Here I have collated the case study work I performed on Signs of the Sojourner, using formal analysis, Calleja’s Player Involvement Model, and Costikyan’s uncertainty categories.
| Hand size | 5 (constant) |
| Deck size | 10 (but grows over time as fatigue cards are added) |
| Deck update method | Replace 1 card from your deck with 1 of your partner’s deck after every encounter |
| Basic card interaction | Lay cards side by side, trying to match symbols on the touching side to reach a ‘concord’ and avoid ‘discord’Basic symbols are:Circle (empathetic, deferential, observant)Triangle (diplomatic, logical, cooperative)Diamond (industrious, creative, curious)Square (direct, forceful, stubborn)Special symbols (progression-locked or character-specific) are:Sprial (distressed or grieving)Paw (just for dogs)Cards can have differing left and right symbols, matching left and right symbols, and (rarely) pairs of matchable symbols on either side |
| Special card interactions | Accommodate: duplicates the symbols of the previous card (creates an accord if both left and right symbols of the previous card are the same)Accord: this prevents the next card played from creating discord, even if it doesn’t matchObserve: playing this reveals your partner’s handElaborate: copies the right-side symbol of the previous card (creates an accord if this card’s right-side symbol matches the previous card’s)Reconsider: playing this shuffles your hand back into your deck and draws five new cardsPrepare: playing this allows you to ‘choose’ your next draw from your remaining unplayed cardsClarify: can be inserted between cards, rather than just on the end of the rowBacktrack:Fatigue: cannot match with anything (picked up over long journeys) |
| Turn cycles/round | min 1 (instant failure, highly unlikely); max 5 |
| Rounds/encounter | Between 2 and 4 rounds per encounter, depending on the amount of required ‘concords’ |
| End of turn actions | Player and partner draw a new card from their respective decks |
| End of round actions | Reshuffle hand into deck; draw a new hand |
| Round win condition | Match 5 cards in a row = concord |
| Round loss condition | Unable to play a matching card = discord |
| Encounter win condition | Achieve X successes before achieving Y failures |
| Encounter loss condition | Achieve Y (usually 3) failures before achieving X successes |
| Information | Generally imperfect (partner’s hand is hidden), but playing the ‘observe’ card reveals your partner’s hand. Also, symbols before the encounter telegraph which symbols your partner’s deck will contain. |
| Average encounter length | 2 minutes |
| Player/partner narrative relationship | Co-operative |
| Narrative objective | Stated by your partner at the beginning of the encounter; achieving concordance will mean you both agree to pursue this action; discordance represents disagreeing or failing to decide on further action. Early encounters are centred around agreeing on trade deals; later encounters are more emotionally driven |
| Narrative super-objective | Save your late mother’s bodega |
| Dialogue triggers | After each round (responsive to success or failure to match 5); after X successes (felicitous outcome); after Y failures (infelicitous outcome) |
Player Involvement Model
Player Involvement Model
- Spatial – little to none in-encounter, although the scene setup gives the impression of a ‘real-life’ card game, with *you* facing your partner. This focuses attention on their animated reactions, allowing for greater affective involvement. A slight sense of exploration is achieved at the game-wide level, which increases narrative involvement.
- Kinaesthetic – card selection and placement is smooth and pleasurable, with animated feedback for matching runs; controls are extremely accessible, with (on average) fewer than 2 physical actions needed to complete a turn.
- Ludic – actions have a clear impact on the game state, often followed by changes in sound design and partner animation, furthering affective involvement; progression towards the ludic/narrative goal is made with each action, and clarified through UI ‘pips’ representing ‘concord’ and ‘discord’.
- Shared – generally cooperative involvement with other game agents, specifically in a social, conversational setting, leads to a heightened sense of shared involvement.
- Narrative – most elements are directed towards narrative involvement; encounters are one-time-only, number of steps on a journey is limited, as are the number of journeys, leading to a concrete sense of dramatic progression (5 ‘act’ structure); each encounter begins and ends with narrative information (personal to your partner and often relevant to your character biography), and relationship commentary is provided mid-encounter depending on player performance. Characters recur, and remember past encounters.
- Affective – lots of game elements work towards affective involvement: clear communication of dramatic stakes, partner’s animated reactions, multi-stage narrative progression, responsive musical score; even deck-building involves emotional memory, as you replace one card with one of your partner’s after every encounter regardless of outcome; affective involvement is directly encouraged by the game description (a game about ‘making connections and building relationships[…] Your deck is a representation of you and how you communicate, and the goal of an interaction isn’t to ‘beat’ another character, but to be able to match cards with them to build a connection and communicate to each other.’)
Uncertainties
- Performative uncertainty – avoided for the most part; actions do what they are expected to do 99% of the time.
- Solver’s uncertainty – medium; player actions are limited to five choices, each with a binary result, but by thinking ahead and gaining information about your partner’s hand you can plan more creative ‘solves’ to the matching problems; deck-building itself is a puzzle-like endeavour, though limited to replacing one card at a time.
- Player uncertainty – rules are simple (match symbols left to right) with special cards heavily tutorialised; failure does not halt progression, is built into the theme and narrative, and is unavoidable in many cases due to limited card options (life goes on).
- Randomness – satisfying, dynamic implementation (you will draw a card in your first hand 50% of the time, and will likely see >75% of your deck in a round – until you start accumulating fatigue cards, which can change the shuffling distribution significantly).
- Analytic complexity – relatively low when taken encounter by encounter (4 main symbols to match; deck limited to 10 chosen cards); medium complex when understood in a game-wide context (5th symbol introduced later; fatigue cards build up and symbol popularity diversifies, leading to more difficult-to-predict encounters).
- Hidden information – used sparingly but effectively; without an ‘observe’ card, your partner’s 5-card hand is always hidden, but you are made aware of the symbols in their deck before beginning an encounter.
- Narrative anticipation – the aforementioned time structure helps build narrative anticipation, as does the fact that reaching an accord depends entirely on player performance (though partners sometimes have special cards that help you out if you’re struggling – a nice surprise!). The writing also supports narrative uncertainty: by defining the emotional state of your partner and the thing they want to agree upon with you, but not the interstitial dialogue, the dramatic subtext of the conversation is abstracted into card mechanics, and will not always proceed as expected!