5 Lessons from Little Nightmares

written by Fairuza Hanun

I don’t often play games, nor do I enjoy most games. However, Little Nightmares is an exception. A puzzle, an adventure with characters you can grow attached to, and just a breathtaking journey overall — all three being my ultimate weaknesses — Little Nightmares succeeded in grabbing my attention, interest and enjoyment. Despite having played and watched others play all three of the Little Nightmares games multiple times, I have never gotten bored of them. 

I’ve watched other horror gameplays and none of them have ever hooked me into the story the way Little Nightmares did. Why is that?

Here are five lessons which wanna-be game developers, coders, and even storyboard artists and writers can pick up, on why Little Nightmares is a positive success:

1. An excellent game requires compelling storytelling & engaging graphics.

Just as I mentioned before, my weakness is a breathtaking journey. To take your players on such a journey, there are two things you must incorporate into your game: 1) Storytelling, and 2) Graphics. Why these two?

If you don’t have a substantial story to back up the setup and mission of the game, then it will not compel your players to continue or pursue the mission. Unless it is a very short and simple endeavour, they won’t find worth in sticking with the game until the end, let alone revisit it again. 

A story is multilayered, filled with nuance. It requires 5W+1H. It traps your players’ minds and forces them to think, to engage fully in the game. Otherwise, they won’t be able to complete it. Graphics reinforces the story, leaving a lasting visual impression of the characters and the world-building in your players’ minds. 

2. Complex characters are those we can empathise with, but can also challenge the way we think and feel.

When you meet characters who you want to root for, doesn’t that make the story much more engrossing to follow through to the end? Six, Mono, and the unnamed escaped child, all have personalities, attributes which make them memorable, and stories which interweave with one another. However, having to survive in a cruel world like Little Nightmares can destroy a child. The characters never enter the story and emerge out of the other end the same as they were in the beginning. While their early choices reflect their personal values, how the world responds to them in turn will forge circumstances for their next decisions. Those will carve the path of their character arc. 

To create a wonderfully complex character, you must create conditions which work against them. We may not guarantee our players’ empathy, but the interesting choices and outcomes will challenge how they perceive the world, the characters themselves, and our understanding of current moral values. 

3. Setting must have meaning to the story.

Little Nightmares I, II, and The Secrets of the Maw all have very distinct settings. The first and third are set in the Maw, which appears to be a floating metal contraption operating as a resort island for the large, grotesque monsters we see populate the world. Within the Maw, various architectural and design styles are adopted across different cultures. Notably, the kitchens remind me of traditional European ones, and the restaurant seems to mimic a Japanese eatery. Meanwhile, Little Nightmares II operates in an austere war-ravaged place called the Pale City. Details such as decay, damage, rubble, posters and worn-down belongings suggest that it has been abandoned or chronically subject to deprivation. The exception of the Signal Tower, which is ruled by the ominous, omniscient Eye keeping close surveillance on the city and the Maw, suggests that it is a monument of high authority or importance.

Setting is not just a place or a background where the characters can move and overcome obstacles (their story must work in tandem with setting, too). It’s also part of the story where little trinkets, objects and architectural details in the background tell a tale about what kind of world the characters live in, what kind of world can create such circumstances and their consequences. 

(Interestingly, some fans have theorised Little Nightmares symbolised scenes from World War II, not without explicable reasons. I recommend checking those theories out!)

4. Messages should be told implicitly with the experience of the journey.

Since a young child, we have often been accustomed to being fed knowledge on a spoon. School dictates us on what we should remember and what we should discard, and that entire process debilitates our critical and creative thinking. 

When we read stories which don’t spoon-feed us that knowledge, it becomes wisdom gained from the secondary experience of reading. Which is why spoon-feeding your game’s intentions or messages to your players, shuts down their ability to create a solution. It does not make them any more intelligent. Thus, intentions and messages should always be carried within the experience of the story. By making the game challenging, you are treating your players with respect.

5. In a grim world, we can only succeed together.

Little Nightmares’ characters have taught us survival is difficult. You will fail multiple times in order to learn how to adapt to the situation as it demands. It is to almost play into the Eye’s metaphorical hands. However, what is keeping us from falling and becoming the Eye’s marionette, is our allies who show us the way. 

You may call it cringey or sentimental, whatever you want to call it. But it’s true. In Little Nightmares II, Six wouldn’t have escaped from her prisons if it weren’t for Mono’s selfless heart and devotion. The same way Mono wouldn’t have been able to manoeuvre around a precarious environment without Six’s agility and lending hand. To polish your work, you need someone to offer you feedback, to challenge you, to care for you, support you. You also need someone who you can offer feedback to, challenge back, care and support back… because this reciprocation is vital to your growth as a person and as someone in your chosen occupation. 

Wherever you are, whether or not it is a life-or-death situation, community is there to keep you balanced. It is the right amount of rivalry and comradery. It is understanding each other’s limitations and filling those spaces with each other’s power for the act of sustaining one another, turning it all into a powerful communal act of survival and resurgence. 

Community is key to success. 

All these developments, learning, trial and error may be difficult to accomplish by yourself, but that is why there is a community for you right here, in IWEC Academy. We want to accomplish a safe space for all kinds of minds, as we believe every soul yearns to pour their thoughts and feelings in a creative medium, to break free from the rigid cages of normativity.