The easiest way to describe Papermint, according to its designer, Lev Ledit, is as a combination of MMOG, sandbox game and a social network. Its visuals might evoke Paper Mario, but it actually has more in common with Habbo Hotel than the Mushroom Kingdom. While MMOGs either centre on or at least offer some conflict and battle mechanics, Papermint remains resolutely peaceful and social.
A contrast, then, to the development process which spawned it. Art director Barbara Lippe describes it, in fact, with a little Austrian vernacular – 'sausaging through', a phrase she says means powering through difficulties and beating the odds. Unsurprisingly, the term became developer Avaloop's development motto as they put together an MMOG with a skeleton indie crew of four in a draughty East London warehouse.
Papermint's visual style is, as the game's name suggests, made entirely of paper characters and objects. Lippe drew inspiration from games such as Parappa The Rapper and Paper Mario, and from her time working as a character artist at Tokyo-based character design company Furi Furi. What makes her role as an art director central to the game’s development, however, is how the aesthetic decisions are intrinsically linked to how the gameplay has developed.
“I wanted to create a visually unique, illustrated 2D-ish world, but with 3D navigation and gameplay possibilities, and this had an impact on the semiotics of the game,” she explains. “2D is flat and this fact does not make it difficult to come up with a paper metaphor. Paper has the big advantage that is real, so you can print your Papermint character, cut it, fold it, put it onto your desk. In that way, Papermint is much more real than any digital hi-def-hi-res 3D world, but also fantasy. Paper is able to do things a creature made from flesh and blood is unable to do. Just imagine paper people folding themselves to somewhere, turning into boats and planes and paper balls, getting wet in the rain or catching fire. Everything in Papermint is made from cut-out paper, similar to traditional paper fashion dolls.” Lippe quotes Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma, saying that Papermint should look realistic but feel real.
The paper forms are therefore expressed in Papermint's game design as objects for expression. “There simply are no weapons,” explains Ledit, who is also Avaloop's CEO. "The whole game world offers gameplay resources with all its thousands of plants, houses and crazy things that are raw materials for the game. It is like a licence to communicate and supports interaction between players in all ways imaginable."
Avaloop's journey started three years ago, when the small team, then based in Vienna, landed a government grant to develop their game idea. At first it all seemed easy: the feedback was good and everybody was getting paid a little. “We were featured in almost every Austrian daily medium during the Second Life press hype two years ago,” recalls Lippe. It was easy to compare their idea for an interactive, open-world online environment with SL.
“We got a lot of recognition from investors and funding programs, education programs, fashion industry partners, gender equality programs and got an IndieCade award,” Lippe recounts. “The interest from the games industry was massive, and soon after the prototype was released we got 'discovered' and suddenly had to handle things we were not really expecting at that point, from NDAs to proper term sheets. A lot of paperwork was suddenly covering us and bound our hands for almost a year.”