In video games, players often find themselves chasing objectives: completing quests, defeating enemies, or winning races. Some titles boast so many objectives that people are still discovering side quests and storylines a decade after release. Lake, Gamious’ 2021 narrative slice-of-life sim, seeks to turn that trope on its head, and also prove gaming can be a laid-back, relaxing experience.
Game Rant spoke to Gamious creative director Jos Bouman about developing Lake and how the game presents a story for players to explore at their own pace. Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Tell me a little bit about Lake. What does the story look like?
A: Lake is a laid back game set in the 80s. You play as Meredith Weiss, a 40-something woman who takes a break from her career job in the big city to take over her father’s job as a mailman for two weeks. She gets to know the people in her village and gets wound up in all sorts of little storylines. At the end of two weeks, she has a big decision to make: whether she wants to go back to her job in the big city, or stay. There's also a totally different option, but that would be a bit spoiler-heavy.
Q: Lake is set in a fictional town in Oregon, but your whole dev team is based in the Netherlands. How did you set out to capture the feel of the Pacific Northwest?
A: That's a good question. The Netherlands is not quite as spectacular as the surroundings in Lake are. The Netherlands are known for flat areas, and there aren’t many mountains. We had to do lots of research on Google Maps, using street view. Our technical environment artist did lots of research. He had books about the trees in Oregon and in the Pacific Northwest.
And, of course, we've seen lots of movies and series in comparable settings, like Gilmore Girls, Twin Peaks and First Blood. So, it's quite a familiar setting for us as consumers of American TV and movies. We also think it's familiar for lots of players. We wanted it to be familiar, so we wouldn't have to take the time to familiarize players with the setting and the backstory. We wanted players to be able to immerse as soon as possible, and be in the driver's seat, literally and figuratively, as soon as possible.
There's a newspaper in Oregon, the Willamette Week, which actually wrote an article about how people from the Netherlands managed to create such a realistic Oregon feel. You really can’t get a bigger compliment than that.
Q: One of the biggest gameplay elements in Lake is speed, or lack thereof. Was it an intentional decision to force players to take the game slowly?
A: Absolutely. We started with an ambition to create relaxing, lighthearted worlds for players to escape from today's busy life. We wanted to go back to a time when things were simpler and meeting people played a more central role in your life.
Some of our team grew up in the 80s, and felt like it was a time that was more laid back and relaxed. It was nice to not have email and mobile phones and the internet. So we just went back in time to a point where those things weren’t available. The 80s is, for us, a great decade with lots of nostalgia. In Lake you see some small beginnings of digital lifestyle — there’s an arcade cabinet in the diner location, and there’s a video rental store, which is the early signs of video on demand.
Q: Lake came out in 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Was your goal of creating a nostalgic experience focused on human connection influenced by that at all?
A; Actually, development started four years ago. But the further we go in time, the more need there is for a game like Lake. Sometimes it's nice to escape for a while and not get ambushed by depressing news. I hope that Lake can help people to just relax and get their mind off of things. We wanted that even before COVID. It's obvious that people were already a bit stressed out with their always-online lifestyles. So yeah, it was a deliberate choice to try to slow players down.
Q: Lake feels like it’s in pretty sharp contrast with some other titles from bigger developers that incorporate fast-paced gameplay to keep players hooked. Do you feel like that’s a trend in the industry?
A: I think so, yes. At the same time, I have hardly touched any AAA games in recent years. It strikes me that AAA games are risk-averse. They are not trying to make the most original game ever, and lots of those AAA games have a little bit of everything: a little bit of crafting, a little bit of leveling up and a little bit of narrative. They’re trying to please everyone as much as possible.
We are going for an original experience, something that’s not out there yet and not bothering players with extra features that are not adding that much to the core gameplay. For Lake, that means that it's really kind of a short game. It's all about a lighthearted little story where you have lots of choices, and those choices matter. We like to make the games that we like to play ourselves.
Q: Do you think the industry should shift towards more relaxing gameplay experiences like Lake? Is there room for that kind of game?
A: I don't want to be too outspoken about topics like what the industry should be or should not be. I think that as long as people follow their creativity and make games they want to play themselves, it will be alright. Perhaps that will inspire certain AAA developers to also lean a little bit towards the way we created Lake. I think games like Firewatch have impacted the industry a lot. So, I'm not too worried.
In the end, it's all about making sure that players get to play good games and experience new gameplay. We don’t have to worry that we’re in a dead end situation or something.
