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[Dacke]

Prime example of gaming OCD. I have a friend who's exactly like that. She says she can't play nonlinear games (and much less open-ended ones) because she absolutely has to see/complete 100% of the game.

Yes, I do have a bit of that. But it's far from a need for 100% all the time (even though that feels better)

It's more about a sense of completion and getting to some kind of real conclusion, before moving on. Like getting to the end of the story. It's the exact same thing with movies and books.

Edit: That being said, I love Civ/City/Empire/Tycoon-building and skill based multiplayer games.

[Rumrusher]

well if one can't write a good enough story granting the player the ability to make one him/herself and share to others adds to the game replay value.
it makes replaying the same (non)linear game again more enjoyable.

[Dacke]

it makes replaying the same (non)linear game again more enjoyable.

I'd rather have the full experience the first time I play the game, if possible. Replaying a game, no matter how much alternative content there is, almost always feels less interesting.

[Rumrusher]

it makes replaying the same (non)linear game again more enjoyable.

I'd rather have the full experience the first time I play the game, if possible. Replaying a game, no matter how much alternative content there is, almost always feels less interesting.

dang im sorry but I read that as " I play games once and never play them again. dump them in the shelf to collect dust or sell it I have no need for it I had my fill." that type of feeling is terrible for me it makes the game so empty like I just kill and hollowed out a body.

[Dacke]

dang im sorry but I read that as " I play games once and never play them again. dump them in the shelf to collect dust or sell it I have no need for it I had my fill." that type of feeling is terrible for me it makes the game so empty like I just kill and hollowed out a body.

You what?

I replay games, in the same way I reread books. It's nice to go back to the previous experience. But I wouldn't want books written so that I had to read different half-cooked versions of the same book, to get the full story (having to read several sections over and over in each version of the book)

[Golds]

You raise some really good points for pushing towards less scripted design, in favor more total game systems simulations.  I want to play more games like this.  But mandating that all games should ditch their linear storytelling and its design implications reminded me of Dogme 95.

[FatHat]

The way simulation games like Dwarf Fortress create 'story' doesn't result in anything near the type of experience that you get with a narrative game.

Not yet, but I think this is where we're going say 10-20 years down the line, as we learn more about storytelling in games.

Neither is superior - you can tell a nonlinear story well and that's a great gaming experience. You can simulate the world well and something like a story will emerge from that. It's not like we overall have to choose one or the other.

Maybe, but on the other hand, great game stories never seem to work as well as great stories in films, and the gameplay never seems to work quite as well as games that eschew story to focus %100 on creating a gameplay experience. It feels like the hybrid approach tends towards mediocrity. It's not bad, but it's rarely great either.

That could just be my personal preferences though. Whenever I play the "great" story-based games like Bioshock or Half-Life, I always leave feeling empty and bored

Your examples of what's bad about attempts at nonlinear story show it being done poorly. Invisible forcefields don't exist in games like Fallout or Arcanum - you can kill whoever the hell you please and still reach the end of the game just fine. Hell, with Fallout you can skip 95% of the gameplay/story and finish the game in ten minutes - it does a very good job at nonlinear interactive storytelling.

I have to admit I didn't like Fallout that much. It wasn't bad, but I never felt any sort of sense of personal involvement. I was just consuming the story, so I was tempted to do outrageous things just to see what would happen, and then I'd feel sort of gross about it and play the situation over again to not be such a prick. I stopped playing after I blew up Megaton with a nuke and felt absolutely nothing. But maybe I'm just a sociopath when it comes to games 

I don't find the stories that simulation games produce to be satisfying except in retrospect, after I've imposed some narrative on what's just happened in the game. That's great and all, but it's not what I want out of a game when 'story' is a factor in the experience.

