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[mirosurabu]

Niche? As far as I'm concerned it's been the mainstream for the last couple of years, at least as far as singleplayer experiences go.

Yeah, but story in these games is just a reward as you say, not a driving force. And they try way too hard to be both games and action movies.

Examples:

Metal Gear Solid 4. Shooter/stealth game design interrupted with cutscenes (movie).
Heavy Rain. This one is all about story movie, but most of its gameplay is meaningless. Or maybe it's just that the story is bad? I don't know. The game didn't set any expectations for me. I knew who the Origami Killer is early in the game.
Assassin's Creed. You can't skip cutscenes, but you can wander around. Interactive movie.

[Xion]

so I'm curious what you would consider a story-driven game, if not one where progress is...accompanied by story advancement, if not ushered along by it.

[s0]

Judging from Miroslav's use of Phoenix Wright as an example,  I'd say he means games where the gameplay exists to drive the story forward. I think I misinterpreted his original post a bit.

Also, as for Heavy Rain, I disagree that the gameplay is entirely meaningless. I mean sure it's mostly just random button presses that only have a very vague relation to what's going on on screen (with a bit of trudging around in the scenery here and there), but  there a couple scenes where your character is in a physically straining situation where the button prompts more or less force you contort your hands into an uncomfortable position. Despite all of Heavy Rain's glaring flaws, I thought that was a nice touch.

[Xion]

Judging from Miroslav's use of Phoenix Wright as an example,  I'd say he means games where the gameplay exists to drive the story forward.

haha that seems backwards

[mirosurabu]

so I'm curious what you would consider a story-driven game, if not one where progress is...accompanied by story advancement, if not ushered along by it.

Ultimately, it should feel like you're playing a story. A good story.

Mainstream games don't feel like that. They either feel like you're playing a game with movie as a reward or they feel like a game with cutscenes that provide a bit of context for the gameplay.

Because there is a cutscene with this big bad boss who killed thousands of innocent people in the past and who then goes on to kill my long-time assistant in front of my eyes, it won't make up for the fact that boss battle is a classic arcade. How does that arcade relate to the story? Killing the big bad boss might be an important story event, but the way I have to kill him has nothing to do with the story.

Another example - a gameplay section with one enemy followed by two enemies followed by three enemies is obviously not designed to support the story. They made it like that because they wanted a difficulty curve and because it was easier to follow traditional game design, not to tell a story. Sure, difficulty curve is fine, but if it's going to be a story-driven game, make it part of the story, don't just isolate the gameplay because of it. Think about what makes things harder in the story. Is it setting, situation, some other person? Try not to repeat things without reason.

Finally, if game is about story, players should play important bits of the story. They shouldn't be forced to walk between two locations for hours if it has little to no relevance to the story.

[Xion]

Ah. So...everything you do has to be for a reason, then, outside of gameplay reasons? Like, if you were to read the events of the game in a chronological order it might sound something like an actual story and not "He slew twelve foul creatures of the nether, and then he slew seven more, and then another twelve, before coming to the gates of Arugul only to find that he didn't have the key, and so he went back, and slew twelve and seven and twelve..."?

Killing the big bad boss might be an important story event, but the way I have to kill him has nothing to do with the story.

I disagree. Even actual books and shit describe how things like this go down, big fights and stuff. Jack kills a giant by a pit trap, hanging stabbing, various tricks, tricks. The way you kill him, even if it isn't actually "advancing" the plot, can be a necessary detail. That's kind of like reading a long book and then when the protagonist reaches his foe in a final conflict it says "the hero kills the dragon". It might be how the story goes but it's unsatisfying. How you kill the dragon is a story in itself, one that needn't be neglected just because it's but a detail in the larger story.

It's details that make the story fun to read, and, if anything, it's details I wish games had more of. Stuff like in roguelikes where you can tell your friends "I was surrounded and only had enough mp left for one spell, so I used blink and appeared right next to a Turkey Beast, but after I gave it some food it became enamoured with me so I rode it and got the hell out of there" or something.

I mean not that I think all games should be super nonlinear or anything, but yeah, the important bits can be carefully written and played by players and stuff, but the things in between - the journey from the village to the old wise woman in the hut at the edge of the swamp who will tell you your destiny - they can be written by players, I think, and still remain valid as part of the story. Maybe on your way there you don't get attacked by two and three and five enemies, but maybe it's just the first two, and they're made smart and difficult enough to present the player with a challenge for the entire journey. I mean that's one of the advantages of games in the first place is letting the 'reader' 'write' themselves into parts of the story. I guess. Or something. Maybe (probably) I'm completely misunderstanding you.

[Evan Balster]

Games (roguelikes, dwarf fortress, maybe minecraft) that generate stories from a combination of situation-forming and player creativity are awesome.  Of course, they're mostly irrelevant to our purposes as game storywriters, but they're neat.  (Or are they really NOT irrelevant?)

[Xion]

I think they are not irrelevant. I think taking advantage of games' ability to create these kinds of stories and learn to intermingle them with the pre-established inventions of game writers could possibly be a Very Relevant Thing. [/imho]

[Evan Balster]

Open-world games, at least, should take note.  Their stories tend to suck.

[mirosurabu]

Ah. So...everything you do has to be for a reason, then, outside of gameplay reasons?

Exactly. (:

The way you kill him, even if it isn't actually "advancing" the plot, can be a necessary detail.

Sure it can, but in many games it isn't.

Take MGS4 for example. There is this laughing octopus boss. It's a mix of puzzle, reflex and spot the difference. Most of the time, she doesn't attack you but instead hides and waits for you to shoot her. She might be in that box or she might be on the ceiling or she might be mimicking that person you know. In terms of gameplay it is relatively interesting, but it does nothing for the story. So what? What does that say about her? She can mimic? Does it explain something? Does it foreshadow something? No? She makes fun of him because she's laughing octopus? Probably, but is that all? What does that say about protagonist? He plays hide and sick? He was attacked by the boss and now he has to kill him because there is no way out of it? Does he care about that boss? Noooo?

[gimymblert]

The problem is that game storytelling toss from situation to situation with the same stake, where they should toss you in varying stake.

The details Xion talks about is based on stake, this is why they are meaningful. Gameplay can emulate stake rather easily.

[Gorgoo]

Sure it can, but in many games it isn't.

Take MGS4 for example. There is this laughing octopus boss. It's a mix of puzzle, reflex and spot the difference. Most of the time, she doesn't attack you but instead hides and waits for you to shoot her. She might be in that box or she might be on the ceiling or she might be mimicking that person you know. In terms of gameplay it is relatively interesting, but it does nothing for the story. So what? What does that say about her? She can mimic? Does it explain something? Does it foreshadow something? No? She makes fun of him because she's laughing octopus? Probably, but is that all? What does that say about protagonist? He plays hide and sick? He was attacked by the boss and now he has to kill him because there is no way out of it? Does he care about that boss? Noooo?

Personally, I felt like the Laughing Octopus fight was one of the best story-meets-gameplay moments in the game (and potentially the series). Not because it really matters in the larger scheme of things, but because most video game fights have you use tactical applications of the same gameplay rules over and over throughout the whole game, and that fight mixes it up. The change in gameplay style (making you search for the enemy) made it feel like something out of a movie or book to me, and because the controls were the same as always, it didn't feel forced.

Sure, it didn't have much bearing on the story as a whole (I personally think that, while MGS4 has some of the series's most interesting boss fights, it had the least interesting boss characters), but it felt like it could fit straight into a story-oriented medium like film or books while I was playing through it.

Until I found out that the thermal goggles made it easy and incredibly similar to any other boss fight, but that's beside the point.