Gaming, a medium told entirely in second person?

I was just thinking about established authors that might be able to write well for the video game medium, and it struck me that Neil Gaiman would be brilliant for the job. Many of his works contain strong metafictional elements, which would be perfect for the medium.

But then I asked myself, "why?". Why does it strike me as so obvious that gaming would be so brilliantly optimised for handling metafiction? I think it's because gaming is told entirely in second person.

For the character you play, everything happens in first person, irrespective of the visual representation the game gives you. The player, however, gets external feedback for their instructions. We are informed, by the game, about the results of our choices. There's a gulf that exists between the player and the character they control.

Games have played with that distance before — Metal Gear Solid 2 springs to mind — but not often. And I think this might explain why, so often, stories written by established authors don't really translate so well into games. We're used to thinking of stories being told in third person, or first person, and so are game developers. They want to tell those stories. But if gaming is a second person narrative experience, then there's an obvious answer as to why adaptation is often so difficult.

Furthermore, it's a reason why authors with a grasp on metafiction might be the best people for the job of game writing. Dealing with that gulf between the player and their character is a mostly untapped source of potential.

This disconnect with traditional writing is probably the reason for all the cutscenes in so many games these days. Not saying that's good or bad, just that it is.

That said, not all games are second-person. Look at Dwarf Fortress, for example. You don't control any character in it.

I really wish they learned to harness the interactive element better. It is the main factor that separates video games from other media. That's why the original Half Life was regarded as so revolutionary, because it made incredibly good use of that.

I have a bit of rule: if ten seconds pass without me being able to do something that affects the game world, I start thinking of it less as one single video game and more as multiple smaller video games thematically linked and using the same software.

^^ That's true. Strategy and management games could be considered third-person.

That's.... pretty weird.

That would mean that Mario Bros. isn't a full video game, but rather something like forty games.

Ten seconds is longer than you think.

edited 23rd Sep '11 9:31:22 AM by TotemicHero

It's long enough for a loading screen in either of the HL games.

how long does it take you to enter the next level after touching the flagpole, perhaps seeing fireworks, and then walking into the pipe if it's an underground level?

Well, I think it's generally agreed long loading times are a net minus in video games anyway. And better hardware can (should) fix that.

When extended periods with a lack of interaction are automatically intrinsic to the game itself...

Edit: That's variable depending on how you play. Completing it slower means less delay in the timer getting added to points. In short, it's only longer than ten seconds because the player chose to make it so.

Not that it doesn't have problems in and of itself. It just avoids this one.

edited 23rd Sep '11 9:45:55 AM by TotemicHero

So tell me, how does Half-Life make use of interactive storytelling?

Because you can move around while people are talking to you? I mean, I know always being in the protagonist's POV is really good for immersion.

But does HL's interactivity actually tell you anything? Or are things just being told to you while you're interacting?

edited 23rd Sep '11 9:47:01 AM by JotunofBoredom

The latter, mostly. Remember though, the original HL came out in 1998. At the time, that was far superior to anything that had come before, so...

My rule is sort of like the Bechdel Test of video game design. It's pretty much a requirement for immersion via interactivity, but on its own doesn't tell us anything.

Clearly, we need a video game adaptation of If on a winter's night a traveler… A.S.A.P.

edited 23rd Sep '11 9:56:53 AM by Tzetze

But interactive storytelling isn't anything new and has been done in games with less control over the protagonist than Half Life.

So basically, if a game doesn't let you wander around while someone's talking to you, it's not a unified experience?

What?

There's a weird misconception now-a-days that "interactive storytelling" = "more control".

edited 23rd Sep '11 10:47:24 AM by JotunofBoredom

We certainly experience games on a fundamentally different level than movies or books. I don't think many games taking full advantage of this discrepancy will emerge for a couple more years, seeing as the generation raised by games are just now starting to make games.

I prefer video games as a narrative medium over movies and books simply because of this potential. Bio Shock and games like it that take a look at what being a Player Character means are really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how games are coming along storywise.

