The Story Stack of PEAK

PEAK has been a runaway success, both with general audiences and with my friend group! When one thinks of PEAK, story probably isn't what comes to mind. But today I'd like to break down various elements of the game using the story stack, identify how the existing story supports those elements, and explore what a more robust narrative would look like within PEAK without compromising on gameplay.

The story stack is a framework for analyzing elements of a game and the way they build upon each other, ordered from least flexible to most flexible. If you're unfamiliar with the structure, you can learn more about it in Jesse Schell's GDC talk from 2019 (his part begins at 51:00) but essentially, each element of the story stack builds upon the elements that come before it.

Player Fantasy

PEAK's player fantasy is easy: climb a mountain with your friends.

Actions

Building from that player fantasy, the primary actions in the game are pretty obvious: walking, climbing, jumping, and helping other climbers. There are many secondary actions, such as using an item or eating a piece of food, but for those, I'll move on to the Economy section.

Economy

Players of PEAK only have to concern themselves with one resource: stamina. The player's stamina bar dictates the length of time they can run or climb, and slowly regenerates when they stop running or climbing. Stamina can decrease with certain conditions such as hunger and injury, and increase with certain items such as a toasted marshmallow.

The stamina system is an ingenious way to support the player fantasy, because it reinforces the danger of climbing a mountain–if you run out of stamina while climbing, you fall!–while also keeping the resource management incredibly simple so the player can focus on the core gameplay.

World

PEAK begins on a deserted island then progresses through several different biomes that serve as its levels. The biomes are fairly nonsensical–no explanation is presented for how a snow-covered mountain is directly next to a pit of boiling lava–but I don't believe an explanation is needed. The variety of worlds and their corresponding challenges give the player a sense of accomplishment and mastery as they conquer one mountain and move on to the next.

Story

And finally, story. PEAK's story is minimal, but perfectly effective for a game that's more about the emergent player story rather than a prescriptive story. Essentially, the players are scouts on a scouting trip when their plane crashes on a deserted island. They must brave the elements together to reach the highest point on the island where they can signal for help. It's a simple but effective setup for the gameplay and nothing more.

There's also an elusive scoutmaster who has left a handful of notes behind that serve as tutorials, and will attack players who journey too far ahead of their scoutmates. But nothing else is revealed about his story.

But how would PEAK look with a more robust story? As a writer and lover of game narrative, I immediately asked myself this question. So today I want to explore some possible stories that could be integrated into PEAK without affecting the other elements in the story stack or distracting from the essential player fantasy.

Scoutmaster as a Villain

We already have a terrifying scoutmaster, might as well lean into it! In this version of PEAK, the player slowly learns the scoutmaster's backstory and motivations through additional journal entries and notes scattered across the mountains.

Decades ago, the scoutmaster and his scouts crashed on this same island and attempted to make the same journey to the summit to signal for help. But these scouts resented their serious and strict scoutmaster and refused to follow his advice, splitting up when things got difficult. The entire party died, and the scoutmaster returned as a restless spirit, determined to help a troop of scouts reach the top of the mountain. Which sounds great, until the player realizes he's the one who caused their plane to crash in the first place, desperate to get his hands on a scout troop by any means necessary.

A Deadly Competition

But what if we ditched the plane crash premise and turned the perilous climb into a carefully-constructed gauntlet? In this dystopian world, groups of four, called scouts, train to complete The Climb, a televised competition with a cash reward for reaching the final peak. Think The Hunger Games meets Mr. Beast videos. The player catches glimpses into the TV show side with occasional instant replays and commentator VO.