Embracing the Future: Why Sticking to Old Ways Holds Us Back

During the holiday season, we are resharing one of the essential compelling features from Nintendo Life authors and collaborators as a segment of our Best of 2024 series. This article was initially published in September. Enjoy!

Lena Raine has so much to share, and she has discovered numerous ways to express it all.

Clearly, gamers have been appreciating her musical compositions for over ten years now, including tracks for Minecraft, as well as the scores for Chicory: A Colorful Tale and the BAFTA-nominated Celeste. She is currently composing for the upcoming titles from those games: Wishes Unlimited’s Beastieball and Extremely OK Games’ Earthblade.

But were you aware that Raine has also authored a book, released her own music album, and is a programmer in her own right? She has just unveiled her very first solo game endeavor called ANOTHEREAL, which blends the shoot ’em up genre with the narrative and role-playing elements of RPGs, making it an exciting project for a creator who enjoys thinking outside the box.

Nintendo Life spoke with Lena at PAX West 2024 to discuss her latest undertaking, her previous projects, and her ambitions for the future.

Alan Lopez for Nintendo Life: Not to put pressure on you, but I’d like to mention some prominent game composers, and then highlight what they all have in common: Russell Brower, Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo, Yoko Shimomura, David Wise, Austin Wintory…between them, none have created games on their own. So let’s start there. What motivated you to create your own game?

Lena Raine: Well, I actually stumbled into the gaming industry somewhat accidentally.

I spent approximately six years as a game designer before I ever landed a prominent composition role.

I graduated from university in 2006 with a music degree, and I genuinely wanted to enter the gaming field as a composer. However, back then, there were simply no opportunities for the type of music I was creating. I wasn’t producing the grand cinematic sound that AAA developers were after, so I thought, ‘Well, I need to find a job so I can move out of my parents’ house.’ Thus, I began my career in game testing. I worked at Nintendo for two-and-a-half years doing certification testing. Later, I joined Warner Brothers Games and eventually found myself at ArenaNet, where I worked on Guild Wars 2. I started as a tester there for about six months before a design position opened up, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve been working with these tools to test the game; it would be pretty fun to see if I could try my hand at game design.’

So I began experimenting after hours. I was tinkering with the engine and creating my own events and quests to familiarize myself with the design tools. I found a real passion for it and eventually secured the position as a game designer. I worked on a prototype project for a while, developing techniques often from scratch using the scripting tools. Then, when that prototype didn’t pan out, I was moved to Guild Wars 2 and became a full-time designer there.

So, I spent around six years as a game designer before I took on a significant composition project. I was still composing music in my spare time to keep that passion alive, but I also started to develop a strong attachment to game design, as I suddenly found myself spending as much time on that as on writing music.

Now, after having worked as a composer for some time, I began revisiting my love for game design – ‘[Now] I have enough resources, I know enough people that I can probably figure it out!’ And I can learn programming, I can explore all these other avenues to try to create a game project, because that’s what I have wanted to do for a very long time.

So you’ve always wanted to do this.

Absolutely!

You’re suggesting that you kind of stumbled into being a game composer?

No, I’ve always been a composer since a very young age, writing music and everything, but I never had the opportunity. Then when I finally became a full-time composer, which was the goal, I started to feel like something else was missing. ‘I truly want to do game design again.’ And making my own game was sort of a way to combine both.

I want to delve deeper into your upcoming first game, ANOTHEREAL. What we’ve learned so far comes from the brief trailer. I’m quite curious about why you chose the shoot-’em-up genre to merge with RPG mechanics.

that’s what initiated the idea – ‘What if I created [RPG] combat in the style of a little shmup battle?’

When I consider game design, I draw inspiration from many of my favorite experiences in gaming. I love RPGs, but one element that has dampened my enthusiasm over the years are the various combat systems that are prevalent in them. I mean, turn-based systems are prevalent. I do enjoy a solid turn-based system, but everyone is doing them. It feels like everyone is trying to recapture the charm of the 16-bit era [with] Mario RPG mechanics and timed-button presses, and there’s just a massive resurgence of classic RPG-style games… and while that’s really cool, I still want to try to create something different because I love unique RPGs.

One of my favorite RPGs is a title called Resonance of Fate, which is this PS3 RPG that is completely wild. It was created by tri-Ace. Do you remember if you played it?

No, I haven’t played it. I’m very curious to know what makes it so wild.

Let me sum it up. It is pretty peculiar. You always have three characters in your team, and they are always the same three characters. However, the combat system involves two types of firearms: pistols and submachine guns. Pistols deal “direct damage,” [but] enemies generally have a high resistance to pistol shots for some reason. Submachine guns deal “splash damage,” which enemies have less resistance to [and]
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they create more injuries swiftly, but a scratch injury cannot eliminate them.

Thus, if you want to transform the scratch injury into a proper injury, which converts as quickly as [enemies] are hit by a pistol, only then can you actually eliminate them. They are also protected by shields, so there are various elements to consider, such as positioning, and it’s just extraordinary. These mechanics are rarely seen in many other types of video games, and I really enjoy that kind of design.

While games like Undertale and Deltarune incorporate hybrid techniques of shmup-style bullet dodging, they still maintain turn-based battles. It’s quite fascinating; why not develop a full-fledged shmup-style combat system? Shmups often feature lengthy phases and have highly scripted progressions… or it’s somewhat akin to the main game mode. However, I could adapt this to be bite-sized, turning it into a quick duel, you against an enemy.