That's an interesting point I hadn't considered... sometimes you need time to digest. Pacing is important to story, and if the player is setting the pace they might never stop and create the necessary pauses. On the other hand, I think traditional stories often work because they subtly tell you how to feel about things, with music and symbolism and things of that nature. I think those things could still work well without explicit plot.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Maybe, but on the other hand, great game stories never seem to work as well as great stories in films, and the gameplay never seems to work quite as well as games that eschew story to focus %100 on creating a gameplay experience. It feels like the hybrid approach tends towards mediocrity. It's not bad, but it's rarely great either.

That could just be my personal preferences though. Whenever I play the "great" story-based games like Bioshock or Half-Life, I always leave feeling empty and bored

you should try games that actually have great stories. half life and bioshock are ridiculous examples, they aren't story-games at all and focus more on the gameplay than the story. try games like xenogears, planescape torment, suikoden 2, etc. or even some visual novels like narcissu, or IF like photopia. are you really playing FPS games and hoping for good stories?

[rayteoactive]

we're trying to force-feed players a manufactured story. Why?

Stories help to give a game an overarching sense of place. They tie it to reality.

Here's a pretty sparse example: say we have a game where you are a green dot and you fire a red line at a black dot. This action is not very interesting. However, if we add just a tiny bit of text before this action, something like, "Shoot the mayor!" the game becomes slightly more engaging. The player now is not only thinking about the game on a literal level (red line, black dot), but also on a metaphorical level, thus stimulating more levels of their brain at a time. I believe this principle holds true for any game, no matter how detailed the graphics or gameplay.

sucks to be a mayor, lol

[jpgray]

I've thought and read a great deal about the problem of interactive narrative.  Some general points:

-A great, passively presented story will be enjoyable on its own merits, even if the stakes and emotion of its drama are completely divorced from the stakes and emotion of what the player actually -does-.

-Attempts to make these scripted narratives interactive are almost always a shameful and unsatisfying disguise for the lack of interactivity.

-Making player decisions generate meaningfully different stories with a high standard of presentation would require prohibitive amounts of passive content.

Longwinded, banal explanation follows:

Most narrative-driven games rely almost solely on passive content to communicate drama. Attempts to bloat up the interactivity or innovate on the tried-and-true "plucky heroes against the foozle" formula are not necessarily good or bad on their merits, but rather live or die by how they fit with the old standby of the genre--passive content. What I mean by "passive content" is the scripted plot and its supporting graphics, music, and atmosphere--stuff I like to rail against as having usurped resources from gaming's most valuable and unique quality, interaction. Taking time to think about what games I actually -enjoy- the most, however, I find that in certain genres interactivity is the last thing I care about, and an inappropriate focus in that direction can actually spoil the game.

How does it happen? The crucial factor here in narrative-based games is that the player's motivation is not at one with the avatar's. The avatar might care about a random girl's slow vaporization via temporal dissonance, but the player doesn't, not to anywhere near the same degree. The player is invested in advancing the plot, and experiencing the passive content. This is why the player will reload to play out unexplored branches of a scripted plot, to try all the significant available paths, without much regard for the avatar's established motivations. Who cares about my supposed squeamish "goodness" when there's more delicious content to experience?

Which brings us to interactivity--take a linear narrative game, like Chrono Trigger.  There's almost zero interaction on the dramatic level, and that's fine. You don't have to schmooze with some King Guardia simulacrum for hours, carefully massaging his "personality" stat-bundle while mowing mindlessly through a vast plain of mostly barren dialogue menus--you get all the content written for His Guardia-ness just by waltzing up and hitting a button. This is less interactive than an exhaustively subtle dialogue system complete with procedural NPC personality stat matrices, sure, but let's be honest--for some genres, it's better not to have all that crap.

