🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉
Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!
Game storytelling
Author
Do you feel that games can tell a story as well as any book or movie... or that games should be purely for entertainment?
Some games I believe come close, but something is missing that cuts the story short... Planescape: Torement is the closest a game has come to telling a story as well as a book...
-Drugs are bad. Especially if they look like machines. Serial Experiments Lain
-Small girls with a single braid in their hair are all-powerful God''''s. Accept it. (Phar)
well, i think it depends on how the game is made.
most modern games are made with entertainment as the ultimate goal. the story it tells is secondary, if that. money rules, and entertainment is money.
lucas art''s ''the dig'' did a good job of making a game that kept true to the story (based on alan dean foster''s book of the same name) but was entertaining.
i think it would be great to see more games that focused on the story side of the deal. it might not appeal to any but ''real'' gamers (or gamedevers) and writers, but i think it would be an interesting undertaking.
and yes, i think that games can tell a story just as well as any book or movie. its just different, thats all: the player controls the direction of the story, creating a need for a dynamic book, basically, but to a massive degree.
[500 error x1]
There''s nothing so tragic as seeing a family ripped apart by something as simple as a pack of wolves. - Jack Handy''s Deep Thoughts
most modern games are made with entertainment as the ultimate goal. the story it tells is secondary, if that. money rules, and entertainment is money.
lucas art''s ''the dig'' did a good job of making a game that kept true to the story (based on alan dean foster''s book of the same name) but was entertaining.
i think it would be great to see more games that focused on the story side of the deal. it might not appeal to any but ''real'' gamers (or gamedevers) and writers, but i think it would be an interesting undertaking.
and yes, i think that games can tell a story just as well as any book or movie. its just different, thats all: the player controls the direction of the story, creating a need for a dynamic book, basically, but to a massive degree.
[500 error x1]
There''s nothing so tragic as seeing a family ripped apart by something as simple as a pack of wolves. - Jack Handy''s Deep Thoughts
Planescape Torment was indeed the best attempt ever - in fact, to me it was more than an attempt, it was a success that ranks among my favorite books and easily makes it my favorite game ever for that reason alone. Betrayal at Krondor, based on and written by Raymond Feist, comes a close second - the game was constructed as a fantasy novel with chapters focusing on different POV''s and well-written text pages in between chapters to relate the story. Third for me has to be Wing Commander IV. The story was so well crafted - and the three or four last missions made such a great finale - complete with the "facing overwhelming odds while running out of time" situation, the "big bad cavalry mothership coming to the rescue" situation, and finally, a climax which, surprisingly, wasn''t a space flight mission like the entire game had been, but a duel with words against the villain in front of the entire Galactic Senate where you had to expose him even though everyone considered him a hero.
Ahem. Getting carried away here. *goes off to reinstall Wing Commander IV.*
***
Looking for a music composer for your game? Go to my page to listen to samples of my orchestral pieces and find info on how to contact me.
Ahem. Getting carried away here. *goes off to reinstall Wing Commander IV.*
***
Looking for a music composer for your game? Go to my page to listen to samples of my orchestral pieces and find info on how to contact me.
My opinion is that games can tell a story as well as a book or movie, if not better. Have they yet? Maybe in one or two circumstances. Just remember, that this is a very young medium. In 50, 100 years, who knows what we''ll have figured out?
Author
quote: Planescape Torment was indeed the best attempt ever...
What made it the best attempt ever? What seperated it from other games? For me it was, that Planescape took something I didn''t think would be interesting and made it interesting, and the fact that your choices mattered rather than being put apon the path, multiple endings, ect...
But still something was missing... Planescape was almost perfect...
-Drugs are bad. Especially if they look like machines. Serial Experiments Lain
-Small girls with a single braid in their hair are all-powerful God''''s. Accept it. (Phar)
I think they can.
Strike Commander for instance was in my opinion the only flightsim ever, that had a really good story you were eager to continue. Top Gun - Fire at will had one as well, but had to stick to the movie of some sort... Operation Flashpoint has a really great story... look at all the old adventures
I believe it really has to do with the type of game, and the company''s decision on the target audience.
An Adventure surely is made to have a great story. A 1st person shooter does not necessarily require a good story to be bought by heaps of people if "it looks good".
I found that for a few years the companies only required a good 3d engine and thought it made a good game, and people were fascinated by those and bought it. I''m glad most companies realised that it''s boring and sucks quite a lot if the story is missing. I really like well worked out story lines, no matter what game
Strike Commander for instance was in my opinion the only flightsim ever, that had a really good story you were eager to continue. Top Gun - Fire at will had one as well, but had to stick to the movie of some sort... Operation Flashpoint has a really great story... look at all the old adventures
I believe it really has to do with the type of game, and the company''s decision on the target audience.
An Adventure surely is made to have a great story. A 1st person shooter does not necessarily require a good story to be bought by heaps of people if "it looks good".
