next »

[LiquidAsh]

In Twenty Twelve, I'm experimenting with delivering the gameplay and backstory (mostly) separately.

My thinking is that the people who are really interested in digging deep into the story of this game is a subset of the people who are interested in playing.  So the game includes references and connections to the bigger world that it exists within.  And the PowerTribune.com site is meant to give only those who are interested, more insight into the plot and characters experienced in the game.  Kind of a somewhat restrained ARG, I suppose.

This is not meant as an argument about the relationship between stories and games (which I know has been heatedly debated over the years).  I am simply interested in hearing how you react to the experience.

[SundownKid]

In my game, I added an illustrated encyclopedia-style menu so people could read extra information that's too esoteric to put in the game itself (it unlocks after you hear about it in-game). Putting it somewhere else entirely (a wiki for example) would most likely ensure that few of your players bothered to read it, but putting it in the game would let interested players quickly navigate to it. At least, that is the case for smaller games - popular ones can easily afford that luxury.

[StripeyWhale]

Story is one of the primary reasons I play a game.  I talk to all the NPCs (twice, to see if there's anything different the next time), read all the signs, never skip a cutscene, etc. etc.

However, I never read anything outside of the game itself.  Maybe I'm just weird, but for me, the moment a part of the story is outside of the game I'm playing, it no longer counts.

I may be the only person like this, but I can tell you I would vastly prefer to have story in the game in a way that is available to the ones who want it, and can be ignored by everyone else.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think trying to appeal to both people who hate stories in games and people who like them is a bad idea. appeal to one or the other, not both

that said, in my last game immortal defense (a tower defense game), the story was pretty separated from the game: you played a level, you read some text, repeat 100 times. you can skip the text and the text was all displayed on one page, there were no separate pages or scrolling through it. most people didn't mind reading a few lines of text before a level as they set up their defenses. a small percent of people skipped the story and just played the levels, but the vast majority read the story, some even reading the story and skipping most the levels (there's a level-skip cheat code)!

this varies by genre, what i did would not work in a rpg for instance, because of npc's etc. but what you can do is have some visual cue that it's story time, and some simple way to skip story time; e.g. darken the screen or something, and have esc skip right to the end of the story scene. or do what metal gear solid did and make most of the story take place via optional "phone calls" which you can skip if you don't want to answer the call

[Capntastic]

I'd argue that in terms of storytelling in Immortal Defense, the story doesn't get in the way of the gameplay and the gameplay doesn't get in the way of the story, but both of them build off of each other (in terms of the reason for certain stages behaving differently, motivations for doin' things).  It's basically all the plusses without any of the negatives.

On the other hand you have, say, Castlevania:  Aria of Sorrow which is content to let you 'beat' the game while withholding tons of areas and story from you.  The basic ending is a false one, and while some people might get a kick out of 'figuring out' the secret to getting more out of the game, it's indicative of not putting the experience out there plainly.  It's all the negatives without any of the plusses.

I feel like half of my current physical game library are JRPGs that I never finish because I either want to just enjoy the gameplay, or the story, and I feel like due to my limited time and patience, I'm never quite getting the most out of either.  This is especially cutting in games with limited-time events, sidequests that vanish, hidden plot triggers, and branching plot points that have no real clear cause.

As much as I love the idea of Infinite Space on DS, a game where trivial questions with yes/no answers can literally kill off characters or lock you out of swathes of the game hours down the line just kills my drive.

[Musenik]

The game I'm working on separates story from gameplay in most cases. While you're playing, story interactions are made available. They can be ignored, but they will still produce results that affect the game. Consider Oregon Trail. While you're playing, events occur that affect your family.

In 7 Grand Steps, the same style of events occur, if you don't interact with the story that produces them. But you can influence the results, if you do interact with the story.  "Never force the player to read," is one of the core design decisions. The central game mechanic is strong enough to keep players happy.

