Gaming's two biggest obstacles when telling a story

• Gaming is not an organic storytelling medium: Disagreed, again. Gaming can be used to tell great and powerful stories very effectively, but the problem is, most people are not interested in doing that, they're more interested in being knock off movies than in really exploring the potential of the medium for storytelling. As long as storytelling in games continues to be treated separate from the actual game part, this is a problem that will continue to persist, which brings me to my next point

Gaming, being used to tell great and powerful stories does not make it a organic or a natural storytelling medium. The fact that most developers revert to movies or movie like structure of storytelling is proof that its not an organic storytelling medium. Keep in mind that storytelling in its traditional and rawest form is simply the passage of information from one person to another with the receiver accepting the information given with no need for any sort of interaction.

As long as games do a good job of establishing the characters and setting, I am generally satisfied. I find world building is probably the most important part of writing and designing. If everything in the game has a purpose and is there for a reason, the player is more likely to be emotionally invested and find their own motivations that will keep the gameplay engaging. Shooting bad guys is fun, but if they just killed your buddy, it is a lot more satisfying as you are now emotionally engaged and motivated by revenge. If the player can connect with NPCs and empathize with them, all the sudden a normally boring quest becomes interesting. The Witcher 3 did a great job of making side quests interesting. So yeah... it is not so much about the quality of the overall story that is important, but the techniques used to motivate and engage the player throughout the experience.

And that's a problem. We don't handwave that shit in a movie (notice how the dumb action flicks aren't the ones considered the best works that medium has to offer), but we hand wave that shit in a game. Gamers accept it, because it's the only thing they've known. This medium can't pretend it's single most unique aspect, isn't part of the story. That's counter productive, and basically fuels the fire for everyone that says gaming can't tell a good story.

That's not people overthinking, that's gamers accepting a status quo and not demanding some evolution.

Turning off your brain is not an argument, it speaks to how stupid this medium is. It's a bit of a cop out.

Has its fair share of story

Has more than enough gameplay

Gameplay sequences have story centric reasoning behind them

Most if not all of those sequences seem organic and not forced.

Story/gameplay trasitioning is good

Its an excellent example.

You stole my fucking line wholesale you scum.

10/10 thread will find someone to shit on

Attempt #1

@FrozenLiquid:

You won't find a better post to shit on than killereds post on page 1 posts throughout this thread. I guarantee it.

In fact I'm becoming increasingly certain that world building is the cause of most of today's issues in fiction across all mediums, because it's done the wrong way around. A lot of writers are going ape shit about 'world building' that they forget the story and the means of transmitting that story; in the film world, Avatar is a huge example of spending all your money on world building when all you came up with plot-wise was a lamer version of Pocahontas. On the flipside, however, we have Mad Max: Fury Road made as an 'action road movie' that just happened to organically come up with brilliant ideas - like the concept of Max being a 'blood bag' to Nux, which is a clever trick of getting Max strapped right in the centre of the bad guys.

So if you write well and you design well, your world will be built organically. In the video game medium, the original Half-Life is a good example of this - basically a science experiment gone wrong, and you have to escape your secret laboratory and face lots of strange creatures and a weird G-man. Good unpretentious stuff.

The original Halo is similar to the original Half-Life in this manner, but all the Halo sequels are examples of trying to build a world first and a story second. Hence, all the Halo sequels have horrible stories because they're weighed down by stupid lore.

So in summary, no to forced world building. It's putting the cart before the horse.

@FrozenLiquid: I understand what you are saying, but in an interactive medium where a lot of games encourage exploration and interaction with characters... world building is very important. It is a great foundation that other story elements can be layered on top of and it gives greater meaning to everything. As you mentioned, it does not guarantee a good story but it will certainly enhance a good story.

"An excellent thread"- Chef Excellence

Jokes aside. I'm guessing that you're looking for a "show don't tell" kind of stories. I could be wrong on what you are trying to say.

Speaking of films, what's your thoughts on Christopher Nolan's works?

For all the millions of dollars spent on video games, it wouldn't hurt the development teams to hire a half-decent writer. I know video game storytelling has a lot of other issues to tackle, but at least having a mildly interesting main character and plot to follow would be a start. I still can't believe that it's 2016, and we are getting abysmal writing as found in games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider. I find this type of crap to be completely unacceptable. Why even bother spending time hiring actors and animating cutscenes if it's all going to be boring nonsense at the end of the day?

Jim Sterling had an interesting video I just saw about violence in video games, and it wasn't to criticize it for being there as much as criticize it for being necessary to make a compelling and engaging interactive experience.

Uncharted 3 actually wants to go through the trouble of dissecting Nathan Drake as a character and see what makes him tick. This whole Uncharted doesn't take itself seriously narrative, needs a bit of a recheck people. And given how some people talk about how Uncharted 4 starts, I'd imagine they take themselves fairly serious with that game as well.

Reasonably good at a lot of things in terms of having a solid harmony between its systems and what they are saying. I'd knock it more for how generic it is, but the acting and stuff is top notch. But outside of a few major scenarios that are totally silly and immersion breaking, the biggest one the handwaving the game does for Ellie the AI. But that we could argue was a short coming of game design and less in tying the story. But that's also one game that is in the very small exception category, not necessarily something that invalidates my complaints.

You're insane. Also incorrect.

