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[AlexDJones]

I echo those who have already said that gameplay and narrative should be married together. They should each inform the direction the other takes. The narrative gives the gameplay meaning, and the gameplay gives the narrative relevance.

[Gimym TILBERT]

I don't believe you tsamati, what you correlate is not story vs gameplay, but passive vs active. Story are dynamic and active too, and game can be pretty linear and "passive" (reactive). The first question is Who is leading? IF the narrative lead the action (the player can only react to them) then both the story and gameplay are weak. If the protagonist (player) lead the action then both story and gameplay are dynamic.

Both story and gameplay IS about pursuing a goal, it should not be difficult to marry them, storytelling is JUST the feedback about how well the player/protagonist is doing toward that goal. Story still have the upper end in character psychology and interpersonal feedback while current game idiom work best for physic based feedback.

When game start to pursue more interpersonal and character psychology (princess maker, love plus, the sims, mass effect are prototype) then game might achieve better story and not just physic based story (killing, jumping, kicking, etc...)

[Samtagonist]

I think it's a lot easier to conceptualize a game as the story rather than the mechanics that will make it up, it's just how people think.    This certainly isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't offer the sort of concrete base for a game that working out how the game will play will.  How often has someone talked about a game without even really describing the sort of genre it's going to fall in?  It creates a very murky picture of what the final product will be, but isn't necessarily a negative point against your game.  I'm pretty sure Sonic the Hedgehog started out as a competition among the folks at Sega to create a new mascot for their company, and not someone who wanted to create a momentum-based platformer.  On the other hand Knights into Dreams was designed around a desire to simulate flying, and was going to be a Flicky game originally. 

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that it doesn't matter what order the ideas come to you, as long as they're good and executed well.  Most good games at their very earliest forms of conception are usually based around a single simple plot idea or a basic unique mechanic.  As long as you don't create a situation where one aspect of the game makes the other feel like something the player has to trudge through to enjoy the other, then everything should be fine.

[Antiserum]

Best case scenario is when gameplay and storytelling form a union and complement each other. I don't mind games that are all gameplay, but I do mind games that are all story but where gameplay is lacking fun; in that case I would much rather watch a movie or read a book. Having to suffer through tedious and long gameplay only to unlock the story usually puts me off and I never finish the game.
I also don't like it when developers, that already have a very fun game try to merge some sort of half-assed story into it, just for the sake of having one.

[Richard Kain]

Gameplay should always come first. This is because a game is based on its play, the rules that define the play, and the ways in which the player interacts with the rules. This is the foundation of every game.

Stories are, by their nature, non-interactive. It is possible to write branching stories that will lead the player down various available paths based on decisions and input. But for the most part, the player rarely changes the story itself. It is something that the developer makes and places in the game for the player to discover.

I say gameplay should come first because it is the foundation of the game. The story has much more in common with the artwork that goes into the game. It is an element that can be addressed and refined later without having too much influence over the gameplay. It is very rare for changes in the story to require overt changes to the gameplay.

[AlexDJones]

Gameplay should always come first. This is because a game is based on its play, the rules that define the play, and the ways in which the player interacts with the rules. This is the foundation of every game.

I think the one thing that sometimes marrs this debate is the idea that since player interactivity is unique to the medium of videogames, it should therefore be considered above and beyond all else. While gameplay is necessary for there to be a game whereas story is not, gameplay on its own is either gratuitous or nothing more than a tech demo. In these cases, videogames cannot grow as a medium, and devolves into "lol chaynsors r funz".

I'd argue that in some cases, if not many, that story is the foundation of the game. If you asked someone to come up with a game idea off of the top of their head, I'd say there's a 50/50 chance that they would come up with an idea for a story, or a vague scenario. The story would then become the foundation of the game, and the mechanics would be built around the narrative in order to give it purpose as a game.

Stories are, by their nature, non-interactive. It is possible to write branching stories that will lead the player down various available paths based on decisions and input. But for the most part, the player rarely changes the story itself. It is something that the developer makes and places in the game for the player to discover.