Why? Because NPCs have no dramatic agency in a narrative game. They have no life outside the player. They simply stand around and wait for you to throw logic switches, then provide you with the requisite quest/bauble/info to throw more logic switches. They're boolean vending machines for the game script. They're never going to break free, form goals, and alter the gameworld in any significant way.  They are soulless robots in terms of mechanics--to ask the player to navigate a comprehensive conversation system with them would be akin to having blowup dolls require thoughtful gifts, stimulating nights out and long foot rubs from their sad misfit owners. Some reasonable facsimile of life is necessary to justify any game's demand for a player to relate to its NPCs on a more human level. Complex mechanics should not be a shameful disguise for playing tea-party with empty mannequins.

So why not give them more agency, more life? Because that kills any well-structured game narrative dead. The player need only waltz into the world, fetch baubles and kill vermin for a number of hours before killing the foozle--if NPCs are presented as equal agents to the player, then -anyone- could have killed such a pushover foozle at any time.

Why not allow the player more freedom within the narrative then? Because the amount of plot-branches would quickly become staggering, precluding the highest levels of quality in the passive content, or making all paths drably alike.

Let's take Chrono Trigger again: If Crono could meaningfully decide "nuts to Frog; screw that guy, I'm not taking him along," then all the work on the 600AD Magus sequence goes up in smoke, all Frog's passive content characterization is for naught, and alternate paths must be scripted and fleshed out with passive content to an agreeable standard. Now imagine this necessity repeated for every major plot point in the game--if there are only ten major yes/no decisions, that's 1024 discrete paths. You could lower the standard of content, make it more abstract and modular, merge the paths into only a few fleshed-out endpoints, etc.--but then many of Chrono Trigger's NPCs and much of its drama would be as faceless as some of their counterparts in Wasteland, and something valuable, for me at least, would be lost.

As great as Wasteland is, if the passive content is good enough to justify a heavily scripted narrative I don't mind at -all- if I'm led by the nose through an exclusively linear plot. If the signpost NPCs are charming, well-written and relatable even in the most non-interactive sense, then I don't care if I can't micromanage the inflection of my greeting. I don't care if the conversation always goes the way the script demands. I don't care if my avatar is mute! If the content's good enough, exhaustive interactivity isn't the be-all end-all.  You can't stab Frog to death and take his stuff, sure, but he's a lot more memorable than Mayor Pedros, and that may well encapsulate the trade-off.

To my mind the best interactive narratives in gaming come from the strategy genre.  In the best of these games, like X-COM: UFO Defense or Master of Orion (the first one, please), the drama is wholly built up of interactions, with only a gloss of narrative passive content to set the stage and define the goals.  These glosses work with the robust and varied interactions to generate crude but memorable stories, wholly built from interaction with game entities and environments.

You remember the badass female rookie that mowed down three mutons in a single plasma burst and rescued her commander.  You remember the time you saved yourself from an unstoppable Meklar death fleet by espionage and Machiavellian diplomatic maneuvering.

There's nothing -wrong- with rote gameplay attached to brilliant passive content--it makes for incredible entertainment.  But for story techniques unique to gaming, look no further than the strategy genre.  The drama there develops from a robust, interactive environment, and characters whose abilities and goals are similar to the player's.

[Golds]

-A great, passively presented story will be enjoyable on its own merits, even if the stakes and emotion of its drama are completely divorced from the stakes and emotion of what the player actually -does-.

-Attempts to make these scripted narratives interactive are almost always a shameful and unsatisfying disguise for the lack of interactivity.

I like this line of thinking.   Unravelling a compelling story about your setting probably works much more fittingly if you aren't playing a leading role in a monomyth.

[jpgray]

I like this line of thinking.   Unravelling a compelling story about your setting probably works much more fittingly if you aren't playing a leading role in a monomyth.

That's all well and good, but what about my longwinded, banal explanation?  At least it's safely at the bottom of a page where no one will read it.  :-D

But yeah, I think tension between the narrative and interactivity reaches truly ridiculous levels in the more epic game plots.  In the script, whole armies are on the move, the world is at stake, and an unstoppable evil seeks to destroy all that we hold dear.  In terms of gameplay, all this is solved by one to six homicidal gofers, in the span of a few hours.  In the script, there are intelligent capable characters everywhere, but apparently they are all rooted in place, and lack the ability to grind stats in the boonies, or saunter a few screens away to deliver/fetch necessary baubles.  The world-destroying uber-baddie at the end apparently avoided encountering anyone with the ability to discern flashing weak points and shoot them four to six times.