Q: Are you satisfied with how the game has performed? What sort of feedback have you gotten?
A: We’re lucky to be able to say that it's been big enough for us. It's turned out to be a profitable enterprise. For an indie developer, that’s a big thing, because although we have more than one game it always feels a bit like betting the farm on your next game. We've had successes, and we’ve had some failures.
I hope that Lake can reach a certain demographic that might not know that there's a game like this out there for them — it’s laid back, and choices matter. It's also a game that treats you like an adult, I think. There’s some cheesy dialogue, for comedic reasons, but it’s also sincere when we want it to be sincere. We've seen Twitch streamers and YouTubers play the game, and we've seen them tear up a little bit at certain points. We were not aiming to do that. We just wrote the story as good as we could, and tried to make scenes in which there's a bit of personal drama involved to make them as real as possible. It seems like, with our limited budget, and the great voice actors we have, that we succeeded.
It's a game that enables people to project and reflect on their own situation. We've had people say that it made them think about their own lives, and it actually made them change direction in their lives. We got an email from a lady, a 40-year-old lady from Japan, who doesn't have kids, and she felt acknowledged by Meredith’s character [who is unmarried]. That’s something that we never really addressed in Lake.
Q: What sort of challenges did you face developing Lake and as an indie dev in general?
A: You're always limited. You don't have a big budget, so you're always thinking, “can we afford to make a game like this?” At the same time, we are very lucky that we were able to self finance. We noticed during development that people were interested. Not just consumers, but also publishers and platform holders. That gave us the confidence to invest more and more in the game.
The cool thing about games is that you don't need a big budget. It's always about gameplay. You see that with games like Among Us and Minecraft. That's what’s cool about the games industry.
We started with a plan to make Lake in one and a half years. It turned out we needed almost four years for it. It's always a struggle. For every game we actually finish and publish, there are three or four game concepts that just don't work out.
For us, it’s usually gameplay first. Then we upscale it, we attach a theme to it and we add graphics to it. Once you find the fun, you have the confidence that you can continue to build on what you've already got at the heart of the game.
Q: Lake is already a pretty unique title, but what else sets it apart from other games?
A: The gameplay experience in Lake is very light. Usually, games are very confrontational. You have a goal and you have to chase that goal. People are trained, by their gaming history, that they should chase that goal.
In Lake, the goal is not very apparent. All you have to do is deliver mail and things happen, which is very hard to design. We found out that we needed to create a story, or rather facilitate a story, that was nothing too spectacular, because we wanted the players to be in the world and enjoy themselves. We didn’t want them to feel rushed or feel like they might be missing out on something if they weren't examining everything or chasing a certain lead.
We didn't need a big story, we just needed lots of little storylines that are connected to all the people that you deliver mail to in the game. You are also able to opt in or opt out of those little storylines. And, because those little storylines were not too interconnected, it prevented the game from spiraling out of control.
We also didn’t want the player to feel stressed about what choices to make. You need to be involved, of course, but we never want the player to feel regret after choosing something and then going back to an older save file to replay it. We just want the player to feel like they can go with the flow, follow their gut and see where they end up. That was quite a new gameplay experience, I think.
Q: There’s certainly still room to be emotionally invested in Lake, right? One such sequence that comes to mind is Meredith’s interview with the post office rep who is investigating Frank, the local postmaster.
A: For me, it's the absolute highlight of the game. There's this moment Lost in Translation where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are on the bed next to each other, and usually in movies there would then be some sort of intimate scene, you know? Typical beneath-the-sheets action. But in Lost in Translation, they just hold each other's hands. That’s a moment where you realize that it’s a different kind of movie.
For Lake instead of the big reveal of some important plot point in the game, you get quite a lame interview about Frank and whether you know if he bets on baseball games. It’s built up quite a lot, but then you realize that one or two days later Frank is back, and that you can just go back to enjoying the game.
Players are lured into a trap, of course, because they were kind of forced to accept an envelope for Frank by their own actions. They knew that they were breaking the rules of the postal service. But at the same time those rules were, of course, nothing major. But because the immersiveness is so high, your actions feel like a much bigger deal.
Q: The way you’re describing it almost makes it sound like a commentary on games that place a lot of pressure on players with objective-based gameplay.
A: Yeah, I think it is. I mean, you can do anything in games, of course, but the same time, I do see developers that tend to turn things from zero to 100 in a minute. That's not always necessary. It creates a disconnect, and it lowers the immersion, I think.
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Lake is available now for PC and Xbox.