Developer(s): Media Molecule, Tarsier Studios
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 4 (based on Tearaway for the PS Vita)
Hours played: 11 hours
While the privileged few able to get their hands on a PS5 are gushing over haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, I recently checked out a game designed to make use of the gimmicks of Sony’s previous-generation controller: Media Molecule and Tarsier Studio’s Tearaway: Unfolded.
I didn’t know what to expect, booting up this last-gen platformer from the creators of Little Big Planet. In all honesty, I was simply looking for a calming, cosy world to move around in – maybe while listening to a podcast. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to make me ponder my creative anxieties in a similar manner to how I had with my therapist that same week. It’s fair to say that I’ve been going through a creative funk this last year: the sporadic release of content on this blog is a testament to that. Trying to find a job but becoming jaded with the application process; wanting to be creative but being held hostage by a savage inner critic, despite having so much time on my hands; being unable to focus on one task for an extended period and losing faith because “this isn’t going to get me a job”; . As I’m working to untangle this web of low self-esteem and ingrained coping mechanisms with a professional, my mind can’t help but drift to this harmless little platformer on my desk. It’s rare to come across an innocuous-seeming video game that pays so much reverence to creativity and the whole gamut of emotions that comes with it. Tearaway: Unfolded‘s creation-based mechanics and heartwarming narrative have reinforced lessons I’ve learnt trying to work through my writer’s block, sentiments that I think will resonate with all creatives.
Leaving small imprints on the world
“It seems to me that a job is the last thing you need at the moment, Charles. You’ve spent your whole life throwing yourself into your studies to seek validation there, that you’ve never had a chance to explore yourself creatively. You’ve got what we call contingent self-esteem. I’d recommend taking some time to just be, find out what you want.”
my therapist
The world of Tearaway: Unfolded is simply a treat to spend time in. Not only does the papercraft aesthetic lend it a timeless charm, but it’s one of the most vibrant and animated game worlds I’ve seen. Affecting the environment in small ways, from unfurling rolls of paper with gusts of wind, to shining a light on newsprint to turn it back into bright confetti, and tilting the controller to move platforms, never gets old and makes for some unique platforming challenges. Where Tearaway first captured my creativity, however, was in its joyful, low-stakes creation tools: decorating mode and photo mode. They rekindled in me the urge to create that I had as a child, creating stuff for the fun of it, unworried by conceptions of what makes art ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or the need to be constantly improving.
Decorating mode does exactly what it says on the tin. At various points on your journey, an NPC will give you a prompt to make something that the world is missing or to simply jazz it up by drawing bits of paper on the PS4 controller’s touchpad and layering them on top of each other. It might be a face for a pumpkin who has lost his scary demeanour, snowflakes to whip around you as you ascend a frozen peak, or a new species of fish for a lab to observe. Seeing my imperfect creations pop into the game world with lighting and animation from a first-party Sony studio was validating. What sweetens the deal is that your creations will often be remixed in future areas, on flags, shields, and in art installations. The quest-givers are invariably grateful for your effort regardless of whether the moustache you made them looks ghastly. I found myself following my artistic impulses, sometimes giving characters intentionally dodgy nosejobs for the fun of it or laughably cutesy tattoos to flex at the tough guy saloon, other times agonising over the details of my paper plane. In addition to all this, you can decorate your Atoi/Iota (the playable characters) however you like. I’m a huge sucker for games with unlockable costumes for the player character, so being able to plaster decorations all over them really helped to make my Iota feel my own. Decoration is an infinite source of wholesomeness.