That’s what sparked my interest – ‘What if I transformed combat into a little bit of shmup combat?’ You go through it, move on, and engage in more RPG elements like exploration and interacting with others, and things like that.

So is the shmup genre distinct in some key ways from ‘bullet hell,’ or are they essentially the same?

There’s definitely a wealth of nuance within the shmup genre. There’s the Touhou-style bullet hell, revolving around the visuals and excitement, where it’s about the beauty of the bullets while trying to survive [laughter]. Then you’ve got CAVE-style shmups, where it’s all about the fast-paced bullets coming at you extremely quickly, and you have to navigate the directions as they target you, while [you’re] dodging them. You can find all these different styles. Mine aims to align more with the Touhou style, without going as chaotic as Touhou does. Because I still want it to be approachable for RPG gamers.

Absolutely. But I mean, your trailer seemed… intense? [laughter]

[laughter] Intentionally, to showcase the variety of different types of encounters. I definitely included a few clips where it felt like, ‘This is the ultimate challenge, just survive!’ Even since [the trailer’s release], I’ve been making numerous adjustments and altering the speed at which bullets move or how the bullets are shaped. There’s so much you can tweak in a real-time system like that. It’s a constant process of playtesting, making small adjustments, and seeing how it plays among friends with varying skill levels.

Before I delve into the narrative aspect of your game, I just wanted to mention that I’m somewhat unfamiliar with the genre, because while growing up, when I was younger, something about these specific types of games felt almost like contraband. I don’t know why, but they were often distributed in the most pirated ways.

Oh yeah, especially Japanese shmups. It’s been quite challenging to find localized English versions of them. They have become more prevalent in recent years, with many fan translations and official translations emerging, and now Steam [provides] access to their Japanese store, [so] you can still get untranslated shmups from Steam, even if you can’t comprehend them. But yes, that language barrier creates a separation between you and the genre.

Additionally, many Japanese shmups are often shared on CDs at physical conventions. It follows that doujin-style game distribution model. It’s only recently that it’s been more accepted to post them online for others to access.

When I was a child, it felt akin to a guy saying, “Here kid, take this floppy.” [laughter]

Exactly, and load [it] onto your Commodore 64 and run a program, and hopefully you can play it. Perhaps.

However, ANOTHEREAL also tells a story that appears to have many emotional elements. Maybe, maybe not. Can you talk a bit about what you want players to experience when they engage with it?

I’m a huge fan of integrating metaphor into my gameplay design that resonates with the emotional state of the characters.

That’s something where, for example, I had no input in the design of Celeste, but it was an insight I gained while working on it. Game design can operate on multiple levels, and it can serve as a vessel for the emotional depth of the story. You don’t necessarily need extensive dialogue, but my game does include quite a bit of dialogue. [laughter] It’s a matter of ensuring all the emotional elements align with what the gameplay conveys.

ANOTHEREAL is undeniably an emotional narrative, one that intentionally remains enigmatic from the beginning. Many games follow the typical amnesia, I-am-discovering-the-world trope for the protagonist, as it serves as a simple entry point for new players. My approach is somewhat similar, but also different, where the main character, named Astra, has a skewed perception of the world that she begins to uncover as she reemerges into it. She’s been somewhat of a recluse, isolating herself in her room for an unspecified period, and then she is invited out by her sister, who is one of the few people that has been close to her throughout her life. She decides, ‘Okay, maybe now is the time to truly step back into the world.’ From there, she discovers that things are not quite as typical as she might have believed.

You mentioned how sound design contributes to the game. I don’t have specific details on how Celeste, Chicory, Solidarity: The Tumble of Reverie, or any of the games you’ve worked on were created in this aspect. However, it seems you, more than many, have your scores significantly reflect the game design, or perhaps vice versa… but now you don’t have a client. How does that feel?

It feels a lot like simply starting fresh and wearing different hats. I often find myself acting as my own client in various ways. I have to deeply engage with one aspect of the game, and then switch roles and question myself as I create something, then dive into sound design or whatever it is, figuring out what is genuinely interesting to do in that area. How dynamic do I want the soundtrack to be? What additional cues do I want to include? And so, it requires a lot of different balancing.

on that producer mindset of, ‘Okay, what’s the essential minimum that I want to believe for this scene to function?’

In relation to it leading into the interview, I feel like if Koji Kondo emerged and proclaimed, “I will create my own game,” there would be immense pressure for it to sound exceptional. Do you feel any pressure regarding your soundtrack?

Absolutely. It’s not always completely critical what I’m doing; I consistently experience this kind of pressure to outdo myself in some manner. Each game is unique. Every game has its specific requirements. For instance, a project like Beastieball, which I am presently working on, has a significantly different aesthetic compared to the previous game I developed with Wishes, Chicory, which featured live instruments and was polished and refined. In contrast, Beastieball is much more ‘raw’, you know, it includes Super Nintendo samples and such.

Nonetheless, there is always the pressure to at least sound dissimilar, particularly when creating my own game. Clearly, people will be attracted to it because they are familiar with my music rather than [because] they followed my writing or [watched] my game evolve or whatever.

You’ve perhaps prepared a book. You’ve produced an album, and now a game. In your creative process, are you drawn to other formats such that you simply say, “I want to experiment in this medium and explore its design and see what emerges,” or do you merely create and let things unfold naturally?

I enjoy experimenting within different medium [limitations] to begin with. What I’ve always expressed about myself is [that] I am fundamentally a storyteller, so everything I do entails narrating a story in one way or another, whether it’s composing music, writing actual text, or developing a game, or whatever it may be. As long as someone can extract something meaningful from that and embark on a journey