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[battlerager]

I would say here faulty narrative expectation didn't help the reviewer. He want bigger than life events and character, i'm sure that's not the point here, the mundane is the goal.

I'm sorry, but that's not how storytelling works. You don't need bigger than life events; but you need conflict, clashing desires, and some sort of resolution. If nothing happens or characters have no hidden depths, it's not a story, but a boring, bad attempt at "showing life as it is".

[s0]

Hector is unable to get back into the country, Angela’s brother is being held as a terrorist and the back patio needs its weeds pulled. There was one moment of sheer heart stopping fear I experienced, when a window was broken, as gunfire filled the neighbourhood

that doesn't sound "mundane" to me tbh.

I would say here faulty narrative expectation didn't help the reviewer. He want bigger than life events and character, i'm sure that's not the point here, the mundane is the goal.

I'm sorry, but that's not how storytelling works. You don't need bigger than life events; but you need conflict, clashing desires, and some sort of resolution. If nothing happens or characters have no hidden depths, it's not a story, but a boring, bad attempt at "showing life as it is".

oh god we're going have THIS discussion again

[TeeGee]

Bah, free market worship. Games that try to suck up to the market fail all the time too. Most games fail. I'd rather see people trying to do new and interesting things and if grants help with that, then all the better.

If you're referring to my posts, then nope. No free market worship. If anything, I'm sad that games like Sunset can't exist in this flawed economic system and have to depend on an even more flawed one. But I also attribute ToT's failure to more than just external factors and people "not getting" their games.

[gimymblert]

I would say here faulty narrative expectation didn't help the reviewer. He want bigger than life events and character, i'm sure that's not the point here, the mundane is the goal.

I'm sorry, but that's not how storytelling works. You don't need bigger than life events; but you need conflict, clashing desires, and some sort of resolution. If nothing happens or characters have no hidden depths, it's not a story, but a boring, bad attempt at "showing life as it is".

kishōtenketsu brand of asian storytelling and slice of life anime want to have a word for you.

@Silber
That's the point, it's a distant echo from the mundane concern of ordinary people (at least angela), it mimick life under war in the less "war" aspect of life, allowing it to make a point about how war can affect the mundane (the player have a dashing fear at that point showing it works), and like in mundane realife it doesn't have satisfactory conclusion because it's just a "vignette", the echo of war was the point not character development. In term of storytlling tricks it tells about the experience of war by removing war, which another way than the usual way of treating war either by showing its direct consequence or direct participation in it.

Think about it, it's like our experience of gamergate, it didn't affect us inderectly, but the emotional consequence has we goes through our day to day routine was real, like gamergate it has no real pay off. Most of the thing happen outside our frame and we have only news from a small windows like twitter and all. If anything it show that distant echo still affect the mundane routine in impactful ways. As such I think they really nail the game (craft and technical problem aside).

[ProgramGamer]

Slice of life animes just reduce conflicts to their smallest and most concise possible form: Interpersonal relations. They don't get rid of it completely or have mostly empty plots.

[Cobralad]

even the most realist works have some sort of pacing and conflict
being a housewife in a war-torn country is a conflict in itself and you can make it beautifully without inserting some twist that would not be out of place in the new Far Cry or some soap opera.

[s0]

even the most realist works have some sort of pacing and conflict
being a housewife in a war-torn country is a conflict in itself and you can make it beautifully without inserting some twist that would not be out of place in the new Far Cry or some soap opera.

ive had this discussion with gimmy a bunch of times. i think his definition of conflict is just weird

[Cobralad]

Slice of life animes just reduce conflicts to their smallest and most concise possible form: Interpersonal relations. They don't get rid of it completely or have mostly empty plots.

Not to mention they have usually set things up that pay off at the end of the episode or season.

[gimymblert]

then this game is not devoid of them so what's the point anyway?

[gimymblert]

BTW it depend on wht you call conflict, state tranistion is a conflicts? I know a number of scene in Lucky star that are simple statement (see the hardcore vs casual: "do you play game") with zero conflicts.

[Dacke]

If you're referring to my posts, then nope. No free market worship. If anything, I'm sad that games like Sunset can't exist in this flawed economic system and have to depend on an even more flawed one. But I also attribute ToT's failure to more than just external factors and people "not getting" their games.

Oh, ok. My bad.

[ProgramGamer]

A conflict is an opposition to your ideals. A stone on the path to greatness. Which implies that you must have two things to have conflict: a goal and a thing preventing you from attaining that goal. This can scale up from simple friendship issues to intergalactic warfare.

[gimymblert]

Okay what's the goal here and what's the conflicts

[Cobralad]

its a joke. There is clear hook and punchline, which is enough to transport into the comedy.
dont know if its apliable to such small scene, but conflict lies in the fact that girl A is a hardcore gamer and girl B is not. Remove all the reaction sounds an inner narration to get the true lifelike experience

[gimymblert]

You mean inner monologue like in sunset?

However what you have describe is not conflict but contrast, there IS a conflict in that scene, it's expectation, ie casual player play lightly, and the punchline is that it's no difference really >> expectation is broken.

However most people frame conflict as goal oriented endavour as seen above. But that one is my set up for this one:


What's the conflict?

[Cobralad]

its me trying to type something but realizing that its a bullshit waste of time

[gimymblert]

why? Trying to sort out things is a waste of time?

[gimymblert]

BTW I don't believe the second example have conflicts at all, the narrative trick is amplification, we already know the character is a nerd, a question is ask, she answer with gradual visual joke, but there is no conflict (and there is a goal). It's not even exposition as we know what the character is already.

And in the end the story in lucky star don't end up with conflict that wrap things up, it end with recollection of the deceased mother of Konata with her father, the joke is that the ghost of the mother is still there to look after them but they don't know, this can be seen as conflict but it has no resolution (they still don't know).

The thing is that conflict is not the main driver of those scene, the main driver is "moe" in its original meaning, presenting character in an endearing way. A lot of anime with slice of life use temporal milestone as a framing device for closure, you start at the beginning of school and end with it, or seasons or any temporal settings.

Totoro is also another anime based on slice of life where the plot is about children getting close to nature, and the framing device is a conflict (the younger sister try to get back to her mom and get lost) but the point wasn't conflict but contemplation. This is a very japaneese things as seen by festivbal like sakura martsuri (contempling cherry blossom) or haiku.

There is also teh pereception that every work MUST be entertainment, hence why don't people don't get sunset, it has no real pay off because it's not about entertainment, we are raised with expecting some kind of pay off or happy ending, which is a very maintream things to do. Aka pandering.

The work could be better, but it can be better without being something else tha what it pretend to be, and numerous works have found success without sacrificing to pandering.

[gimymblert]

For example I remember in france a lot of fuss was made about the walking man By jiro Taniguchi, which is a walking simulator in comic form.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Man_(manga)

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/house-of-1000-manga/2011-12-29

Funnily this work jelp revive the moribund Comic industry in france by making author dare a bit more and try new things, which lead to a new wave of independant author who found success with complex works not dissimilar to sunset.





No plot, no conflict

IN japan again, the Yaoi movement took the world by storm using this simple formula  "Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" aka  "No peak (climax), no fall (punch line/denouement), no meaning"


It's not a new thing

And there is definite appeal to it, there is a market, there os people who enjoy this.

[Dacke]

Trying to understand things in terms of conflict is a good analytical tool in many cases. But you have to remember that it's only one tool among many. If you try to force your understanding into one such perspective you'll miss out on other aspects. If you are a hammer, every problem will look like a nail.

Other analytical tools include looking for: a message, expressed feelings, a build-up and punchline, repetitions etc.