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Hi folks, From my limited kwnoledge, I can tell you if you want to write good stories, you must at least read the following books.

MANDATORY:
- "Dramatic writing" of Lajos Egri (It's like kwnowing the ABC of Drama)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1AWX-3RIh0_ZGQ0Zjc1OTMtNTc3MC00OTFjLWFkY2YtNGNkYTI2ZDNhZWI4&hl=en (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1AWX-3RIh0_ZGQ0Zjc1OTMtNTc3MC00OTFjLWFkY2YtNGNkYTI2ZDNhZWI4&hl=en)

GOOD:
- "Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering" of David Freeman
It's good and shows how to make emotional games, very good.
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Emotion-Games-Craft-Emotioneering/dp/1592730078 (http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Emotion-Games-Craft-Emotioneering/dp/1592730078)

I think with those two you're good to go.
But there's these others (seek in amazon or google):
- "Digital storytelling" of Carolyn Handler Miller
- "Screenplay" of Syd Field (how to write for cinema, but very usefull if you want to be a writer)
- "Chris crawford on game design" of well... Chris crawford (How to tie a story with gameplay)
- "The hero with a thousand faces" of Joseph Campbell (It shows you why everyone first write stories about the chosen one and the hero, lol, RPG?)

These are the books I can tell you from first hand, there should be others but these will give you a good start.

PROTIPS:
+) Read, Read a lot, but read the classics and the know and osbscure masters (GABO, Shakespeare, everyone talks but no one reads, lol) (not the actual mainstream crap, lol, Twilight), read history, science, politics, economys, Poetry, math, It will make you smart and will make you write better stories.
+) Watch the classics in Cinema, it will show you how to tell a good story also (Kubrick is a god, Hitchcok, Spielberg is a genius) watch Casablanca, Spielberg movies, Dr. Strangelove, Taxi Driver.
+) Explore things you never know, like Japanese pop, Arabic music, african art, Yume nikki, paint and art history.
+) DO NOT USE Clichés, Forget about them, write them and inmediately throw them at the garbage bim. READ DRAMATIC WRITING and you'll understand.
+) Since this is about games, well... play games! (Seek in wikipedia about a genre of videogames to know the history of them, lol, that's how I knew about Cave story and Yume nikki)


Well, That's what I remember now, ask anything, ok?

 :cavestory: :cavestory: :cavestory:
Since I just type this in other post, I just feel like I should copy here.

 :) :) :) :) :)
Lol, It's so funny to read this, I don't want to sound as a troll, because I'm not, but I think everyone here talks about something they (to be sincere) don't have a clue about what are you talking about?

Lol, Writing for videogames is COMPLETELY DIFERENT from a Book, a Movie or whoever you put me as example of good writing.
In literature, I can only name Three examples of writing (books) that can be suited for videogames:
///+++/// >:( >:( >:(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_fiction)
Hypertext fiction is the closest the literature can be with videogames, It's in a blurry line with videogames, as visual novels (lol, lot of echi and H-games) proves.
///+++/// ;D ;D ;D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)
Choose your own adventure I think everyone played it as a kid, another way to show you how complex is the story in a player's driven adventure.
///+++/// >:D >:D >:D
Now, THE ONLY, THE CHOSEN ONE, whoever...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayuela
Rayuela of Julio Cortazar, It shows that videogame writing is posible, a book that you can read in any order (There's like three basic ways -orders- to read it in the book's index).
If you haven't read it, you can't speak about writing for videogames (so STFU).
You always talk about novels writers, but I told you: Fuck them! I think any TV show writer, movie screenwriter or novel writer would be fucked up trying to write a book like Julio Cortazar 50 years ago.

 :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink:*********
But the problem with videogames is even more complex, even if you make something like Rayuela you would suck making it as a videogame, why... because of a simple word: Remember this: A GAME DOESN'T NEED STORY, ONLY INTERACTIVITY
Yeah, remember: most great games of all times doesn't have a great story:
-) Fucking TETRIS, man!
-) Pac-man
-) Any Fucking Street Fighter II clon (kof 98/2002, EFZ).
-) Any racing game (lol, Mario Kart)
-) First Doom.
-) Any sports game (lol, soccer, Maiden, NFL)
-) Age of Empire II.
-) Lol, Any shoot'em up (Halo is a FPS, shoot'em up is something like Ikaruga)
-) Mario Bross (Super Mario World/ 3)
-) Nintendogs, wii fit plus.
-) Any 70-NES games.
-) Contra (NES)
-) Metroid (SNES/NES)
-) Driver 2 (psone)
-) The sims
Any more examples?, yeah, my favorites:
-) Castlevania SOTN (psone)
One of my favorites games ever, why?... It was non-linear, It gives you a free liberty and didn't have any cutscenes in the middle of the game. For me there's no better example and definition of what a good videogame is and should be.
-) Final Fantasy VI (SNES).
Why... well, because of non-linear gameplay, even if it was a linear story, but It gives you a free liberty and didn't have any cutscenes in the middle of the game, only dialogs. It's non-linear (remember... after the world is destroyed and you can choose which character you want to rescue with celes in a non-linear order).
-) Freaking MINECRAFT!!!
There's no better example why a videogame doesn't need a linear story and linear path.
Just non-linear gameplay and 100% interactivity. Lol, I wonder why it's so popular.

Tell me, What's the diference between watching a walkthrough in youtube of any linear story driven game like Metal Gear solid 4, Uncharted 2, Final Fantasy XIII?
I told you: It's the Interactivity that makes a game, not their fucking cut-scenes that makes them an interactive movie.

I can tell you, I love some game's designers crazy idea that tells that the actual story of a game is made by the gameplay (yes, the players playing)
An example?
I can't think any writer could script this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk&feature=related)
Yeah, Imagine that fight as a RPG boss, a writer couldn't designed (pre-scripted) and make it as amazing as is in the video.
Another example?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaV5_Qb2Yo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaV5_Qb2Yo)
That's why I love this game, each time I play that game is diferent (the story is diferent), yeah, we call it "speed run" but actually it's the story of the player acting or reenacting that game.
I can tell you the same with another final example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRnhHvHexsM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRnhHvHexsM)
Now you understand?
A story in a videogame is made by the actual decisions of the player, not how good the event's are placed and his shitty dialog.
Do you need any probe? Well... what about Metroid M? or trying to play Dead space the 3rd time?

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That's why I told you a game writer needs no only to know how to write, but also needs to know how to design, because story and gameplay are in reality one.
When you do that, when you design is based on a concept and you farm the idea, make it grow, you can make really strong things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3o0HFXPfco (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3o0HFXPfco)
Some people cry playing that game, other's didn't, some say it make them appreciated their lifes... blah, blah, blah.
Maybe the game is poor, low graphics, low interactivity. But It really shows when a game is well designed around an idea, fusing gameplay mechanics and USING THE WRITING SKILL to give them meaning that videogames shine as a medium, not just cloning others games or putting togheter gameplay mechanics that doesn't fit togheter well.
Other example?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boPHncFbmII (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boPHncFbmII)
Now you see the real power of videogames, they shine when you don't try to make them as movies, well because... THEY'RE NOT FUCKING MOVIES, THEY'RE INTERACTIVE (and non-linear).

///****////
Yeah, also the writer need to know how to pseudocode, he doesn't need to be a programmer, but he need's at least to make a design (pseudocode) that could be easily implemented by the coders of the game.
Yeah, this part is important, it allow to the writer to create things like events engine (not just brench trees dialogs) and to ask things like this:
-) "Realistic NPC behaviour" (Seek in google, there's a lot of academic writings about how to implement that in a engine or game)

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///****/////
Well, I think you understand now that videogames need writers, that:
MANDATORY
-) that can design games (so they can make non-linear stories and mix gameplay with story)
-) that know how to code at least a Tetris game (they don't need to be programmers, but they need to understand the engineering part of making events, posibilities and limits of the engine, just to understand technical stuff in the videogame)
NOT MANDATORY, but extremely usefull
-) can at least know to draw (so they can give a better idea for the designers and artist of the game)
-) To know about History, science, art history, literature, politics, economics (Well... to make the world and character background)
-) know about music (Well to expresse better the feeling of the scene to the composers of the game, telling them: "This should sound like this")

Seek a book called "Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering" of David Freeman for more info about writing for videogames.

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That's why just hiring a book writer or (cinema) writer is not just enough, and There's this feeling that games cannot have good story, because generally all the team dev doesn't know about the special needs of a game story.

****////****
If you want copy paste this shit to your blog, other forums, etc.
made by Filosofiamanga
Sorry if I sound like a troll, to much 4chan, lol.

Strunk & White's Elements of Style is fantastic.

I just copy this from my post in the post called "making interesting enemy characters"
But I'll just copy paste again, because It's good to people to see it:

 :) :) :) :)
I'm not a profesional writer, but I could tell you a few things I learned in the time:

FIRST:
-) Choose the subject of the story (Let's say the "theme" will be revenge)

-)Then create the avatar (But create it around the subject, give him an emotional need that motivate him to act, could be that he needs to pay for the surgery of his mother and he needs money, so he enters the army... or It's a girl who is trying to be appreciated in her school so she will start learning magic... NOT USE CLICHES like trying to conquer the world or I'm evil because well... I'm evil.

-)After you created the player's character (avatar), create an obstacle (not an enemy, an obstacle, like Poverty) that goes with the subject of the story.

-)With the obstacle, makes an antagonist that oposes the player but not because he's evil (REMEMBER, forget the clichés), but because the player it's trying to archieve something that will cause a harm or goes against the interest of the antagonist. (An example: The player will try to farm the biggest chicken to win the country fair so the antagonist wish to gain it too)

-)After you have those two character you will create the player and the antagonist team, designing the relationship of each character (Let's say the player has a sister but the sister is the girlfriend of the antagonist)

-)When designing characters, choose 4 traits of their personality (like: lazy, arrogant, vicious, sadistic) and some other characteristics (like: He likes to play baseball) and USE THIS TO CREATE THEIR DIALOG and BEHAVIOUR. (remember a smart guy that likes poetry will speak in Old english, a Cab man in NEW YORK maybe will speak very "vulgar" and cursing diferent than a priest)

-)Remember: When designing a team, neither the antagonist and the player should have an advantage, they should be equal, a soccer match (or fighting game) is fun because It's balanced.

-)Another rule: They should have the will to fight until the end, they should die before giving up (both the antagonist and player)

-)After that design their clothes based on their traits and the other characteristics.

-)Design also their movements, magic, like their clothes, maybe create a reason why he has that power, spell (a little of background).

AFTER THAT CREATE THE STORY.
-)With the character, create three steps or stages in the story.