I found that for a few years the companies only required a good 3d engine and thought it made a good game, and people were fascinated by those and bought it. I''m glad most companies realised that it''s boring and sucks quite a lot if the story is missing. I really like well worked out story lines, no matter what game
Planescape: Torment? I must admit I never finished it (and now I cant find all the cd''s for it), but I wouldn''t say it was all that successful in telling a story. It did better than many other games, but that''s not exactly a difficult feat. (if we''re talking about the storytelling aspect only), but perfect? Far from it. It was too slow and draggged out, in my opinion. Yes, the story was unusually good (or the part of it I played through, at least), but the way it delivered that story was far from ideal. You needed more patience than most gamers have, to get into the game, and you tended to lose the thread, not least because of the large amount of text.
Still, the actual story seemed good. But why do people always focus on rpg''s when talking about storytelling?
How about games like Halflife, which tell a rather simple, cliche''d and predictable story, but manages to do it in a way that''s far more accessible, exciting and dramatic than anything in Planescape Torment? Deus Ex tells a really good story too, but it isn''t exactly an rpg...
Still, the actual story seemed good. But why do people always focus on rpg''s when talking about storytelling?
How about games like Halflife, which tell a rather simple, cliche''d and predictable story, but manages to do it in a way that''s far more accessible, exciting and dramatic than anything in Planescape Torment? Deus Ex tells a really good story too, but it isn''t exactly an rpg...
Games can of course tell a story just as well as a novel or movie... but with more limitations to the interactivity.
I wrote a huge analysis a minute ago trying to explain how this works by using many games as a comparison but have simplified it down to this:
More interactivity directly into the story and characters means less focus/control over the story (and vice versa).
This basically means that if you allow for players to change the way a story is told in any way you undoubtedly allow them to alter the way the story was intended to be told. If you can get the story to seamlessly stay out of the way of gameplay yet always remain "there" and binding to the actions you want to happen you'll have found the ultimate prize.
As was mentioned above the story doesn't have to be complex... it just has to be done in an interesting way. ^_^
So lastly, if you want a game to compare to a novel/movie you have to surrender more and more of the interactivity that separates it from novels/movies. Easy!
So when you noticed that Torment missed "something" from the story department I think your referring to the feeling that even though you relate to "the nameless one" you don't feel his character is solid enough (because of player actions) to keep continuity through all the events that happen.
*shrugs* Another theory...??
I was thinking that my favourite story games have all had extremely linear storylines but good ones: Metal Gear Solid, Soul Reaver, Half-Life.... Descent Freespace....
[edited by - bigjon on February 17, 2003 10:15:30 AM]
I wrote a huge analysis a minute ago trying to explain how this works by using many games as a comparison but have simplified it down to this:
More interactivity directly into the story and characters means less focus/control over the story (and vice versa).
This basically means that if you allow for players to change the way a story is told in any way you undoubtedly allow them to alter the way the story was intended to be told. If you can get the story to seamlessly stay out of the way of gameplay yet always remain "there" and binding to the actions you want to happen you'll have found the ultimate prize.
As was mentioned above the story doesn't have to be complex... it just has to be done in an interesting way. ^_^
So lastly, if you want a game to compare to a novel/movie you have to surrender more and more of the interactivity that separates it from novels/movies. Easy!
So when you noticed that Torment missed "something" from the story department I think your referring to the feeling that even though you relate to "the nameless one" you don't feel his character is solid enough (because of player actions) to keep continuity through all the events that happen.
*shrugs* Another theory...??
I was thinking that my favourite story games have all had extremely linear storylines but good ones: Metal Gear Solid, Soul Reaver, Half-Life.... Descent Freespace....
[edited by - bigjon on February 17, 2003 10:15:30 AM]
Author
quote: So when you noticed that Torment missed "something" from the story department I think your referring to the feeling that even though you relate to "the nameless one" you don''t feel his character is solid enough (because of player actions) to keep continuity through all the events that happen.
Yes, because even though the game was "dynamic" in terms of storyline... it was still static...
-Drugs are bad. Especially if they look like machines. Serial Experiments Lain
-Small girls with a single braid in their hair are all-powerful God''''s. Accept it. (Phar)
>>Yes, because even though the game was "dynamic" in terms of storyline... it was still static...
^_^
And if you keep pushing along this idea, as I have, you''ll find that the best stories don''t have player-definable dynamics at all and are rather "truely linear". When a game starts to use the idea of encompassing and allowing more than one/two possibilities it becomes more simulator-ish... and as a result the story becomes an after-thought to the player.
This isn''t saying that Torment was bad... its just that its truely original story could have been presented better if the player had next to no involvement in how the story evolved & resolved.
Its a lot more subtle then I think I present it as... it''s really just a balance thing.
^_^
And if you keep pushing along this idea, as I have, you''ll find that the best stories don''t have player-definable dynamics at all and are rather "truely linear". When a game starts to use the idea of encompassing and allowing more than one/two possibilities it becomes more simulator-ish... and as a result the story becomes an after-thought to the player.
This isn''t saying that Torment was bad... its just that its truely original story could have been presented better if the player had next to no involvement in how the story evolved & resolved.
Its a lot more subtle then I think I present it as... it''s really just a balance thing.
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
