Enhance’s Mark MacDonald on crafting a unique, emotional gaming experience in Tetris Effect: Connected

Mark, thanks for making time. Before we dive into Tetris Effect: Connected, for anyone new to Enhance, how would you describe the sorts of games you tend to develop?
I’ll give you the official line and then I’ll give you how I see it! The official line is that we try to make special experiences that provoke emotions – emotions you’re not used to feeling in a video game. A lot of video games might provoke feelings of power or mastery as you get better. It’s not that our games don’t do that, but it’s not our focus…

With Tetris Effect: Connected, our focus was on provoking that ‘flow state’ feeling that you get when you get really good at a game and you leave yourself… Time disappears, you feel connected to everything, and just forget yourself. That’s an example of the kinds of feelings we try to provoke.

That’s the fancy pants way of saying it!

And your way of saying that is…
We make cool shit.

Ha!
And ‘cool shit’ means whatever the people that are working on it are passionate about. We believe that passion is paramount. If you’re going to spend two years, three years – or even five years in the case of our new game, Humanity – working on something, you have to be passionate about it to see it through.

It tends to mean our games are a little bit different in that they are audio-visual focused, and that’s led by my boss, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. His interest and passion is in synesthesia – the idea of crossing senses, like seeing music or hearing colors. For the past 20 plus years, he’s been exploring that in video games and Tetris Effect: Connected is a great example of it.

On that, what made Tetris a good match for your aim of creating these emotive, audio-visual experiences?
Well, Tetris is so universal – it’s understood by everyone. Back in the Eighties, you didn’t hear that much about politicians or people’s parents playing video games, but Tetris was the exception!

Tetsuya Mizuguchi and the game’s director, Takashi Ishihara, had this feeling they wanted to get across in this game – a zen-like, relaxed, flow state feeling… Tetris was a universal language that we could use to communicate this feeling. There were a few conversations along the lines of ‘Does this need to be Tetris? Could it be a generic puzzle game?’ But the answer was always no. It had to be Tetris. There’s nothing like it. It’s a genius, timeless formula that’s better than anything else around – or anything we could come up with.

“We try to make special experiences that provoke emotions – emotions you’re not used to feeling in a video game.”

You mentioned the aim being a zen-like, relaxed, flow state feeling – and Tetris Effect: Connected absolutely nails that. How did you go about creating that almost meditative experience?
Well, from the outside, it was easy for people to think ‘Okay, it’ll be Tetris with whale song – no thanks!’ But when people played it, they immediately recognized that there was something different here – and people really struggled to articulate it! That was both good and bad… Good that we’d struck a chord, but bad because we want people to articulate why they loved the experience!

To answer your question, it took lots and lots and lots of iteration. As we went along the process, we learned what worked well and what was too distracting, in terms of visuals, background and music. It was a fine balance to strike because everything you do, right down to rotating the pieces, makes sounds that add to the soundtrack. We wanted that to be noticeable, but not overpowering.

Can you give us an example of an idea that proved too distracting?
We had a stage centered around people talking, so every time you moved a piece, it triggered the sound of someone talking. It was really overpowering; a cacophony of sounds… Like having bad cell phone reception!

I can imagine! Tetris Effect: Connected is also available to play as a VR experience. Did that add a layer of complexity to your development process?
It was a big learning experience for us. Halfway through development, Takashi Ishihara hit upon the idea that creating compelling background graphics is a bit like driving a car. When you’re driving along a long coastal road, you have to focus on the road but you’re also able to enjoy the view in your peripheral vision. So you need something going on there, but not too much. That was a good rule of thumb for us when it came to the background visuals. It helped us stick the landing.

What was it like working with the team at Tetris?
Everybody there gave great feedback – and Henk Rogers was there from the very start of the concept. Maya would also come out and play the build. She actually cried when she played it. That’s when we knew we had something here! It was the ultimate compliment.

In our game, the Tetriminos take lots of different looks depending on the level; sometimes they look like gears, sometimes they’re jewels… We needed to ensure you could immediately, intuitively see what Tetrimino block it is, while also keeping the visuals distinct. We got deep into the weeds with the Tetris team on that because we needed to get that balance right – and the game is better for it. Their input was invaluable.

Expanding on that idea of adding something fresh to the game while also keeping it firmly ‘Tetris’, Tetris Effect: Connected introduces a new ‘Zone’ mechanic to the game. Talk us through that.
It was incredibly difficult! During development, we got a sense that the game needed a mechanic that spoke to and amplified the larger theme of the game. It was tricky because it’s incredibly intimidating working with the Tetris IP because it’s kind of perfect already. I mean, how many mechanics have been added to Tetris over the years that have stood the test of time? There are a few but it’s really hard to do.

It needed to meaningfully impact the game without detracting from the elegance of what people love about Tetris. We asked ourselves a question that helped lead us to Zone and that was: What frustrates people about playing Tetris? One of the thoughts was what happens when you accidentally drop a piece in the wrong place, so we experimented with being able to reverse time to erase a mistake… Turns out that’s not fun at all! It ruins the game. There’s no stakes!

But in doing that, we hit upon the idea of slowing time down and instead of lines of blocks clearing, they just move to the bottom. Everything moves slower and you’re mastering it – regardless of your ability level. We found that some of the things we tried appealed to veteran players but not to newcomers, and vice versa, but the Zone appealed to both audiences. It checked all the boxes.

“Our focus was on provoking that ‘flow state’ feeling that you get when you get really good at a game and you leave yourself.”

Was the game tricky marketing-wise in that it needed to showcase the game as both a unique gaming experience – and Tetris, but not as you know it?
Yes it was – and our working title for the game was Zen Tetris. The game is relaxing but we wanted to convey that it puts you ‘in the zone’. And that experience fluctuates between excitation and relaxation. The difficulty curve goes up in waves. The term ‘Tetris Effect’ is for when an experience or activity burrows deep into your brain and you start to see that thing manifest in real life. That’s what we wanted this game experience to capture; that feeling that you’re losing yourself to this game experience.

And the marketing was challenging because everyone loves Tetris – but people might feel like they’ve played it before. It’s ubiquitous. We had to remind people about the great feelings you get while playing Tetris – but also highlight that this is Tetris like you’ve never played before.

Our tagline was: ‘Tetris like you’ve never seen it, or heard it, or felt it before.’ And ‘felt’ was italicized because we wanted to convey the idea that it’s spiritual in a way. We’re swinging for the fences here – our single player mode is called Journey Mode. That might sound pretentious, but we wanted to go for it, take players on a journey and tell a story through the language of Tetris. It turned out to be the right call.

Absolutely. Before we wrap up, how do you fuel your creativity at Enhance? What helps you guys have ideas?
It comes from people. We don’t have a formula for it, except that we encourage people to pursue their passions both inside and outside of work. We try to accommodate that stuff because we believe it comes back and benefits the company. And it’s not just about ensuring they feel creatively fulfilled – those experiences directly feed into the work. We respect and value passion.

Great stuff. Mark, a huge thanks again for taking time out to chat.