grass—and all the while the timer is
ticking down toward the arrival of
the cataclysmic rain. Rain World does
grant players one respite however:
The hibernation chamber.
“We wanted the player to
intuitively embody the head-space
and emotions of the player character:
a lonely, lost, frightened small
animal,” explains James Primate,
Rain World’s co-creator and
composer. “The hibernation
chambers had to play a major role in
this, of course. One of the consistent
themes of Rain World is the return of
the artificial to the natural. The
‘hibernation chambers’ are clearly
artificial; some ugly rusted metal
boxes, possibly for equipment or the
maintenance automatons of some
distant era. And yet, through the
players occupation, it is re-purposed
as the most natural animal thing: a
den.” The safety of this den is also
rooted in a very animal sense of
spatial awareness. “Those that have
seen early prototype versions of the
game might know that we initially
experimented with much larger
hibernation rooms which had two
entrances, and we found that didn’t
work. There needed to be a clear
distinction between ‘world’ and
‘shelter’. To have the effect we
wanted, it needed to be a refuge.”
Apparently the reason cats seek
enclosed spaces with one angle of
approach is so predators can’t sneak
up on them—Rain World creates the
game equivalent of this. A tiny box
with one entrance, providing a
contrast to the dangerous open
spaces Slugcat traverses throughout
the game. Uchiyama explained that
silence can be a horror-trope, but in
Rain World’s case, shelters don’t
reflect silence. Instead they reflect a
sensory deprivation, sealing off the
world behind pneumatic locks.INN TROUBLE
The term safe room implies a relative
smallness, but on the contrary, safe
bars, and even safe castles, are just asTOP: The inn is a
classic element of
fantasy role-playing
games.RIGHT: Vermintide’s
safe rooms provide
a welcome break
from the lurking
dangers of the
Warhammer world.likely. One of the finest examples is in
Warhammer hack ‘n’ slash,
Vermintide, in The Red Moon Inn, a
hub in which players can upgrade
equipment and interact before
heading out on their rat-slaying
adventures. “The initial goal for The
Red Moon Inn was to create an
interactive space where players could
spend time between missions,” says
Victor Magnuson, game designer at
Fatshark. “We felt it would be more
fun for players to run around in a
friendly space while waiting, rather
than lurking in a simple menu.” But
as time passed The Red Moon
developed as a community hub, with