The episodic thing is kind of why the WRPG, or even something like The Witcher 3 work. It's not about the central plot (that shit is a wild goose chase) it's more the side stories along the way.

The rpg has actually been worse in terms of shitty story telling at times. There is kind of a reason most rpg settings are some version of fantasy or other high concept shit like steam punk or scifi. You wouldn't exactly attempt a crime drama, a western, or noir shit in a rpg necessarily. Also while I agree on Braid and Journey (although sure Braid's writing is suspect), Heavy Rain's writing and acting is abysmal. Be it the major plot holes, or the french as **** actors trying to speak English.

Planescape, Silent Hill 2, or even the likes of The Last of Us, and given how this thread has gone I've given credit to Shadow of the Colossus, That Dragon, Cancer, and right above you Journey. Part of the reason your medium of choice is immature as **** as it is, is because people like you would rather apologize for it than accept a criticism. How about actually argue, instead of completely dismissing me entirely.

Lord knows I asked way more of the posters on this forum than those graphics threads do.

Starfox Zero 3D sound is crazy good. It puts you in the game. It is very interesting what they have achieved.

It's more of a do, don't tell type thing with this medium. But sure, I'm not against telling either. I quite dig Persona, Life is Strange and Her Story last year were a delight, but yeah I do think this medium rarely if ever makes more of an effort to tell stories through its systems. It's something they will go out of their way to do in a cutscene, but then won't do in gameplay. There is an excellent video from Errant Signal on Max Payne 3, that gets that point across (specifically on Max Payne 3, but it's a broad short coming in this medium). The easy things to shit on that story for are the lame ripoff of Man on Fire, and the glaring plot hole in that story. The more damning thing? They had a chance to make the first half of that game when Max is all drunked up actually convey what is wrong with Max, with the second half showing how focused and clear he is, by simply messing with the mechanics in the early going (FUCKING No One Lives Forever does this, you start as this agent who sucks at shooting, and by the end she's a fucking beast), and they never even considered trying that.

As for Nolan.

The Prestige is damn good and for my money it's his best movie, Memento is his second best movie, I don't really get the love for Insomnia, though it is quite good. Like the first two Batman flicks, but come on, they are superhero flicks, and his handle on fight choreography is abysmal at times, and it's something that got exposed in his third batman flick. Inception is like the film version of Bioshock Infinite, it's entertaining, but it comes off smarter than it actually is. When you put thought into it, you realize the movie is really fucking stupid. And Interstellar was aight, to be honest The Martian was a better use of Matt Damon's character, because it was basically the same dude lol, albeit different story.

All in all he's good, at times really good, but he started off strong, and now it feels like he does high concept blockbusters. Which is nice, because I'd rather watch a Nolan flick than say the Independence Day Remake or Jurassic World (Jurassic Park 1 was the only good one of those movies, we were good with one of those).

A bad habit most of gaming won't drop.

A: it sells more (in theory, but come on), it's why the summer blockbuster is more or less an action flick and rarely more than that
B: It's had generations of refinement. We've reinvented ways to kill dudes in video games at this point lol
C: It plays to a lot of game designers strengths.

I mean when it came time to fixing Tomb Raider, and I'm of the opinion that the newer Tomb Raiders are still more enjoyable than the old ones, because the old ones are really bad adventure games that people have nostalgia for because they were ignoring good video games. But when it came to fixing that series, they understood lets make her less sleazy. But they didn't think to actually make a more compelling platformer, adventure game with more clever and better designed puzzles. With a tighter narrative to go with it. They thought let's just go where Uncharted went with this type of game, which was bombastic shooting.

Thank you. This is a lot of the reason I think I've come to despise games like Uncharted. They just ignore the disconnect between events in-game and the narrative. And so many people call them the best games ever made.

@jg4xchamp: A lot of Japanese games follow that outline, as well, and I find that those are the ones with the more compelling and well executed stories.

The reason I'm saying turn off your brain is that I don't see any better solution. It's easy to make broad statements about how the gameplay and story should be part of one experience etc. But how is it going to work in practice? The answer is that it can't because of the boundary conditions. It's impossible if you want to keep a variety of themes, violence as a core mechanic and make games of a reasonable length. You will end up with Max Payne, or Uncharted, or Tomb Raider, or Red Dead, or Mafia or Assassin's Creed or whatever.

It's not that developers don't want to do what you suggest, it's that they can't while at the same time fullfilling other needs.

Fallout 4 had some of the worst writing i've ever witnessed, and it sold tremendously well. The biggest obstacle is the industry. Developers and publishers will never invest in good storytelling because it's not worth the cost, and that will never change in the AAA console industry. Cinematic presentation is the priority here, it's what sells, and if you can stick a plot that's serviceable enough and bridge it up between gameplay sections, then you're gold.

Putting that aside, gaming is varied, and some genres just don't work well. The end, it's a fundamental situation that you cannot improve, and they're not meant to be improved otherwise they change genre. There's no other way to tell a story in in action adventure game like Uncharted or Max Payne other than bridge scripted sequences with gameplay sequences. The problem is that sometimes developers think it's a good idea to focus way to much on the plot by taking too much player control from the gameplay.

Now, role playing games and adventure games, they're in a whole different ballpark. They are the best form of gaming to tell a story, and you don't need me to tell you examples of the best of what these genres could offer.

