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[Alevice]

I was so goddamn tempted to pull a HOLY SHIT GUYS there, given it concerns a disucssion about braid's storytelling. Please note that I may spoil some pieces here, so you may want to skip this thread.

Anyway, I really don't agree that the story and gameplay/level progress tie each other as great as people think it does in Braid; the fact taht skipping the books didnt affect the way you play the game or viceversa is clearly its fault into tying it. The exception is the last level. This is the only place where a single piece of the mechanics (rewind) was tied into the story; yet, its integration was pulled superbly.

Which got me thinking, what if each level had actually been arried to the story in such a way. Like in the frist levels, you get to encounter the knight, and by soilving a puzzle, you prevent him to meet with the princess and such. Elements that could reflect you want to avoid getting her "kidnapped" again; maybe show up different phases on their relationship, I dont know. Perhaps some evels could have provided multiple solutions, each of them leading you to a different door that lead you to a different progression of the story.

That IMO would have tied more the mechanics with the story.

Now, whta do you think about it. Are any other games taht pull this more efficiently?

[Robotacon]

Another World had a great mix of action and story.
It also had Acting which I miss in a lot of games.
The relation between the main character and his alien friend brings life to the game.
You feel like what you're doing actually makes a difference.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Anyway, I really don't agree that the story and gameplay/level progress tie each other as great as people think it does in Braid

*thinks of Edmund's video*

no, too easy

[Bree]

Ugh, Another World- I wanted to like it so bad, but it just wasn't fun to play unless you knew exactly what the developer wanted you to do at the instant you needed to do it. When it worked, it worked beautifully- the chase scene at the beginning was almost perfect for me. The frustration mostly comes at being unable to skip past parts that I've already completed, partly due to sparse checkpoints and a password save system- a deadly combo if you ask me.

Portal's final escape scene was a pretty good marriage of story and gameplay, if you ask me- I really got the sense that I was "beating the system" as I made my way through the inner workings of Aperture Science Laboratories.

[NathanielEdwards]

I know it's out of style right this moment to contribute criticism (especially to Braid), but I do agree in general with this thread. The final-ish scene was the only one to really unite story and gameplay, though that has apparently been something people think that Braid did well. It was a good game, but the story was only sort of metaphorically linked to the static text you had to read before each world. Now, whether or not Blow should have actually done more to link the story and gameplay, I'm not sure.

[Tom Sennett]

First off, the whole storybook thing in Braid sucked. If I wanted to read a book, I would read a book, not play a video game. I think good writing has a place in video games, and more people need to think about it, but confronting a player with screens of text is just dumb. How many movies have you seen where there's more than a short paragraph of text onscreen?

And my choice for a game nailing narrative would be Half-Life - there is no distinction between gameplay and story for the player.

[NathanielEdwards]

I wouldn't really say that Half-Life is perfect in this respect, but its opening stage is more like how video game narratives should work. What Braid did to convey the storyline isn't awful, it's just not at all, well, videogame-y, until the last scene. The storybook thing works alright, I think, but it couldn't be less interactive, and therefore in the context of a video game it's not especially compelling. If this static text story weren't already an issue in so many games, I really wouldn't mind in Braid, because it does sort of match the game's style a bit.

[Bree]

I think I'd have liked the storybooks in Braid if they had been spaced out a little more evenly. Having to run through all of the books at once was a pain, especially since it slowed my computer when all I wanted to do was get to the first level again.

[LiquidAsh]

I was thinking about this the other day.  I thought of two kinds of games that seem to effectively tell stories.  First are the Monkey Island style games in which unfolding the story is really a big part of the game's challenge.  The other game I thought of was ICO.  Like Another World (metioned above), the storytelling was minimal and done primarily through the player's own actions.  I've heard that the saying in film is, show instead of tell.  In games it should be play instead of showing or telling.

I just started replaying Braid to read those storybooks that I skipped over in my first several playings.  I think there is some brilliance in how Braid's story relates to its gameplay.  As mentioned above, it's too bad that the presentation/telling is so hard on the player.

LiquidAsh.

[NathanielEdwards]

I've been thinking about this a bit more while playing two big commercial games that came out recently, InFAMOUS and Red Faction: Guerrilla. They both have stories, and they're relatively important to the games, but both stories are conveyed almost entirely outside of actual gameplay.

Infamous (I'm tired of capitalizing it in their stupid way, if I was even right before) has static pictures that move around like they were directed by Ken Burns' slightly edgier 22-year-old son, with narration. This is meant to evoke a comic book aesthetic, but it basically ruins the story's execution. I'm playing a video game, so I want to experience the story, not just do missions, then hear what happened.

Red Faction: Guerrilla isn't so bad about this, but it still uses cutscenes where it's not necessary, like right at the beginning. You have your stuff taken away, and you're about to get shot by a guard until you're saved by Red Faction, but there is no tension to it, because it's during a cutscene. Inside a controlled gameplay situation, this could have been interesting, especially when you run over to finally pick up your sledgehammer and join in the fight yourself.

Far Cry 2 did this well, in the opening gameplay scene of that game. You're left alone with nothing but a machete in a town that's getting the crap beat out of it, and you try to escape. You can successfully escape, with a lot of hard work, and then you pass out from your Malaria, or you get gunned down, and the same effect happens. Regardless, it had a lot more emotional power, because you felt like you had to get out, and you felt the dread from dying, which you don't get from a cutscene, because you're distanced. Games should use their advantages over films, books, and comic books, but they don't most of the time, when it comes to narrative.