Of course the game experience is far richer when you do interact with the story.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'd argue that in terms of storytelling in Immortal Defense, the story doesn't get in the way of the gameplay and the gameplay doesn't get in the way of the story, but both of them build off of each other (in terms of the reason for certain stages behaving differently, motivations for doin' things).  It's basically all the plusses without any of the negatives.

On the other hand you have, say, Castlevania:  Aria of Sorrow which is content to let you 'beat' the game while withholding tons of areas and story from you.  The basic ending is a false one, and while some people might get a kick out of 'figuring out' the secret to getting more out of the game, it's indicative of not putting the experience out there plainly.  It's all the negatives without any of the plusses.

i agree that there was a connection between the story of ID and the gameplay, but i meant that, mechanically or structurally, the two were separated, even if thematically they were connected

and uh oh, sounds like you may not like saturated dreamers! haha. since in that game the story is more of the type that is told non-linearly: as you explore the game, more of it is revealed. i haven't played aria of sorrow, but the story in SD works more like the story in the early fallout games, or in sid meier's alpha centauri, or in planescape, where you can easily miss a lot of the story if you don't explore certain areas

but that's sort of necessary in true "zeldalikes". in the type of game i want to make with SD -- one where it's open to exploration and you can go through it without artificial barriers keeping you in a specific sequence -- there's really no choice except to tell the story non-linearly as well. it was a lot harder to write than the story for SD than for ID because it's a lot harder to make a story that makes sense no matter what order you read it in

[Capntastic]

So long as it is easy to tell if I've seen all of the plot, or there aren't arbitrary cutoffs to things (if you explore one area it locks you out of another or something), it is usually fine.  I just dislike things that force you to start over or agonize over what you might miss.  Consider Dictionary of the Khazars, a poece of ergodic literature that is three sets of lexicons from three religions that implores the reader to amble through as they please: front to back, randomly, comparing articles from the three views, etc.  After I read through it in an organic manner of whatever caught my eye, I reread it cover to cover- consider it a 100% run.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there's a % indicator indicating the amount of the map you've explored, if that reaches 100% you've pretty much seen 100% of the story too (although it'd still be possible you missed a robot npc in a corner in one of the areas or something, so i'd say 100% of map exploration would mean you've at least seen 95% of the story)

also, the story is very "redundant", so information about something in the backstory or information about something in the setting is usually repeated twice or thrice (in different ways each time), so it's not like an important plot point is hidden away somewhere, if it's important it's usually repeated in several places

the story is also very setting-centric rather than character-centric or plot-centric like ID was; much of the story is about the biology and ecology of the lake, rather than about particular events

(since you've read dune, an analogy could be made with that in terms of the focus on the ecology and planet)

[Capntastic]

I wanna meet The Lake.

This all sort of makes me think of Starflight, which is very open ended to the point of most people just playing it as if it were 100% sandbox.  Of course, Starflight is set up in a way that if you are diligent in your exploration, following up leads, you will eventually come upon traces of a plot that you can choose to ignore (to the doom of your planet, after several in-game years), or follow up on to save the galaxy.

Of course, just because you stumble upon the 'plot' of the game doesn't remove the sandboxy aspects of exploring, extracting minerals, and dealing with aliens.  There's really only like 15 steps you have to take to 'beat the game', but the gameplay introduces obstacles and events organically.  Even if you're trying to find ruins on some planet to retrieve an artifact, you're going to need to fuel up, avoid enemy ships, find the planet, land on it, and get to the site unscathed.  There's plenty of things that will inevitably pop up.

Pirates! was like this as well, where you had the tools to just do your own thing and amass wealth and expand your little armada, capturing port towns and wrecking treasure ships, but I think in the more recent iterations there is a very clear plot thread you are expected to be loosely cognizant of.

Space Rangers 2 was also like this, where it was basically a sandbox but through natural play you'd want to increase your ship's power and do events to get wealth and XP, and this all helped you with the plotline of "Destroy the super aliens".  Of course, Space Rangers 2 had the approach of making you handle yourself in the openness of the game before you were anywhere near built up enough to deal with the plot-related threats.

