The 2022 indie adventure game Tunic features a vibrant open world stuffed with hidden treasure, secret paths, and cleverly placed shortcuts that make the game a thrill to explore. While many open games still tend to corral players into specific areas in a certain order, Tunic has been designed to subvert expectations and allows crafty players to freely explore its world.
For Tunic's first anniversary, Game ZXC interviewed creator Andrew Shouldice who talked about how it was important that the game could be approached in numerous ways. Although some paths are more obvious or easy than others, the game also allows knowledgeable players to take unusual routes without breaking the game. This makes the game particularly attractive to speedrunners, and completion times have been constantly improving over the last year.
Tunic's Open-Ended Structure Allows for Clever Shortcuts
At the beginning of Tunic, the player starts off unarmed in front of a building where they can retrieve their first weapon: a stick. Except this isn't mandatory at all, and it's entirely possible to complete the game without taking the stick. Shouldice says that much of the game is designed in this manner: although there are some obvious choices and routes to take, it was important that alternatives were also considered. After all, some players might inevitably overlook the "stick room" while others may simply be curious about the consequences of skipping it. Thankfully, players can still unlock the sword in Tunic later down the road.
Instead of starting from this position of "Here's a formal structure, and I'm going to add exceptions," I just accepted the idea that things can happen in any order. And if we really, really need to make sure something happens in a particular way, we firm up certain boundaries as opposed to loosening them. So for instance, you can start the game, skip the stick, walk behind a waterfall, and go into a pitch-black dungeon. And if you are really good at it, you can make your way through that pitch-black dungeon and find yourself in a totally different area that's hours into the game. We put a sword there because we know that speed runners are going to go through there.
Chances are good that if Tunic doesn't outright forbid players from going somewhere or doing something, the player's choice has probably been considered during development. That's not to say that the game lacks direction, however. The game's most obvious path is fairly linear, and players shouldn't have too much trouble making progress.
Speedrunners on the Tunic Team Helped Guide Development
Speedrunning is an important gaming subculture that has been brought into the public eye thanks to organizations like Awesome Games Done Quick and various YouTube channels where developers react to speedrunners breaking their games. Tunic has embraced this culture throughout its development, and the presence of speedrunners on the development team gave the game a unique approach to its design.
Another thing that helped was knowing people on the team who were speedrunners and just knowing that speedrunning is cool. A game where you can do things in any order is going to encourage people to try and speedrun it. Having that mindset meant, "Okay, anytime we add something, like, an area, a zone, or an item, how is it possible to get this before you get anything else?" and just embracing that idea. Once you're at the point where it's like, "I'm not going to worry about this extremely strict progression," you're sort of free to let those things happen. The hope is that that would help promote this feeling of genuine discovery.
Since progression through the game isn't strictly linear, speedrunners have been able to explore the game and discover increasingly efficient paths to beating Tunic. Set just a month ago, the current record for an Any% speedrun is a blazing fast 17 minutes and 25 seconds. Of course, designing the game with speedrunners in mind also benefits regular players, particularly during New Game Plus. Having foreknowledge of the game's various paths and shortcuts makes for an incredibly fun do-over.
Tunic is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
