Narrative in video games (GS article)

Pidesco on 10/8/2009 at 00:53

Why are game "journalists" so horribly shallow in their knowledge and analysis of games?

Fafhrd on 10/8/2009 at 03:24

Quote Posted by Tonamel

Yes, but that's also the reason it's more difficult to tell a compelling story in the medium. Books/movies/etc are built around a tightly controlled cycle of tension and release. With games, the director has to relinquish control of many aspects of the narrative to the player. Pacing on a micro level gets pretty much thrown out the window, and on a macro level it's a crap shoot since the player might decide they don't want to go to the next zone yet for whatever reason. Fancier AI might make individual conversations more interesting, but it's not going to solve the pacing issue.

I'm not saying it's impossible to tell a good story in a game, but it is much harder.

But this is working under the assumption that games should be telling their stories with a traditional narrative structure. A game writer shouldn't even be attempting to control story pacing, for exactly the reasons you say.

Tonamel on 10/8/2009 at 04:15

Yeah, but there's more to it than just pacing. Sid Meier defines games as "a series of interesting choices" which is true enough for most games. But when it comes to story, the more choices the player can make, the less control the writers have over the experience.

Maybe you, as the Game Designer, want the hero to go out and defeat the great evil, but I, as the player, would rather bake pies. Having those choices might make for a fun game (Hi, Arx Fatalis!) but it doesn't make for a very cohesive, meaningful narrative.

If you want to tell compelling stories in games, there's a definite balance to strike: Enough choices to keep the game interesting, but not so many that it loses focus. That's why Valve keeps the story out of the player's hands in the Half Life series. All of the important world-affecting choices are made by people who aren't Gordon. (also worth noting is that all of the story's emotions are expressed by people who aren't Gordon)

Very pertinent to this discussion is (http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/level-10-nonlinear-storytelling/) this article on nonlinear storytelling from Game Design Concepts. I'm a fan of the parallel paths approach, but the others have their merits, and I'm interested in seeing more games try the dynamic object-oriented approach.

Koki on 10/8/2009 at 05:31

Quote Posted by Renzatic

I think this guy would do better working in another medium. Interactivity is the reason why games are games. Without it, what do you have? A realtime rendered movie.

Which, incidentally, is what Star Ocean: Whatever is. And all other jRPGs for that matter.

Also, (http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/storyish) Greg.

Papy on 10/8/2009 at 07:12

Quote Posted by Tonamel

Yes, but that's also the reason it's more difficult to tell a compelling story in the medium. Books/movies/etc are built around a tightly controlled cycle of tension and release.

There are people who can tell a story while still letting everyone going at their own pace : photographers.

As for choices (or I should rather say freedom), illusions are good enough. Unless the player is playing the same game more than once, he won't be able to know that his "choices" were meaningless. Look at Deus Ex as an example : great story but almost completely linear and no meaningful choices.

Finally, I don't see what's wrong if some players completely miss the story. Missing things and even losing is part of playing. Not everyone has to be a winner. Of course the people who missed the story probably won't like the game, but art is not about being understood and loved by absolutely everyone. Art was always more or less elitist. This time, I'll use BioShock as an example. In Fort Frolic, when killing under the Waltz of the Flower, some people realized this death dance was a beautiful ballet. Beauty in death! It made some sense to Sander Cohen. Those kind of emotions and indirect understanding is what art is about. Of course, even if the idea was kind of obvious, some other people still just didn't get it. Too bad for them. In fact, I think video games will being to be considered as art only when they become even more elitist.

Vivian on 10/8/2009 at 07:49

Yeah, beauty in death, man. Thats deep.

Koki on 10/8/2009 at 08:57

Damn, yeah man, that's just, like, just fucking deep shit right there, man.

Xenith on 10/8/2009 at 09:31

More articles, more talk, talk, talk... less action, nothing has changed, nothing new I'm hearing.

What else?

Koki on 10/8/2009 at 15:23

Actually, PS:T is pretty damn linear.

DDL on 10/8/2009 at 17:13

Quote Posted by Wormrat

Wait, what? Sure, the game inevitably leads you to one of a handful of endings, but the plot has an impressive amount of malleability in terms of how you get there. If Deus Ex is a bad example of plot interactivity, then what's a good one?

DX is pretty much in the "parallel paths" mode: while each mission can often be completed a host of different ways, there's only one way to progress to the next mission, and only one 'next mission' to progress to. Sure there are long-term changes (which for the time was incredible attention to detail), but they're really fairly small and inconsequential (gunther omitting OMG REVENGE comments if you managed not to kill anna, and paul replacing savage if he survives).