Story In Video Games.

And "Role-Playing" is in "RPG Elements," but even to the extent that RP Gs normally do have roleplaying (which is limited,) "RPG elements" almost invariably have nothing to do with elements of role playing. The fact that "game" is in the name "video game" doesn't tell us anything useful about how they ought to be made.

That's not to say that games shouldn't be about gameplay. If you're making a video game, as opposed to a work in some other medium, there ought to be some way in which video game-specific qualities improve the experience of the story relative to some other medium. But that doesn't mean that every important development must take place while you're in control of the action.

edited 16th May '13 12:20:10 PM by Desertopa

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

Asura's Wrath is essentially an interactive anime with some tedious gameplay sections. If we're talking about game designers trying to be film-makers, Asura's Wrath (And Heavy Rain, for that matter) are at the top of the fucking list.

And I'm sorry, but I don't like interactive anime. As others have said, qtes take emphasis away from the actual video content, and they're shallow and boring as a game mechanic.

edited 16th May '13 12:20:50 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

I don't think so, and being an interactive anime makes it stand out compared to other games of it's type, just like How games by Clover Studios/Platinum Games stand out compared to other games, too. But whatever.

Oh, and Cyber Connect 2, The creators of Asura's Wrath, Do have an actual film making division, as opposed to David Cage's studio not actually having one. They made the Dot Hack GU trilogy movie, where many of Asuras Wrath's own cinematic qualities come from:

edited 16th May '13 12:26:51 PM by Demongodofchaos2

Watch Symphogear

I like visual novels. Lots of ones with awesome stories. And they tend to be extremely long, and that's always a plus to me. They're not really video games though. Most of them anyway.

I also like Visual Novels, too. I want to try out Yarudora.

edited 16th May '13 12:37:30 PM by Demongodofchaos2

Watch Symphogear

There are plenty of ways to do a story in video games. They can be basic excuse plots(most Mario games), like an eight hour long action movie(many FPS's like Call of Duty and Halo), long narratives that you control(many western RPG's and visual novels), long narratives that you don't control(Metal Gear Solid and many JRPG's), or lack any story at all(stuff like Pac-man and Tetris). All can be appropriate depending on the kind of game and story you want. I don't think there is any one true way video games stories should be handled, but it is nice to see developers integrate story and gameplay more. It shouldn't be required though.

Kid Icarus: Uprising is one of my favorite examples of integrating story and gameplay. The story moves while you're fighting through dialogue between all the characters, with the occasional short cutscene when necessary. As a result, the game doesn't slow down to progress the story. It's a good way to keep the player engaged in both the story and the gameplay.

I agree with pretty much your whole post. The way stories are handled is a matter of preference, and I don't think it's fair to say that ALL stories in games should be implemented the same way.

Also, I think it depends on the game. Some games put a lot of emphasis on the story, some don't. Some take themselves seriously, some don't. Which method works best tends to depend on the game. Something like Pikmin doesn't really need a complex story - it's perfectly fine with a simple premise and a bunch of optional background info. Something like The World Ends With You, despite having fun and unique gameplay, would still be much less impressive if the story wasn't so well-done.

I will say that having cutscenes every few rooms can be annoying. I don't mind long cutscenes as long as there's plenty of gameplay in between them. Xenoblade is a good example of that. The story was important, but rather than being rushed through it, you had plenty of room to explore and mess around in between plot points.

edited 16th May '13 3:37:55 PM by SapphireBlue

Agreed.

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

I've always viewed video games as being about empowering the player. You (and/or your characters) are the most important force in the game, and you are the one(s) making things happen, for good or for evil (or for giggles, or profit, or whatever else). There are many ways to do this, but obviously it becomes much easier if you allow for player choice to have a greater impact on both story and gameplay. I can accept that linear stories can do this if handled correctly, but sadly few of them do.