-)First, The introduction: The world and characters is presented, their relationships, etc.
It should be the first 10-20% of the game.

-)Second, make a twist: Something happens that creates the emotional need of the character to act (not mandatory that the antagonist creates this situation)

-)After that, create the journey of the hero trying to solucionate his emotional need and the antagonist oposing him, clashing until you get the final showdown (CLIMAX).

-)After the Final Fight, you spend the last 10-20% of the game, showing the consequences of the story.

-)A Last rule: When making an scene, like a dialog, always think about creating conflict (clashing between characters), make them fight in the dialog (It helps to develop characters), make the characters in the dialog or acting throw darts to each other (in words or actions, remember when you joke with your friends?)

Well, I think that's all.

filosophiamanga, there are some general techniques for dramatic writing that will carry over regardless of what medium you're writing for. Of course, every medium has its own conventions, but there tends to be a lot of crossover, dependent on what you're aiming for. Good drama is good drama is good drama.

Games don't need a story, you're right. Some games would be poorer for attempting to bolt a narrative on there. But a good story can, when properly developed and deployed, hugely enhance a game. You say "lol all shoot-em-ups"; I say "fucking Half-Life Jesus Christ what is wrong with you" - a game which, of course, also proves that cutscenes are not a necessary part of storytelling, and that a linear story is not necessarily the enemy of good design (although there are some excellent examples of storytelling in the medium that isn't strictly linear; Deus Ex springs immediately to mind). I also think you must've played a different version of FFVI than me; you're given the freedom to piss about for a long time, but the story is absolutely there; plus, well, I don't mean to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious, but dialogue is writing. "Writing" is not just plot. Have you even played Portal? It's as good an example as any of a game which would've been an excellent anyway, but is elevated to the extraordinary by its writing.

Your "requirements" for videogame writers is also completely spurious. A writer does not have to be able to do any of that shit beyond writing; it helps if they have an understanding of the other processes, but technical ability is not a prerequisite. Hell, all you really need is communication; writers, artists, designers, programmers, riffing off and developing each others' ideas, telling each other what does and doesn't work, listening and reworking stuff that won't work when they're told. One good reason you have different people concentrating on different elements is so that you don't need one guy who can halfway do a bit everything; you can get five guys who are really good at what they do, and have them work together.

Jesus, I could do this all day, but maybe some helpful resources would be a better use of this thread. The aforementioned Campbell book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, is a brilliant piece of work. Stephen King is a fucking hack, but he's a very successful hack who knows a thing or two about suspense and structure, and his On Writing is surprisingly informative. These are, of course, quite general; but the best way to become a good writer for games is to concentrate on being a good writer first and foremost.

I think we've discussed this about a million times on TIGS already, but Half-Life does have cutscenes.

Sorry, but that's FPS, I mean shootem ups like Ikaruga and Touhou.

FFVI did have non-linear things, That's why I said a non-linear design of a linear story (remember when the party falls from the waterfall and you must choose with the Mimiga which part of the 3 teams you have to play)
I have to play Portal to check it out.

The other skills... well, I say "NOT mandatory, but very usefull". I say you don't need to be good to be the artist or the coder of the game, I say you need to at least have practice a little to gain understanding of the craft.
Do you know why Metal Gear 4 is so great?, because the designer's team indeed take a military course. (seek in youtube the making of MG4)
When you have a team of people that only specializes, you get good results, but I would say a designer can learn a lot of the others crafts (not to make those jobs, but to be more "aware of the product"), so the result will gain overall if all the people in the team know a little enough to make suggestions to the others team members (You think a non-musician like a coder could tell what's wrong about a song?, like telling him: "Ok, this is good, but maybe you should change to C key" or telling an artist: "Ok, but you need to add more frames here to make it more smooth")

BUT A GAME WRITER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT GAME DESIGN
A game story is diferent from a linear medium, as books, that's why It's not enough to just know how to write, The diference between books and games is like trying to compose music from a pop band to a symphonic (It needs something else besides just playing an instrument or writing a book).
I consider the game's design should be made by the same guy (or team), not just a designer and a writer (It's the same with the comics, it's better if the same guy draws and writes).
I already explain why the game writer should be also the game designer, well... because game mechanics and story goes tied togheter.

Whith the programming, it's good so the writer doesn't try to use things like "Real time voice instructions" instead of emoticons.
I don't say that the writer should be an engineer, I say he should be able to code a FUCKING TETRIS! using a fucking tutorial from google, and understand things like boolean values and variables and IF statements (just pseudocode).
Well, If tetris is too hard He should learn RPG maker that teaches the same.

About art, history, economics, politics... Well, How are you going to produce highly advance and complex stories (like a Political story), if you don't know something as Rhetoric?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rethoric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rethoric)
How are you going to make a story that tells about the Darfur genocide (great subject for a game) if you never has read about it?
http://www.darfurisdying.com/ (http://www.darfurisdying.com/)

You need to read about those subjects if you want to write something mature in intelectual terms (No saying: Oh, MK 9 is so hardcore because it has blood but It has the inteligence of a 13 year old boy)

To say a writer needs only to write It's like saying that everyone can be CG-talk top member just scribling lines over a paper and calling a 5 year old drawing a masterpiece.
Or that without proper study anyone can write a symphony.
Even Harry Potter is Shit in literature (and It's better than any Final Fantasy), ask that to any good teacher in creative writing in a good university.
No, writing as any art requires training and study, hard work, learning from the masters.
To say that writing needs just writing is like saying that Justin Bieber is better than Frank Sinatra, lol.

Sorry to sound like that, It's just that people seems to underestimate the hard work that is creating a good story (like composing a song or making a painting).

there are shoot'em'ups with good story though -- starfox and starfox 64, etc. -- i'm sure shmup fans could name many more -- shmups don't *need* good stories, but when they have it it's a nice bonus

also i'd recommend learning how to write from actual writings, not from books about how to write. in other words, if you want to write like, i dunno, neil gaiman, then read and study his books, and think about them, and practice. don't just read books about how to write books. that's as useless as learning how to make videogames by reading books about creating videogames and neglecting to study videogames you admire and neglecting to practice creating them. books can be a good supplement, but 90% of the time should be spent in actual study of works you admire and in practice, not in reading theory. probably nobody ever became a world-class anything by reading books about how to become one rather than by studying what they want to do on their own and practicing doing it

Actually you say a true, but a half-true.
To actually become a master, you need three things:
1) To know the theory (reading books about writing)
2) To practice (making your own stories)
3) To study the old masters

You need to know the theory, to become "aware" of the craft.
You remember this scene?
http://www.anyclip.com/movies/schindlers-list/girl-in-red-coat/ (http://www.anyclip.com/movies/schindlers-list/girl-in-red-coat/)
use this if that doesn't work:
http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Schindlers_List&video_id=20024 (http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Schindlers_List&video_id=20024)
That's one of the epic peaks of cinema as a medium and art, a truly great scene, one of the best, made by one genius.
If you only read or watch movies, you could feel the emotion of the scene, but never be aware of the tools that made it posible, so you'll never be able to replicate it and coundn't understand it fully how it was made.

In that scene:
*) It starts with Oscar watching the nightmare of the war. Right there the character is wondering himself about his convictions, that is his character arc is growing.

*) After that It shows the image of the massacre, people making crazy stuff, It shows a raw image of war (making stir your stomach). But It doesn't end, a little Red girl (It's a metaphor for Little Red Riding Hood in the middle of the wild forest and wolfs) walks like nothing, that's a shocking image that creates a powerfull image in the viewer.
The Feelings of the inocence and goodness clash with the harm of the surroundings, the evil of the nazis, the suffering of the people, The scene also play with our feeling of "Big brother" wishing to protect the girl that clash with our fear of death.
That's genuinely expressed using the colors, so the scene has this big contrast no just in color theory but also in emotions.

*) After that, Schindler notes the little girl, It shock him and help him to gently move across his character arc, It's important, because that's a turning point in the movie where he starts to help the jews.

*) After that we see her wife, who is used to point again to Schindler (reusing the take with a diferent twist), we see him thinking (character arc).

*) We hear shoots that increase our feeling of fear.

*) Did I forgot to say that the music is well chosen to expresse the ideas of the scene?

*) In the take of the execution of these lot of people in line, serves several functions: It makes us fear the scene, makes us feel the raw of the scene, that people killed served to makes us feel supporters of the jews and We see the nazis doing evil stuff (making us to hate them) to helpless people (a narrative device), In the movie we feel they're evil, well... because they do evil stuff, not like Team Rocket.

*) We see the wife suffer and cry, we feel sympathizer with her, that gives her an emotional deepness (Wow, I wonder why we cared about these characters).

See how much work and though are put in those magic scenes?

Like reading a book, you can write very well, but you never know how to replicate that scene or never know why a story is good or bad.
If you only read your favorite author, you'll never be able to surpass them, because your works will be like trying to hit the piñata with the closed eyes, maybe one them hit the spot (a great story) but after so much wasted energy.
And even if you make a good story, you'll never know if It has mistakes, because you'll never study the "theory"

Like I told you, practice alone is not enough, theory alone is not enough, reading is not enough alone, you need to do all three togheter.

A good analogy is this: The masters are like watching the plates of the buildings, Practice is like walking and Theory is like knowing the address, withouth all you'll never know how to get to home.

as a counter-example, very few of 'the masters' at writing read books on how to write. those books didn't exist back then. e.g. hemingway didn't sit down and read 'how to write' books, he had to learn by himself

Yeah, you can get a great level just by practicing, but There's this feeling that while a musician needs practice (years) to make his first concert, everyone can write a story (in three months) and call it a masterpiece (Twilight).

Generally the Grand masters fight over a piece until they feel it's finished, like making a sculpture.

filosofiamanga, your posts are full of words and emotions but not much else.

You say games don't need story, they only need interactivity¹. This is like saying books don't need story, they only need words. Which is true and that's why we have textbooks, manuals, encyclopedias, and the dictionary. So, sure, games don't need story and books don't need story, but they're a lot more fun when they have it.

In your posts you show your lack of literature knowledge when you mention Cortazar's book (I preferred Cronopios y Famas) and claim it is the literature closest to a game. Many other books are interactive including House of Leaves by Danielewski, Infinite Jest by Wallace, and the dictionary... oh... my... god... the dictionary is a video game!!! And you should look up ergodic literature.

You have a lot of opinions on writing, filosofiamanga, but the thing I paid close attention to your own writing. I understand that none of us put our best writing foot forward when submitting a post, but your posts are travesties. I mean they're rambling, schizophrenic, at some points incoherent, and in general just a clusterf*** of loosely related ideas. I didn't read most of what you wrote because it was such self-serving nonsense; your only purpose in writing this is to feel intelligent by vomiting your opinions onto a forum.

