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[Ethan718]

How to Make People Give a Crap About Cutscenes (links to original blog post)

Let's use two scenarios for this post. Scenario A is something I love as a gamer. Scenario B is something that developers might want to think about changing.

This isn't about making cutscenes or specific cutscenes. It's about looking forward to cutscenes as opposed to getting annoyed and skipping swiftly through them.

Scenario A:

Let's use my favorite game, Jak and Daxter, for Scenario A.

First of all I just want to say that I love this game so much. Okay. Now, by itself, with just gameplay alone, this isn't as impressive of a game. But I love the atmosphere. I love the characters. Jak doesn't talk (I'm talking about the first game here) but Naughty Dog still gives him a personality. Hell, he's more of character than a ton of videogame characters that can talk. He's the classic hero, strapped with a no-nonsense, get-it-done attitude. Oddly enough, it's almost as if he has better social skills than Daxter. You can tell by how some of the villager NPCs talk to him that he's always been trustworthy and helpful, and that he's a stand up guy. When I was a kid I was entertained by his interactions with Keira (the girl, was that her name?) and wanted know if they'd get together.

Then there's Daxter. Oh, Daxter. He is the talker of the group. As a lad I thought he was the funniest thing ever, so I wanted him to get turned back into his awkward-looking human self.

So this leads me to my point. You want people to read/watch your cutscenes? Make good characters! Make the player care about the characters! I won't care about a fictional character dying unless I care about them. I won't care about saving the world if I don't have anyone in the world to care about. I had to work really hard in Jak to get power cell after power cell, and I was motivated because I cared about the characters. The cutscenes weren't something I could skip- they were why I through played the game in the first place.

Scenario B:

Let's use the Sonic Adventure series for the example here. I didn't care about Sonic. There were so many characters to not feel a connection to, I almost didn't finish the games. The characters were almost not characters at all; they were just talking 3D animations, lifeless pieces of crap. I liked the gameplay though. I played through both games, but I'm pretty sure I skipped most of the cutscenes. I watched enough to get an idea of it. Trust me, I gave it a chance. But it was just too awful. It wasn't worth it.

So there you go. Characters are the key to capturing my heart. You might have the most complicated plot ever (which some would think by itself is a "story") but I don't give a damn. You have to have living, breathing people in your story. A lot of times when people talk about "stories" in games, they are just talking about plots. A lot of games I've played have awful acting, awful writing, and most importantly, awful characters. Games are long- and thus, it's okay for some of them to have complex plots, because after all, there needs to be conflict. But the conflict just isn't as important to the player if he doesn't love the characters.

How do you make "good characters"? Well, that's a good question. I remember once hearing that there are tons of failed superhero comics, and that the ones that survive (usually) are the ones that have heroes who connect to the reader. For instance, Spiderman wants to get the girl, which is something that appeals to all of us. It isn't just about who has the most awesome powers, it's also about who I'd want to hang out with on a Friday night. And I'd totally want to hang out with Jak and Daxter. 

OK. Thanks for reading. This one was fun to write, hope you liked it. It's not like I'm an authority on writing for games, but I just felt like I wanted to put my opinions into the fray so... I'm excited to hear your rebuttals

[Ben_Hurr]

...The characters were almost not characters at all; they were just talking 3D animations, lifeless pieces of crap. ...

We can also make cutscenes more compelling by simply making LESS OF THEM.

[Ethan718]

Yeah good point. In a past post I talked about how in one of my games people asked for a "storyline". I mean, come on, if I just plop a storyline into a game, do you really think it's going to be good?

Not all games should have stories. And you're right, sometimes there's so many cutscenes that it takes away from them.

But when I like the characters in a game, I view the cutscenes as a reward. You grind through a dungeon, you get a cutscene. You don't know if you're going the right way, but you eventually get a cutscene, so you know you're going the right way.

[SundownKid]

Despite personally liking RPGs, I am opposed to the idea of stop-and-go narrative grinding. There should be more narrative in between, and while you are in control, to take the importance away from cutscenes instead of baiting the player along to the next one.

[Linearity]

I never skip cutscenes. Even if they're really crappy, I'll watch them until I realize I don't like them, and then I'll stop playing the game entirely.

Often a game represents a story about a character; Mario jumps around to save Princess Toadstool, or Master Chief shoots aliens in the face to save the universe. Ignoring these stories makes the game half as fun as it could be, and I can't grasp why people would want to do so. If a game has cutscenes that I actually want to skip, I'm wasting my time playing the game at all because there are other story-type games I could be playing.

Sonic Adventure was intended to be the most story-driven Sonic game ever, and that's what was fun about it for me. Yes, the story and characters were kind of bland, but the gameplay alone wasn't worth it; it almost never is!

I guess my answer to the problem you pose is to make the story inseparable from the rest of the game. If you're trying present a movie to people who, a priori, are inclined to ignore the movie in favor of playing, then remove the distraction. Remove the gameplay that can be enjoyed without watching the movie. They'll either start paying attention or quit. Those in the latter case simply will never want to watch your movie. But who doesn't like movies?

[Player 3]

Scenario B:

Let's use the Sonic Adventure series for the example here. I didn't care about Sonic. There were so many characters to not feel a connection to, I almost didn't finish the games. The characters were almost not characters at all; they were just talking 3D animations, lifeless pieces of crap. I liked the gameplay though. I played through both games, but I'm pretty sure I skipped most of the cutscenes. I watched enough to get an idea of it. Trust me, I gave it a chance. But it was just too awful. It wasn't worth it.

The animation killed it for me. SA1 was just utterly horrid and reminded me of that Alice software we worked with back in my freshman year, while SA2 tried to be realistic by jacking the model FPS from ten to sixty and constant jerking and stuff.
Fluid motion helps set the mood as well as the music, dialogue, and that mumbo jumbo.

[Tiderion]

Easy: Don't let game designers make cut scenes.

This is the same topic as the "Why do games have bad writing" thread. Answer: no one hires writers to write their game content. Cut scenes are similar. They are miniature movies. If it's not well written, it won't matter how great anything else is. Cut scenes, even though they are animated, MUST follow movie guidelines. Those exist because people reject movies being made any other way and doing it another way isn't indie, counter-culture or out-of-the-box. It's just annoying and stupid.

That said, cut scenes, if used, must also be used judiciously. The quantity, length, and placement must be carefully decided because they are to fit into a game.

Compare Resident Evil to Shenmue. The former used them sparingly and varied them between actual cut scenes versus in-game scripted events. The latter varied them a bit but they happened all the time and were long and boring.

[Ethan718]

@Tiderion:
I agree completely with what you are saying.

However, why can't game designers also work on their writing skills?

[Tiderion]

@Tiderion:
I agree completely with what you are saying.

However, why can't game designers also work on their writing skills?

I think designers should. Designers are closest in the business to writers. However, I think a lot of people try to be more than they are. That sounds cruel but not everyone can do art or music well. Writing and film are no different. There is a substantial difference between doing these and doing them well.

As this pertains to cut scenes, StarCraft might be one of the best examples. The cut scenes used do not always entirely pertain to the story in the specific moment but they are fun, rare, and short. They are used to expand your understanding of what is going on without directly telling you.

General writing tip that is the cornerstone of film and writing: be careful to reveal information when you want the consumer to know that information and not a moment sooner or later.

Bad dialogue is always that which tells you everything.