Violent games work better when they aren't super freakin serious, the Rockstar example is just the Rockstar example. Them sucking balls at telling a story is a given, it's like pointing out that the sky is blue. And I'd argue your examples are all bad stories when it really comes down to it though, and that's without getting into the sheer absurdity of the kill count. Although Assasssin's Creed has one of the dumbest examples where Ezio gets like a 500 kill count, but then decides killing mega-scumbag villain dude wouldn't bring his family back (because it wouldn't make sense historically), which in turn just makes the character look like an idiot.

As for no known solution, it's because devs rarely bother to look for one or try to tell stories that this medium is better suited. I used the music example earlier in the thread, because in a song, the story you tell isn't going to be Apocalypse Now. So maybe you don't need to tell Unforgiven in a video game. Part of why The Last of Us works is because Naughty Dog had no intention of playing Joel as good person man, the whole point of that game is that Joel's become a monster in that setting. It's why thematically it works.

My point with Red Dead is that on top of the jarring nature of the set up (I have to accept that he was closed in, when I have personally played this guy out of scenarios that were totally stacked against him), the punchline to that game lacks any sort of narrative weight, because it's intellectually dishonest. It works because we like the character sure,

That's the point they are all trying to make. Batman is a super hero born into the world to fight crime. Nathan Drake is a random dude trying to find some treasure, and here he is, killing hundreds of people. He's no super hero. He's no mass murderer(at least, he's not painted in that light). He's a normal dude, who just happens to kill hundreds of people while clinging onto a cliche of a story in the realms of Indiana Jones(although, he's a lot less likable than Harrison Ford ever was).

No one says Tomb Raider has a good story, because it's the same damn thing.

Games have never been about stories.

They're about the characters and settings.

Yes there are workarounds like making the game a joke, making the protagonist a monster, or making fantastical enemies (like say Alan Wake). However if you always have to rely on these workarounds you cut out a massive segment of potential stories and protagonists. Is that what people want? I don't. I enjoyed the story and protagonist of RDR. I understand in some sense it's "intellectually dishonest", but I still think it's better than any alternative. I accept the game not being entirely realistic to be able to play a decent guy in a pseudo realistic western setting. It worked for me.

**** it's even worse, the games have routine segments in cutscenes where Lara is visibly harmed to the point where she's going to suture up some of her wounds, but the other shit in the game? Nah, we good fam. That herbal essence hair is basically body armor.

I agree to an extent, but

A: I don't think that means a game should be absolved of criticism for it. Even in the world of film, it's not like they stopped creating absurd things
B: They shouldn't at least try at times, or make more of an effort.

There is nothing wrong with pulp, and in the grand scheme of things that bother me about Red Dead (because all things considered being intellectually dishonest with the ending isn't really one of them), I still dug John Marston. Contrary to where this thread went, my thread wasn't "video game stories are shit". That thread is coming, but not today lol, it's more so here are two core hurdles a games writer has to make when writing a story in this medium. What are the work arounds? How do we adjust? What solutions are there?

A: Yeah I agree that there's place for criticism. In my experience though people are overall too negative, rather than blindly praising game stories (granted my experience comes form online where everyone is more negative lol). A ton of people seem to think everything is shit, which I think is a bit much.

B: I think some of them are, but it's just pretty hard. But sometimes they do find a good story that fits gaming real well like TLOU, or Alan Wake (I guess a thread of why they are in fach shit is coming).

I agree with the hurdles you listed, but I guess I just try to help the games by mentally jump over them :).

TLOU not so much, that game is great, though I don't buy any argument that justifies why the enemy AI ignores Ellie. I understand it would have been difficult, but their work around of handling a difficult escort was to basically be like "lolsikesheisnthereblackmagicstealth". But that's also another argument for another day.

Alan Wake, moment to moment to story telling is reasonably fine, my complaints with it would be game design related. I hate how immersion breaking that game gets, and how routine a lot of the action is. But I love me some Sam Lake, the opening for Quantum Break is rad. There is a TV where you can watch Sam Lake working with some chick like they are ghetto Mulder and Scully lol

I believe the idea of a 'video game writer' has to be approached differently.

I've been toying with the idea of getting into video game writing, but the more I think about it, apart from losing all my dignity, it's simply unfeasible if you're not the game designer/in rhythm with the game designer from the beginning.

A lot of games seem to work like this:

1. Design a video game and what the players will do, e.g. FPS tutorial level, shooty bits, stealth bits, on-rail bits, boss fight, the end.

2. Graft a story onto it.

It simply does not work very well, considering people are dissatisfied with the narrative content. What's the point, for example, in shooting 200 guys in one level in a video game if it's not just a large scale, impersonal war? Trying to make it personal and sympathetic gets you into Uncharted territory.

Say you want to create a game based around six men in trouble after a failed heist. What game are you going to design around that story? No genre immediately lunges out, simply because there's no template to work with when it involves such few characters. You *could* try the point-and-click adventure genre, though you may fall into Telltale interactive movie territory.

Now of course, the story of six men after a failed heist is the story of Reservoir Dogs, which already has a video game for it. And it's absolutely shit because it centres itself around the violent heist that the movie cleverly edited out. This is because there is a template for shooting lots of guys in video games that any can pump out, and all the developers had to do was gloss it over with some Tarantino styling and that was it. There was even a half-hearted attempt to keep in lore with the movie by having a rating to not kill as many people as possible. It was silly.

