default header

Theory

On Narrative Delusions

Moderator: JC Denton

Unread postby dA » 15 Apr 2009 19:27

Molloy wrote:What I don't like about the Bethesda emergent style of game is it can be a little bit like giving you a big box of grey lego and saying 'go make your own fun'. Yes, you'll probably have a couple of cool things happen but most of the situations you're going to create will be dull. You can keep the dog in Fallout 3 but are you as richly involved with him as the dog in Fable 2 where the entire game has been designed around him?

It's hard to actually program a dog in the style of Fallout 3's gameplay that is constantly interesting to interact with. But ultimately it can have far more impact than a Fable 2's dog, which is actually compromised by it's story. I can't remember anyone that prefers Fable 2's dog, even though Dogmeat (that's what it's called in Fallout) is designed pretty limited. The dog in Fable 2 can't die unless the story demands it (from what I remember) and it's forced unto you from the very beginning. Why would a player care about it?

If a game has a 10 different endings it’s not necessarily going to be more entertaining. Most of the endings would be boring or wouldn’t make sense in the context of what you’ve been spending the game doing. I think passive and active parts of the game need to interact with each other and the more successfully this is done the more the ratio can be tipped in favour of the active.

That would be a good development, but ultimately developers should start on the hard work of actually programming interesting rules and mechanics that will remain interesting for the player. Ultimately they should ditch story whenever they can. That's a lot more work than sticking with a story with effective set pieces (which they are the first time, after that the player sees through them immediately). And, as I said before, it will only get harder.

I'm repeating myself, so I'm leaving it at this. But before I go: here's an interesting quote from this link I came across today.

Eskil Steenberg wrote:Making games is a little like being a fashion designer. Fashion is not about making beautiful clothing, Its about making beautiful people. A successful designer is not the one who is in the center, but some one who makes the wearer the center. The story isn't yours, its the players. Can a game communicate emotions? yes, but its not the designer who should communicate through the game, its the player who should communicate with the game. It should be your story not mine.
dA
 
Joined: 26 Mar 2009 20:40
Location: Utrecht, Netherlands

Unread postby icycalm » 15 Apr 2009 19:30

Last warning: next time you write 'gameplay' you are banned.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby Bradford » 26 Jun 2009 17:46

Dramatic Play
by Stephen Dinehart
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4061/dramatic_play.php

Them's an awful lot of pretty words to say they haven't figured out how to replace a human dungeon master with a computer one yet.
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is.
Bradford
 
Joined: 18 Jun 2008 18:11
Location: Orlando, Florida, USA

Unread postby icycalm » 26 Jun 2009 18:12

I think the lol thread would have been more appropriate for that link. Here is an analysis of the first paragraph -- that's as far as I got:

What is the future of video games? This is a large, if not insurmountable question


"Insurmountable" question.

especially when considering the increasing diversification of styles within the medium. Indie, casual, core, mature


"Indie", "casual", "core" and "mature" are videogame "styles". So, for example, we have "indie FPSes", "casual FPSes", "core FPSes" and "mature FPSes".

-- the labels continue to proliferate, identifying specialized niches of styles, however real or unreal, within the larger medium.


The labels proliferate, identifying real and unreal niches of styles within the larger medium.

You call that "pretty words" lol? He would have failed a high school essay-writing class. I hope the comment was sarcastic.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby Bradford » 26 Jun 2009 20:27

icycalm wrote:I think the lol thread would have been more appropriate for that link.

I really thought about that for a good twenty minutes. I didn't put it here because I took it seriously, I put it here because this thread has, in part, contained discussion of how most people don't know what they are talking about on this subject, and this was a shining example.

icycalm wrote:You call that "pretty words" lol? He would have failed a high school essay-writing class. I hope the comment was sarcastic.

I was trying to channel my inner old-west/hard-drinkin'/tobacco-chewin'/gold-miner who ain't got no use for them-there useless book-learnin' types who use them fancy words but don't got no real ideas. I coulda been a-clearer, though.

