Gaming How Games Tell Stories

SimCity! Yes indeed, it was the small achievements that you did and the gradual progress that made it so satisfying.

 

Nice article. I have noticed nowadays it take's both story and good game play to make me play the game to the end. If either one turns out to be dull or boring I usually lose my interest to finish the game.

 

I think the very subtle difference is that in a book or story, you're passive. and only certian parts of you're brain are working. you "soak up" the story. In a game however slightly you are active and you DO the story or at least walk, push, open, or advance through it.

That alone is a big difference.

I think it makes for a "different" experience not better or worse. and in many ways video games and the technology are still developing.

However some of the most powerful moments for me in video games are the parts where you DO it. for instance killing the colossi in shadow of the collusus I mean you're riding up and down a giant monster and they never once really started the attack. and you don't find out till the end why you are really killing them.

like wise in MGS snake eater, can't think of the boss now, but it was one of the final ones where it was sorta a cut scene where you had to finally hit the trigger button to execute them.

or in the end of hitman blood money where you get to experience you're own funeral. and can choose to wake up, or just die.

 

*edit* the fight I'm thinking about is "the boss" in MSG:3 where you have to kill her unarmed at the very end. Sad but powerful moment.

 

Exactly. Frankly, I think that many mainstream developers have been misled by the superficial resemblance of games to movies. Movies are passive and linear. Like books, they're a great medium for telling a story. But games are not. Games aren't passive, and linearity inherently conflicts with player choice (the more choice, the poorer medium for storytelling, and vice versa).

IMHO, it's the wrong direction for games to try to tell a story. Instead, games should make it possible for every player to create his own "story." This might be a subtle distinction, since the game developer would still create the setting, the NPCs, the rules, the AI - everything that allows the gameworld to be filled with "stories." But although the beginning of these stories would be created by the developer, the middle and the end would not. The player would discover, and probably influence, many of these stories, but not all of them. And the overall "story" would be based on his actions.

If you're really bored, I wrote about this in more detail here:

http://garthright.blogspot.com/2010/03/role-playing-games-arent-movies.html

Yeah, I know it's not a new idea. But it's new enough that we're only at the very beginning of creating games like this. Such games as Dwarf Fortress, Aurora, Mount&Blade, UnReal World, etc. are taking important steps in that direction, but so far, these are only baby steps. Well, we've got to crawl before we can walk - or run.

PS. I might also point out the popularity of after-action reports - often humorous ones - from many different games these days. What's that but people creating their own stories? And even in some mainstream games, like Daggerfall or Morrowind, many players completely ignored the storyline - the main quest - in favor of exploration and various mini-quests. Again, these are only baby steps. It will take some considerable effort to do this idea justice.

 

Ummm..Hi, My name's Xir, and I'm an anonimous filmed cutscene lover.

No really, I've even downloaded the Privateer 2 cutscenes just to see how the story ends.
I like the cheesy wing commander cutscenes.
I like Phantasmagoria (well, back then, there's a time and place for everything, right?)
I even liked the C&C and Red alert cutscenes (go Tim Curry!)

On the other hand I don't like scripted scenes in a game...if the avatar is moving, I want to move it.

Blech*