Content Warning: The Quiet Things addresses childhood abuse and trauma, which is the subject of this interview.
TOLyx Jones has been busy. In 2022, the developer, who has worked on audio for elden ring, xenoblade chronicles 3and 2020 final fantasy 7 new version: was named one of the BAFTA breakthroughs of 2022, marking it as a fast-rising star in the UK games industry.
Last year, Jones also found Silver Script Games, though she says NME that his first few months were largely spent handling the joys of taxes and “administrative stuff.” With those emotions safely in the rearview mirror, Silver Script’s goal is to debut with the quiet things– An emotionally challenging autobiographical narrative game that tells the story of Jones’ upbringing.
In the quiet things, players must discover diary entries and memories to piece together the life of Alice, played by Emily Burnett (the dump‘s Charlie Morris) and serves as a fictional stand-in for Alyx. jones warns the quiet things can be “disturbing”: her story consists of her own experiences with sexual abuse, homelessness, mental health issues, and the death of her mother, and Alice’s journal entries are based on a journal Jones wrote in his youth.
This is very much Jones’ story to tell, but she “knows nothing about art,” which means bringing it to life is a shared effort with a handful of developers. The Silver Script founder says that while it’s been a “challenge” to revisit moments from her youth, she helped implement a level of separation during development. In addition to changing Jones to a fictional character, all other characters from her upbringing have been replaced with different names.
“We talked about [Alice] as a separate character, instead of me being ‘I did this, I did that,’ it almost becomes a separate story,” explains Jones, who jokes that it’s ultimately up to her to remember who everyone really is. “It’s easier to step back a bit and talk about it that way.”
When the quiet things was conceived, it was initially going to take that degree of separation even further. “Originally, when I was creating the game, I didn’t want the player to be me,” says Alyx, who thought the game would be more immersive if players felt like they were in control of their own character.
“I wanted them to be in a virtual museum,” he continued. But when we show [The Quiet Things] at Game Dev London Expo, everyone immediately said, ‘Is my mother going to die?’ when they were playing the demo. I saw that they were literally being me, whether I liked it or not, so I needed to adapt the way we were making the game because [players] They are literally in my shoes.”
Jones values that sense of immersion. While mainstream media — movies, books, and TV shows — have become bolder in tackling “taboo” discussions of sexual abuse and mental health, Jones hopes the quiet things it can help games catch up and break the stigma around those issues, while also offering a powerful medium.
“[Gaming] it’s different from reading a book or watching a movie, because you’re not separate from it: you’re much more a part of the experience, controlling what’s happening on the screen makes it much more immersive. You always feel like it was you.”
Additionally, Jones feels that the one-on-one nature of single-player titles allows for more intimate and ultimately more moving experiences. “You can play it in your own private space, no one is watching you,” he explains. “It’s not like going to the movies and being in a public space, that’s why [gaming] It’s a good medium to be able to tell that story, because you can experience it privately in your own time and space and deal with the more complicated emotions that come with it.”
However, Jones acknowledges that simply telling his story is not enough to make Silver Script’s debut successful. “You’re turning it into a product at the end of the day,” says Jones, who notes that while autobiographical games are deeply personal to their creators, they still need to click with fans and earn enough money to “justify their existence.” .
It’s a topic that Jones has discussed with Nina Freeman, the influential indie developer behind Cibele and Last Call, titles that, like the quiet thingsThey are based on personal experiences. Freeman is one of three main developers who have advised Jones through the BAFTA Breakthrough programme, the other two being Life is strange writer Jean-Luc Cano and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer. Jones says these one-on-one tutoring sessions have been “invaluable” and taught her how to write the quiet things in a way that keeps players engaged at all times.
Ultimately, your support has brought Jones one step closer to making Silver Script’s vision a reality. While the quiet things‘ refers to victims who feel their experiences are something to be hidden, the studio’s debut will be a statement of opposites: a game that tackles the stigma surrounding abuse head-on and helps those in a similar situation to that of Jones to realize that they are. not only in the world”.
“I have always liked games, and if I had had [her experiences represented] in a medium that I was involved in, I might not have stopped things from happening, but I might have been more aware of it,” says Jones. “It doesn’t stop people from doing horrible things to each other, but you may be able to better protect yourself sooner.”
Crowdfunding for the quiet things begins June 6; you can visit their Kickstarter page and click “notify me about launch” to follow the project.