-

So what *would* make a good story in a video game, is quite simply a master game designer who is also a master story writer. As simple as it is, it's really damn rare.

But if you look at the video games that have been lauded as having good stories, you'll notice the core team simply happen to be the best of both worlds: Team Silent of the Silent Hill games, Chris Avellone and Black Isle of Black Isle RPGs, and Team Ico of Ico and SotC.

I believe game developers can be trained to be highly skilled in both, but it requires a certain environment in which they apply knowledge of good stories and storytelling in their video game designing/programming. Considering the lack of good stories even in film and television these days (relatively, the amount of crap to good is at an all time high), the chances for video games to have great stories consistently highly unlikely. But it can be done.

So if there's any budding game developers out there, two things: learn how to design engaging video games, and watch a ton of good films and read a ton of good literature. Something natural should come out of there.

What? It's not unavoidable. That's just the direction developers go in because their audience likes to kill shit. You can have non-violent conflict. It just takes a bit more creativity. I think videogame storytelling would greatly benefit if every story wasn't just "defeating the bad guy" or "saving the day."

My idea for marrying gameplay with story: A FPS, but instead of bullets you shoot words. Eventually all your words form some great novel you've been working on. The bad guys are writers block and distractions.

You're welcome video games.

Yeah, that gets old after a while. There's nothing wrong with epics or heroic stories, but it gets kinda old when that's all you get.

Gonna put this in the load of shit that gamers have accepted column fam.

Yes and no, I mean saying they have never been about stories, when there are more than enough examples of games driven entirely by their plot is a bit much. It's not like Mass Effect's characters (and I do think al ot of them are well done) stopped people from being completely turned off by how shit the ending is in Mass Effect 3, because that reaper storyline was the clear motivation that built a lot of these characters. You can mask the plot somewhat, but it can't just out right get away with being sloppy. Which tends to be the case fairly often.

Also sure games that have focused more on their characters or on their settings have gone on to be more compelling efforts in this medium, no disagreement, but all of them also had to either work around or work through the hurdles presented in the op.

**** that, I'm not harsh enough. It's a genre forgiven for decades for either some really shoddy mechanical design or praised for lame things like "look at how long this game is" but then completely ignoring how bloated the game is for being that long in the first place. Although I'm pretty sure with my boner for Demon's Souls, me saying The Witcher 3's story stuff is good, and all that jazz I did mention that the RPG tends to tell some cool stories.

The thing is people think the RPG has told all types of varied stories, but that's a load of shit. It's the typical save the world shit, with the same fantasy settings or scifi bullshit. Japan tricked people into thinking the fantasy settings were different by coming up with really dumb ass names like Vesperia or what have you, and having art direction that is a complete eye soar to anyone that looks for a coherent picture. Which I'm pretty sure was my actual complaint, not that RPGs can't tell stories, but in terms of variety of settings/story types the video game rpgs have been limited as ****. In contrast one of the genres that is super bad at gameplay - point and click adventure games is actually one of the most diverse in terms of settings. It has a fucking beats era story, can't really do that with a rpg. Point and clicks just have other problems, namely being that they've always been really sloppy puzzle games.

And it's less justified in an era that has great puzzle games coming out yearly since Braid. Albeit you have major exceptions to the rule like the original Deponia or Botanicula.

But sure the western rpgs, especially crpgs have been further ahead in presenting gameplay as story in a nice harmony. Still have their moments of sheer bullshit though, and in the grand scheme of things for all of Planescape's virtues, it's still a fucking highschooler's definition of philosophical discussion.

I would argue the set up for the finish is actually really well handled, and easier to accept once you know the payoff. Not necessarily fun to replay, but it works very much in the same way that type of story trope works in anything else. It's meant to convey how much of a boring ass life this dude just wants to live, and the exciting shit is stuff he wants to leave behind. It's what makes For the man who has everything work as a beautiful Superman story, Red Dead's actual narrative crimes are probably all of mexico, that and the game mechanics are weak.

@jg4xchamp:

Damn.... its been a whole month.... and then some. :0

Anyway I'm not saying Games Can't Tell Stories.... nor am I saying games can't tell stories in a unique way. I'm saying Telling Stories is a waste of time for an interactive medium.

And Mechanics don't tell Stories. The purpose of a mechanic is not to relay Information or details or anything like that to the player.... which is essentially what a narrative or Story Telling is. The purpose of a mechanic is to allow the Player to Manipulate It. Its the furthest thing from Story Telling. Its pretty simple when you think about.

Speaking of which I've been having trouble identifying and Categorising the elements that make up the non-interactive parts of a Game. Extra Credits calls it "Content" but its rather vague and is liable to cause confusion. Got any suggestions ?

The only video game genre that often tells great stories (by the standards of other media) would be visual novels. But that's because they almost completely sacrifice gameplay and graphics, in order to focus on things like writing, storytelling and choices & consequences. VNs like Clannad and Steins Gate have excellent stories, stellar writing, and deep choices, because they sacrifice the gameplay and avoid any pretence of even trying to be video games.