I got similarly engrossed in the photo mode. A similar feature has cropped up in more and more games over the last decade but for me they were a neat extra, but I never felt compelled to drop what I was doing to use them. In Tearaway, photo mode feels like a core part of the experience, as I was being floored by vistas of wave-lapped shipwrecks and storm-battered fields. Lots of NPCs are dancing, acting, or playing cards, practically begging for a selfie. Unlike the photo modes in a lot of other games, which simply freeze the action and allow you to add filters and zoom to set up a shot, Tearaway‘s camera exists within the game world. Using it brings you down to Atoi/Iota’s level and you can even set it down on a tripod and move the player character around freely in front of it. Elevating this feature further is the fact that the decoration and photo mechanics feed into each other: you can trim photos to make decorations, which you can then use to decorate Atoi/Iota and NPCs, whom you can then photograph. This feedback loop made unlocking new decorations, filters, and photo modes for the camera with confetti a great incentive to explore – plus, I need to find that perfect vantage point for a photo.
I’ve always been a big advocate of creativity and self-expression in games, but I’ll admit that I often feel overwhelmed by the tools offered by a sandbox like Super Mario Maker or Minecraft – and the ability to see user-generated content in those games does nothing to allay my anxiety. In a wider sense, my perfectionism often holds me back from experimenting, and thus I deny myself the chance to improve and learn. Soon, it became easy for my brain to ask “what’s the point of doing anything at all?”. I was stuck. Seeing my imperfect doodles in Tearaway‘s triple-A-vision reminded me of the joy of low-stakes creativity and of the importance of breaking multipartite projects down into more manageable tasks. In the way that writers might take up painting or cooking or any other discipline to engage their brain in a new way and not get bogged down in their work, drawing and photographing in this little game was the escape I needed at the perfect time.
*Spoilers for the end of Tearaway: Unfolded will now follow*
The Third Act
“You’ve always felt like you need to be doing something, so you’ve become terrified at just being alone with your thoughts. That’s when the inner critic takes over and tells you that all your ideas are shit.”
my therapist
Up until the two-thirds mark, the player’s journey in Tearaway is framed as a standard chosen one, save-the-world affair. Atoi/Iota needs to climb to the highest point in Valleyfold, guided by the omnipotent player (the ‘You’), to fix the hole in the sky and deliver a ‘message’. However, after the misunderstood Scraps are pacified (by the player decorating them, no less, fulfilling their wishes for someone to devote creativity to them), the game’s tone takes a remarkable turn. The level themes and NPCs become more esoteric; lush plains and windswept shores give way to dreamlike jaunts through the sky, a solitary hike through the desert, and even platforming through the inner machinations of your PS4 controller; the levels’ geography and their connection to the rest of the world become sketchy. It’s at this point that Tearaway switches from being about helping others to a story about finding and expressing oneself.
When the player first ascends to the sky, all is blank paper. Move around and the paper platform unfurls, loops around itself, and reveals that you are ‘Between the Pages’, the transition zone between the worlds of Valleyfold and the land of storytelling. This level features the most involved platforming thus far, combining all the game’s mechanics, and it’s not a coincidence that it aligns with the time when Atoi/Iota needs to gather their thoughts and decide what their story is going to be. A book sitting in the sky even asks the player to design the front cover of the story they are still participating in.
This aerial obstacle course soon opens up into a vast desert, naturally – another solitary romp. Atoi/Iota comes to a rock jutting out over a gorge where one of the game’s two narrators appears in the form of a cactus. “Don’t worry if things get a bit weird. You are the message! Don’t end up unread – who will you inspire then?” he says. The candidness of these lines, along with the euphemism “weird” was enough to remind me of my own creative struggles. Creating is sometimes scary: it involves investing time and energy into something and then sending it out into the world, making yourself vulnerable. Even if your art is received by no one, what you find out about yourself during the creative process might be just as, if not more, terrifying. You might curse yourself for wanting to write about something ‘safe’ instead of tackling lofty themes and issues. You might think yourself boring for not having life experience worthy of drawing upon for art. You might become restless around loved ones when you hit a snag and can’t stop thinking about it in other parts of your life. In short, creating can feel like standing on the edge of a precipice: it’s so easy to give up, back away from the edge, and retreat to safety, but who will you inspire then?. What follows the cactus’ advice is a leap of faith to soar on a paper plane through the sunset-bathed ravine. Exquisite.
