The Art of Heavy Rain (Part 4)

Player Choices Bear Consequence

There are multiple ways a scene can play out depending on the player’s past choices and those specifically made in that scene.

storytelling, branching structure, dramatic tension, the hero’s journey (heroic quest)

Players can get answers through dialogue choices and explore observations (and objectives) through a character’s thoughts.

There is direct player control — with no specific run action. Most of the time, players won’t run indoors. Running is automatic during gameplay, to fit the emotional direction of the scene.

Win or Lose

There is no way to “lose” the game per se; only unfavorable events unfold, (i.e. characters die) or the player’s search is impeded (evidence is lost, players never meet important characters or situations to gather evidence.)

There are many scenes where the main characters can die in different ways at several points in the game; the game continues, but circumstances are heavily affected.

For example, those decisions have an effect on game’s unique combination of ending epilogues depending on the player’s choices carried out— rendering his experience and the denouement of his story, unique.

Environment

David Cage wanted the atmosphere of noir detective movies — dark, cold and disturbing  —  but also mysterious and fascinating.

Heavy Rain takes place in the urban, rundown districts of Philadelphia; this is evident as all of the victims’ coming from underprivileged backgrounds are from this area.

The developers took a trip to Philly to capture photo references and to get a feel for the area. This is to effectively convey the background mood of Heavy Rain. There were concepts to set the design for over 90 environmental scenes that made it in-game.

This set the tone for the true atmosphere of the game evoked in the opening —  the everyday scenes, to the characters in the foreground and the omnipresent rain.

Action Sequences

The action sequences in the Heavy Rain were designed to be as realistic as possible. The writers didn’t want the characters to be supermen well-versed in the martial arts.

Ethan is a family man with no training in the martial arts. Madison while good with movement, is not a hand-to-hand fighter. Jayden while he had some formal FBI training, is not too good fighting on the ground. Shelby however learned to fight in the streets and is a man of great brute force.

The action sequences were formulated by a stunt coordinator for film from a document describing the action sequences; then the stunt men would go into the mocap room to elaborate the final actions.