As for video games proper (i.e. not visual novels), it's not impossible to tell a great story within the confines of gameplay, but it's very difficult. And only a few have ever succeeded at combining great storytelling with great gameplay. One such rare example that comes to mind is a little-known PS1 action-adventure called Alundra. And it managed to pull it off by combining a well-written script (courtesy of great localisation work by Working Designs) with gameplay that corresponds to the script, in a way that feels natural. Since the story revolved around dream-walking, each of the dream stages expressed a dreamer's persona, traits and psyche through its level design, in a way that was consistent with, and added to, the script. Alundra had that extremely rare combination of great writing (like a proto-Inception in a fantasy setting, but much darker) and excellent gameplay (like Zelda: A Link to the Past, but much more hardcore).

Yeah I figured it was a necro bump, I just call the non interactive stuff what they are. The purpose of a mechanic is to allow player to manipulate, but doesn't necessarily mean the mechanics themselves don't tell a story live. That's what sports are, take Superbowl between Seattle and Denver, beyond the basics of hurdur Peyton can't play in the big game. The setting told a story of Seattles fanbase came in loud and full force, Seattle's defensive line rotation allowed them to keep fresh bodies, and constantly harass manning and move him around off his pocket, especially because they were missing Ryan Clady, Cliff Avril/Chris Clemons had big games. Without the ability to protect Peyton, any attempt at a deep ball was thrown out of the equation, because he barely had any time to work with, add in the fact that Seattle's defense had speed for days they more than handled the Broncos abilities at crossing routes, screen plays, and working the middle of the field.

Beyond just the fact that they hit hard, that pressure up front allowed them to sit on a lot of routes. Something that would have been harder, if Denver could buy PeyPey time, and allow him to push the secondary back a bit.

In the case of all that, that's just the play of the game at work, so on a fundamental a story is told, it's just not the type of story we associate with the word "story". And that's the thing, that's the type of stories games are better suited for, ones that are about the player manipulating a set of rules and going from there, anything else gaming is the worst story telling medium of all time. That's not hyperbole, that's a fucking reality.

I didn't say it was impossible, I said it's incredibly difficult, and actually fucking limiting. Like I said you can't exactly tell a story like Before Sunset or Before Sunrise in a video game, you can't really tell The Godfather, it's a different beast to try to tell something like Sin Nombre or Mullholand drive, and as you pointed out the type of games that do have great range in stories

-Visual novels

-Point and click adventure games

Either have no gameplay, so the notion of them even being an interactive medium is questionable and more or less highlights how bad this medium is at telling a story that we have to go to such lengths to get the job done

Or have these really dumb esoteric puzzles to break up what are otherwise neat stories, but have the most absurd synergy with their systems.

@jg4xchamp:

The less interactive gameplay there is, the better the interactive story turns out. The more interactive gameplay there is, the worse the interactive story turns out. There are very few exceptions to this general rule.

Visual novels and adventure games that have branching stories with choices & consequences are interactive media. But what's questionable is whether they're video games, unless they include puzzle gameplay.

@jg4xchamp:

Well you told that story from a perspective of someone watching football.

In this medium we are not an Audience. We are participants. Story Telling is a one way interaction best suited for an audience. I genuinelu believe its pointless in this medium... I often feel like the reason Games tell stories is just for the sake of being inclusive rather than people asking "Is this what this medium is for ?"

A few years ago Extra Credits tried to make the same point you're making now saying that Mechanics do have aesthetic qualities and are capable of telling Stories. To demonstrate this in practice.... they asked their viewers to hit the pause button and go play a Flash Game called Loneliness...... so I did.... and well..... I don't wana spoil the game so I'l have to skip over some details....

After I played the game I was like "Thats It ? I don't understand !!! :( " so I switched back to my Extra Credits Tab and resumed the video and Dan explained what it was I was suppose to have experience and then I was like: "That what was Happening ?"

At first I assumed I was just too stupid to understand what they were trying to say (its been known to happen) but after a few months I came to the conclusion that mechanics are Terribal Story Tellers. You can take a game and completely strip it from its Story and its aesthetics and what you would left behind would still be a fully fuctional game.... because Gameplay is what games do best..... as soon as you add wana start telling Stories it puts the gameplay at risk because they just require completely opposing things for them to work.

LoL.... I think its cute when Gamer's say : "If only [Insert Game] had better writing" or "They just need to hire better Writers".

LoL.... right.... because thats Problem.

Lets take a Step Back here. I think people gotten so Caught up trying to think of Examples or Conditions or Ideas where Games can Tell Stories.

Heres the thing people seem to be forgetting.... before you even get into the specifics of Storytelling in Games theres already a problem. Games are Interactive....Storytelling Isn't. This isn't a minor problem like Movies had trying to get Sound and Colour into movies..... that was a Technical Limitation.... theres no conflict between Sound and Video. As human beings who are capable of Listening and Looking at the same time its pretty obvious that movies were destined to turn out the way they did....... this same logic can't be applied to Games and Storytelling.

You see what the problem is there ? Before we even get into "What Type of Game will work with What Type of Story" you already have conflict between Games and Storytelling while its still in Concept Stage.

A smart person would accept that, go home and call it a day and yet for some asinine reason Gamer's have been Forcing the idea to work.

Why is it that important for games to tell Stories ? To further the medium ? to help it reach its full potential ?

