GOODBYE VOLCANO HIGH

As anyone who’s ever been an awkward teenager knows, it takes guts to be yourself. This interactive drama follows a group of high-school-aged dinosaurs as they prepare to graduate and figure out who they want to be for the rest of their lives. Problem is, according to the news, the rest of their lives may not be that long. “Everybody knows what happened to the dinosaurs,” smiles Saleem Dabbous, studio director and co-director of Goodbye Volcano High.

It’s a fantastic, heartbreaking setup for a branching narrative game that explores how young people navigate turbulent times, and how we often rely on our peers to get us through. And there’s been plenty of that happening this year at Ko-op. In a huge moment for the small cooperative, Goodbye Volcano High was announced as part of PS5’s reveal event – and drew the ire of a crowd that decided this was a cynical attempt to imitate the success of games such as Night In The Woods. “Making such a personal game, you have to tune out a lot of those conversations,” Dabbous says. “Because when you start to factor that into how you’re making your game, you make compromises you wouldn’t have made otherwise. We put a lot of ourselves into this game, and we take our responsibility for telling this story really seriously.”

It’s borne out in Ko-op’s approach to its development. If your game is going to explore the concept of connecting with others, after all, you ought to practise what you preach. And so at the start of 2020, Ko-op hired community manager Marcela Huerta – who is now heading up the growth of a kind of mini-metaverse that sits alongside the game, a space for fans to take part in ‘in-universe’ activities together. Huerta has always loved coming-of-age tales: “These types of stories can really impact teens.” Her approach to the role is inspired by her own childhood “being sort of a loner, writing fan fiction – and then finding LiveJournal, and that community meaning so much to me, encouraging me to work on my writing and art. I want that space for the teens that engage with this game.”

Many have joined the game’s Discord, through which Huerta is running a ‘Yearbook Committee’ as one of Goodbye Volcano High’s characters, as well as virtual sticker swaps (with stickers earned for achievements and attending events). It’s heartening for Huerta to see the younger members supporting each others’ creativity, posting their art and sharing their excitement for the game. “I want to nourish that feeling,” she tells us. “I love the idea of coming to this game and having a life with it that is in part playing the game itself, but then also the lead-up to the game.”

Dabbous says it’s instrumental in attracting an audience to a very narrative-focused game, which won’t be ready to fully show off until all the pieces are in place. “But I will say that the way people communicate with each other through Discord, and phones, and Twitter – they have analogues in our game.” And Goodbye Volcano High is a love story at its heart, although you won’t be romancing characters at will, but instead making bold choices as Fang. “They have their own preferences, their own relationships and motivations that you’re guiding them through,” Dabbous says.

And it’s not all about teen crushes: much of the game is concerned with how decisions change in the face of disaster. “This game really is about the fact that we can all die at any moment,” Dabbous says. “And with that knowledge, how are you going to live your life? How are you going to find love, hope and optimism with that knowledge? And what are you going to do with it?”

Ko-op, having begun development years ago, wasn’t expecting 2020 to be quite so apocalyptic. “But it really solidified a lot of our ideas of how varied the range of reactions can be when you’re dealing with something that’s life-altering,” Huerta says. “It’s been hard, for sure. But I find it kind of emotionally cathartic to work on something that tackles these issues – and in terms of what people younger than us are going to have to deal with in the future. I think about that all the time. So this is, I think, relevant subject matter for younger people, even more so than for us.”

“We can all die at any moment… How are you going to find love and hope?”