A word of advice:
No, I don't, because it wasn't that good.
So, now your argument is lost, because you posed your audience a question and your audience disagrees with you. In a persuasive piece of writing you should never ask your audience a question, not even a hypothetical question, because then you give them permission to interact with your writing in unintended ways—oh my god! Is badly written persuasive writing a video game!!!

1. Here are the rules for how to read my post:
Black words are meant to be read when the post is read as a whole
Blue words can be read together separately from the rest of the post. They represent my main points without examples or ellaboration.
Orange words can be read together and are just me belittling filosofwhatever
Also there's a secret easter egg somewhere in there.

while that is true there are kinder ways to say it -- and he's not really as bad as neoshaman used to be. my guess is that it's an 'english as a second language' thing

I had forgotten about that possibility, I admit. I was mainly trying to make a loosely interactive post, but perhaps I was too harsh. I'm leaving it "as is" for posterity.

"Me produce mucho conmiseración y lastima que la presente le haya ofendido, le ofrezco todas mis sinceras disculpas; en este lugar de discusión, sagrado para los intereses de los autoproclamados indies y creadores de experiencias multimedias, me disculpo de mi autoelitismo y ceguera que pudiera "entorpecer" nuestra comunicación como hijos de Dios. Mi propio conocimiento ha hecho que me sienta tal vez prolijico, confiado y desdeñable en mi posición, lo que me ha impedido dar una opinión más certera, concisa y altamente argumentada, aunque preferiria dejar de escribir con un pequeño estilo burgues y bucolico, propio de epocas ya olvidadas"
***
(Yeah, too much Dostoieski and Victorian bullshit in spanish).
(ENGLISH: I apologize from the misunderstanding between us, blah, blah, blah)
Sorry if I sound a little illogical and "amateur" in my writing, and even proud-hearthed, but English It's my second languaje and maybe I have used ilogicals forms (that are logical in Spanish) or make mistakes or double meaning that are not obvious to me.
Besides, This is not serious writing, and if I were serious, I'll get an Editor (English native).
Second, I don't have a fucking clue about what color (color's meaning) to use to diferentiate paragraphs.

books doesn't need story, just words.
Well, have you read automatic writing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing)
Right there, you just write sentences without stoping, so even without a traditional idea (or ortodox way of writing) you can write.
But there's another example (I think you know it):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse)
Yeah, a story can be composed of just words, not following a logical order.

Yeah, I haven't read those books, because I can't know about all the works in literature (I prefer reading Didacticism works than poetics) and I'm just waiting to enter to study Literature in my local university.
You mention them, I say I forgot to put Text adventures.
I didn't know about ergodic literature, thanks!

About vomiting my opinions: Oh, no, you discover, my secret plan to spam this forum!

Metal Gear 4 not being so good?! and you say I don't have arguments?, Oh, good irony...
Lol, the game that get's perfect score on Famitsu (40/40), A 10/10 on Meristation, Loaded, Gamespot, IGN, Gamespot and 9/10 on GamePro? (Are you serious?)
Wikipedia: "Guns of the Patriots received widespread critical acclaim, garnering perfect reviews and Game of the Year awards from several major gaming publications, including GameSpot, which claimed that the game is "technically flawless". The game has been a financial driving force for Konami, helping the Metal Gear franchise reach 5 million units in the financial year of 2009"
Not good?, The only complain was that the game is an interactive movie more than a game (has too much cutscenes).

Well, I undestand you said you hated me and my writings, but you also didn't come with very strong arguments.

Let's forget about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvMZ8Lw479s&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvMZ8Lw479s&feature=related)
Here it's the making of Metal Gear Solid 4 and It shows the vast amount of detail that game has, I haven't played Mass Effect or Uncharted yet but I don't think I'll see more love in a AAA game than this.
In that video, we can see why I said a game writer should experience another things like Drawing, playing an instrument, coding. In The development of MG4 they show the designers taking a military course.

Remember: Not to become good in that craft, but to gain understanding about it.

The "making of MGS4" movie is irrelevant; it doesn't matter. How much love is put into a game doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the end result. I played the end result; it wasn't good. This is an opinion.

As for the reviews: there is so much politics in the review world that any score they give a game is meaningless.


Okay, this is what I'm talking about. I know this isn't serious writing, but what is this? Are you agreeing with me? Disagreeing with me? I can't even tell. You just throw a bunch of words up there and I don't even know what I'm supposed to take away from them. I don't think this particular point is a result of language barrier; ja rozumiem jak to jest pisac w obcym jenzyku.

I'm not sure the words "too harsh" can apply to a person who thinks of MGS4 as an example of strong writing and suggests you watch movies to improve your own.

i'm pretty sure those words are too harsh for anyone. i wouldn't call my worst enemies those things

Yes, anyone can have it's own opinion, you though it wasn't good, other people can disagree.
But It's suposed that reviews are one way to "measure" the quality of a product.
I think wining awards and being highly apreciated by the critics and fans alike (I have a friend who think also that game was too good), also it's the highest selling game on PS3.
Those are not opinions, those are facts.
That's why I made that question, I knew you cannot argue against it without arguments.

***
Sorry, I didn't put much attention, but I agree with you in the part that books doesn't even need a story, maybe you though I was going to disagree, I just said that "even" in literature (poetics) where you generally though that you need a story, you really doesn't need one.
I re-read again your post, you said "but they're more fun when they have it"
I say: wait, wait a little, that's highly dependant on the genre, by example imagine a soccer game where there's dialogs in the middle of the match and trying to discover a backstory.
In most cases, a game doesn't need a story, what It needs it's ambientation (ambientation is not the same as a story, just to be clear), think of any NES-SNES game (Mario, metroid, castlevania, Top Gear).
The problem (and my problem) is that games are interactivity and when a story is not tied to it and It's separated from the actual gameplay and make you stop playing (as in cutscenes) It's distracting and the game suffer from it.
Maybe you're thinking of some games (Halo?, half life) to counter-argue, But I also have a problem with them, In most games with good story their gameplay mechanics are not designed to express or resemble the actual story (like Punching your girlfriend in the face in GTAIV) they just evolve around an old and proven structure. Also their stories are just linear, forcing you to move on a linear path, taking your freedom with it (and being less interactive in that way).
The BIG problem is that the gameplay mechanics are not tied with the story nor resemble it and the story is just "an ornament" for a bunch of gameplay mechanics borrowed from a genre cannon (Halo, CoD, and Half life, diferent story but very same gameplay). In those games, the story is not interactive and you cannot change it in a significant way (not all games, remember Ultima, maybe Fable), that's why I said in most cases the ambientation is good enough.
If a videogame is INTERACTIVITY, then the story should be interactive and tied with the gameplay, otherwise It just will be a nice ornament to some players, but without a real importance in the game (like Campaign mode in the FPS and RTS, some players never play campaing, they play in multiplayer).
Because a story in a videogame should be interactive, the player should have the freedom to presence it completely or not (not just being mandatory, it takes away the freedom of interaction).
In most games, the story is like a door (remember Other M?, Halo 1?) that open and close areas, maps and powers, used to control the advance (and timeflow) of the player in the game.
You said the games are more fun with a story, but what you really mean it's that the game has more details to uncover, but you can do that too with a good ambientation (Castlevania SOTN).
When People talks about story in videogames, they generally talk about a Campaing or Story Mode, arguing about those stories It's like arguing about the painting in a car.
You said I just vomited words in the post, but this time I tried to give arguments (maybe not strong enough).

Actually, MG4 was a nominee in best writing in the 9th annual Game Developers Choice Awards (2009).
Maybe it's not the best and has it's flaws, but actually the writing of that game it's good, and It's one of the better examples of interactive movies (linear games with cutscenes).

I say: you must watch movies, but not all movies, watch the better examples of the medium.
Seek here: http://www.filmsite.org/mrshowbz.html (http://www.filmsite.org/mrshowbz.html) Top 100 better movies all time.
I didn't tell you: watch Twiligh, Dragon Ball Evolution or even Harry Potter, I told you: watch Taxi Driver and Chinatown, Dr. Strangelove is excelent. If you cannot learn something good from those movies to use in games, I suggest that don't become a game writer, become something else (coder, 3d modeler, animator, etc).

i think the story of mgs4 was okay but not as good as mgs2 (i thought that had the best story in the series) -- mainly because mgs4 felt like they tried to 'tie everything together' too much, so it relied on deep familiarity with the series. if you hadn't played (to completion) and re-played the other games in the series, the story of mgs4 would make no sense. whereas the story of mgs2 stands alone even if you don't know the whole metal gear series mythology and background.

another issue is that 'good writing' means a number of things

- good plotting (the events in a game all fitting together, being logically connected and interesting and surprising)
- good characterization (the characters being interesting and feeling real)
- good setting/world (the world of the game feeling like a real place, being detailed and immersive)
- good dialogue (talking like real people, interesting conversations)

(and more but let's leave it here)

sometimes a game can get one or two of those right but the others wrong. i felt that mgs4 had good plotting, and a good setting/world (lots of detail), and good dialogue, but not good characterization -- the characters in the game weren't very interesting as people, and most of them weren't believable -- they all felt super-human, it was hard to relate to any of them, except perhaps sunny (the little girl).

I agree with that, not all gamers are familiar with the saga, but those opinions are just opinions without much information and cannot be taken seriously, what would you think of a guy talking about Lord of The Rings, that haven't read any of the books (including Silmarillion or the hobbit) and just watched the movies.
I also agree the characters doesn't feel real (like Raiden or Otacon) and they look like stereotypes.
But those are flaws and it's diferent to say the story has flaws than saying "It wasn't good"
 :( :( :(
 :) :) :)
About the other stuff, you say about plotting, characterization, setting, dialog.
I say: yes, they're very important, but the believe that the fixed structure of a campaing or story mode it's the way to go, I say hold on a second, it's not.
Eventually, all depends on the genre, an example would be the fighting games, their same evolution make them "the arcade mode" their predilect way to go. Other experiments to make a complex story in the genre would be making it as Fatal fury or Arcana Heart where you select your oponent (a good way) or even making a world map (as Kof Kyo of psone).
Like I told you It depends of the game design.

