Mutazione

This note last modified March 5, 2021

This is an essay I wrote for a game design course:

The game I chose for this section is known as “Mutazione”. The game is described by its developers as a “mutant soap opera”. While soap operas are infamous for being dramatic and cheesy, Mutazione takes the soap opera title because “it focuses on the progression of a variety of small, human stories” (paraphrased from the developers)

The game starts with Kai on a boat travelling to Mutazione, an island filled with mutated humans (and one sentient fungus) who became this way due to a mysterious meteor crashing down years ago. The mutated humans have formed a society for themselves amidst the ruins, and their status as mutants doesn’t really affect them at all. (There is no X-Men style racism or superpowers)

Kai’s grandfather is the shaman of the town, but is sick, and passes on his duties to the unsuspecting Kai. On a surface level, this means taking care of the villages various chores, helping this character get herbs, helping that character find flowers. On a deeper level however, Kai becomes involved in the mutant’s lives, and helps the community grow and fix its wounds.

I believe that the overarching theme of Mutazione is “the beauty inherent in growth”, and I believe that the game achieves this theme primarily through gameplay loops involving investment, growth, and reward.

Mutazione is split into two games: The overarching narrative game, and the gardening minigame. That said, I hate to call it a minigame, since that implies separation, and I believe the two games are wonderfully linked in simple mechanics, and more abstract thematics.

The Gardening Minigame

7 times throughout the game you are called upon by a mutant to provide them with a certain herb or flower. At these times, you find an appropriate spot for a garden and plant the seeds you need, plus additional plants that support the main one.

  • Mechanics
    • Plant seeds in appropriate soil types
    • Play sounds that the plants enjoy
      • Plants create their own sounds in turn as they mature
    • Harvest plants when they are fully grown
  • Dynamics
    • You watch the plants grow together
    • The combinations of plants create unique melodies as their musics mix.
    • The landscape of your garden changes over time
  • Aesthetics
    • It feels calm
      • So calm
        • It’s so meditative
    • You feel like you’ve made a mark in the world, that you’ve built something.

The gardening minigame doesn’t actually have that much to it. It’s trivial to think of more mechanics for the minigame, e.g. make soil types more important, have nutrient management, have clashing plants, etc. I was originally surprised by how simple the gardening minigame was, but I soon realized that Mutazione isn’t a game about gardening, it’s a game about growth.

Earlier I mentioned that the gameplay loop in Mutazione was investment, growth, reward. The investment here is the simple act of waiting and meditating. It doesn’t ask a lot, just that you do some simple actions. The growth is the literal growth of the plants, a direct indication of your willingness to stay there and care, and finally the reward is the fruit or flower that you planted the garden for.

The Overarching Narrative Game

Kai walks around the town, conversing with the various villagers and becoming emotionally invested in them.

  • Mechanics
    • Press (A) to talk
    • Choose conversation paths to help people out
    • Do fetch quests by moving around town
  • Dynamics
    • NPC stories will interact with each other and progress.
    • Helping NPCs out will change the dynamics of the town as a whole
  • Aesthetics
    • You feel happy that you help people out.

The investment in this case is the emotional investment of helping the NPCs out, the growth is how the NPCs become better people and closer to Kai, and the reward is seeing the NPCs get over their various issues.

I’d talk more, but I want to avoid spoilers. (and I’m not actually sure I need to)

Analyzing the game as a whole

From a theme perspective: The two games within Mutazione play off each other fantastically and are essentially different approaches to the same theme. The gardening minigame is a concrete, visual representation of growth. You see plants grow, the place looks pretty afterwards, you get neat fruit. I don’t know how much more concrete you could make it. The narrative game is more abstract about it: You talk to people, they grow and change through experience, and you get to see them happy. The gardening minigame is all about visual beauty, the narrative game is all about emotional, abstract beauty. The parallel is continued when the island actively changes to look more beautiful as the citizens become happier and happier.

To apply an Elemental Triad analysis of my previous paragraph, Story and Aesthetics play off each other to build up the theme. The story of growth and love is paralleled by a literal beautification of the land you are in. Mechanics and Technology take a supporting role since this is not a “mechanically intensive game” ala FPSs and MOBAs. The mechanics of simple character movement and “pressing (A) to continue conversation” allow you to take in the island non-linearly and at your own pace, ensuring that players get the full experience regardless of their comprehension speed.

From a Play Aesthetic perspective: The Play Aesthetic of the game as a whole is “emotional attachment” and “the fuzzy feeling you get when your emotional attachment pays off”. In terms of the 8 types, I suppose it is closest to “Games as a sensory experience” and “Games as a story”

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