The player is willing to go along with this dissonance to experience the story, art, etc.  But if the author starts including "busywork" interactivity that has no meaningful effect on the experience, the player is reminded of the essential disconnect.  The quintessential example is the "Will you help us? (yes/no)" from JRPGs of yore--so many "interactive" dialogue systems and NPC personality mechanics are simply elaborations of this false choice.  I'll mechanically go through dialogue trees if the writing is enjoyable, for example, but the act of doing so is often annoying, essentially mindless, and usually meaningless to the overall game.

[anosou]

Something I've found as an interesting alternative to a player-centered narrative is to instead focus on the story of the world around the player. The absolute best way to do this in my humble opinion is not by endless dialogue, big signposts or overhearing NPCs. Instead make the story unravel visually. A great example of this is ICO that gives you hints on what has happened in pure and sexy visuals. When you first see Yorda in the cage that's not story but it gives you a hint that this castle is a prison (if that wasn't clear from the fact that you were sealed in a casket ofc).

If you do resort to text though I quite fancy games that involve you in the world's lore. Jade Cocoon (an old PS1 JRPG) did this in an admirable way by focusing both cutscenes, visuals and dialogue on the different beliefs and traditions of the people in the little village. The more you progressed into the game, the more unraveled about how the world's built that is different from what was introduced as reality at the beginning. I guess what I'm trying to say in my broken english is that character-focused story often feel cheesy but if you focus on the world the player will identify himself with the main character more because they're both learning about and experiencing the world the same way. Long story short, I like silent main characters and rich lore.

[jpgray]

Something I've found as an interesting alternative to a player-centered narrative is to instead focus on the story of the world around the player.

I agree.  One of the best examples of this, in my view, was in Super Metroid.  After the intro there is no dialogue, exposition or cutscenes, but there are evocative visual set pieces to tell the story.

If you do resort to text though I quite fancy games that involve you in the world's lore.

This is another great technique.  I think of it as the logbook method of narration, as found in System Shock, Bioforge, etc.  This works in part, I think, because there is no expectation for logbooks or messages to be anything but inert text/audio.  When characters are the delivery system for narrative text, the player expects more of an illusion of life--the NPC might be expected to, for example, notice that the player just slaughtered everyone else in the town before engaging in genial conversation.

I think probably the first successful implementation of this technique was in Starflight (which is an awe-inspiring game ahead of its time on many other levels).  There was so much fascinating history written into it.  Finding messages in old ruins on various planets was always a kick, and not only on a passive level--much of the information was necessary or useful for solving the game.  The beauty of this was that it worked so well with the open-ended exploration mechanic and vast universe--the ruins were distributed widely enough that you were almost guaranteed to find -some- piece of the main plot in your explorations.  The delivery feels more like a true discovery, rather than spoon-fed and scripted.

One problem with these techniques, as with most passive narration in games, is that they don't do much for replayability.  When I go back to Super Metroid, for example, it's the core platforming mechanics that I want to experience again, not necessarily the passive content.

[anosou]

Something I've found as an interesting alternative to a player-centered narrative is to instead focus on the story of the world around the player.

I agree.  One of the best examples of this, in my view, was in Super Metroid.  After the intro there is no dialogue, exposition or cutscenes, but there are evocative visual set pieces to tell the story.

Exactly! Great example that I didn't think of.

If you do resort to text though I quite fancy games that involve you in the world's lore.