But let's talk about games traditionaly highly dependant on story: the JRPG (although roguelikes shows a rpg can be made without an story and be good).
They are made on Events, that's how they told their dialogs, story, etc.
Now let's design a JRPG taking your points:

- Good Ploting: Strictly talking you only need two mandatory points in the plot, the begining and the End (one or several ends, depending on your story), all the other plot points or events should be optional and not mandatory. An scene should be a little mini-story (like a side-quest) independant of the others plot points or units, but It doesn't mean it can't be complex (American series like the Simpson with their chapters independant of each other prove it). If the designer or writer need a more complex story, those plot units can be grouped under circunstances or they can have switches (as RPG maker) to make stages in the story (childhood, adulthood, old age) to use plots twist.
This model has a benefit, because the story could react to player actions, using the switches (a simple IF THEN should prove many posibilities, like Star Ocean of SNES and their dialogs and events with optional characters). The story could group several plot points with a requirement, like "Sister is Alive" so if the bad guy kill her, we lose the posibility to experience those plot units (and because they're independant and optional, the player who haven't see them wouldn't lose nothing).
We could even design plot branches like in the dialogs, making it more complex and interactive (a better game story with replay value).

-Good characterization: I agree this is a huge plus for games, memorable characters, but I feel a problem with modern designs, the characters are only developed on the "story section" or cutscene.
There's huge oportunities for characters to be developed having the gameplay and story in mind, like a character that is strong and her "female" (sorry for the sexism) that it's weak (low HP) but she can heal him or she can jump to places where the strong character cannot or she can make a mental shield to protect from spells and magic bullets.
A bad design could be cortana from Halo, She didn't do anything in the first game (or the others) so we didn't feel her. There's a lot of ways to develop her: could be that there are little robots we can control using her and she use those robots to attack enemies.
I told you: I apreciate more the automatic machine gun of Perfect Dark (N64) because the weapon help me glue in the wall (shooting other players) in a match more than Cortana.
At least in MG4, otacon help us with the little robot and we can use it.
Other way of poor characterization in game is that the characters doesn't seem to react to player actions, they just wait until the player control them.
It's not hard to code the reactions, actually we can see when designing the game what the actions of the player will be, so creating responses (from the NPC or sidekicks) to the player actions is not hard at all.
There's a lot of posibilities to create characterization using gameplay, like a character sneezing because of a flower field.
Most characters are like rocks during the game, not expresing even their fear of death when low HP by example (a simple scream or dialog: no, no, no, i don't want to die!)
Remember: Games are gameplay, so characterization should be in the gameplay, not in the "story cuts" or dialogs.
Most enemies in games have the same amount of detail as a goomba, they don't seem to care about having low HP, nor react to others enemies. An example: Let's say you have several monsters and between them one can heal, the monsters doesn't seem to protect who can heal them and this monster doesn't seem smart enough to heal first who is low in HP.
More? In a RTS the remaining soldiers with injuries (low HP) doesn't seem to retreat behind the strongers and new alied waves just to cure themselves with their fucking priest (AoE II).
I haven't see an enemy who protect other with low HP, this can give oportunities to develop characters, like a tribe where his moral code make them cant leave alone his comrades and make them protect them.
This is not hard to code, like I told you, a designer-writer can think of those things when making the design-story.

- Good setings: I think this is not hard at all for a good writer, and many games do this very well. But I feel there's little interactivity between the setting (the background of the story) and the actual gameplay. Also, there's a lot of wasted oportunities, let's say in the game there's a temple and they believe in their religion a certain tree can heal people. So you as designer make this tree growing in random places where you can attack it and recover logs, so you go to the temple and craft potions.
Like I told you, everything in a videogame story should be created using the interactivity in mind.
Other example?, well... let's say the country needs money for a war, so they create a tax to use the aircraft in some tolls.
I see so little interactivity from the setting, is like watching the background in a fighting game.

- Good dialoge: This is also good for a story, but I feel the same as characterization, they only use it in the "story part". It's also too much wasted oportunities.
Indeed, there's a lot of posibilities of dialog, I remember Orochi Warriors (I think the 5 for PS2), I like that way of using a dialog, not making the player push the button to continue.
Using that game system, we can make things like your sidekick each 10 minutes (1 in 2 chance) telling you: Wow, remember when you killed that "X" monster?, you make him "X action used to kill him", It was awesome!
We can use the dialog so the enemy start telling you things, like in Warcraft.
Just Imagine what the enemies could tell you in GTA San Andreas (those gangs).
It's not hard at all, It's just dialog that open up under some circunstances, but the designer-writer must think all before hand.

That's why I hate cut scenes and fixed lines of events, now you understand?
Now Imagine a good designer-writer Who can think of all this stuff togheter.
Just Imagine if we combine all those four points having the interactivity in mind... FUCKIN SHIT!, we didn't need a fucking Story mode with 40 hours, we could make a game like Spelunky (that takes 5-20 minutes to end) with a stronger story than any linear shit you put me.

PORTAL? Good story?, (I haven't played) maybe It's good but I think it will be another interactive movie story, I don't think portal can be good enough to stand against the better writers in literature.
The game is good, but I apreciate it more by his gameplay (I have seen youtube videos) than by his story.

That's why I said it's so funny when people argue with the story of videogames, I haven't see one yet that explore the limits and goes beyond what videogames can offer of any literarian value in terms of interactivity.
Like I told you, argueing about the color of the paint in a car.

A better question: What makes a good game?

Answer: Trick question. The goodness of a game is in the eye of the beholder.


What is good writing? Debatable. It's debatable and undoubtedly different for every genre of writing in every medium in which writing resides.

I will point out that the works of the Bronte sisters are considered the standard of English literature and yet their education was minimal. Indeed, they were forced to publish under male pseudonyms. What makes them masters of writing as you call it is not what they studied or who. Truthfully, they did neither. Strangely enough there is only one thing that I can recommend for becoming a great writer that the Brontes had and that is a strong command of the language in which you write. Beyond that it is the mystery of the universe as to what makes something worth reading.

One good piece of advice you give which I will repeat: Write often.


Side note: Cortana is a prime example of excellent writing. Her presence in the story is powerful as the conscience of the killer you play; the voice in your head that guides you. Turning her into a gimmick with which you control robots or something is terrible writing and design. Writing in games does not have to always be about what features the player gets. If Minecraft had Herobrine in it, that would be GREAT writing. It would be achieved by doing exactly the opposite of what you suggest. The whole hoax was great writing and it was not even in the game.

Or was it not a hoax?

I always though when listening Terra theme of FFVI: what is what it makes it magic?
Like in the magician tricks there's no suposed "magic" just skill and a little of talent, also knowledge (creativity).

There's a simple word in which we can judge if a game was good or was bad: FUN.
Does the game was fun: If yes, then we have a good game, If No, the game has it's flaws.
A good game can be easily enjoyed by Hardcore gamers as well as casual gamers (Tetris, centipede, halo, Goldeneye 007, FFVII, Smash Brothers).
(ON A SIDE NOTE: Before, I was judging MG4 In therms of story as a cinematic experience, where the game excels, but as videogame it's not so good)

But saying the game was FUN doesn't tell me anything, What is FUN?
FUN is the mechanic by the children learn the skill necesary to survive in the jungle (think of any puppy: a Lyon, a monkey, etc), so FUN is in reality learning something new (that's why the school should be fun, but that's other time and other thread). Remember when you're learning a skill you're interested like playing a musical instrument, drawing, a Martial art, soccer, a new languaje, even Math or coding?.

So, how a game could be fun if fun is learning?
Well, learning about the game, it could be learning about the maps you haven't seen (FFIV-VII), Learning (watching) or experiencing the ambientation (art style, story, music)(Castlevania SOTN, sillent Hill 1, Dead Space 1).
Also, but more important if the game has any chance to be played again: learning about the new patterns of the enemies (Mario Brothers -NES-) or the new patterns of gameplay (Tetris), learning about the level design (Mario Bros 1 -NES-, F-1 racing) and learning how to improve one own skill (FPS, Fighting games, soccer games, Ikaruga).
Basically learning how to improve one own skill (multiplayer or just the score) AND if the gameplay allow for finding new things over time (being a deep gameplay) It's the only reason of a game's popularity years after it's release, like Street Fighter II or centipede, even Pacman (kof 2002 is widely still played in Latinoamerica where I live and people find new things and not get bored after like 9 years).

Using this things we can see why Cave story is a jewel of his genre (action platform, considered a Metroidvania by some) because there's though on each of those categories of "learnings" (art, level design, enemy pattern, etc).

Other confusion topic on a game is if the game is too hard (for casuals) and easy (for hardcore). Generally game makers choose to increase the dificulty in a stupid way and that's not the way it should be.
Fuck, Mario Brothers (NES) is a hardcore game and casual game, why?
Fuck, Pacman is a hardcore and casual game, why?
How a game like Cave story can be casual and hardcore at the same time?
It's because of the intelligence of the design, making interesting patterns for the enemies to learn, NOT by making stupid dificulty (like I call it) by giving a boss 1 million HP where you make him 1 HP of damage on each 5 attacks and the boss make you 999.999 of damage on each attack and you have 100 of HP.

Fuck, this is stupid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZuidKexBQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZuidKexBQ)
This is other show of stupid dificulty design:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNk2In9x6N0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNk2In9x6N0)

Fuck no, an interesting and dificult boss could be made easily just by making you think of several things at the same time (like many Cave story bosses and the 4 Pacman ghosts) not by giving him 1 million HP with a fucking high defence. An interesting new pattern in boss design could be enough challenge for casual gamers (remember when you were six years fighting against Koopa in 8-4?), giving too much challenge (for casuals) without being frustrating (like the stupid design).

How about the hardcore?, how to please them if we think of game being too hard for casuals?
Well... a hardcore gamer is interested not in the stupid dificulty (some like the challenge -learning how to beat it-) but to having something to improve, to beat others players performance. Why people still play a SNES game like Street Figher II as well as the 4? Why people still play Goldeneye 007 (N64)?
Well... what about Mario and Pacman?, to the hardcore gamer, score and time (Speenrun) is also a performance they care to beat as well others things like "Minimun run" (with just bare and basic items), RE2 anyone?, killing Nemesis with just the knife in RE3?.

Remember: Game AI that play at the same level of a harcore player without having an stupid advantage is too expensive to develop, even Deep Blue wining over Kasparov in chess was posible because the machine was helped behind the scenes by a "dark" human player. That's why a human is still the best challenge another human can get, that's why Multiplayer is so common and it's the actual shift in FPS.

