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[Jay Jeon]

someday,
someguy asked

I wonder whether you assign a specific
stories in the game like some other indie-games such as World of Goo
and Marchinarium. How do you feel if a simple game-play game should
have a good story ?

How do you think?

[jrjellybeans]

I thought a lot of simple indie games have great stories.

I'm not sure I understand the question

[Simon Andersson]

Me think good.

Simple gameplay is the best reason to have a great/advanced story!

The story wont distract you from the gameplay, and you could make the player experiece both the story and the gameplay at the same time. While in a more gameplay heavy game, you'd had to split up the action and story into segments, since the player can't possibly fokus on both.

Hope that makes sense, though I'm afraid it doesn't.

[Martin 2BAM]

It's easier to tell a story in a simple gameplay game (that is, not so challenging).

Someone copied this to me a couple of days ago:

"For a story to occur, it has to keep proceeding... challenge is about preventing you from continuing in the game... Story and challenge work against each other. No matter how hard you work on a game, if you've got a story in the traditional way, and you've got challenge elements like we traditionally use them, they work against each other. -- Jonathan Blow"

[Jay Jeon]

me either.
player can't focus on both at same time.

I think gameplay make a story.
so,If there is complex gameplay,the game could has a complex story.
If there is simple gameplay,the game has a simple story.

If simple gameplay game has complex and huge story,it's not so good.
It's game creator's desire.

I think Braid has a good gameplay and good story.
but,It's feeling like I'm doing separated two things.
playing game and reading novel book.

In every case,story make game more fun.
simple gameplay game need story too. but, It will be simple thing. isn't it?
because,it just comes natural.

[Martin 2BAM]

I can't agree with that.

If your game is walking from point A to B or it's a go match, it has nothing to do with the complexity of the story.

If simple gameplay game has complex and huge story,it's not so good.

You're being a bit drastic.

Simple gameplay can have a simple or nil story, as I can make a "game" about pushing a button... but then it's less appealing. A good game needs something the player (perhaps just a certain age range) can relate to.

Quite on the contrary to what you say, it's more natural to tell a (long) story in a simple, unchallenging game, that to do so on a complex one. By the fact that not all people will get through the whole story because they find too difficult to move on.
Imagine IWBTG telling a deep story. Most people would get 5% of it because the game is hell. It fails at telling a story.

[TheDustin]

Conversely, RPG's allow players to grind a few levels so they can continue the narrative. The Blow quote really sums it up; until we have procedural content catch on we'll be stuck with this divide.

[Simon Andersson]

Adventure games are a kind of good example of this kind of thinking taken to the extreme. They can have really complex stories, but they always have to sacrifices the gameplay for this to happen.

[increpare]

Conversely, RPG's allow players to grind a few levels so they can continue the narrative. The Blow quote really sums it up; until we have procedural content catch on we'll be stuck with this divide.

What do you have in mind by procedural content here?  We already have procedural content in several of the senses I can think of it existing in.

[TheDustin]

We dp have it in a couple senses, but most don't apply to the narrative structure. The only FPS I play is Left 4 Dead given it's procedural enemy layouts and such, and I've recently taken a shining to RL's. Spelunky is the best implementation of procedural content given that it's in real-time in 2D platformer trappings. What I was thinking of was something that has that immediacy and procedural depth but trys to tackle more 'serious' matters.

I've been pencilling in a design doc of a 2D game about dogma/addiction in its various forms (capitalism, drugs, religion) for a while now. There would be a microism of each dogma in-game, and as a player you could explore any combination of them (or none if you choose so). I was thinking it would take place in a Metroidvania-esque level that was randomly generated. Spelunky incorporated roguelike-difficulty, but to make the game playable it'd have a time restriction instead.

I'll give the addiction mechanic as an example. It initially would be appealing to the player, as amphetamines grant them better jumping and running speed. However, after X uses of the drug the player would become addicted to it, and would suffer from withdrawl symptoms (decreased speed and jumping capabilities, among other things) if the player goes without the drug for a set amount of time. As the player continues to use the drug its effects begin to wear off, until it no longer grants any benefits. You're still addicted, though. The other dogmas/addictions would also interact with it; praying or giving $$$ offerings would lower your addiction level, and if you become capitalistic you would trade your time for more drug money. 

