other way.
I use “Victorian Era” very loosely here. In actuality, The Valentine Watch takes place on a fictional island in a fictional time as I do not want to be constrained by historical accuracy. By making an association with the Victorian Era I am merely suggesting to players the environments, technologies and behaviours they can expect to encounter.
The first Police Force was only established in London in 1829. Before then, law-enforcement agencies were much less formal. As stated above, The Valentine Watch is not a historical account; it is fantasy. As such, I can play around with the ambiguity of the timeline.
Fallout 1 & 2 are examples of Tactical-RPGs with open worlds. However I find their combat quite lacking (limited party composition, limited positioning, etc.) For me, they are not “real” TRPGs, whatever that means.