So yes, sarcastic.
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is.
Bradford
 
Joined: 18 Jun 2008 18:11
Location: Orlando, Florida, USA

Unread postby icycalm » 16 Dec 2009 13:18

Dracko wrote:Jordan Mechner on designing story-based games:

http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2009/11/d ... sed-games/

Jordan Mechner wrote: 1. The story is what the player does, not what he watches.
2. List the actions the player actually performs in the game and take a cold hard look at it. Does it sound like fun? (Resist the temptation to embellish. If a cinematic shows the player’s character sneak into a compound, clobber a guard and put on his uniform, the player’s action is “Watch cinematic.” Letting the player click to clobber the guard isn’t much better.)
3. The only significant actions are those that affect the player’s ability to perform future actions. Everything else is bells and whistles.
4. Design a clear and simple interface. The primary task of the interface is to present the player with a choice of the available actions at each moment and to provide instant feedback when the player makes a choice.
5. The player needs a goal at all times, even if it’s a mistaken one. If there’s nothing specific he wishes to accomplish, he will soon get bored, even if the game is rich with graphics and sound.
6. The more the player feels that the events of the game are being caused by his own actions, the better — even when this is an illusion.
7. Analyze the events of the story in terms of their effect on the player’s goals. For each event, ask: Does this move the player closer to or further away from a goal, or give him a new goal? If not, it’s irrelevant to the game.
8. The longer the player plays without a break, the more his sense of the reality of the world is built up. Any time he dies or has to restart from a saved game, the spell is broken.
9. Alternative paths, recoverable errors, multiple solutions to the same problem, missed opportunities that can be made up later, are all good.
10. Don’t introduce gratuitous obstacles just to create a puzzle.
11. As the player moves through the game, he should have the feeling that he is passing up potentially interesting avenues of exploration. The ideal outcome is for him to win the game having done 95% of what there is to do, but feeling that there might be another 50% he missed.


http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=24682

I scanned the SB thread, and it's the usual story. There may perhaps be twenty sentences in there that are not dumb, but by the time you find them all you'd have already thought them for yourself and saved yourself the time and aggravation.

Note also that Mechner's post dates from 1996, lol.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 06 Mar 2010 20:29

Stanley wrote:The best story in an FPS is by far Doom. Mars + soldier + hellspawn = kill. Short and concise.


http://rllmukforum.com/index.php?s=&sho ... &p=6862311
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby Worm » 26 Nov 2011 01:20

Someone posted an article in the Casual forum that is unfocused junk, but I looked up the author and found a passage by him that I liked.

Tadhg Kelly wrote:When watching Nicholas Cage act on screen, we feel empathy for his character caught in a dramatic arc that we cannot influence. The inevitability and success of struggle in drama is built on the powerlessness of the audience, and the complete captivation of their attention. Comedy, tragedy and other kinds of drama flow from the empathy of watching things unfold without agency.

The experience of playing a game, on other hand, draws attention away from watching and focuses it on doing. Unlike watching Cage’s descent into alcoholism and having empathy for his situation, the player in control has no empathy for themselves. They interpret actions, reactions and feelings through what they do and see with their own eyes. They certainly can feel antipathy or sympathy for what they see and hear in the game world, but their psychological state is actually much the same as that of a driver in a car.


Remote Control

Something very interesting happens to people when they take control of a vehicle. With practise, they start to act, sense and react as though they had extended their own self around the vehicle. It takes some concentration, but a seasoned driver is able to interpret information and instinctively control the outcome without having to rationally think about what they should do next.

This happens when driving cars, flying planes, piloting remote control robots or quadrocopters. The human brain is capable of placing its awareness away from its own body, at least temporarily, and in effect take on a new shape. The same thing happens when playing videogames or using computers, sometimes to the point that sensory input such as hunger is temporarily ignored. It seems that when we are engaged in playing a game, we are partially in another world, psychologically speaking.

The best word to describe this [is] projection. When you sit in a car seat and start to drive, you project yourself into the skin of the car and sense its movements, position and sounds. Your awareness becomes an awareness of cars, you start to see how other drivers behave in terms of how their cars behave in relation to yours, and if you are of the wrong disposition that might even bring out flares of road rage.

Projection is the interpretation of action and reaction through a conduit such as a steering wheel or a game controller. Players interpret the information coming through from the game world in its own context, just as drivers interpret the world of roads and motorways. And they act within the constraints of that world through what the controller permits them to do.