Yes and no, as an audience that's the story we got, but that story was being played out on the field. Fundamentally gaming's mechanical stories are the ones that are a product of the systems. The part where the two of us play Deus Ex Human Revolution and you found ways to beat that game all sneaky, ghost like, how you convinced a dude to let you in a morgue, and took the back entrance to explore this one dude's office, and were out before anyone noticed. Versus what I did which was scold the guy for shooting a 15 year old, and then working my way through the roof, and then shooting my way into the morgue, because I may not play by the rules, but I get results.

It's not exactly Citizen Kane, but it doesn't need to be.

I think the difference between gaming and other art, is the other art is finishing the painting, gaming should be more about giving me the canvas and paint brushes. I am not saying mechanics aren't slacking, I don't joke when I say gaming is the worst story telling medium, I sincerely mean it. But I do think there are areas it can get better, and the problem I have is there genuinely isn't enough effort to try. There new thing is to be all "look at how meta we are, we are subverting your expectations aren't we", which is grade A wank. Just because that worked for Hotline Miami and Spec Ops The Line, doesn't necessarily mean it works for every violent game now. It made way the **** more sense in Hotline Miami and Spec Ops.

I'm sure I wouldn't have liked Loneliness much anyway though lol

@jg4xchamp:

That Deus Ex Story is not really a good eexample. For Starters: "Sneak", "Convince" and "Explore" are Vague in terms of Describing Gameplay. No one game does those three things the same way. Hell for all we know about the way you describe Deus Ex.... those three things could all be Button's on the Controller, Mechanically Non-Existant, and yet won't affect the Story in the Slightest. Because the Story isn't told through the mechanics..... its told through Content.

I think Story Telling in games is difficult because we're not suppose to be Telling Stories.

To Examine your Painting Anology.... lets equate a Finished Painting as Storytelling........ now here's where things get confusing. People would say that getting a Paintbrush and and Empty Canvas for you to fill in is Another Form of Story Telling. Which I disagree with. I think its another Form.... Period !!!

Its important to understand the Diffierence between Story and StoryTelling. Obviously the Key word here is the "Telling" part. Clinging to it is whats causing all the drama. Its also important to understand I'm not talking about Story "Telling" in a literal sense. changing how the Story is Told is not going to fix things.... which is where the whole "Don't Tell me... Show Me" thing seems to get thrown around. If you "Show" People you're just going to get cutscenes.... if you "Tell" People You're just going to get Disembodied Voices over the Radio.... Bioshock Style. And then you have games where you "Read" the Story.... (looking at you Dark Souls).

How the Story is Delivered isn't going to change how Passive and One Directional the entire Experience is..... ofcourse its not so Black and White.... Developers have been creative in making us think that we're are being "Told" stories in an Active or Interactive way..... some do this using Seemless Transitions from Active and Passive moments.... Another technique is to Directly link Passive Story Telling Techniques into Gameplay Interactions (Dark Souls is noterious in this Department) and last but Most Effective (Deceptive) is to Have the Story delivered Simultaneously Along Side "Game play"..... The Last of Us and Uncharted have pulled this off so convincingly that they Almost made a believer out of me..... I even came up with a Term for it.... Ludonarrative Coincidence (The Bastard love Child of Ludonarrative Resonance)

Developers are Crafty.

However to continue down the path of "Its How the Story is Told" is going to continue to lead into weird Oddities that fall apart under scrutiny. It also shows just how insecure we are about the medium we claim to love..... if that were true you'd think we would just accept it for what it is..... but nope..... we want to tell Stories.

This medium does have the Potential for Powerful Stories...... Telling Said Stories is just a terribal way of going about it..... if you catch my drift (I have examples illustrating this point if you're interested).

@foxhound_fox said:

@jg4xchamp said:

@Sushiglutton said:

2. This is the point where I feel people let their brains get the better of them. Of course if you analyze Red Dead and think of the 500+ Marston killed as part of the story it's ridiculous. However to me at least the action sequences and the rest of the story are kind of seperated in my mind.

And that's a problem. We don't handwave that shit in a movie (notice how the dumb action flicks aren't the ones considered the best works that medium has to offer), but we hand wave that shit in a game. Gamers accept it, because it's the only thing they've known. This medium can't pretend it's single most unique aspect, isn't part of the story. That's counter productive, and basically fuels the fire for everyone that says gaming can't tell a good story.

That's not people overthinking, that's gamers accepting a status quo and not demanding some evolution.

Turning off your brain is not an argument, it speaks to how stupid this medium is. It's a bit of a cop out.

Thank you. This is a lot of the reason I think I've come to despise games like Uncharted. They just ignore the disconnect between events in-game and the narrative. And so many people call them the best games ever made.

What about TLoU? I found the degree of violence in that game to equate fairly equally to its narrative. It made sense in context. Not like Uncharted where you're required to mow down an army to progress, of which I agree with you on. TLoU's confrontations were much more intimate, sensical, and inline with the narrative.

@MirkoS77:

True..... and yet its still needed Cutscenes and Heavily Scripted Sequences to pull it off.

One of the things I found weird about The Last of Us was its attempt to make me think the Story and gameplay were one in the same.... especially in the beginning with Sarah.