Like I told you, the game need to have a deep gameplay (so new things are found even years after) to be played looong time after it's release.
Even Mario 3 (NES) have these "things" (learning) that makes it a hardcore game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyJpFoI_fGk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyJpFoI_fGk)

About the bronte sister, yes, you can be a good writer without studying, look at Jimmy hendrix (the best guitar player in the history without study also). But in those cases, the good writer "feel" when a story is good or bad, they intuitively "know" how to write, what I mean is that they use unconsciously the theory, even if they don't know it.
I could tell you the same about Drawing, you could argue that theory it's not needed to become an skilled draftsmen, I tell you: that's right, but even they use unconsciously things like proportion, perspective, composition, lighting, color theory.
The same could be say about writers, they use without thinking: Character arcs, plot twist, characterization, timing, emotion, dialogs, conflict, the three parts in the plot, ambientation, dramatic devices, style of writing, etc.
The problem is that people can't see so easily the "flaws" in a story as they see in music or drawing. A singer you can easily tell if he knows just listening (American idol), even if you don't know about music theory. With literature is more "dificult" (if you don't know theory) to say: this book sucks and why. What more example do you want than Twiligh and it's success?
About the mistery of the universe, the same could be said about magicians and their "tricks" if you don't know how they did it.
Basically, a good story have three parts, an Introduction, the development, climax and conclusion (cinema structure) where you develop the characters using conflict (clashing of personalities, not just physical violence) until the main character and his antagonist clash in the climax and the emotional need of the character (to fight the antagonist) is resolved and the armony (although diferent than the begining) returns in the conclusion.
That's the basic structure (like your bones) that all good stories have in common.
That doesn't mean it's fixed and some writers unconsciously or consciously try some variations.
For more info read A hero with a thousand faces of Joseph campbell.

Most of time, you keep reading because you care about the characters and wonder what will they'd be doing.

Some good examples:
*** A kid see a coin in the middle of the park he needs for a delicious ice cream, the last of it's kind in the town that every kid will love to eat, but He sees his mortal rival who also saw the coin and also wants the same ice cream, but you know he wouldn't share with you, you must think fast because he's walking toward the coin.

*** The husband with his wife (that is pregnant) goes to a party but He finds her secret lover, He's been cheating his wife during 1 year (with this beatiful girl) and she just want to talk with your wife, you don't want both talk to each other, but your secret love keep trying to talk to your wife, also you don't want to suspicion your wife, you must think fast because they're alone together.

Yeah, you want more?, why?
Because I create situations that promise conflict and character development.

Writing nice text it's not enough to become a good writer, It will make you a poet, but not a writer.
But you're right about Writing often.
But if you only practice, you'll eventually find a writer's block.

About Cortana
I didn't want to mean she's a badly designed character in literarian terms (the story) is just that she's inexistent in the gameplay. About my idea, that's not the only one, but the point is that they could put her in the game.
Let's say you're a gamer who play story mode but skip all the cut-scenes (like many gamers do), He will not know about Cortana.
I could tell you a lot of gamers that play Halo a lot but never touch Campaing mode (there's a lot of those gamers who go to those locals to rent a console to play multiplayer with their neighbors).
For me It's a wasted character that doesn't matter for people who play the game just for multiplayer, I don't have proof but I think a lot of gamers give a crap about Halo's story.
I don't mean make her a fucking "Tails" like in Sonic, but give her some gameplay influence.

Minecraft doesn't need a Cortana, because It's not the focus of the gameplay, their focus is to explore and craft items to make stuff like buildings and fucking microchips inside the game (that also works). If we stick to the gameplay design, we could make a cortana like the typical shoopkeeper in RPG, just to barter raw materials.

Like I told: if the writing doesn't have the interactivity in mind, it will just be like the painting in a car, nice ornament, like those folds and stuff in a victorian dress.

I think the communication problem here is that you are describing gameplay which is different from story. Cortana is actually a good example for this.

Players who play Halo to only play multiplayer miss out on the story but they do not miss out on the gameplay. Cortana means nothing to them. Halo means nothing to them. Frankly, neither does John-117. All of those elements are story elements. Story elements do not need to be a part of gameplay and, depending on what you are trying to accomplish, should not be. Those who skip cut scenes or only play multiplayer are not interested in story and any attempt to bombard them with it is fruitless and would undoubtedly aggravate them.

A good story draws in people. You want the player to care of their own volition.

You clearly want elements of a story to all add to the interactivity of the game. That's great and it can add to the quality of a game but it is no silver bullet. You also talk at length about elements of game design which have nothing to do with the story. Game design and game writing do not have to be one. Many times the person who does one does the other as well and if it were not for the considerable load of work with which both come they might never be separate jobs. However, a large and fearsome character need neither be bad nor powerful. The quality of a game's AI has nothing to do with the quality of its tale.

I have read the Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It is a good read and influenced George Lucas greatly when writing Star Wars. As a writer, I am aware of the common structure for stories and the archetypes available for characters. There also are four formulas that are the basis of most literature. As writers, we often attempt to break these molds. That is almost our job. It is amazing that even after millennia of writing, humanity still finds new ways of conveying stories. Similarly, we constantly strive to find new ways to tell stories through games or even game without story.

My point still holds though that what makes a book great depends on the person reading it. It has nothing to do with commercial success or theory. If you look across the top 100 novels of all time you will find that you do not like some of them. You will notice some have nothing in common with others other than both are books.

Also, these are trite:

Read some Kafka as reference to how you can have great writing without conflict. Read Voltaire to have great writing without character development. Incidentally, Candide by Voltaire is a top 100 book and it offers zero character development. Candide is just as much of an asshole at the beginning as he is at the end. The only difference is he aged.

I feel I need to apologize for maybe writing like a completely douchebag, maybe it's the emotion on the keys.
Second, I feel also that people think I'm a know-all and I have to say I'm not, I just like to read a lot.

Yes, gameplay is very diferent from story, they're diferent, but they live in symbiosis way.
Story justify gameplay and gameplay create new details in the story.
Remember the FF5-7 espers (invocation, etc)?
They're a gameplay stuff, but they could also be justified by the story, They're allmighty beings, some of them are gods, why in the world backstory they're not worshiped? like in the town a priest (or a naive NPC) of one god talking about how good is to praise their god (esper) and being good in his eyes and the tale of how the god (esper) created their world or religion.
So, the story justified the gameplay, but also the story could deepen the gameplay, like: you listen the NPC or priest talking about their god (esper) and reading their holy books or making good actions in their religion, gives you EXP to the esper, so the esper level up or the esper give you presents (like in most roguelikes like Nethack).
Repeat the process for more profit.

See, that's how a game should be improved, by making a deeper interactivity, not by making a 88 hours story mode with 50 GB world map with 10.000 polygons models of each NPC with bump mapping floor instead of a 16 bits old low-Res RPG in the ps3.
Do you think It wouldn't be commercially a success, well... how about Pokemon?

Have you played a good roguelike? (Nethack or powder, even Dwarf fortress)
They're games you can finish in 5 hours, but I feel they're more deep than FFXII and his 88 hours story mode (I'm slow in that game).

No necesarely Halo means shit to those player, maybe some of them really love Halo and buy the game, but they care more fighting with their friends or playing online cursing Annon than spending 15 hours in the campaing mode.
If bombarding those players is fruitless, then why to try so hard making shitty story modes? (by extent, why game's movies suck?) why spend time and money on something not all the players care about?, why not just make an awesome ambientation if that gives the same amount of fun and money? (New Super Mario Brothers outsold MG4 and CoD Modern Warfare combined, fuck, even Wii sports/fit and Nintendogs sold more copies than Okami and Bayonetta).
Even a crazy story (and maybe shitty) like a police man who jumps over hippies using furniture from the unicorn planet that have to make them pay their taxes to the goverment, could be very good if we keep developing story together with the gameplay.

And yes, most gamers (now I'm sure) care is about the Multiplayer in FPS (Halo included).
http://www.uptomark.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-hit-sales-of-1-billion-copies-in-6-weeks/ (http://www.uptomark.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-hit-sales-of-1-billion-copies-in-6-weeks/)
"To date, more than 600 million hours have been logged playing Call of Duty: Black Ops since the game launched on November 9, 2010.  According to Microsoft, the average player logs on more than once a day and plays for more than one hour each time.  Over half of that time is spent playing online with and against friends, illustrating the unique social characteristics of the game."

Now let's watch the most selling games of 2010:
http://www.vgchartz.com/article/83386/top-selling-games-of-2010-multi-wii-ps3-psp-ds-x360/ (http://www.vgchartz.com/article/83386/top-selling-games-of-2010-multi-wii-ps3-psp-ds-x360/)
(http://g.imagehost.org/0499/Biggest_2010_Games.png)
I can easily say:
1) Awesome multiplayer and online comunity.
2-6) No story driven games
lol, five of top six being no story driven.
7) Well... multiplayer? (Their fucking story was supposed to end in halo 3, am I right?)
8) Because It's a non-linear game? (It has good story, although)
9) no story driven.
10) Pokemon?, awesome gameplay, story... not so much.
I can tell you, in the first 10 games of 2010, 7 weren't story driven and the other 3 are non linear.
What does it tell you?, maybe the customers doesn't really care about long story or campaing modes?
From the others: 14-18, 20-21, 23-24, 26, 29 are not story driven, 11, 19, 25, 27 can be explained by the Multiplayer, 12, 13, 27, 30, because of their excelent gameplay?
22 sell because of the name of the Franchise (many old gamers hate it and it's regarded as one of the weakest in entire serie) 28 I can't talk (I don't know nor played the franchise).

Where are Alan wake, Enslaved, Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2?
Acording to the chart, they should sold less than 3.5 million copies in 2010.
I'm not meaning a game cannot have a great story and It could sell well, but It will sell well because If the gameplay is good, nor otherwise, remember Grim Fadango?
But seriosly, when 19 of the Top 30 games (more than the half) are not story driven games, what does it tell you?, Games need good stories or need stories at all?

I wonder which people wouldn't enjoy a story mode like us...
Well...
- Moms (who doesn't have enough time and are not hardcore gamers)
- Old people (who likes games that are simple, easy to play, easy reward)
- Girls (who are more interested in Super Mario 3/World, Citiville, Farmville, Mario Party, Nintendogs)
- 13 years old boys (who like to play RTS/FPS/MMORPG in multiplayer in their mother basement)
- +26 years old gamers (because they now doesn't have time to play and need time for university, working, finding a job, paying the rent, spending time with family-childs, etc)
- Casuals (who like games they could finish in a season so they spend time with friends)
- Little kids (who always skip cut-scenes and like to play GTA: San Andreas or simple and easy games like Zelda of SNES and pokemon)

Who will enjoy long story modes?... Well, most gamers who come from RPG games love to read story in games (long dialogs), backstory, love watching cut-scenes since SNES times.
People who seek a game to watch their cut-scenes or read a lot are always a minority (except in the RPG).

So the argument that story draws people it's not so true, it only draw a minority, or I should tell you again that only Red Dead Deception story is acknowledge as good and the half are not story driven and the rest of good story driven games has sold less than 3.5 millions?

"You want the player to care of their own volition"
Yeah, like in a fighting game or Minecraft?