‘Between the Pages’ is where a lot of reviewers felt that Tearaway: Unfolded began to overstay its welcome in comparison to the shorter PS Vita game it was based on. Personally, this shift in narrative focus was what hooked me back in for the final stretch and made playing Tearaway a transcendental experience. The following level has you platform inside a PS4 controller to rescue a trapped messenger, perhaps a dark reflection of Atoi/Iota should they fail their quest, a long-bottled-up story suppressed by an inner critic. Releasing the messenger gives that story another chance and prompts the narrator to chime in with that thing all artists need to tell themselves now and then: “Embrace the path of uncertainty! Jump!”
The Message
“Find your voice, Charles, because that’s often where the most candid and unique work will come through.”
my therapist
If the symbolism of Tearaway’s last few levels isn’t direct enough in encouraging players to share their stories and exercise their creativity, then its final message is. Emerging from their solitary journey, Atoi/Iota skips down one last road lined with all the characters they helped along the way. At the end of the road, they finally come face-to-face with ‘the You’, a floating representation of the player holding a papercraft PS4 controller (if you have a Playstation Camera linked up, it will be your likeness pasted onto it). Emboldened by seeing the being that has been guiding them this whole time, Atoi/Iota repairs the hole in the sky, leaving behind their ‘message’, a pop-up picture book that recounts their story. This book is the ultimate game results screen. Narrated by Atoi/Iota (the first time we hear their voice), it reuses the decorations and photos the player has created throughout the game to spin a childlike tale of apprehension overcome by friendship. Like a parent being shown something their child just made, I couldn’t help getting a tad emotional for my virtual, origami son. Then, in one final twist, Tearaway turns this picture book on the player, as the narrators leave one last message: “This is your world. Make it a world of stories”. For most of the story, I thought that ‘delivering the message’ was papercraft world shorthand for going on a quest or a messianic duty, but now that I had received the message, it was clear as day: “get out there and make things!”
I watched the credits roll, each of those names a story. Once I turned off my console, I was no longer ‘the You’ but a ‘me’ once again, and for the first time in a while I was itching to create and share. That’s why this introspective post about a ‘kid’s game’ exists. Media Molecule and Tarsier clearly wanted to accommodate that urge, too, with social and community features. The cleverly-named website Tearaway.me lets you share photos taken in-game and even print out papercraft plans so you can make characters and objects from the game. Media Molecule even claims that anything in the game can theoretically be made from folding paper, as this was a consideration that went into designing the world editing tools. Therefore, Atoi/Iota’s plea at the end of the game, “make me real!”, becomes a direct challenge. There are plenty of games that give you the tools to make levels within games, but few that deliver a touching metanarrative and then ask you to whack out the scissors and glue or write stories, and I think that’s wonderful.
Lately, I’ve been feeling ashamed of not being able to create anything or only being able to create at a very slow pace, at seeing a year go by and having so little to show for it. I worried that joining creative communities would put undue stress on me to meet their expectations or that I wouldn’t feel a sense of belonging. I felt that, at age 22, I needed to have my life planned out and be relentlessly pursuing that plan. I still hope I will push myself to put my work out there to friends and other communities for editing and criticism purposes. Ultimately, though, I hope I will treat my creative spirit with a little more kindness, like a virtual, origami son.
By no means do I wish to imply that Tearaway: Unfolded cured my anxiety or would be an adequate replacement for therapy, but I was fascinated by its sensitive celebration of creativity and how its mechanics and narrative mirrored some of my own recent musings on art. Besides that, it’s also a delightful romp through a world with a timeless aesthetic and an upbeat adaptive soundtrack that merits a playthrough to feed your inner child. Leave it to the studio that gave us Little Big Planet and would go on to make Dreams to have me feeling so deeply for pulp.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kimberley Chiu, not only for editing this article, but for letting me vent about what’s on my mind (besides sentient origami, that is). She is @kimberley_chiu on Twitter and has a Patreon at patreon.com/chiukayann . She also shares illuminating ruminations on art and recently started streaming some music sessions.