I have a lot of love for Hazelight Studios. My partner isn’t a big gamer, so we spend a lot of time apart enjoying our separate hobbies.It Takes Twowas the first game we ever played all the way through together, and it was a bonding experience I’ll never forget. Since then, we’ve successfully completed a pass-and-play run ofAstro Bot, and we’re working our way throughSplit Fiction, and loving it.
Approachability is the big draw, but Hazelight has proven itself to be a master of variety. Split Fiction and It Takes Two feel like 20 different games rolled into one, and succeed at keeping things fresh and entertaining throughout their surprisingly long runtimes.
Yet, there’s still something missing. I’m not the first person to criticize Hazelight’s stories for being shallow, but with both It Takes Two and Split Fiction, I’ve been disappointed by how little actual substance and thematic depth they offer. Sharing these experiences with my partner is fun in the moment, but there’s nothing really to hold onto after it’s over. No pathos, no emotion, and nothing particularly resonant. They’re special because there’s nothing out there quite like them, but I’d love to play a co-op game that’s actually about something.
Earlier this month, I played that game, and it’s called Out of Words.
A Game You Can Feel
It’s hard to get more artsy-fartsy than Out of Words, and I mean that in the most endearing way possible. Revealed during the Summer Game Fest showcase, Out of Words is a stop-motion coming of age story about falling in love, written by Danish poet Morten Søndergaard. Søndergaard is credited as Game Poet rather than Narrative Director, if you had any doubts about what kind of game we’re talking about here.
All of Out of Words’ cutscenes were made using handmade puppets and traditional stop motion filmmaking, and for the gameplay, every element you see on screen is handmade as well. I’m not just talking about the characters. The backgrounds are actual matte paintings. Every individual blade of grass was cut out of paper and scanned into the game. If you can see something on screen, someone at co-developers Kong Orange and Wired Fly physically had their hands on it.
The effect is a world that has incredible texture and detail. Game director Johan Oettinger tells me it was important to the developers to capture the physical qualities of the game assets, so you may see the different materials used for the characters’ skin, their clothes, and the surface they’re standing on. It’s supposed to look real, because it is. Having the sense that you can reach out and touch this world, that you canfeelOut of Words, is crucial to the experience the developers want to create.
Note: Many of the devs, including Oettinger, have a background in stop-motion animation rather than games. Oettinger jokes that he wears Nikes out of respect for stop-motion production company Laika’s president, Travis Knight, son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight.
Enter A Stop-Motion Fantasy
In Out of Words you play as Kurt and Karla, a boy and a girl who are discovering their romantic feelings for one another. The first time they hold hands, they’re thrust into a fairytale world in desperate need of saving, only to discover they’ve lost their mouths. Out of Words is a game about growing up, building relationships, and learning how to communicate your feelings to another person.
These themes are explored through both the narrative cutscenes and the gameplay. One of the first challenges you’ll encounter is a gravity puzzle. One player stands firmly on the ground, while the other walks on the ceiling. You’re physically occupying the same space, but you’re not aligned. The players on the ground can swap to the ceiling to try to reach the other person, but that will just cause your partner to swap too. You’re always just barely missing each other.
To progress, you have to learn to trust each other. When one player reaches a dead end, they’ll need to swap from one surface to the other, allowing them to avoid a trap or get past a wall by moving while they fall. This can cause the other player to get trapped in the same circumstances however, so you need to time your swaps carefully and work together to ensure you’re both moving forward and no one is getting left behind.
At one point I found myself standing on a ledge, nervous to swap and make a difficult jump. If I continued falling up too long, I’d run into some spikes on the ceiling. Oettinger, who was my partner in the demo, leaned over and very intensely said, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.” These are the kinds of intimate moments you just won’t find in Split Fiction.
I don’t mean to drag another game to lift Out of Words up, because I really do love Hazelight’s games. But as far as gaming experiences I can share with my significant other go, Out of Words offers a kind of emotional resonance that isn’t often found in games, especially co-op ones. As a stop-motion fan I was sold from the trailer alone, but after experiencing it for myself, I’m convinced Out of Words is going to be something really special when it launches sometime next year.