This is another great technique.  I think of it as the logbook method of narration, as found in System Shock, Bioforge, etc.  This works in part, I think, because there is no expectation for logbooks or messages to be anything but inert text/audio.  When characters are the delivery system for narrative text, the player expects more of an illusion of life--the NPC might be expected to, for example, notice that the player just slaughtered everyone else in the town before engaging in genial conversation.

I think probably the first successful implementation of this technique was in Starflight (which is an awe-inspiring game ahead of its time on many other levels).  There was so much fascinating history written into it.  Finding messages in old ruins on various planets was always a kick, and not only on a passive level--much of the information was necessary or useful for solving the game.  The beauty of this was that it worked so well with the open-ended exploration mechanic and vast universe--the ruins were distributed widely enough that you were almost guaranteed to find -some- piece of the main plot in your explorations.  The delivery feels more like a true discovery, rather than spoon-fed and scripted.

One problem with these techniques, as with most passive narration in games, is that they don't do much for replayability.  When I go back to Super Metroid, for example, it's the core platforming mechanics that I want to experience again, not necessarily the passive content.

Yeah, the important things is (like in most games) that the gameplay needs to be solid enough to still be the main attraction if you're going for replayability. R-Type Final is an oddly good example for this. They introduced each level with a text quote but then the visuals did the rest of telling the story of how the Bydo are really created by humans. The thing is the game is a horizontal shooter with 101 ships to collect so even though the (frankly awesome) narrative might suffer from repeated playthroughs you have the core gameplay mechanics that are really top-of-the-line. There ARE also variations on levels (i.e. Level 3.2 and so on) that do give you different visual information, completing the story more and more.

Another way to remedy this is to introduce a new hint on subsequent playthroughs with New Game+ or similar. Breath of Fire V takes this to the extreme since it kind of makes you die a LOT. But when you restart the entire game, based on what you've done you unlock new dialogue and cut-scenes. If you combine that concept with the "environmental story-telling" you can get quite the amazing game out.

Don't steal my ideas now 

[FatHat]

There's nothing -wrong- with rote gameplay attached to brilliant passive content--it makes for incredible entertainment. 

There's everything wrong with that, IMO. If the gameplay is rote and people are only playing to see the brilliant passive content, then the gameplay is just getting in the way. Why not just make it a movie or a book at that point?

I feel like every element of a design should actively contribute towards making it a better game. If your design is experiencing dissonance between elements, I think it indicates that something is wrong with your design. You can still make something fun, even with dissonance, but that doesn't mean something isn't broken.

[anosou]

There's nothing -wrong- with rote gameplay attached to brilliant passive content--it makes for incredible entertainment. 

There's everything wrong with that, IMO. If the gameplay is rote and people are only playing to see the brilliant passive content, then the gameplay is just getting in the way. Why not just make it a movie or a book at that point?

I feel like every element of a design should actively contribute towards making it a better game. If your design is experiencing dissonance between elements, I think it indicates that something is wrong with your design. You can still make something fun, even with dissonance, but that doesn't mean something isn't broken.

I agree. Since we're talking about games I think gameplay is of utmost importance and like you I think it's about creating a cohesive whole. The way people often approach stories (walls of text, book-or-movie style) does sometime get in the way of gameplay. Now, I like JRPGs so I'm not one to talk but in that case I actually DO love the world-roaming, turn-based battles and so on. You have to find what works, just like you said. Good post right here.

[jpgray]

Why not just make it a movie or a book at that point?

Because the medium is still, in this case, part of the message.  Something like Samorost is rudimentary at best when it comes to interactivity--you point and click for a few minutes and it's all over.  The passive content is almost the whole of the experience, but it would not work as well separated from the admittedly simple interaction.  Would you watch Samorost or Knytt as animated shorts?  You might, but it would not be the same experience at all.  RPG and adventure plots/art/etc. are generally cheesy and full of cliches--I wouldn't choose to experience one as a book, film, or anything else but a game.  As games, however, their passive content works with the interaction to compel me to keep playing.  The interaction is often nothing special, but it shapes the passive content into an experience that is unique and inseparable from the medium of gaming.