Scripted stories are, for the most part, but not stories in general. I'd cite Dwarf Fortress as an example of this. DF is a game with no script from the developer, and yet these is plenty of story, all of which is emergent of the gameplay. The player's actions within the world create reactions, and this is the basis for narrative which is completely interactive and not simply something buried beneath the mechanics to be discovered by completing a certain objective.

[Gimym TILBERT]

And yet cinema is not just pretty image moving ...

wait wat?

[mirosurabu]

Scripted stories are, for the most part, but not stories in general. I'd cite Dwarf Fortress as an example of this. DF is a game with no script from the developer, and yet these is plenty of story, all of which is emergent of the gameplay. The player's actions within the world create reactions, and this is the basis for narrative which is completely interactive and not simply something buried beneath the mechanics to be discovered by completing a certain objective.

Might be a tangent, but DF doesn't have a story. I don't know why people keep using these games as a good storytelling examples when they don't attempt at any storytelling.

Dwarf Fortress is a toy. Toys do not tell stories, they assist in developing fantasies.

When I was a kid I used to create "my stories" with toys. That's the same type of entertainment that DF and Minecraft provide. Yet, nobody considers these toys to be doing any storytelling. They are not, really. That's not storytelling.

[AlexDJones]

Scripted stories are, for the most part, but not stories in general. I'd cite Dwarf Fortress as an example of this. DF is a game with no script from the developer, and yet these is plenty of story, all of which is emergent of the gameplay. The player's actions within the world create reactions, and this is the basis for narrative which is completely interactive and not simply something buried beneath the mechanics to be discovered by completing a certain objective.

Might be a tangent, but DF doesn't have a story. I don't know why people keep using these games as a good storytelling examples when they don't attempt at any storytelling.

Where DF differs from a toy is in the way it creates the narrative, or "assists a fantasy" as you put it. Since DF relies on emergent gameplay, the player's actions have reactions. If I do this, the dwarves will react this way and this event will occur. My decisions have consequences, and this can have profound implications for me as the player. I would call that storytelling. If I crash two toy cars together then I am creating a narrative, but there is no reaction. The narrative begins and ends with my input. I would not call that storytelling.

To be told a story, we have to take a passive role in the narrative at some point. Not always, but at some point. This happens with DF, but not toy cars.

[mirosurabu]

Toys provide feedback too, it's just that you have to find someone else to play with or resort to actions that you don't have under complete control. Cannon toy for example. Since you can't be sure you will hit the target you are destined to experience what you call "emergent narrative". Games are definitively better at this, though, but that doesn't make the experience less toy-like.

So, I still think that's not storytelling. First, it's not the same type of entertainment. And second, authors are not telling a story.

It's just a virtual world. And when you combine that world with your fantasies you are going to experience plenty of interesting events, but only interesting in relation to your fantasies.

[Samtagonist]

I just don't see why a simulated world would have any more potential for story than the real world would.  My real life has no sort of predetermined plot, but there certainly are many emergent gameplay elements that help me weave the intricate narrative of my life.  Anything has the potential to have one of them emergent gameplay narratives if the player is willing to react to it in such a way.  No amount of paranoid muttering to myself in Minecraft or Stalker is going to make the narrative of the game anymore complex, it's purely my reaction to what's happening and completely dependent on the player rather than the game.  Maybe I wanted to spend a few hours talking about the significance of that specific obsidian block, or maybe I want to tell the tale of how I managed to escape a dark cave full of monsters.  Either way, it's all up to the player, the game simply just there as a thing for the player to describe. 

[Gimym TILBERT]

Picture yourself going into a cinema to stare a bunch of toys ...

[C.A. Sinner]

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies...

[Jasper Byrne]

I'd say it depends on the project.  The spectrum of what constitutes a game starts at the purely mechanical and ends at the semi-interactive movie. 

Actually I'd say it ends with no interaction, or gameplay, at all.  I've played games where there are no choices in them, besides not playing. Actually I'm pretty sure increpare's done one couple where it's literally just a stream of text (Queue)  .

To use an opposite increpare example (he has a game to disprove every generalisation about games), Activate the Three Artefacts and then Leave has no story whatsoever, but they're both compelling to me.

[Gimym TILBERT]

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies...