Play Games Designed for Happiness and Relaxation
‣ Company: Runaway
‣ CEO: Zoe Hobson
‣ Mission: To create soothing games inspired by the natural world
‣ Launched: 2009
‣ Team size: 42
‣ Go-to emoji: ❤️
New Zealand studio Runaway bucks game industry trends in a few ways. For starters, nearly half the team is female. The company may also be the only developer to have an in-house nature specialist, whose job is to consult with the team about butterfly flight patterns and other esoterica.
This all comes through in Runaway’s nature-inspired noncompetitive games—like Flutter: Starlight and BirdBnB—whose participatory storylines and lush flora and fauna transport players to a zenlike state of wonder.
CEO Zoe Hobson, who used to work in film and television, has led the team since 2015. We spoke with her about a highly overlooked segment of the gaming world and how “tend and befriend” is on track to give “fight or flight” a run for its money.
Runaway has over half a dozen games to its credit. Is there a unifying principle behind them all?
That games should be engines of happiness and relaxation. They should make people feel soothed, not stressed. Gaming psychologist Brie Code writes about the “tend and befriend” reaction versus the “fight or flight” reaction, which is often a core in game design. Our games are about nurturing. Starlight, for example, one of our biggest successes, is a peaceful experience where you’re collecting magical nighttime creatures. It’s got that special feeling of “This is a place I can go and enjoy my own time.”
The studio has gone from a three-person team to over 30. What’s been key to that growth?
We’re not a big corporation where you get hired as an artist and stay an artist forever. A few years ago, a community manager wanted to do more narrative work, so she grew those skills and worked on Old Friends Dog Game. One question I ask in interviews is “What else do you want to do besides the role we’re talking about?” I want people to move sideways and up and down and diagonally to try their hands at different things. I don’t want them to come in and then leave.
When you have several games in development, how do you decide which to pursue?
One of the criteria is that a game has to be a hands-down, absolute favorite of someone on the team. We do use data, but we also believe in experience and gut feeling.
What advice do you have for aspiring developers?
Once you have an idea, don’t go headfirst into full development. Start with the smallest part of that idea. Think of it like writing an essay. When you write your introduction, you start to have a sense of the purpose and direction of the piece as a whole.
Almost half of your staff at Runaway is women, which is rare for the industry.
We’re making games for a predominantly female audience, so we make sure women are involved in writing those stories. We have a game in prototype stage that’s to do with dating, and people who’ve played through are like, “I love how awkward the flirting is.” It’s not sexy and perfect. It’s stupid and funny and makes you cringe, and people love that. Women make up 48 percent of gamers. We often forget that “gamers” include your friend who’s obsessed with Wordle or plays Candy Crush on the train. Those gamers haven’t been seen enough.