Haven Wants to Reassure You

My goal is to write a short, mostly stream of consciousness post every day, to reflect on my thoughts of games I’m playing and get back into the practice of games writing.

In Haven (The Game Bakers, 2020), the player/s clear floating islands of “rust”, a pollutant destroying the habitat. Dark red and menacing, rust often blankets most of an island, spreading from crystal-like deposits scattered about, like creep nodes in StarCraft II. Clearing rust is as simple as gliding over it, like a paintbrush, and passing near a rust deposit clears a large swathe of rust surrounding it. Each island is polluted with a finite number of rust deposits, and with a little diligence and exploration, cleaning up an island entirely is a fairly simple task. Island topography and navigation becomes more complicated as the game progresses, but to give you an idea, clearing an island might take about 10 minutes, as a general estimate, if you’re fairly directed in your goal. Collectible fruit tends to distract from the task and roaming monsters inhibit it.

Clearing an entire islet is rewarded with an “Islet Cleared” commendation and positive acknowledgement from the characters. Additionally, players can then fast travel to that islet, so players are incentivized to clear islets if only to open up the spot as a shortcut for later exploration. However, clearing islets is not necessary to complete the game. Clearing rust (for the most part) is optional.

While exploring islets and clearing rust, one of the characters will occasionally say, “you know, you don’t need to clear all of the rust.” I think this callout serves two purposes: one, it's a reminder that clearing rust is not required to complete the game. More interestingly, though, the statement alleviates the pressure on players to clear the rust just because it's there. When playing games, I'm constantly, constantly thinking about "optional obligations". That's my term for optional objectives that feel like their required if only because their present, or if the benefits of completing the objectives is essentially necessary or feels that their necessary, facts aside. Clearing rust in Haven is a good example. Rust is all over the place; is bright and garish and draws players to clear it; is satisfying to clear; and is particularly satisfying to clear in entirety because players are rewarded with a wonderful sound effect. I'm susceptible to optional obligations and frequently find myself victim to their draw. I suspect that the need to complete optional objectives (or find optional collectibles, or complete side quests, or stealth past all enemies, etc) is likely related to OCD behavior, but I believe that many players feel obligated to fulfill optional game elements regardless.

This is why I appreciate the characters explicitly explaining to one another and to the player that, really, you don't need to clear all of the rust, if you don't want to. The statement is reassuring, forgiving players for feeling emotionally obligated to clear the rust, and providing an off-ramp for players to abandon the option, particularly if players aren't enjoying the task. Clearing rust becomes time consuming, and I bet the developers knew that not everybody would enjoy the task and wanted to both remind and reassure players that they can just walk away if they prefer. It's a generous, considerate inclusion and respects players for having tendencies that may be counter to their preferences.