Industry Luminaries Sound Off On Interactive Storytelling

[John Funk]

Industry Luminaries Sound Off On Interactive Storytelling

​

If you care about storytelling in videogames, you should probably watch this video.

It wasn't all that long ago that games had no story to speak of whatsoever. Why were the ghosts chasing Pac-Man? Who were the Space Invaders you were shooting down? Was Left Paddle really a hero or was he a villain protagonist? Then, with the advent of early interactive fiction like Zork and Ultima, game developers started caring more about story - and the interest in interactive storytelling in games has waxed and waned ever since.

The video you see here to the right is a superb encapsulation of the history of - and the discussion surrounding - the role story plays in a videogame. Speaking their minds on the subject are big old-school names like Ultima creator Richard "Lord British" Garriott, Gabriel Knight writer Jane Jensen, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy designer Steve Meretzky. On the modern side of things we have people behind blockbuster franchises noted for their storytelling like BioShock, Assassin's Creed and Uncharted.

Suffice it to say, if you're interested in the topic at all you owe it to yourself to watch this eleven-minute video produced by the folks at Game Theory [http://gametheoryonline.com/2011/02/01/interactive-fiction-video-game-storytelling-movie/]. It's well worth the time you'll spend on it.

(Game Theory [http://gametheoryonline.com/2011/02/01/interactive-fiction-video-game-storytelling-movie/])

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[Korten12]

pretty interesting video.

 

[Zero_ctrl]

What annoying presentation and editing. Does it need to be jerking around, making noises and switching between color and B&W every two seconds?

The whole thing is kind of shallow and magazine-like, anyway.

I was just about to comment on this, you ninja.

 

[cerebus23]

Traditional storytelling to me means loads of text data, like a fallout 2 where the dialogue was effected by your characters stats, their reputation, and many many different branching paths that could go many many different ways or be totally different depending how you played the game or just cause your character lacked intelligence and charisma.

Now that games feel like they all need to be voice recorded, you cannot do most of those old text based branches. Now you get 2 or 3 variations at most in the spoken dialogue. Because voice recording is a long and grueling process.

Just watched kevin conroys speech at one of the shows about him recording voice work for games vs voice work for cartoons and animated movies, and basically it boils down to spending days doing the same lines over and over because they want each line 5 or 6 times for different tones, and producers or whoever running in to tell you do do it this way or that way or change it to this or change it back. At the end of a recording session basically you cannot talk your exhausted and your ready to pull your hair out.

I think if we could get away from the need for spoken voice work in some of the rpg heavy games we would be better off since they could do more and better dialogue for each character, make the dialogue trees more varied and branching, and escape the limited time money and effort that games need to hire voice talent spend all that time and money recording and editing dialogue, and take all that time money and effort and write 5 times more dialogue for each and every character, then games could have that sembelence of more depth that the older rpgs had, like your fallouts 1 and 2, baldurs gate, etc.

 

[Irridium]

I don't think games are at their best story-wise. And they never will be, until people write stories first, then make the game around it, rather then making the game, then making a story to tie the levels together.

Point is, companies need to give story the time and attention it deserves. Otherwise I doubt games will ever be a truly great storytelling medium.

There are some truly great stuff you can do with games. See Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid. That blew my mind. It stopped being solely about people in the TV, and it involved me.

Also off-topic, why why isn't your name gold anymore?

 

[Valagetti]

By god the special effects were anoying. They still got a message through.

 

[Popido]

Deus Ex! Dyy didi-diidy, dadaa dada-daada.

Storytelling these days is kinda sad tbh. Follow the artificial road and clear the rooms one by one while your sidekick screams at you to hurry up to the "Act 34" where you will encounter enemies that are not yet in their places no matter how long you waste your time on that little blockage that seems like you could just and just get pass it even thought you know its futile in your heart.

 

[TheXRatedDodo]

It took all of 10 seconds to make me think "Wow... Richard Garriot REALLY loves himself, doesn't he?"

 

[Amalith]

I just now noticed it so I have to ask, why isn't your name yellow anymore? I mean, it's italicized, so that's unique, but where'd the usual color go?

 

[Antidrall]

Okay, they showcased Just Cause 2 for it's story?... Did anybody actually manage to make sense out of that mess?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

those eyes scared me.

 

[Therumancer]

When I hear about "interactive storytelling" in video games I'm reminded a lot of the rise and fall of paper and pencil RPGs.

To be honest the first RPGs were very simple exercises in statistical simulation of various acts in an ancient-world enviroment, or using systems of magical physics. There is no doubt that the games were improved by the addition of enhanced storytelling elements, but as time went on the bit about "telling a story" became a crutch for horrible game design, and encouraging the railroading of players. This ultimatly became a major contributing factor
to such games taking a nose dive.

See, anyone with a basic familiarity with the sword and sorcery or science fiction genere can churn out an appropriate seeming plotline if they don't have to worry about the player characters actually doing anything that isn't intended, and churning out world settings and sourcebooks can be as easy as writing bad fanfiction (which is what we oftentimes saw).

While PnP gaming is still alive to some extent, and may some day recover, I tend to see this same pattern occuring with video games right now. There is no doubt that a good storyline really helps a game, but too often nowadays it seems like fancy cutscenes, voice acting (sometimes with big name actors), and simply having a plotline is used as a method for covering up horrible and innovative design. All of that lore and rambling using obtuse world specific terms in say "Final Fantasy XIII" doesn't disguise the fact that all your doing is more or less walking down one, very literal, linear path for example. We also see very generic cover based shooters being churned out and justified by "well it has a great story". The problem is though that unless a game is actually GOOD as a game, the best storyline in the world is unlikely to salvage it, and I think this has been what has brought about the demise of some very expensive projects out there.