In my view, the ideal video game would be a series of gameplay and story feedback loops, with each gameplay choice you make moving the story in a particular direction, but not totally restricting you. Again and again and again, until the game is over, a branching tree of choice. But that's my preference, and to each their own.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Making the player the main force of change in the game is the oldest and most frequently done method of immersion. That's why there's so much demand nowadays for premises that make the player a small if in any way significant part of something much bigger - like a 'living' game world.

I'm not convinced that there is one ideal form of video game, even just in terms of story implementation. What you describe does sound good, but I don't think that it would necessarily improve all games to have them implement it.

For example, would the Gabriel Knight games be improved by such a system? Given the strong focus on the characters and how they change over the course of the games, I think that it might actually weaken the games. Would it be better to have the games in another medium? Not really, I don't think; moving along with the characters, solving the puzzles, feeling as though one is "taking part" feels rather different to reading or watching the stories. Consider that I have the novelisations of both of the first two Gabriel Knight games, and, to the best of my memory, have read each only once (perhaps twice), and played the games more than that.
Such a system may also be thematically inappropriate: For example, a game about a lack of agency might provide the illusion of choice, only to show how it all inevitably leads to a single end. This too, I think, might be weaker outside of a game: interactivity gives that illusion of choice weight, I feel.

I think that some games are about empowering the player, but not all; I think that interactivity can be used to that end, but don't think that such empowerment is the only use for it. Interactivity can make an experience more a journey, or more empowering, or more intimate; it's different to feel as though one is doing something — whether there's much true agency or not — than that one is watching something, I feel.

In short, I largely agree with Sterok and Sapphire Blue, I think.

edited 16th May '13 6:33:41 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

I did say it was my ideal, not the ideal.

One key issue is that video games are heavily tied to certain systems or software (different consoles, computers, etc.). So the one thing video games have to do to be really successful is be really distinct from other mediums, since the associated cost needed to experience them is typically higher than other mediums. (It doesn't help that I'm the webcomic forum herald, so video games are competing for my time against works that effectively cost a fraction of my internet bill.)

So what do video games do that cannot (ever, ever, ever, ever, ever) be found anywhere else, and thus are worth that cost?

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Aside from interactivity, video games can also tell a much longer story. Films have a certain length. Books can only be so long before it gets too big. Web comics need to present things in small chunks. Same thing with TV shows, though they are obviously bigger chunks. Games can get away with telling a single story that takes up as much time as several movies or books in one product. It can get ridiculous though. Doesn't Metal Gear Solid 4 have like, 5 movies worth of cutscenes?

Books can get pretty goddamn long as it is, but for a webnovel, there's no size limit.

If Tales Of MU ever makes it through the full length of Mack's college education, I'm guessing it'll take longer to read through the whole thing than playing through the entire Final Fantasy series end to end.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

The problem with Metal Gear Solid 4 is that it's too much watching, not enough playing, thus why it's joked that Kojima makes movies rather than games and stuff like that.

While how one handles a game's narrative is dependent on the designer, game stories still have to adhere to the age-old rule - show, don't tell. In the case of games, in my personal opinion, playing > showing > telling. That's where so many game stories fall completely flat.

Says you. I love extremely gigantic paper books (also ebooks are like ubiquitous now). But yeah, in theory video games could have a super-huge story, but very few actually do.

What does the lack of balance in mechanics other than the backstab have to do with what we're talking about? I've never heard of this supposed consensus anywhere.

There's also something you've failed to mention. Specifically, what happens if these attacks miss?

Some Specials go through with a long un-cancelable animation regardless of whether or not they hit. If the defending player avoids the attack, they gain a huge opportunity to punish their opponent because they still have control where their opponent doesn't.

The lack of control for the person performing the Special attack adds a layer of depth to the game's mechanics.

Then there's Anarchy Reigns, where most game modes involve more than two players. In those cases, cinematic attacks are used to temporarily keep other players from interfering, since both the attacking player and the defending player become immune to influence from outside once the Special Attack animation kicks in.