After that I began to see a Pattern.... when the Story was unfolding outside of Cutscenes..... it was during Gameplay Sections that would have been tedius had they been Completely Silent.... for example... areas where you just Walk.... Looting Empty Drawers, Cabinets and Shelves and areas where you solve an insultingly Easy puzzle (Ledge too far too reach.... need to find ladder or Box and push it under the ledge so I can climb higher)..... during these Sequences a character or Characters will begin talking...... its clever what the developers did there. Its not a Cutscene so its not intrusive and it doesn't take control away from the player...... surely this must Be "Interactive Storytelling"..... LoL..... its actually Just Interacting While You're Being Told a Story.... the two weren't working together to deliver the narrative. They were merely different concepts happening at the same time..... one does not get in the other's way of doing its job...... I suppose going from intrusive Cutscenes to.... whatever this trickery is is a Step Forwards.

But then that got me thinking..... would this work during the Actual Gameplay Sections of The Last Of Us ? Can Tess Talk about the good old days while Joel is trying rip a Zombie's Face Off ? Well No !!! The obvious answer is no.... because that would be Fucking Annoying..... which is why the game needs those Tedius more Tedius sections in the first place.

Nice Try Naughty Dog.... you almost Had Me !!!

It was a simplified example, because in the case of Deus Ex it has about 3 or 4 different solutions to just about any level, thus creating a bit of a different experience going player to player. It's no different then how folks like myself and conan responded to Metal Gear Solid V, where as a lot of other people found that game repetitive, while straight up ignoring all the ridiculous amount of options and solutions you had at your disposal in missions.

The story if you will is still about some Illumanity bullshit, and Megan, and Adam Jensen's stupid sunglasses augmentation, but the stuff that happens in between are still sequences and as I said in the op an actual part of the story. What happened in the police station was part of the sequence of events in that game, the plot if you will, and that I got to dictate. Not everyone who played that game just ran in shotgunning mooks in the face, I fucking did. I put my own stamp on that story, because the game is built to allow its mechanics to tell a story. And fundamentally you are right in saying the basics of a game are more about establishing rules and goals, not inherently telling a story, the thing is a story is told regardless.

A story is not just what we read in a book. Shit you go on a drive and end up at the DMV, you still end up with some version of a story to tell, and that's just basic life. I know a bit of sophistry here on my part, but out right ignoring the basic principles of how base systems tell stories (even unintentionally) in this medium is also bit underselling it. It's missing the point why people dig The Sims, or Civilization, or XCom, rpgs in the first place. Dungeons and Dragons is a game, there is no disagreeing with that assessment. It's also one of the more organic works of social story telling that anyone could think of, making it one of the actual kind of neat nerdy shits on God's green earth.

Where you and I differ is that to you the finished painting was story telling, to me it was the story. The painting it part was the story telling.

Context has its relevance in this medium, otherwise we would be playing a lot of games as giant blocks.

I think it's worth repeating what I said in the other thread:

The one advantage that interactive media have over non-interactive media in terms of storytelling is the ability to make choices in how the story unfolds. These choices can range from only having a minor influence on how the main story unfolds (e.g. Chrono, Mass Effect, Persona, Walking Dead, Witcher 3, etc.) to visual novels that have meaningful choices that drastically impact how the story unfolds in entirely different ways (e.g. YU-NO, Clannad, Fate/Stay Night, 428, Steins Gate, Zero Escape).

However, the ability to make choices is negatively impacted by the presence of gameplay. The "games" with the most meaningful choices tend to be visual novels with little to no gameplay, while the games where the choices have little influence on the main story often have more gameplay to them. That's because, the more gameplay a game has, the more content would need to be produced to cater for each choice, hence why the influence of those choices tend to be limited. So even when it comes to making choices, the one advantage that an interactive medium has over a non-interactive medium, the presence of gameplay often minimizes the ability to make meaningful choices in the first place.

In terms of writing and storytelling, the best I've seen in an interactive medium would have to be visual novels (Clannad and Steins Gate, for example, hold up very well compared to some of the best dramas and sci-fi in other media, but have minimal gameplay), followed by point & click adventures (where gameplay is limited to puzzle-solving), and then RPGs.

@jg4xchamp:

LoL.... thats good. However thats not an example of Telling a Story through game play. Rather its great example of playing a game...... then you telling me the Story about what you did. I could argue there are games that illustrate this Phenomenon a whole better..... probably because Deus Ex still has its own story it wants to force upon the playet in between the less directed Gameplay sections.

Anyway the point that I'm trying to get across is the moments in which you are free to go about achieving whatever goal is laid out to isn't "Story Telling" any more than Going out with your friends to a Fair is Story Telling...... yes when its all over you can then tell story to Someone in Past Tense but in the Present When you are Actively a Part of Those Systems..... its Something Completely Unlike Storytelling.

@jg4xchamp: I personally love cinematic and heavy story driven games.

One of my favorite games last generation -- The Walking Dead season 1. Few others i really liked The Last of Us , Uncharted 2 , Mass Effect 2/3 , and many other similar.

All of them had pretty much decent to awesome storyline with many lengthy cutscenes and blabla and characters and everything many gamers hating about heavy story driven games. I loved every single and each of the games i mentioned above ( and many more i didnt mention ) .

I was eager to see whats next , what will happen and this and that. I wouldnt mind to see the story ala Half life but for sure i dont mind to see the story from a fixed , cinematic angle and/or with a top notch voice acting , facial animations , direction ala hollywood etc. Why the hell not !?