"You also talk at length about elements of game design which have nothing to do with the story. Game design and game writing do not have to be one"

The same could be said about a movie story and the vestuary of the actors, if they don't work in synergy the movie will suffer.
Imagine a victorian movie where girls use jeans.

and if it were not for the considerable load of work with which both come they might never be separate jobs
Why It happen?, why the considerable amount of work?
Well, because the 16 year old boys think a game story need 500 pages of dialog, backstory, and plot, they seem to think a game story like Super Mario World or Castlevania SOTN, even cave story, sucks because It won't last 88 hours with 5 hours of cut-scenes.
A good game writer-designer could be like a programmer, reusing most of the times, locations, characters, animations, maximizing the story (telling more with less) so the total amount of work would be fair for the rest of the team. That's why story and design should be made by the same person.

However, a large and fearsome character need neither be bad nor powerful
No, it's not, It really depends on character design, and character's motivations should be more complex than simple I'm Evil or I just want to become more powerful.

The quality of a game's AI has nothing to do with the quality of its tale
No, but the AI of an enemy tell a lot about that enemy, that's why It's design should be more well though (especially with the story in mind), because It's an important stuff in the character design and it's development.

If you look across the top 100 novels of all time you will find that you do not like some of them
Yeah, but you will acknowledge the merits of all (especially the top 100), and most of the time (if not all) you'll find character development, well crafted plot twist, conflict, a climax, etc.

"Also, these are trite"
Yeah, but those are examples made in less than 30 seconds and in first though.

Read some Kafka as reference to how you can have great writing without conflict
Kafka indeed have conflict, in The trial he fights against a corrupt corporation, I remember the scene where he gives a speech to humillate a judge (conflict), what more conflict than being stabbed in the heart at the end.
However kafka books have excelent character development.
I haven't read lot of Voltaire, but He always try to probe and argumentate something, very clever.

Sorry to write like this, but I was in a hurry.

I guess in the top worst selling game you will find a lot of gameplay only game, But in the list of "guaranteed me a 1M sells"? Heavy rain was plan for 300 000 get 1M, assassin's creed got lot too.

But story in game are not told story, they the stake the player enact and most of the time it's divorce from the told story. The stake resolution is what people tell their friend. As long people don't design story as stake (ie gameplay) story will remain irrelevant to game.

Won a contest in writing. A small one. It was open to students of the state university system. Suddenly I'm a 'better' writer than all of the university students that fancy themselves 'creative writers' in the state. And I've never taken a creative writing course.

Professors telling me to submit things to the new yorker. To glimmer train. To everywhere. High end magazines. one just nominated me for a big essay writing contest. I hate college-student essays. I hate the format. The rules. It's trite intellectual victorianism and professional essayists do not adhere to it.

Kids are running around. Congratulating me.

"Hey man, you won! That's pretty rad!"
"Yeah."
"Oh, you're unenthused! You're totally an artist!"
"er."
"I entered too but got rejected. Man, one thing though, if I had to lose to anyone, I'm glad I lost to you!"
"yeah, uh, okay"
"Talk to you later!"

They're inviting me to facebook writing groups. They're asking me to give them feedback. They're giving each other feedback. It's all horrible. I'm the biggest fish in the goldfish tank, and they look up to me.

Groups of writers, discussing rules of good writing. Rituals of good writing. None of them are good writers themselves, but they feel that if they find enough 'rules' of good writing, if they take enough classes telling them about 'tension' and 'comic relief' and 'character conflict' they'll all be bestsellers.

All the rules and rituals.

It's like being in a cult.

I agree with you, the stake story is more important that the actual literarian story IF it's divorced from the gameplay.
A few examples: Do you remember that character in RE3 who we save from a zombie in the restaurant? I think He's more important "story wise" than Nemesis, how's he remembered?, Being killed by Nemesis in the Police station.
Other: Who is more remembered? Jetch or Auron in FFX?
I think Jetch is more important in the story, but Auron gets all love from the fans?
Why... Because He can kill a monster in 1 hit with a good weapon.

"As long people don't design story as stake (ie gameplay) story will remain irrelevant to game."
That's what I was trying to say, thanks.
If the story doesn't impact gameplay, It won't matter to gamers who actually skip the cut-scenes, and I told you, there's a lot of those gamers.
Why people buy a GTA game?
Some gamers play the misions and story mode, but why most kids love those games:
It's The gameplay! (STEAL cars, well... STEAL cars, run over pedestrian whith the stolen car, being chased by the police for stealing a car, killing the police man with guns gotten with cheat code, using the fucking Tank to explode cars, making a fucking war in the city, etc).

I don't say a game cannot have a story, what I say it's that the story should be made to impact the gameplay, to make it more deep, more detailed.

What do I want?
Well, I want a game with a story mode that takes less than five hours to end but It's completely interactive or we can modify the story in some parts, but these details force you to replay the game several times.
An Example: Cave Story.
Why less than five hours?, Imagine a movie that takes to finish 15 hours.
Most gamers doesn't have that time or just play casually a game to play with his friends.

This is important:
What's the diference between playing a story mode that takes 20 hours to end, to another game that takes 4 hours, but to get all the details in the story, you have to replay it 5 times?
Well, the diference will be the that if the gamer replay 5 times the game, he actually liked  the game a lot, If the game it's boring he wouldn't replay, that means if he replay those 5 times, he woudn't care replaying more times, not to see all the details, but just to play because He feels that his decisions in the game really matters.
And If he replay (because there a deep gameplay tied with story) a lot the game, the game would stand more between all the others games, and he would like to show it to his friends.
Why this matter, well.. imagine all the work (levels, new enemies, dialog, animations) that is saved if the game last 2-5 hours instead of 20.

What's the diference between Curly and Aeris?
Both make feel Sad the player when die, both are characters we care about a lot, (because they affect the gameplay).
I have a little 8 year old cousin that was sad because Curly died, when I told him he could save her (and showed how in youtube), he didn't care he haven't finish the game, he started a new game just to save her.
Just look how powerful is to have the chance to change the story, in replay value for a game (interactivity)

Remember: Killing a character is not the only way to make feel the player a lost, it could be also you lose the best weapon in the game, the character loses the chance to get his dreams fullfiled (like getting the best aircraft in the town or enter in the magic school).

Why The story in Heavy Rain is so highly praised, well... because It's interactive (17 endings) and really depends on how you play the game.

i'm not sure why sales are relevant. story-heavy genres (such as visual novels, text adventures, jrpgs, strategy rpgs, etc.) have always been niche. if you want a lot of money, you should not be making indie games. the only people crazy enough to make indie games for a living are the people who have to create the things they have to create no matter what. i'd be perfectly happy if my games sell 10,000 copies each (currently, my first game sold about 3000, and it was story-focused but you could easily skip the story and just play the levels, and a lot of people did). but i don't even know what i'd do with notch's kind of money, i'm not going for millions of sales, i'm trying to please my own small audience

In my city a well know newspaper ("El tiempo") made a contest to all the city schools, I was choosen with 35 kids to enter a course on how beign a journalist.
From what I remember in how I wrote at that time, the only thing I did was using a nice languaje, maybe metaphors and similes, lol, I was writing about becoming a Quixote defending the use of the spanish in schools.

Writing is very easy if you have read some books, just enough to start making fancy phrases, writing is also very easy because is written languaje, we practice dialogs just by speaking with our mother, writing is something everyone does because our society see "no writing" as a disability and all kids spends years in school learning their mother's languaje.
So everyone has a common base (know how to write) and years of school practice, even before we start making ours first stories. That's why everyone seem to think they don't need a creative writing course.

It's trite intellectual victorianism
That's because everyone who starts writing seem to go through that "victorian" stage, I also pass through it, It's like every 10 year old kid drawing a hand stabbed by a knife-sword. It's something unconscious.

Kids are running around. Congratulating me.
But Deep inside you, you know how much you need to improve compared to some historical writers.
You practice and want to become good until a point where It seem futile to compare to others writers, you only wish to keep improving and doesn't care about others level.
I wonder what you feel when the TV start and you look at it (It's too stupid).

Groups of writers, discussing rules of good writing. Rituals of good writing. None of them are good writers themselves, but they feel that if they find enough 'rules' of good writing, if they take enough classes telling them about 'tension' and 'comic relief' and 'character conflict' they'll all be bestsellers.
Lol, why everyone seem to think you need years of study to learn the "theory"?
I learned it in one month, It's not so hard.
But like I told, It's not enough with just the theory alone, you also need to practice, just to overcome that "victorian" stage.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GABO) wanted to write 100 years of solitude during 15 years, having the idea, waiting to get enough "level", waiting to get "right" the style he wanted in the book. When he get the actual "inspiration" He feels ready and did the book in 15 months.
There's nothing to say about the book, only that it was choosen the second best book of literature in Spanish, only after Don Quixote (who also took 10 years to write).

lol, making a bestseller?, It's easy!, you make a book where you make the love to the fantasies of the reader and you got it.

I have some years writing in my mother's basement, I feel I could write a bestseller, but I also know that I need more "level" to not make a story that ashamed me years after, that's why I want to enter to study literature in University.

But to say that only with practice you become one of the best, I laugh.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/ (http://forums.cgsociety.org/)
Do you think CG-talk's artist only did practice, that they didn't study perspective, composition, color theory?
Even Shakespeare, the allmighty writer indeed study, not in the university, but as a self-taught person, he was well-versed on mithology and rethoric, he used to be an avid reader.
Also Borges, who is one of the better writers on XX century, has indeed a big culture.

People seem to confuse the "general culture (knowledge)" with the Formal education.
One doesn't need a formal education to become an artist, but If you don't have a big culture in History, art, human behaviour, geography, knowledge of your own languaje (reading a lot of books), you'll never become one of the Best writers.

Maybe a writer doesn't need to learn a lot about "theory" but He definitely need to study, not just how to put nice words together, but He needs to learn so many things that It really takes a life to just start making works that really matter, works that can change people lifes.

If sales nor reviews are relevant when pointing objective arguments about why a game is good or sucks, then what is relevant?

if you want a lot of money, you should not be making indie games.
I agree with that, making games, even Indie games is HARD as hell and takes a lot of work.
Even creating spelunky takes months, Aquaria took more than 2 years.
If you wish to make easy money, make a song or a book (Even sell drugs or make a ponzi scheme), they're easier than a game.

"The only people crazy enough to make indie games for a living are the people who have to create the things they have to create no matter what"
That's why I love and Admire so much Cave story.

***
A TIP:
But Why not to design a story mixing it with the gameplay?
Haven't you tried it?
I only can see you'll be happier about your game, it will be more deep and more detailed, and more people will enjoy it a lot more, and you'll be more proud of it.
Eventually, you'll sell more copies because you'll had a better gameplay.

