Games Need More Artfully Story-Entwined Gameplay 145
Movie and Game writer Justin Marks has written an impassioned plea for the industry to concentrate more on artfully story-entwined gameplay, exploring what he thinks major titles are missing these days. "But for the most part, we as an industry are stuck in the same trap that GTA exemplifies. We value narratives in games, we understand their purpose and their necessity, and yet we have no idea how to parse them effectively into the game's interactive structure. As technology gets better, the weaknesses of poor story integration are more exposed."
Re:Good comment (Score:3, Informative)
You mention Duskwood, and I agree completely. It had a lot of potential and does come off better than some other areas. The Plaguelands were the same way, although the expansion removed 99.9% of the players from both EPL and WPL. OTOH, Dustwallow Marsh had most quest lines abruptly end, NPCs without any purpose, and huge areas with no reason to exist. The original zone developer had many great ideas, including PvP quests, but left Blizzard right around the original release. Blizzard simply implemented the zone half completed and left it for years.
I tend to agree with another poster regarding the inherent trade off - much story usually means extremely linear game play. The large world offered by WoW means that I have lots of flexibility in how, when, and where I level a toon, but it is difficult to tell me a story. I get a detailed story from many of the WWII shooters but have no options to deviate from the predetermined path. KOTOR was perhaps the best mix that I've played in years.
Re:Nice idea, but the devil is in the details (Score:3, Informative)
The only reason that sandbox games are disconnecting and unempathic is because they are built that way. You should check out the work of Brenda Laurel, she is a pioneer in the field of computer/human interaction and started a game company for girls that focused on realistic emotional situations and responses. Way ahead of its time, unfortunately.
Written correctly, even single player games can help players become more empathic and socially clueful.
The genre is still alive... (Score:3, Informative)
- Funcom's (Norway) The Longuest Journey and DreamFall are nice example of a very well written narrative (by Ragnar Tornquist), and are considered as the major work which brought back the genre into interest.
- Another prominent example is Benoit Sokal (France), who after doing the Syberia duology, founded his own game company White Bird Production which works on either adapting graphic novels from renown European artists or helping them create new worlds for the medium.
- Pendolino Software (Spain) is another example with the two volumes of Runaway in their sleeves.
- House of Tales' (Germany) The moment of Silence.
Meanwhile, the USA industry is working hard of producing yearly crops of hockey/soccer/whatever sport game and doesn't understand while player are complaining about lack of stories...
No actually I'm exaggerating : USA is also represented with Telltale Games which have made marvel in the episodic adventure game genres. And they are mostly composed of former LucasArt employee before that brand was turned into a giant lemon press for StarWars franchise.
The only main problem those modern game tend to suffer is that they are very linear. This is mostly due to them being the work of writers (which make really great stories, but then the stories are just made word by word into games).
As opposed to classical games - like Monkey Island and Space Quest - which are mostly designed from the ground up as series of puzzles and jokes assembled together (Space Quest 3 is notorious for completely lacking an over all story until very late into the development cycle). Those games aren't much linear for the simple reason that they didn't have a story to strictly follow, but instead are a string of separate events which could be completed in an almost random order.
Currently we DO have great writers in the video game circles (Dreamfall almost made me cry).
What we need is good game designer which could translate those wonderful stories into great games. (Otherwise there's a risk that the adventure games start to look like really well acted movie, but with as much interactivity as... well... interactive movie during the early FMV age).
TranSolar Games [transolar.com] (the team at Sierra responsible for the Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory frnachise) is still around and still interested to revisit the franchise.
Ron Gilbert (of Monkey Island's fame) is working at Hothead (Norway) and has contributed to Penny Arcade's game.
Al Lowe [allowe.com] is still around too.
I'm sure that there are some terrific games to be made once you marry the perfect skill (good writing and good game design).
Specially now that platform like the Wii and the DS are widespread and have perfect input interface for adventure games.