Writing Tips From the Best Parts of Code Lyoko
Before we delve into the new season of anime, I wanted to return to one of the most nostalgic shows of my childhood: Cody Lyoko! I recently rewatched this French anime with my friend for the second time and together we tore apart some of the magic but when we did there was still a lot left that we found to be objectively really cool writing (more than you’d expect for a periodical show targeting the young side of teenagers). Today I wanted to break down some of the best parts of this series and what those parts can teach us about improving our own work and don’t worry if you’ve never seen Code Lyoko I’ll provide short explanations whether needed to catch you up, but honestly if you’re really bored and watch some light teenage sci-fi this show might be worth a watch!
Since Code Lyoko takes place partly in a video game world, its no surprise one of its best writing tricks is something that can be especially applied to gameplay writing. Perhaps the most important character in the show is Aelita whom we first meet trapped in the digital world. Every character in the show has a weapon and an ability and from the very beginning her’s is the ability to create land masses to serve as platforms, walls, and even ramps. What first seems like an inconsequential choice later gains significant meeting when at the end of season 2 that it is revealed that she is actually the daughter of Franz Hopper who created this digital world, trapped her in it, and gave her the “Keys to Lyoko”. These Keys serve as an admin password of the world explain why she can create land much like her father created all of Lyoko. Of course this was also foreshadowed by her ability to access towers as discussed later, but what I want to point out is that they didn’t let any part of her character slip by. Every mechanic she has pays service to the plot.
This is essential in writing story driven games. Sure you can have your player run and gun their way between several scripted cutscenes, but they will be more engaged if they can use the mechanics of the game to interact with and tell the story. Look no further than Brothers a Tale of Two Sons to see how this concept can be brought to its most emotional. I won’t spoil it because at the very least you should look up a lets play to see it play out. I would only do a disservice by trying to explain it.
In Cody Lyoko, the plot of nearly every episode boils down to this: Xana the evil A.I. within Lyoko has “Activated a Tower” which is a physical structure in the virtual world, and has used to Tower to attack the real world in some way. From season 2 onward, he uses this to possess people taking control of them and giving them enhanced agility, electrical abilities and so on. The Tower must be deactivated by Aelita to save the day. Xana can also use this to create what is called a Polymorphic specter that is essentially just a shape-shifting evil thing that also has powers and fights.
Now Code Lyoko takes that and turns it on its head: Jeremy the resident computer expert decides he can activate a tower as well and he does so to give one of his friends enhanced agility and electrical powers. The mechanic becomes mirrored. This isn’t just a one-off thing either. There are multiple times where Jeremy activates his own tower to produce some kind of real world effect. This all culminates in season 4 where Xana has moved on to new super computers and is creating copies of Lyoko in them. The group decides their method for dealing with these replicas is to activate a Tower in Xana’s duplicate and in doing so create their own Polymorphic specters in the real world near Xana’s computers. Literally every mechanic Xana can use for evil, our team can use for good.
Adding mechanics like this to your world can create extremely engaging moments where the heroes come up with clutch strategies using information we already have. Even if you don’t directly intend this to happen from the beginning, always be thinking in the back of your head that it is a possibility. That ancient magic sword your hero has? What if the villain stole it? That evil magic grimoire the villain has? What if the hero stole it? Even if you don’t ask these questions your audience sure as hell will and I feel like adding some bullshit line like “Only I, the chosen one, can wield this sword!” is a cop out, especially because of just how interesting these plot points can get.
Code Lyoko is the king of callbacks in my opinion. Random little details always have a chance of cropping up later in the show, most of the time with just a small one-off line. One episode there will be an episode with a Tamagotchi prominently featured and then a whole one season later the characters will mention it again in the vain of “Why would I trust you to look after my dog, don’t you remember what happened to my Tamagotchi!” The first callback I have pictured is the school principle and his love and frustration while playing an online game where you’ve got to sling a penguin’s head onto its body. What you thought was a one-off gag about how he was old and bad at video games was paid off again one whole season later when he opens the game up for a second time after a boring meeting with a student’s parents. The second callback pictured is Yumi’s dad dawning a suit of armor which had an episode dedicated to it nearly two seasons ago when Xana took control of it.
The thing with these callbacks is none of them are just purely for the sake of callbacks. Each and every one of them builds the characters and adds a much needed sense of progression and consistency to a world portrayed in an episodic series. The callback to the principle playing this game is one of the only bits of characterization he gets as one of the most background characters and it establishes that a very human side to him that gets bored and wants to challenge himself to beat this random pointless game he struggles with. The callback to the armor reinforces how, despite his looks, Yumi’s dad is highly traditional and in touch with his Japanese heritage. These are just a few of the many callback in the series like this. Just off the top of my head I quickly came up with 10.
Before I leave today I’d like to give honorable mention to the final episode “Echos” which served as this weird episode after the fight had already been won but before the main character were willing to put the events of the series behind them. They struggled with the fact that for 2 years now fighting Xana had become their lives and they didn’t know what they would do without that. This was coupled with short montages of them reminiscing about the past. Not only was this about the character being nostalgic and not wanting to stop, it was also about how the audience had gone through this journey with the characters and would now have to deal with their lives without Code Lyoko. Its actually a breathtaking concept in theory and I wish more shows would do this!
And of course its nostalgia like that which will get you coming back to series that have well past their expiration date in the public conscious. However, one final lesson to learn from Code Lyoko is that returning to old series can be extremely enlightening and there is always something to learn from even the most obscure piece of media!