***
Try first to make the base game, the bare bones of the gameplay, find first the essence of your game design.
After that every time you put a gameplay "thing" (a verb in your game), try to justify it in the story (Well, the player jumps because he has robotic boots, designed 500 years ago by the genius who also created the city, etc.), after that, the same story will start telling you little details that also affect gameplay (like electro-magnetic grenades or fields that produce malfuction in the boots, created 150 years ago in the last BIG war, etc.), let's say that those boots need a vital energy source like some kind of cristals that were the source of the last BIG war, so you need recharging and need the descendand of the genius to do it who now has become traders in the black market (a level in the game).
See, Those little details also will start suggesting gameplay, and the process will repeat itself. You find a lot of fun just writing those ideas and mixing them with the gameplay.
Eventually, a game made this way will be unique even among other games of the same genre.

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Writing-Releasing-Creative/dp/0553296345 (http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Writing-Releasing-Creative/dp/0553296345)

@filosofiamanga: of course i've tried it. i've made both story-heavy and story-light and no-story games. i enjoy making all of those types of games. i probably have more experience at it than you (been making games since 1994, and have created about 15 games over the years). here's some examples:

here's a game of mine that has no story:

http://studioeres.com/games/alphasix (2006)

and here's a game of mine that does have a story:

http://studioeres.com/immortal/ (2007)

just judging from public reaction, the latter game has a lot more fame/praise than the former one. not entirely a fair comparison because one is freeware and the other is commercial, and one's a top down shooter and the other is a tower defense game, but just comparing reviews of both, and the number of fan letters, the latter was much better-received, despite having a story

so i don't really think it's as clear and simple as you're presenting it, because if it was, you would expect the story-less game to have a better reception and have more fame than my story-full game

Both trailers are real good, congratulations to the team.
Alphasis: Look real nice, the art looks good, the street look colorful and alive, the airplanes look profesional, Obviously remind me of Touhou.
The gameplay looks cool so far.

Inmortal Defence: First impression is that looks chaotical, but that's because there so many things in the screen moving, the art looks good. The avatar faces have an interesting art style. Dialogs sound very literarian (meaning the characters are intelectuals) I give you points for that.
The gameplay looks interesting, but I don't have a clue how to play.

Judging from both trailers, I can see why the second is more praised, It's because of the ambientation, feels more "realistic" even if it's a fantasy story. The first feel more crazy and a little more ilogical in the setting of the game than the second.

People use story in the games, because that creates more details and justify the character design and helps to create the level design, it gives an underlying subject to the art, and the game feel more logical that way.
But I feel when playing those stories that it's interactivity it's very limited, like some stages in Street Fighter III strike.

But Like I told, games need an ambientation if they're gonna made a game that is not abstract like Puzzles and Tetris, games can only gain if a story is made (more lenght of the game, an underlying theme for character, level, sound design, etc.). I'm not saying a game should be storyless, what I mean it's that the entire design of the story should be made to "support" the gameplay, not to make a story that only affects the level design. Stories in games are more important and have more potential than just being used in the story mode. Imagine a VS mode with story-gameplay, like some parts of the background interactive, responding, attacking to players, making the characters dialog and during the entire match, we could see the characters developing a story (in Versus), I can see this very easily in a RTS match like Starcraft.
Games can gain so much by mixing story with gameplay, when you do that, games really shine as a new and powerfull medium, not just being half-movies, half-books, half-games.

You have more experience in game making that I am, I admire you for that.
But I have tried to learn how to make a game during years, learning writing, design, animation, drawing, coding, just to give up after like Four years of trying.
I decided after all to join a team and work for them free, not making a living of indie games.

well, of course i agree that the game and the story should work together and have a thematic unity. i don't think even the most hardcore jrpg fan believes that the story should always come first or that gameplay is irrelevant. it's just that some people believe that good stories can make the player want to play the game: if the player has no reason to shoot zombies or to protect his village, he doesn't care about it as much as if there are characters he grows attached to that his in-game actions affect -- in other words, story gives the player motivation for gameplay, it gives them reason to keep playing, to see what happens next

i'm not quite sure what you mean by 'ambientation' but i agree that immortal defense is a more 'serious' feeling game even if the setting is more fantasy than alphasix's setting -- alphasix is more cartoony and silly in some ways (it's almost a parody of various genres -- fighting games like street fighter combined with touhou)

Sorry, I was trying to use "ambience" (ambientación is the translation in spanish, i just translated wrong).

You're right, a setting (story) can even turn off some player, like Okami (many though that playing as a wolf is dumb).
That's why I said even the concept of the story (character design, etc) should express the gameplay.
In reality it doesn't matter if the concept is silly or if the story is dumb, look at Mario and Pokemon.
What The player see in a game first is the gameplay or some gameplay video, they will seek your game first If the gameplay is similar to games they have played and liked (the game genre), they don't seek (I don't know of someone who does that) a game reading the story in a review before thinking to play your game.

Do you think a gamer that hates RPG think: Oh, Mass Effect 2 has a great story, I will play it even if I hate RPG games.

"in other words, story gives the player motivation for gameplay, it gives them reason to keep playing, to see what happens next"
Generally, the gamer feel a link with a character because He has spend time to become familiar with him/her/it.
How we spend time with a character in a game?, gameplay again become the solution, not dialog in a cut-scene.
Also the details in the gameplay are more important than what the story tell us.
How we think a character is really strong and fearfull?
By killing all the enemies with just 1 hit, enemies that the other characters took several hits to kill, not by making him like a Douchebag in the "story scenes" (cut-scenes).

An example... What about Edward of Final Fantasy IV?
In the story he's strong (maybe rich), he has an strong will when he fights under the ilusion of his fiance killing a monster in the town, when fighting the dark elf he help us with the arp, right?.
How we remember him: Like a completely useless character that doesn't make fucking damage (WEAK) and his songs doesn't have a fucking usefull effect (USELESS) and always run away from battle when low HP (COWARD).

How we remember him?, like the story told us or how he actually behaves in the gameplay?

that's a good example with edward, but i still actually remember him as having some strength: remember that part where he crawled to the twinharp despite being sick, and played, and helped you beat the darkelf? that was strength -- both in gameplay and in story -- you would have died at the dark elf without edward there

also, by story i don't just mean cutscenes or dialogue -- you can have a good story without any cutscenes or dialogue at all. story is also the setting, the characters, the world, the music, the art, etc. -- everything is a part of the story.

Yes, but that was only one part in the story, that's why I said little interactivity in the game's stories I have played (like the background in the fighting games).
But I also have to say that I haven't played all the games in the world, so don't crucify me by just one counter-example.

The other argument, I say: yes, you're right. Ambience also is story development.
What I designate as Story in games is the traditional though that the First Mario Bross have an inferior story than Modern games.
They seem to think this game has almost no story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0BL60XZYp4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0BL60XZYp4)
I say: WTF?
That game alone represents how videogames should be.
They seem to think a game like this doens't have a good story compared to Heavy Rain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E_BG3nrofU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E_BG3nrofU)
I say: WTF?
That game is one brilliant example of how to make a cinematic experience of a videogame.

I just say those two examples are good enough to show how the story is told by the gameplay.

i don't really think any of the games you just mentioned have good stories -- mario or heavy rain or karateka. i never really got attached to any of those characters

here's some examples of my favorite story-game moments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWNk7dfraQ (rydia saving cecil from golbez -- the paladin battle was also good)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83C216WsYmc (final battle in super metroid, where the metroid saves you)

Karateka and Mario has good stories if we saw game's story as something diferent than the story in books or movies.
In those games, the story is good enough (Although those are not the best stories) to support the gameplay, that's why they're good game's stories.
Their focus is on interactivity, that's why stories for games are diferent than for movies, also explain why videogames make shitty movies, because of the diference of focus (Interactivity - Action/Characters/Drama)

Super Mario Bross is 100% interactivity (except if you take into account the end of the levels).
Karateka is also interactivity but It make you feel a cinematic experience.
Why so good?, because each time you play, it's completely diferent (like watching a good movie again) and like I told you, their game's stories (speed run) are good if you see game's stories as something diferent.

FF 4 is one of my favorites FF.
Something good I see in the video, it's that we fear Golbez and feel he's really strong is because we fight with him (Gameplay) and He rapes us using the Gameplay (A boss battle), Why It's so great to be with Rydia again?, well... is because She's in the gameplay, we can see now she has new abilities like the Godlike new summons.
Also in that FF they use the music in an interactive way (that is, responding to the player actions).
Yes! We feel so good when Rydia recover the team, because we can use her.

About Metroid: Yes, Metroid! (I have to finish it).
Why we fear the boss is going to kill us, because He is gonna kill us using the battle (Gameplay, even if it's final attack is prewritten) and we can lose.
Yes, we feel gratitud with the little baby jellyfish, because it recharged our life points (again, using gameplay), why do we fear when the boss recover it's breath again?, because the baby jellyfish haven't recover us all life and we want just a little more time to recover full life.
The boss kill the baby jellyfish, we feel angry (attacking some of my friends?, I'll make you pay), but the sacrifice of the baby gives us super strengh, so we feel the desire to revenge, so we feel stronger, we feel invulnerable, we feel awesome!
And after that awesome boss battle, It start everything to fall, they use a simple device to make us fear... a time clock! (GAMEPLAY).
And when you finish it... you feel great because the planet explodes.

I told you, that was a superb example of a videogame, story told by the gameplay, I wonder why gamers seem to think it as a classic.
Although Metroid for SNES would make a shitty movie, because a game story is diferent than a movie story.

Lol, reading wikipedia I found a lot of info about Cortana, lol, I wonder why I didn't know about all of this...

Why is so important the gameplay...

Well, Nintendo is the expert in making awesome games that are enjoyed by everyone.
What is their secret?:

A little view on Zelda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsKe_dw8kMU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsKe_dw8kMU)
Other Zelda example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAzUUZiwsYY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAzUUZiwsYY)
A little on Mario:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsKe_dw8kMU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsKe_dw8kMU)

Do you think you're an old gamer?, Think again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq8EhGJGQm4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq8EhGJGQm4)
Do you wonder who will buy Wii Fit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u3XIvDcS1E&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u3XIvDcS1E&feature=related)

That's the reason they have so many fans.
Because they can be played by everyone, even gamers that cannot read, when they grow up, they'll say they love nintendo games and will bough more nintendo games.

Why we should care about Casual gamers?
Well, because everyone started as a casual.

This is too good (95 years old lady playing Halo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR9allAs8k8&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR9allAs8k8&feature=related)
Yeah, I wonder if those gamers will remember about Halo story more than they care about the gameplay.

EDIT: Another good reason to focus on gameplay instead of long dialogs is that the game is easier to play that way for people that doesn't speak English nor Japanese.