I think right now game designers have a problem in coming up with a storyline, sometimes quite derivitive, and then coming up with a way to turn it into a game, rather than starting with an idea that works well for a fun game, and then coming up with a detailed story that works with the gameplay. As time goes on and everyone is doing some writing, voice acting, etc... for a game, "has a storyline" can no longer be considered much of a feature since it's assumed, and I think game developers tend to overlook that.

It's sort of like how with PnP RPG games, one can appreciate a good set of RPG mechanics even with an utterly pathetic world setting. After all the mechanics can be adapted to another setting, or one of your own creation, with relative ease if you want to. On the other hand a game with a pathetic system, but a lot of world building, is oftentimes far less valuable, especially when you get into a situation where there are 200 differant takes on a "Sword and Sorcery Realm" displayed in any substantial RPG section (if you can even find a decent RPG section anywhere at the moment).

I know many people will disagree with me, but it basically comes down to some of the stuff Yahtzee talks about like how game developers try and act like simply having a cover system in a shooter somehow counts as innovation. You can come up with all the fancy cinematics in the world, and the best story for why the BEMs of the week are invading that paticular chest-high-wall filled shooting gallery (or whatever), but in the end if the actual gameplay is typical, or worse yet, complete garbage, none of that matters. In the end the BEM needs to be fun to shoot.... or simply the game industry needs to move it's priorities away from storylines and more into actual gameplay, polished mechanics, and bug hunting. This is not to say that storylines should be removed or neglected, just that they should be very clearly considered secondary to the gameplay, because having say John Cleese, John Malkovich, Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, and half a dozen nerd icons like Felicia Day, Summer Glau, and James Marsters all doing voices for characters in a beautifully told story with a hundred million dollars in animation is irrelevent if the player can't move well, the monsters get stuck in the scenery, the game crashed, the AI is crap when the monsters don't get stuck, and you really don't do much besides run around waiting for the next celebrity filled cutscene to explain why your reloading the levels until the flags function properly.

 

[IndianaJonny]

What annoying presentation and editing. Does it need to be jerking around, making noises and switching between color and B&W every two seconds?

The whole thing is kind of shallow and magazine-like, anyway.

I was just about to comment on this, you ninja.

Yeah, me three - it was unnecessary and distracting.

I don't think games are at their best story-wise. And they never will be, until people write stories first, then make the game around it, rather then making the game, then making a story to tie the levels together.

Would this, in your view, extend to video-game 'adaptations' of existing fiction writing or film? I mean, they're a pretty mixed bag when you look at the Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel etc. titles

Point is, companies need to give story the time and attention it deserves. Otherwise I doubt games will ever be a truly great storytelling medium.

True, but as consumers we need to demonstrate that we'll buy narrative-ground-braking games to make them a viable business model, the unfortunate sales-flop that Psychonauts was is often hailed as an example of our actual buying habits. Hmm, having said that, I wonder whether platform comes into play here. I mean, the bestsellers list for Xbox 360 games is full of FPSers (Mass Effect 2 isn't even in the top 20) but Myst was the best selling PC game until the The Sims release in 2002 (both interactive storytelling but I reckon big differences in gamer demographic (in an encouraging way)).

 

[Sixties Spidey]

1.) Depends on what is considered traditional. Games are a difficult medium to pin down when it comes to storytelling because it's unlike a book or film. If we're talking traditional in terms of a movie, then probably Uncharted, Mass Effect or even Heavy Rain.

2.) Yes and no. Yes because if done right, it can tell a much more compelling story through the characters, gameplay, and the world around them. Done wrong, it becomes a hollow and empty shell with badly voiced characters spouting horrendously written dialog traversing through a cloud of ones and zeros.

However, I'd argue that it doesn't exactly NEED a script or a voice over to tell a compelling tale, because then it amplifies the entire world better if a player can project him/herself into that world without the need of any voiceover at all. Look at Braid and (to an extent) Portal.

3.) I focus a lot on the story because it's what keeps me playing the most. We're slowly getting how to tell a compelling narrative in a game, although it's gonna take a lot of time for that to be noticeable if we're ever going to evolve as an art form.

 

[Irridium]

Would this, in your view, extend to video-game 'adaptations' of existing fiction writing or film? I mean, they're a pretty mixed bag when you look at the Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel etc. titles

Yes, since most movie-games seem to follow the script of the movie, which is a bad thing.

True, but as consumers we need to demonstrate that we'll buy narrative-ground-braking games to make them a viable business model, the unfortunate sales-flop that Psychonauts was is often hailed as an example of our actual buying habits. Hmm, having said that, I wonder whether platform comes into play here. I mean, the bestsellers list for Xbox 360 games is full of FPSers (Mass Effect 2 isn't even in the top 20) but Myst was the best selling PC game until the The Sims release in 2002 (both interactive storytelling but I reckon big differences in gamer demographic (in an encouraging way)).

Dragon Age and Mass Effect have sold craploads on the consoles. Seems gamers are more then welcome to games with story. Most of the time games with actual, interesting stories aren't marketed that well(if at all), since the publishers rarely believe in them. This leads them not doing so well, which re-affirms their suspicion.

 

[Marudas]

Not a bad video. I'm going to make enemies by saying the worst part of it was Richard Garriott. Yes, you made Ultima, Yes, it was a half decent game. Finish patting yourself on the back and don't try to sell Ultima 4 as the front runner in storytelling...

Other than that it was a pretty decent watch.