I feel like every element of a design should actively contribute towards making it a better game. If your design is experiencing dissonance between elements, I think it indicates that something is wrong with your design. You can still make something fun, even with dissonance, but that doesn't mean something isn't broken.

There will always be that dissonance in any imitative medium, because the imitation is never complete.  The medium always intrudes, and is better suited to some imitations than others.  I think what you're saying is that games should focus more on the unique attributes of the medium, interaction, to express ideas.  I'd agree.  That doesn't mean, however, that games which partly neglect those attributes are bad or unenjoyable experiences.  A filmed play can still be a great movie, in other words.  Computer games can't accurately express interpersonal drama at present through interaction, but can display passive content to non-interactively express the idea.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and nothing that tells you whether the game is good or bad.

[FatHat]

Why not just make it a movie or a book at that point?

Because the medium is still, in this case, part of the message.  Something like Samorost is rudimentary at best when it comes to interactivity--you point and click for a few minutes and it's all over.  The passive content is almost the whole of the experience, but it would not work as well separated from the admittedly simple interaction.  Would you watch Samorost or Knytt as animated shorts?  You might, but it would not be the same experience at all.  RPG and adventure plots/art/etc. are generally cheesy and full of cliches--I wouldn't choose to experience one as a book, film, or anything else but a game.  As games, however, their passive content works with the interaction to compel me to keep playing.  The interaction is often nothing special, but it shapes the passive content into an experience that is unique and inseparable from the medium of gaming.

Fair point, I agree to an extent. But this is what I mean about games being mediocre. They have mediocre gameplay and mediocre stories, and neither would stand on their own. And both are mediocre because there's a very large aspect of dissonance in the design. The end result can be fun, and more than the sum of its parts, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to design a game, or even a good way.

A filmed play can still be a great movie, in other words.

!

Like what? It might, maybe be watchable, but I doubt it could be great.

Computer games can't accurately express interpersonal drama at present through interaction

Says you, but The Sims has sold something north of a bajillion copies, and Black & White managed to create a pretty compelling form of machine learning.

[jpgray]

Fair point, I agree to an extent. But this is what I mean about games being mediocre. They have mediocre gameplay and mediocre stories, and neither would stand on their own. And both are mediocre because there's a very large aspect of dissonance in the design. The end result can be fun, and more than the sum of its parts, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to design a game, or even a good way.

Well, it depends what you want to express.  If you want to express the classic heroes against the foozle narrative in a game, with an epic plot full of interesting characters and dastardly foes, you must either severely limit interaction and focus on telling a great linear story or write untold reams of passive content for thousands of meaningfully different player paths.  If you seek to simulate the drama on the fly procedurally, your story and characters will become more abstract, less structured, and will contain long stretches of abstract ugliness, schizophrenic pacing, and tedium.  See Dwarf Fortress, a brilliant game that attempts this monumental task in part and suffers from all those flaws.

A filmed play can still be a great movie, in other words.

!

Like what? It might, maybe be watchable, but I doubt it could be great.

Hmm, lots of choices here.  All About Eve?  Rope?  They're more or less lacking in uniquely cinematic techniques.  Despite Hitch's looooong shots in Rope.  :-D

Computer games can't accurately express interpersonal drama at present through interaction

Says you, but The Sims has sold something north of a bajillion copies, and Black & White managed to create a pretty compelling form of machine learning.

The Sims suffers from the problems mentioned above in spades.  The key to its popularity is impossible to pin down to any one thing, but the universal appeal of its content has at least something to do with it.  I would view it more as a souped up Tamagotchi, though, than a good narrative experience.  Black & White is a better example but in my view is lacking in a few key areas: variety, balance, and pacing.  The best strategy titles for narrative, at least the ones I remember "in-game stories" from, have all those qualities.  B&W is still a solid game, however!