Discover the origins of Ember
The Question
In early 2023 we began our project with a question: “what does it feel like to have a pet, and how can an XR headset create that experience?”
This, it turned out, was a bigger question than we expected. As game developers we were used to a more conventional starting point, such as an innovation on an existing genre, or a licensed IP. We were used to narrative and motion. A game based around a single character? No guns, no spaceships? How was this going to work?
What feelings did we want our players to experience? We thought about our own pets, that we adopted and made part of our lives. The rhythm of daily routines and shared moments that over time turn into a relationship. How their little quirks made them part of our lives in the most unforgettable ways. There was a structure and a mechanic there – we just needed to find it.
The Quest 3 headset let us work at lifesize scale, to create a three-dimensional presence in the room that looks and sounds real – which creates a huge opportunity, but sets a high bar for what the experience could be. As animators, artists, game designers, sound designers, engineers producers, etc.; we each had a slightly different angle into the question. We’d all created games, some of them even acknowledged classics, but this was a new challenge for all of us.
Humble Beginnings
Perry, the primordial cube
The first prototypes were as simple as we could make them – literally cubes that could be in a room with you. Sometimes they hid, sometimes they explored the room, sometimes they’d beg for a treat. We started learning about how a virtual creature could react in ways that seemed alive and connected to a player. The prototypes evolved, and we started to create scenarios. Fend off invaders. Look for buried treasure. Tend a garden.
We found a lot of pitfalls and dead ends. When prototypes got too complex, their behavior started to get muddy; we stopped being able to read purpose and intention in their actions. When they were too simple, they felt predictable and mechanical. We needed a better balance. There’s a sweet spot– a sense of agency and interiority that interactive characters can achieve, a sense of intention behind each action, but it’s a subtle and elusive thing.
Otto is not a balloon animal
What has been mentioned doesn’t even touch on the technical challenges of building a full-scale simulated animal reacting in real time. Showing attention, awareness; conveying emotion and intention through body language- just making a four-legged animal walk convincingly (rather than like an AT-AT) is nightmarishly difficult.
Eighteen months later, what did we come up with?
Meet Ember
We came up with Ember, a magical creature equal parts wolf, dog, cat and fox – but something all its own. She comes to your home as part of a story you don’t know yet, but you can tell it’s not by accident.
When you meet her, she sees you. When you move, she reacts instantly. Like a real pet, she can hop up on your couch, look you in the eye, and demand petting or treats. She has agency – when you walk together she’ll follow along, she’ll help with what you’re trying to do. Unless she’s particularly hungry, or wants to chase something, or just gets bored like any dog or cat will. She has her own quirks, wants, and moods, making her as wonderfully unpredictable as any beloved pet or dear friend.
“…but what’s the game?”
And then there’s another question – even if we can recreate the experience of having a pet, how is that a game?
We reflected on the long history of domestication– how, fifteen thousand years ago, we began adopting wolves, forging a bond so deep it became part of our DNA. The bond had a purpose, a kind of mechanics. Hunting side by side, protecting one another. Walking together, while combining our senses to find food and resources. Testing an uncertain alliance, learning to trust.
Where do we find that kind of connection today? The imagery echoes within the experiences we have in the games we love- cozy worlds where we build a home, forage, explore, and cultivate. Where paying off a mortgage means collecting fruit, and where farming by the sea becomes more than an agricultural adventure. We took that feeling, that sense of a tiny homestead, and brought it to life- then added a friend.
Stay
When Ember arrives in your home she brings the game with her, and yet in many ways, we can’t remember a time when Ember and play didn’t coexist. When you step into the virtual reality world of the Otherlands, time moves just as it does in the real world– minute by minute, day by day. But the pace is yours to set. You and Ember can walk together, just like you would with a real pet– each of you experiencing the world in your own way while sharing the journey, like an ongoing conversation. Along the way, you can discover seeds to plant, valuable items to trade, and moments that unfold naturally over time.
This world has challenges, ways to win resources together, trade, chase after forest sprites, explore mysteries, or just throw a tennis ball and watch her chase after it, as the day turns to evening, until she’s ready to come home and curl up on a pillow – then do the whole thing again tomorrow.
Stay: Forever Home isn’t quite like any other game, in Virtual Reality or any other medium. Some days, you’ll chase the unknown. Others, you’ll simply watch the world turn as Ember snoozes by your feet. Stay: Forever Home isn’t a game you beat that is filled with losses– it’s a story you grow with, all of your own– one day at a time.