There's also the fact that most game devs are ignoring more subtle ways of interactive storytelling.

Even things like how a character plays. I like to cite this article(scroll down to where it says "You will have the blood you hunger for..." it's in bold so there shouldn't be much trouble finding it, and I guess you can stop at "You wear those trinkets well, Kain. But I do believe that they would look better on me." unless you want to read the entire article, though it's more a piece on the Legacy of Kain series than interactive storytelling) when talking about this stuff.

edited 23rd Sep '11 11:21:41 AM by JotunofBoredom

I don't see how hard it is to understand that player input is the key factor distinguishing video games (to a degree, this applies to other games too, like tabletop RPGs) from other forms of media.

The moment you take that out of the picture, it stops being a video game. Ten seconds might be a little short, but the point remains: if too long passes without the element that makes it a video game being present, you've effectively segregated it enough that it could be two separate games.

Yeah, I get that. But it's what the game does with interactivity in the context of its story that should matter, not just having interactivity for the sake of it.

Half Life and Half Life 2 don't have interactive stories, they have stories you can run around in. The percentage of "running around" versus "not running around" might be skewed more toward the former, but so what?

I do have a problem with some games overemphasizing cutscenes of course. I totally hate the idea some devs have that the only way to have a good story is to pretend you're writing a movie, but I don't share the ideal that cutscenes are the enemy of interactive storytelling either.

edited 23rd Sep '11 11:37:52 AM by JotunofBoredom

INB 4 MGSLOL

That Legacy Of Kain article's bits you pointed out where neat, but I'd like stress that the interaction doesn't have to be an intrinsic game mechanic. Some games can make a pretty big splash with just a single choice you make.

The only thing i dislike about cutscenes is Cutscene Power to the Max and it's counterpart. When i play through a world, and it's presented in two different ways depending on whether i'm actively participating or not, it really really bugs me. I can get behind a guy being able to punch his way through concrete and take bullets to the chest and keep coming... But if he's shot once in a cutscene and then placed in a thin-walled jail cell that somhow keeps him restrained i get a huge disconnect. The Yakuza series has a big problem with this.

Naturally, but when people talk about interactive storytelling they seem to generally forget about mechanics and concentrate on setpieces instead.

And really, when the storytelling does come from a game mechanic it comes off really naturally because the player can connect the story to something they are doing throughout the game constantly.

I also feel that quite a few devs can't use choice and consequence without doing something really jarring to ruin it(the thin illusion of choice, making the character absurdly charismatic despite also being extremely bland, binary morality meters, etc.).

Though there are people I feel avoid these pitfalls really well, or even use them to their advantage. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, for example, makes the protagonist being bland and boring a major plotpoint.

Part of the problem is that one particular game set the bar very high when it came to interactivity...and very few games since have even tried to do anything coming anywhere close to matching it.

There's a reason it's considered one of the best games ever made.

I haven't really played Morrowind, I'll admit, though I've heard good things.

Just how does it tell a story through interactivity?

There are two main factors that really are what made it work.

First, how it handled a lot of the backstory. Most games tend to provide you with almost all the relevant information as part of just doing whatever the story tells you to do.

In Morrowind, just going through a lot of the extended quest lines will net you the bare bones...but if you want the details of what's really going on, you'll have to dig them up yourselves. This typically amounts to finding the right people, asking them about the right things, and occasionally hunting down a book or two on the history involved.

And of course, keep in mind not all the quest givers are entirely correct, or honest...

Secondly is how it handled faction affiliation. Basically, there's no such thing as 100% Completion. Most of the factions involved don't like each other that much. Doing things for one faction often upsets the agendas of one or more of the other factions, and alienates their members. This limits who you can talk to and deal with.

The main quest itself varies depending on this as well, as the side quests frequently overlap dealing with the same people. How you handle these people (up to and including killing them) does have an impact. And if you're not careful...

edited 23rd Sep '11 12:52:18 PM by TotemicHero