Story vs. storytelling in video games

Hanford wrote:   Dec-30-07, 3:05 pm

Excellent point Jonathan ... playing the game a second time definitely shouldn't count -- not for an adventure game. Puzzle-based games are fun the FIRST time, and optimized for the first time.

jmackley wrote:   Dec-30-07, 11:13 am

I know this is a very late reply, but remember that for Curse we were dealing with a very non-interactive genre. 95 percent of what the player does when playing an adventure game is just failing. Try this, fail, try that, fail. It's a really flawed genre, which is why it aint popular any more. By adding as much dialog as we could, we were reducing the frustration because dialog is easy to add.

The environment is by necessity less interactive than in modern 3D game.

When you hear something new every time you try something, you feel you haven't failed. In fact, likely you've succeeded by uncovering a new joke. In short, we were distracting the player from the fact that adventure games are just a series of frustrating key-in-lock puzzles. We couldn't make the puzzles easier, or people would blow through the game in a few hours and feel ripped off that the game didn't last long enough for their 40 bucks.

So, you really can't go back to the game after you've already solved the puzzles and complain about too much dialog. The second time through, you don't need the dialog because you know all the answers to the puzzles already. At this point, the dialog is just an impediment to you getting to the next set of funny animations.

In fact, it's really difficult to go back and enjoy that 2D proscenium arch genre of game. Games have progressed too far. It's like trying to go back and enjoy text adventures. It's fun for about five minutes, then you get frustrated that it won't let you do what would be easy in the real world. You finally admit that the game is stupid now, and move on to something else.

Now the Lucas graphic adventure games hold up better because the art, acting and writing is so good that it almost makes up for the lack of interactivity in the genre.

As to story, the greater the interactivity the less necessity for narrative. In short, the story you let the player tell is more powerful than forcing him to listen to your story. At least for games, where there is an expectation of control. Each genre must play to its strengths.

In terms of narrative, games can't match books and movies. The only way they can compete is by increasing control over the environment to the player.

This is why games that emulate movies are ALWAYS colossal failures.

RohoMech wrote:   Jun-1-07, 10:27 am

Hanford, yea, I totally forgot that Freeman never talks...I guess his actions are his words :-P

I think your "DisneyLand ride" metaphor is pretty spot on, so I donno, does it add much value to the game for you?

Hanford wrote:   May-31-07, 10:55 am

Roho, Interesting you mention HL2, because I just started playing it a couple days ago for the first time ever (believe it or not). This was after I wrote this post.

And yes, it is very interactive storytelling; a lot like what I was talking about with PoP:Sands of Time. There aren't any "cut scenes" so far ... everything is first person and even the transport sequence, which is very scripted, still is in-game and gives you 360 degree visibility.

However ... Same as you, I have no idea what the story is. And it is a bit frustrating that your character never speaks. It's kind of like riding a Disneyland ride: you can look anywhere you want, but there's only one path to take and you'll eventually hit all the scenes.

RohoMech wrote:   May-31-07, 10:11 am

Speaking of story in games, I wonder how you felt about Half-Life 2's story. Initially when I'd played the game, the story felt....broken. I didn't have much of an idea of what was going on. There's a great site:

http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/

with a detailed explaination of what went on in the games.

What's really interesting to me is how the other NPC's react to your character in the game. They talk to you, talk about you etc, its pretty neat. But you can still walk away from a conversation and they'll keep talking, or you can walk up to people talking about you and they'll ignore your precence and keep gossiping...

In hindsight, I think their story-telling idea is pretty neat, its interactive and immersive enough that you feel like you're in Freeman's shoes, even if it breaks down at times.

Gamedesigner wrote:   May-25-07, 10:17 am

How about this book by Chris Crawford on interactive storytelling. I think he makes a clear analysis on this subject.

Hanford wrote:   May-24-07, 12:34 pm

Harry, interesting comment regarding the dialog in games, because I often look for a character repeating the same line as cue that the character had nothing more to say, and that I can move on. As long as a character is telling me dialog I've never heard before, I feel compelled to click though all of his/her dialog options.

I remember talking with Jonathan Ackley who was working on Monkey Island 3... he told me that he wanted to try and get the characters to explain objectives and deliver hints 3 different ways. That in this way, the character had more variety in what they said and that there was less chance that the player would get hung up on it.

I love that philosophy, it's a great UI decision (explain things 3 different ways) and it adds more to the world, but when I recently played Monkey Island 3 again, I found myself thinking "I wish this character would shut up so I can go explore" more than a few times. I still love Monkey Island 3 though, but I'm biased.

Harry wrote:   May-23-07, 11:42 pm

Good Post.

Two things that drive me nuts on this subject...

- when characters keep repeating the same soundfile over and over again when you interact with them. Hearing it twice is annoying, and three times totally breaks the spell. To get a voice over artist in a studio for a day isn't *that* expensive, and you can get a serious amount of audio off them.

- when cut scenes are used in TV ads. The only thing this can achieve is frustrate customers. They should show the real game-play! People who don't realize its a cut scene are going to be disappointed when they make the purchase, and people who do realize are not going to benefit from the Ad. I expect the problem is that the people who make the ads aren't gamers, and don't really understand gaming.