The majority of the plot is percieved and aggregated in the mind of the player, with their own 'take' on what is going on- when I capture a treasure ship I might roleplay that I am doing it for revenge or whatever.  Instead of the game dumping specific plot points on me, I am free and encouraged to toddle around having fun in my own way, choosing to ignore the call of the 'end game' until I feel ready to do so.

[1982]

Never understood why developers make games into something else than games.

Guess they are complete fails as writers.

[ink.inc]

the lack of your imagination disappoints me

[Poya]

Sometimes having a lot of detail and background about the game world can give a lot of depth to the game, even if the player never actually reads/hears the stuff. The example I remember was playing the original Alone in the Dark game. In the library, there must've been a dozen books that told various tales of dark magic, history of the mansion, etc. etc. which did not necessarily have any direct connection to the story of the game. And I didn't read much of it (didn't speak English back then), but it still made the whole place seem more old/spooky/intriguing.

But yeah I think to get the full effect of it, it needs to be somewhere discoverable within the game and delivered at the right pace, not just some separate menu/website that lists the background story(s)

[1982]

the lack of your imagination disappoints me

As long as you have to make compromises between the artistic mediums; gameplay-writing-graphics-music-whatelse - nothing very interesting happens. And 99% of all games are lousy compromises. Same problem with film. It is not impossible to make awesome non-compromised combo of those all, but it rarely happens.

Lack of imagination is when you are satisfied with something. Ultimate greatness is the only goal what creative person should have.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't understand why trolls like 1982 derail threads they aren't interested in. if you don't think writing should have anything to do with games, then you should leave the "writing" section of the forum alone, right? do text adventure game developers go to the visuals section of the forum and start harping about how games don't need graphics? or does a guy who thinks games don't need music go to the audio section of the forum and go into a thread about how to make better music and be like "man, screw music! games don't need music! stop trying to make something other than games, stop trying to make games something they are not!"

[1982]

i don't understand why trolls like 1982 derail threads they aren't interested in. if you don't think writing should have anything to do with games, then you should leave the "writing" section of the forum alone, right? do text adventure game developers go to the visuals section of the forum and start harping about how games don't need graphics? or does a guy who thinks games don't need music go to the audio section of the forum and go into a thread about how to make better music and be like "man, screw music! games don't need music! stop trying to make something other than games, stop trying to make games something they are not!"

It has always happened in the internet. It is fun, it is intentional, it happens also in my own threads. You as a long timer here should understand if any.

But I don't think that writing should have anything to do with games, I've said some things about the subject on this sub-forum: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=19871.0

I can't try to game in OP post because I don't have Silverlight.

[Azure Lazuline]

I think Metroid Prime handled this the best. You get a scanner that you can point at anything in the game world and get information about it. Literally anything - the enemy you're fighting, the computer terminal to read their logbook, the ancient writing on the wall to learn about the backstory of the planet, the insignificant plant that's growing next to your ship.

The only time the scanner is required is for activating elevators and such, but there are hundreds of things you can scan to get more information about the game world. If a player chooses to not pay attention to any of that, they can. The game's story would just be about a bounty hunter chasing a dragon, then finding an even bigger monster and killing it. But if the player cares about the world and story, they have a nearly-endless stream of information about it.

[LiquidAsh]

Thanks for all the great perspectives.  For the record, I'm considering this experiment a failure because my game is not sufficiently motivating players to follow up with the website.  I've rewritten the story for TwentyTwelve to make it easier to present in-game.  The narrative dialog that pops up no longer breaks the flow of the game, and can be entirely ignored by the player (if they want).  It can also be reviewed at any later time through a log in the pause menu.  I feel like there's a lot of opportunity around this idea, and look forward to seeing how people's approach to the relationship between games and stories continues to evolve.