Some characters have a smaller pool of Special Attacks that are also cinematic(meaning they are still susceptible to interference), but make up for it through things like a large Area-of-Effect(which would allow their attacks to hit more opponents than a Cinematic attack would) or greatly increased damage output.

What would be the benefit of removing these animations in games that clearly take them into account when handling game balance?

They aren't a problem at all. If anything, they're pretty well designed. It's a good thing I'm not suggesting a majority of games be cutscenes, then. When I brought those game up, it was more in reference to their use of cinematic attacks than their cutscenes.

They do have, non-interactive cutscenes, but on the whole they're pretty, for lack of a better term, gamey. RE 4 certainly didn't redefine the TPS genre through its scene direction.

Two things:

1) When did this become about gameplay vs. story? No seriously. Last time I checked, our little talk was about one style of cutscene vs another style of cutscene. Don't go moving the goalpost on me now.

2) Pressing X to move through dialogue has about as much mechanical depth as just watching a cutscene.

I'm not talking about what they "were" I'm talking about what they "are". Your aren't supposed to drive cars above certain speeds depending on where you are, yet civilian cars still have the ability to drive faster than those speeds. Does that mean civilian cars were not meant to drive on roads with speed limits?

Hell, lets reverse that, if a car made for racing follows the speed limit, is it no longer made for racing?

An object being made for something doesn't exclude the possibility of it being used for something else, but, in doing the latter, you may be reducing that object's potential. A butter knife can be used to cut meat, but it still wasn't made to cut meat.

Last analogy, I promise: Cutscenes, interactive or not, are just tools. Just like with tools, which one is best depends on what you're trying to accomplish. You can hammer in a screw, but a screw driver is still the better option. Sure, you can pause movies that you own on DVD, but is that best for what the movie is trying to accomplish?

Yes. But does watching a video at some point suddenly negate all the actual playing you've done? Right.... and?

Umbran Climax◊

Yeah, I checked the play time when I finished MGS4 and the game was literally half cutscene. Which is OK for games like Mass Effect where the cutscenes are a form of gameplay, but not when you have zero interaction apart from mashing a button for confusing flashbacks and occasionally pressing a button to see a different angle.

"Steel wins battles. Gold wins wars."

What does the lack of balance in mechanics other than the backstab have to do with what we're talking about?

Lack of balance only means that the mechanic is more prominent. Other mechanics being prominent is not a problem. Backstabs being prominent is. I am using the lack of balance in other mechanics to demonstrate that the issue with backstabs is not just a lack of balance.

There's also something you've failed to mention. Specifically, what happens if these attacks miss?

Backstabs do not have a miss animation that's different from a normal attack's. They are essentially context dependent.

Most super moves in fighting games also do not have whiff animations that match the super animation.

''Some Specials go through with a long un-cancelable animation regardless of whether or not they hit. If the defending player avoids the attack, they gain a huge opportunity to punish their opponent because they still have control where their opponent doesn't. The lack of control for the person performing the Special attack adds a layer of depth to the game's mechanics.''

Overlong super moves are very disliked; see the reactions to Injustice's super animations. Even if they have an equally long miss animation, that's still a lengthy amount of time not playing the game if they connect.

Then there's Anarchy Reigns, where most game modes involve more than two players. In those cases, cinematic attacks are used to temporarily keep other players from interfering, since both the attacking player and the defending player become immune to influence from outside once the Special Attack animation kicks in.

That's part of the problem with lengthy attack animations; they require artificial protection in the form of invincibility for both players. In my backstab example, both players are invincible for the length of a backstab; this means that while other attacks in the game tend to have reasonable hitboxes, your character suddenly is phasing through attacks for no other reason than to protect the animation. The combat system stops feeling realistic (A big reason why Dark Souls combat is fun is because of the weightiness of the moves) and starts feeling "game-y" and exploited.

They aren't a problem at all. If anything, they're pretty well designed.

I wouldn't call them well designed either (Tolerable), but since neither of us is actually arguing much here, let's drop it.

edited 19th May '13 12:37:48 AM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.