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[saibot216]

If I made a new fmv adventure game, would anyone play it?
My friend (film major) and I (game major) are thinking about making an fmv game. We'd write the script, do cgi backgrounds, get people that can ACT, actually have a budget, do the soundtrack ourselves, and make this murder/mystery fmv game. We would make sure that it's good and not like those old fmv games that may have been lacking in almost every department (except Ripper because of that A list cast), while still trying to hint at some cheesiness.
Would you play?

[Feral_P]

Could you detail the mechanics, please?

[mirosurabu]

Why not? Make it!

Seriously, if you are inspired, don't ask us if we'll play it. Just proceed, have fun and deliver. (:

[saibot216]

Thanks for the support, I'm sure we will go through with this. Many notes will be made and saved on my computer.
Mechanics? It'd be a point and click adventure game like Ripper, Phantasmagoria series, Gabriel Knight series, 7th Guest, etc. Granted I'd try to add aspects that would make it more interesting than just that.

[Feral_P]

Ah, right; I haven't played any FMVs before so...
I think the addition of film could well be an improvement to the adventure genre.
Good luck, at any rate

[saibot216]

Oh my God, well shame on you Feral, go try some They are classic.
Thanks, I think I'm going to write some of it over winter break.

[moi]

Oh mang I loved gabriel knight beast within, a game like that would be awesome.
The thing with FMV games is just to make sure they are not boring. I.e: gameplay must b engaging, movies must be skippable and reviewable, UI must be top notch, etc...

[saibot216]

Exactly, that's why I'm going to make sure this game is not boring. I think the movies shouldn't be skippable unless it's a transition... which in any case I'd make short enough to establish a transition/new location.

[LemonScented]

My initial reaction was to think that FMV games died for a reason - in my experience they were a bit of an evolutionary dead-end that arose from people getting too excited about CD-ROMs. All the examples I saw of those games were just bad - bad writing, bad acting, bad direction, and shockingly, unforgivingly limited gameplay.

But then I figured it doesn't have to be like that. We've got a decade or two's worth of accumulated knowledge since the last time someone did an FMV game, and the technology is no longer so new that you can (well, would NEED to) focus on having the FMV support the gameplay rather than the other way round.

What's actually got me genuinely excited about such a prospect is how many awesome possible contemporary scenarios there could be for this. Video is so pervasive now that there's a huge amount of scope for taking a new look at some types of video which are already completely commonplace. Inject a little bit of weird into the banal. I think going back to putting the player in the shoes of a cameraman walking around a house badly-set-dressed as a creepy mansion (or whatever) would be pretty awful. But you could have the player be a security guard monitoring many banks worth of footage (live and archive), trying to solve some mystery in a city-centre or industrial estate. Or the head of an intelligence agency who relies on hidden cameras planted on the spies they employ. Or a YouTube addict who starts to notice clues in the seemingly-innocuous videos which point to a vast conspiracy. Or someone who discovers that their phone has started filling up with video messages - from themselves, in the future.

[s0]

LemonScented's post summed up my thoughts perfectly. 

[gimymblert]

heavy rain

[saibot216]

Heavy Rain is boring.
This, I will try not to make boring, as hard as I can.

[Akari]

Or someone who discovers that their phone has started filling up with video messages - from themselves, in the future.

Just pointing out that there's a manga with a setting like this: A young guy who keeps a diary of everyday happenings in his cellphone starts receiving diary entries by himself from the future - the title is (dunn dunn dunn) Future Diary (or Mirai Nikki). It's also pretty good.

[s0]

heavy rain

Heavy Rain isn't a lot like The 7th Guest and other FMV adventures. It's more like Dragon's Lair: Pretentious Edition.

[saibot216]

Just pointing out that there's a manga with a setting like this: A young guy who keeps a diary of everyday happenings in his cellphone starts receiving diary entries by himself from the future - the title is (dunn dunn dunn) Future Diary (or Mirai Nikki). It's also pretty good.

That sounded like a Japanese horror movie turned American.

Heavy Rain isn't a lot like The 7th Guest and other FMV adventures. It's more like Dragon's Lair: Pretentious Edition.

LOL, so true.

[gimymblert]

I was mentioning heavy rain because of:

My initial reaction was to think that FMV games died for a reason - in my experience they were a bit of an evolutionary dead-end that arose from people getting too excited about CD-ROMs. All the examples I saw of those games were just bad - bad writing, bad acting, bad direction, and shockingly, unforgivingly limited gameplay.

But then I figured it doesn't have to be like that. We've got a decade or two's worth of accumulated knowledge since the last time someone did an FMV game, and the technology is no longer so new that you can (well, would NEED to) focus on having the FMV support the gameplay rather than the other way round.

My point is that heavy rain prove there is still things that can be done in this format, whatever rubbish it was. It's still a step up from old days (except not fmv, but shouldn't be that important considering the delivery).

[s0]

My point is that Heavy Rain's format is different from that of the games saibot mentions. Both the 7th Guest and Dragon's Lair use FMVs, but one is a puzzle game and the other is an arcade action game. FMV arcade games and FMV puzzle/adventure games are two separate things that happened in parallel due to certain technological advances. Or that's the way I see it at least.

[gimymblert]

Isn't Heavy rain both alternatively? It's not entirely action base and there is some bit of puzzle.

Heavy rain also introduce illustrative gameplay (gameplay that reveal information > plot or emotional)
It also blend those illustrative gameplay with choice to keep the experience seamless (you never know priorly which action lead or participate to a branch). Not responding to prompt can be a real choice.

It's rough on the pacing and the gameplay but I think it successfully evolve the genre and the convention. The little gamey aspect (3D navigation) can be done more tightly with different convention. I think we can take what heavy rain achieve but with a more tight pacing and bring that to true FMV (real character and shooting) to evolve the genre even further (more polish, better structure and gameplay).

[saibot216]

Of course with advances in gaming we will make multiple storylines, and by that I mean you can make multiple choices to achieve one objective, it's not so black and white, like those games used to be. Idk how many games are like that now though, I assume not many.