 :o         :wtf:

This is turning out to be one of the funniest thread at TIGsource. It's almost like I'm watching a slow schizophrenic breakdown :crazy:

Yeah...

I'm giving up on this one.

I just stopped in to point out that you shouldn't dismiss writers like Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, or my own favourites to slam - JK Rowling and RA Salvatore. All of these are "hack" genre writers, and all of them are extremely successful. Obviusly, they are not doing it wrong, and therefore it is worth reading pop authors to figure out why they are popular and what they are doing right, rather than to hold them up to some arbitrary standard of "good" writing.

Outside of academia, "Good" writing is writing that reaches an audience and connects with them, not writing that pleases a professor tucked away in a prestigious university.

Yeah, they're succesfull writers that reach and make happy a demographic (It can be young kids, grow up mens or womens, old people, fangirls). In literature you can write about anything and be happy, even some people would like your writings and will buy your books.

You have a point in that a good book is one that reaches an audience and connects with them, I think that's the entire reason why someone write a book.

But that doesn't mean the literarian critique should be dissmiss and forgotten because It doesn't matter what you write since you're making people happy.
The critique is important because It gives reason to an artist to improve and to recognize his flaws in his works.
That's why critique should be made in a responsible way, not just Bashing some work just because you didn't like it.

I like Harry Potter, It's a fun series of books that kids enjoy, It reaches their imagination and gives them a great adventure.

But Twilight is another story, you must be inside a very specific demographic (girls) to fucking enjoy the book. I read the summary of the books, and I don't know how much experience writing have Stephanie Meyer, but from what I read She's at the same level that fandom (fanfic) writers have.
Another topic of discussion and hate is that she "broke" the cannon of the vampires, making them like Metrosexuals in a gay parade instead of the scary look that most people have on them (monsters, dark enemys, blood suckers) like in Blade or Vanhellsing.
If you ask me, Vampires should be like in Castlevania SOTN: Die Monster, you don't belong in this world..., when I watch the movie I die a little inside after seeing the main vampire taking a sun bath inside the forest and shining (WTF?).
I tried to watch the movie, It sucks!, I coun't saw it entirely (I just watched until Bella gets a date in the house of the vampires to meet the family and they're talking in the kitchen) mainly because the entire cast is Made of SHY people (bella, the vampire, the father, the vampire's family), they seem scare to talk, the only character I remember I liked was the chinese friend of Bella.
Like I told you, you must be inside of a very specific target to enjoy the movie and books, like the people who like Echi in Anime.

Some adult women enjoy Twilight as well. Meyer has also succeeded in becoming not merely successful, but wildly successful where dozens of published and hundreds of unpublished writers in her genre have not. Obviusly this is not merely due to genre choice.

Spoiler: She describes feelings very, very well. Many other modern writers could do well to take some tips from her writing style - but not at the expense of their own, of course.

From what I understand Meyer is pretty much the ultimate pulp romance novel writer.

maybe she was the first to combine the 'vampire' with the 'romance' genres? or did anne rice do that first?

If the "literarian" format doesn't work as well as the Stephen King format when you're telling your story, then it's simply not the most effective way of telling it. Maybe it's just poor translation, but I have a hunch that what you're calling literarian format is actually just a form of simplification. Trying to make everyone sound like Charles Dickens or Shakespeare is a way of dumbing things down for academics, changing a story into something that archetypal professor types would feel socially comfortable reading, but that others might shy away from. It's pandering to a niche market, and in this regard it's no different than Stephanie Meyer's girly writing for girls.

I've been reading through your ideas. I don't know, you seem a little overconfident about your take on writing. For one thing, you probably shouldn't think of it in terms of 'leveling up,' or in terms of 'good/bad,' or in terms of 'which audience is better.' You're the only audience that will matter. It's like Bukowski said: writing a book is like smoking a cigarette. Writing is the drag. That's for you. Publication is the ash. That's for the tray.

 :shrug2:

I found Twilight much more enjoyable when I started imagining that Bella was a sandwich.

(The problem with Twilight is that Bella is just about the most horrible character to ever exist, yet gets no literary comeuppance - no just deserts! However-many-pages of some dozy bint swanning around being self-absorbed and judgemental, and having some guy fall at her feet for no reason other than she smells good as a meatball sub.)

Does anyone here think that studying riddles could also help in writing interesting stories unique to games?

i don't think there is such a thing as a story unique to games -- if a story can be told as a game, it can also be told as something else. it won't be the exact same story but it'll be similar; sort of how harry potter as a movie series is different than harry potter as a novel series; but both are harry potter, they're telling the harry potter story, just in different ways

What I mean by literarian is the "Fine art" concept, the academic part, the "high culture" epithet that people seem to put on dead writers that are still aclaimed. I make a diference between that and the "popular" literature that Meyers seem to be (I'm not meaning popular is less than the "academic").
The same could be said about music, people seem to think Bach, Mozart and Beethoven is better than Michael Jackson, Rihana or Maddona.
I agree with the academic being a niche, but I wonder why some seem to think something that it's renowed on the academic side can't be widly popular, I remember 100 years of solitude being popular.
About the poor translation, I say sorry, but I write english using the "Spanish" languaje structure, so maybe seems illogical or odd in some stuff for english readers. That's because I don't have any english native friends to help me.
I only ask you what should I fix first that is awkward.
EDIT: About the money, It's important to know about the market if you're interested in making a living with your writings, you must know how to make a book that will sell if you're interested in wining money with your books, but that doesn't mean to give up and write just for the sake to make money.
Second EDIT: I feel when I re-read my writings that I'm a little overconfident, but I think I should give my arguments, just to seek other people counter-arguments, and start a real and interesting debate so maybe I and others can learn something new or from other point of view. I know I'm not a know-all but I'll recognize I was wrong when someone proves it (with real arguments).

About leveling up, I feel when writing that I can do it better next time, It's like a musician performance, they know they need to practice and study to become better over time.
The problem is that I don't find a good motivation, TV movies nor manga doesn't help neither.
you're right about publication is for the trash, kafka never wanted to publish during his life, but when I look older writings of myself I don't want to show them because I know over time their flaws.

Lol at your really tiny comment.  :lol: :lol: :lol:


No, but they work very well to make the puzzles of the game, I used to love Resident Evil puzzles of psone.


I agree, games can told any story, but games stories are a completely diferent breed and games are a diferent medium that books or cinema.
In movies it helps that both are linear, but games doesn't are that way.
The story it's the same (It remains the same), but It's the WAY to tell it that changes.

Imagine a movie that is only a guy walking on the street, only the chasing or only about guys shooting or holding their weapons, you know it will suck as a movie, a game like that will be great.
A book about our inner thoughs and feelings could work, but being a movie will have to change some things.

It's the medium unique characteristics, not the story that creates the problem when translating from one medium to another.
A song made for a pop band will be diferent than if the same song would be arranged to a salsa band or a academic symphonic.
The song nor the compositor should be diferent, but he should be aware of the diferences.

Difference is that movies or books cannot generate their own stories each time differently when you open them. You could have PGC stories and characters in games, that not even game designers would know how the story would play out. And also I think that in generally we have too restricted idea of a story and storytelling anyway, like this thread shows. It saddens me how horrible conservative people are here. Storytelling is not just about established drama writes like Shakespeare.

In games, storytelling could be far more complex area in where word 'story' is not enough to describe. We could have game worlds that evolve automatically around actions of player, or actions of itself. Like real life, I don't see my life as a story, I see it as a experience that doesn't have lots of predefined guidelines how it will play out. If I want to enjoy nice 'story' however, I must dig deeper than into shallow basic cliche filled few thousand years old drama-telling. For e.g. biographies are quite lovely in this area. They are sort of result sheets of a very complex simulation. Sure you can find classic drama elements from any biography, but the point is that classic drama is largely dumb simplification of something much more interesting.

There is lot of ground to cover in gaming, and people are just about learning to implement basic cliche stuff that is dead horse already. Oh humanity...  :waaagh:

READ THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. It has helped countless famous writers in life.

A good read, for sure. But it's a primer for Joseph Campbell's monomyth structure. Read it but take it with a grain of salt in that a good story does not need to be tied down to a certain style.

sure they can -- never read a which-way book? and even with normal books and normal movies, stories totally feel different each time you read them, even if the content you're seeing is the same, what you focus on and how you interpret events usually makes the second watching of a movie or the second reading of a book very different than the first

Never read that, sounds like gimmick. For me they don't work different way on each time. It's the same. There is some exceptions, but usually that involves 20 years between and thus better personal understanding. Also it requires very special book or movie, in which level games do not reach.

Simplification: writing has two primary components; the first being an idea/feeling/concept that you wish to express, the second being the skill with which you express it. These are two separate challenges. Some people (autistic) can formulate ideas with astonishing detail but have no ability to communicate them well. Others (pulp writers) can't formulate an interesting idea well but can describe doing the laundry so well that you get inspired to do your own. If you are a genius at one, you can get away with being sloppy with the other, but both together is super duper fun timez.

This is also where I point out that expressing a story on the page is not the same as expressing a story in a game, and if you want to master the second aspect, then it's better to study great story driven games than to study authors of great books. One of my favourite (and definitely top 10 all time) story driven games is Ultima 7. The expression of the story was so much about level design and interacting with the world. It's totally unlike writing on the page.

There is a third and often overlooked aspect the what makes writing good. It's probably the most important. The ability of the audience to understand and integrate what the author is communicating. Great ideas, great writing + wrong time = unappreciated art. This is why I agree with Paul that you can't look at sales and reviews to judge a games success. Only the author knows if he/she has successfully expressed their ideas.


I think literaarrraiaansiski can be useful because (when honest) it is an attempt at judging the gestalt of the writing process. This can easily degenerate into social club BS, and it does, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

PS> I love Bukowski, after finishing one of his books for the first time (I think it was Post Office), I thought to myself "what a piece of shit", and immediately got another one to read. I read all his work within a week and read them again the next year.

Bukowski was great.
Reminds me of Miles Davis. Guy goes to Julliard, learns how to play music the "right" way. Goes on to play jazz and defy most constructs of the trained method--not for the sake of defying, but for the sake of creating the music he wanted to create. The stuff that he wanted to play. Musical scholars of the time pointed to it and called it shit, but in the end you know he could point to his own education as proof that he knew how to play their tinkly crap--so he was just as qualified to judge. He was playing for himself. Bukowski was similar in that he was well read, but didn't try to emulate. It's a virtue.

In places where the 'literary' formatting works, it works well enough. I'm just saying that the Dickensian kind of voice is not the be all, end all that writers should aspire to--and sometimes it's inappropriate for the story.