The world that is perceived and acted within through the projection is sometimes overwhelming, but always remains an ideality rather than an actuality. The player remains aware of his physical self, retains his psychological self, and is simply acting and reacting to pressure. He always knows that what he is watching, playing or listening to is actually a fantasy.

Nonetheless, this doesn’t prevent him from also experiencing transference. Transference is where the psychological or emotional component of a world come back down into the mind, and are experienced as base emotions. The animal part of the brain is more susceptible to getting caught up in what it sees and hears, so when we see dark corridors and hear nervy music, we are instinctively frightened.

When playing racing games, it is common to observe that players bob, tilt and weave their heads and arms, even though this action has nothing at all to do with the game. When watching younger players playing FIFA fill in commentary or shouting when they score, this is also nothing to do with the game. They are forms of transference.

The act of controlling a vehicle, a remote control robot or playing a game are all thus closely related. It is not a complex relationship of acting and deep emotion, it is actually simple. Projection, transference, and the mind’s ability to extend its senses mean that when playing a videogame, you are not playing a character as Nicholas Cage does.

You are remote-controlling a doll.


http://whatgamesare.com/2011/02/cars-do ... ivism.html

I don't think he has thought enough about the future of videogames when he says, "[The player] always knows that what he is watching, playing or listening to is actually a fantasy," and I don't see much value in his other articles or some of his terms ("thaumatic," lol), but this excerpt is the clearest explanation I have seen of this particular issue. The point about empathy reminded me of something icycalm said years ago.
User avatar
Worm
 
Joined: 20 Dec 2008 21:06

Unread postby icycalm » 26 Nov 2011 16:11

David Jaffe also posted a decent explanation on this subject in his blog post "The problem with BEING Batman" a while ago. I even posted a comment on his blog about it, but he never approved it lol.

None of these articles will be read five or ten years from now because my own will eclipse them. Only the best of the best full explanations survive the trial of time; half-assed attempts are simply forgotten, as they should be. The men of the future will not have the time to sift through mountains of failed attempts -- they will want the full, straight answers right away so they can get to work with them.

Note that the issue discussed above will not be a part of my Narrative Delusions essay. That essay will be confined to the discussion of narratives; the entire empathy debacle will be dealt with in the Real Virtuality article, which is where it belongs.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby icycalm » 09 May 2012 02:48

Hiyazaki Hidetaka on Dark Souls' storyline:

http://www.gamers1.jp/colweb/radio/2011 ... 111215.php (translation: http://pastebin.com/u/kaelsmith)

Basically we work on the story later. It actually is both [the system and the story] but basically we start with the system, what kind of game to build and then at minimum have a story that goes with it. As long as it meets those requirements and would be better if it also has room for the user's imagination. To me the story is for the game, we don't make a game for the story, and like I said before I want the user's experience to be the story. So we are not focusing too much on a linear story line, but it would be a problem if we don't have any, because it won't feed the imagination. I don't have much desire to tell the story.

Yes, I don't want to make a game that chases the story. So the information about the story is reduced drastically but instead wanted the user's play experience become the story. On the other hand we provided information of your surroundings to help stimulate the player's imagination. So for those who want it we have provided an abnormal amount of surrounding information.


A perfect application of how narrative in games should work. Could have been lifted straight out of my essay.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Unread postby Bread » 20 Feb 2016 20:34

John Romero's been answering questions on Quora, mostly technical and industry stuff.

https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-there-mo ... -n-slashes

John Romero: Why isn't there more focus on designing games with a good story rather than blind shoot-em-ups and hack-n-slashes?


John Romero wrote:The reason is because games are not about story, they're about mechanics. They're about gameplay. You can put a story on any kind of game mechanic. It's not what's important.

A game with a great story and crappy gameplay will fail.

A game with no story and great gameplay will win.

Put a great story on great gameplay and you'll have something special.

Age of Empires, DOOM and Minecraft don't give you a story - it's all about gameplay.
Image
User avatar
Bread
 
Joined: 28 Nov 2009 03:26
Location: London, UK

Previous

Return to Theory