The other two dogmas/addictions are equally fleshed out, but I'll just give a shorter explanation of them. Each of the two religons promise a 'good ending' of an afterlife, but require a devotion of time and money. I personally think that devoting your life to worshiping keeps you from actually living your life, so to mirror that the player would acrue 'religous points' from walking from one end of a single screen to the other. There's a whole (procedurally generated) world to explore, but they stick in their comfort zone and never get to experience it. Capitalism works at a base level like the shops in Spelunky, but you have to continue payment in order to keep whatever upgrades you have. Eventually you spend all your time making money (I was thinking of something mindlessly repetetive, like an infinite coin block a la Super Mario Bros.) to keep up with the payments. You could become a badass, but you won't have the time to realize that potential. So like Paulo's Oligarchy your optimal play isn't immediately recognizable, but comes through a result of playing.

Unlike Oligarchy I can't figure out what that hidden meaning should be. I was tossing around the idea of having it to be two player; the dogma's are by nature selfish, so by participating in them you'd make a distance between your partner. The two players would be able to help each other out, essentially two parts of a whole. Maybe Ico that goes both ways; one player can jump higher and pull the other player up while the other can attack. Or something. That way a player doesn't need to follow any dogmas, they just need someone else there to help. The addictions then become a poor substitute for another human being, which I find to be true in real life. Also, instead of the quantifiable dogmas you have that intangible pleasure of enjoying another's company; like level feelings I was thinking of little mini-games you could play with your partner. Just for fun.

I have a bunch of design docs but no way as of this moment to implement them; I'm learning Construct so hopefully I can prototype each of the individual elements and see what comes from it. I don't know the first thing about programming, unfortunately, but I'm hoping to make this a reality.   

[s0]

Some complex games, like Dwarf Fortress, tell stories through gameplay in a way. On a somewhat related note, having the story/setting reflected in gameplay can enhance the experience, as plenty of classic PC RPGs and Survival Horror games have proven.

[increpare]

We dp have it in a couple senses, but most don't apply to the narrative structure.

Neither, especially, do the examples that you give.  You have your symbols set up, you have your mechanics set up...it's procedural in that it has dynamical laws, but I don't think the combinatorial possibilities are rich enough to say that you're generating content procedurally (rather than presenting content in a procedural manner, which sounds like a more fitting interpretation).

DFortress does succeed in procedural content generation though.  It also breaks the barrier that J B mentions between narrative and difficulty by having the narratives heat up precisely at the impasses.  

Girlflash made a game that had a not dissimilar angle of attack as your capitalism game concept a couple of months ago here.  If you worked an involved game that featured addiction as a key mechanic in a reasonably compelling way, that would be cool.

The religion one...I would have a hard time buying - unless it could contribute something meaningful to the discourse.  It doesn't feel like you're really engaging with the subject matter from your sketch.

 I would like to see you make them, though, regardless of whether I think they do what you desire for them to do.

edit: I'm tired and i realize now that I might have misread some of your descriptions.  Take the above where it makes sense...call me on it where it doesn't...

[TheDustin]

I didn't specify in the first post, but I was planning on having a modicum of interaction between the non-player characters. Spelunky had caveman get eaten by man-eating plants and bats getting shot down by arrow traps, I was thinking of thieves spawning next to a merchant and robbing him or maybe a businessman that patrols the perimeter of his business and converts all passerby into his workers. And so on. This is way out of my league in terms of both design and scripting, so I'll tone it down to the drug and capitalistic angle for now. My ultimate goal, though, would be to make a game world of sub-systems, randomize them at start-up, and then have them interact.

I've tried playing DF on multiple occassions but it's impenetrable at the moment.

I admit that the religon aspect is the least compelling, but I'm stumped on how to implement it. The only thing I can think of would be to have the player not interact at all, in a zen state akin to Seven Minutes. That would be a blatent ripoff though, so I'm hesitant on it. Maybe if there is a 50/50 chance of actually getting the 'good' ending of an afterlife (or just a typical game over screen), or have the afterlife a blank void without any interaction or way to exit (outside of quitting, of course). The Talking Heads song Heaven was the inspiration for that.

When I looked at my design docs again I realized that drugs = powerups and capitalism = coins/trinkets in terms of platformers. If I put the drugs/trinket mechanics in typical platformer trappings where the player has to get to point B in X amount of time it would be interesting. Typically powerups and trinkets are desirable, but through play the player would discover that they actually aren't. And it would appear at first glance to be a typical platformer; most criticism of games where the mechanic is the message is "not gaim wtf", so it'd be cool to trick the player in that fashion.

Alright, I'll shut up and get to prototyping. Once I get Construct down I'll do some KOTM or Game Jams to help rid me of my nasty procrastination.