Thaius said:
I suppose "direct control" is not the best term. Rather, not "full" control. In that most games have one button swing your sword arm, another button make your character jump, another button push buttons, etc. This means that these games can only really do what those buttons allow.
Nope.
RTS: click building, click unit, click enemy unit, click resource, click formation option, click behavior option, click upgrade option ect.
Diablo-clone: click enemy, click NPC, click ally, click object lying on the floor, click inventory, click spell, click level up option, click equip option ect.
TBS with Civilazation level complexity: click click click click ect (there's a reason nobody has trierd to put the recent Civilization game on a console.)
How about JRPG's: pick an option and press O, which is a more cumbersome version of the same thing.
And how about I-phone games, in those touching things is all you ever do.
In PC centric genre's there will always be a lot you can do just by clicking on things. There are hotkey buttons but adventure games have those too. Text adventures are particularly reliant on hot keys. The fact that adventure games let you use most of your options with only the mouse buttons just makes them typical for non-action PC games.
Let me say first that my conversations with you are usually simultaneously the most frustrating and some of the most helpful. While I cannot begin to comprehend how you could hold some of the ideas that you do (namely regarding storytelling and immersion), you tend to take everything I say in every direction except that which it was intended to go. It's a lot easier to tighten my theories when you're here to pump water through the leaks. Thanks.
Anyway, regarding the last point. First I should specify, I suppose, that I am talking about the direct actions of a single person. At a time, at least. Strategy and simulation games like the ones you mentioned are a matter of commanding many different things over a large space, not the specific motions and choices of a single person (unless you interpret each click as a spoken command by a higher power or superior officer, I suppose). Such meta concepts obviously use this principle, but games in which you control one person doing specific things rarely do.
As for menu-based battle systems, I said this concept of gameplay generalization had been used before. What makes adventure games and visual novels different is that it's
all they do. Anything you ever do in the gameplay is either based on a constantly-shifting, context-sensitive control scheme or, in the case of visual novels, the occasional story choice that comprises the entirety of the gameplay. There is nothing else. This is what allows the stories of these games to transcend the need for violent gameplay.
As for games like Diablo and iOS games, while similar button presses can do multiple things, there are specific, constant contexts for all of them. iOS games still assign certain, specific meanings to certain gestures or locations on the touch screen. Diablo, while you use the left button for many things, still makes it plain that clicking on an enemy will attack, clicking on an open space will move you to it, and clicking on an inventory space will select what is in it. Though the same physical button is used, each use of it means very specific, constant things depending on what you click on. That's very different from a game like a point-and-click adventure game, where clicking on something may pick it up, talk about it, trigger conversation, etc., and different from Heavy Rain, where the same button used to change a baby's diaper could later be used to punch a man in the face.
Halo Fanboy said:
Thaius said:
Visual novels accomplish the same thing by, rather than generalizing, minimizing the gameplay, disconnecting the choices from gameplay entirely and simply making them occasional story-important choices. It is a different approach, but it allows the exact same thing as the gameplay generalization of adventure games; interactivity can now play a part in the story without leading to gameplay unwisely applied to a situation it cannot emulate well.
That's just a complicated way of saying you select from a couple of choices. Lot's of games have that. What set Visual Novels apart is their presentation.
Many game lets you select from a couple of choices, but visual novels reduce
the entirety of the gameplay to those choices. There is nothing else. This, aside from their presentation, is what sets them apart, and that's what allows them to tell stories differently form most other genres.
That is not the way I have seen anyone define "immersive" in games. I wonder if this is an actual disagreement or just a confusion of terms. When I say "immersive," I am talking about the effect caused by fitting music, detailed environment, realistic touches, whatever it is that makes the game feel like a complete and whole experience. To use an oft-used (possibly overused, but for good reason) example, Bioshock is immersive because its music is fitting, its story is told through the environment and slowly-revealing backstory, and the world of Rapture is detailed both in what it was (you can tell that each place used to have a particular function and was a working part of the society) and what it is (rubble, trash, the small touches like brown sink water and occasional leaks). It is more than simply getting "sucked in," it's a matter of actually feeling like you are part of what is going on. Tetris bombards you with a series of intense challenges, but that does not mean it's "immersive," simply that it is well-designed and challenging.
http://insomnia.ac/reviews/xbox/tekki/ That game is potentially the most immersive game of all time. It doesn't have to do with how fitting the music is or the game being a complete and whole experience. You can feel like you are part of what's going because the game will destroy you if you aren't paying attention, so it acheives immersion quite nicely.
While I will not deny the immersive quality of that game (from what I understand at least; I unfortunately have not yet been able to play it), I still think you are confusing immersion with a desire and drive to stay focused and keep playing. They are not the same thing, at least by the way immersion is most commonly defined. I see value in the principle you are talking about (with the glaring exception of the idea that any interruption to constant challenge makes for a bad game, that I think is crap), but it is not what one is referring to with the term "immersion." So argue that all you want, but I'm using the word based on how most people define it.
Halo Fanboy said:
I only brought up those game because I thought gleaming meaning from them was too easy since it's been done on every dumb game site a million times. It's more challenging to and results in a more entertaining writing when you are instead trying to interpret symbolism in Pong.
While deriving symbolism from Pong would be quite interesting, it would also be a waste of time from a literary standpoint. It could help develop the ability to find symbolism and meaning in artworks, but the problem is that there is no intended symbolism in Pong. Meaning that all students would learn how to do is cram meaning into something that has none; they would not be interpreting symbolism in Pong, they would be
making up symbolism in Pong. While that may have some benefits, it is not a good skill. It simply leads to interpretive problems and complete misunderstandings of artworks.