All in all my opinion is there are options for every gamer out there. The "lucky" ones are the ones that having equal fun with whatever the case game they playing. They wont choose one over the other as long as games delivering. Personally thats where am at. I can have epic fun with games like Rayman Legends and Half life the same way i have with The walking Dead and The last of us.

Win / win scenario for me and more options to play with

I kind of agree with the second point, gameplay must be integral, so must the world building. There is a need to make sense throughout the world, gameplay and story.

I do however think the biggest issue with story in games is that many people mistakenly think that the established rules in movies also apply in games.

Which messes things up from the get go. You can not simply take control from a player, direct them to what they see, and what they feel, you can try to force feelings like movies does with music, but the camera work will always be jarring and feel fake compared to the rest, putting a barrier up whenever the person you play as, that you "are" are given attributes that is unlike how the gaming "you" is. The biggest example I know of must be in GTA 4.

I consider games to have had some of the better stories in media as a whole in the last 10 years. Games does something that movies, and to a lesser extent, books, can not do. They can place you in said world, use the pictures to tell long stories, which brings me to an odd notion, Games are far more similar to books then movies, Movies are wholly directed, you are forced into a viewpoint, and all the tricks in the book are trying to make you feel certain things (be they sad music, the horror shriek or the well worn code of a misty street).

Games however rely more on the characters and world around them, to weave the story, and NOT simply to tell it, which is something the best books can also do, It is less likely for a book to make the reader feel a different way, indeed protagonists and antagonists can come off differently to each person reading them, and the world looks different for each person who reads it.

In that sense Games follow books more, the world buildup, the far bigger need for characters to be pensiled out better then a movies 5 minutes of a sarge yelling at a rookie.

But games are unique while closer to the book, the game should embrace the freedom more. And even a writer have by default to force a certain focus.

But you are entirely right TC, that if a world is built characters made, and story all tell one story, and the gameplay tell another, then it all crumbles, How Uncharted, RDR, GTA all break the stories with gameplay that tends to undermine the story, it all collapses.

But a game like Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, System Shock 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines, Halflife 2, Halo, Company of Heroes, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Amnesia: The dark Descent, Soma, Brothers - A tale of two sons. All manage a story coherent and often vastly better then the majority of the movie counterparts.

What I consider the issue really is that too many in the games industry has a movie background and keeps breaking the games own logic and unwritten laws within said world.

Um wonderful, but it's not a counter nor does it actually add to the discussion in the op or this thread. It's too hippie "give peace a chance, love everything". Taking your examples 1 by 1, Uncharted is a big sinner in terms of its gameplay and its story and themes being directly at odds with each other. The Walking Dead, the actual interacting with it part is fucking shit. Beyond just being janky or unsatisfying, that game goes out its way to basically dial back any form of interactivity beyond pick your own dialogue, so the rest of the experience is one giant highlight of "Look, we told a story, by being less of a game as possible", it isn't a surprise, that Telltale's follow up games have even less gameplay than the Walking Dead. Because in their case, the game gets in the way of their story.

Beyond just Mass Effect's gameplay being rubbish, Mass Effect, Uncharted, and The Last of Us have generic fiction. Hitting every single narrative trope ever you would see be it in scifi, adventure stories, or post apocalypse stuff. Not saying you can't enjoy those games, I certainly did, but when they are presented as this grand achievement of gaming, those of us without the low standards required to gas up video game stories are asking "your greatest achievements are shittier versions of movies?"

Not saying The Last of Us isn't great, because it is, but it's more the major exception than the rule. This medium can go story driven all it wants, **** I spent the last week playing The Blackwell series, it sure as **** wasn't for the gameplay. But

A: I'd like the stories to be you know good, and not "video game critics" think it's good.
B: I don't think interactive medium should be so all in on one element, that it forgets the one thing that should always be enjoyable in this medium, is the interacting part.

Sure it is, it's one and the same. I'm saying you can make the part of me playing the game actual part of the story, and it should be the real story. Context has to mean something in games, or otherwise we'd be playing as blocks. I know Conan and myself have joked that if the gameplay was exceptional, we'd play a game where the main character is a walking giant, purple dildo. But even then it's mattered somewhat who are enemies are, what the setting has been in games, our characters basic motivations tying into gameplay etc.

Deus Ex has its superficial elements and its own story, but the beauty of that game is that it also makes time for the player to tell his own. It doesn't come to a screeching halt all the time so the dev can tell theirs: Kojima games, Rockstar, etc.

It's not story telling the way it is in a film, or a book, because it's not passive. It's a form of telling a story that's unique to this medium. In those other mediums we watch the action, in this one you have to do the actions.

Rockstar has a nasty habit of trying cinematic techniques, and to their credit they actually have gotten really good at that stuff. The thing as you said, it has less of an effect in this medium because I'm not passive as long, and I don't want it to be passive for so long. The thing is I don't think most devs have a film background, because then some of their shittyness would have been resolved ages ago. I think we made this giant myth that film is the golden thing Gaming needs to chase and replace, and that's

A: Ridiculous because at no point in my lifetime have I met someone who has never seen a film

B: I've met plenty of people who have never touched a video game.

I mean lets be clear, even as early as gen 5, when games were bumping their visuals there was always attempts to make it feel like a movie, or "its like playing a movie". The word cinematic was at one point a universal positive in this mediums lexicon, it's only recently that people have sort of bitched back about it and said, hey, wait a minute, what about just being a game? What's the term for being a video game?