Interactivity's role in video game narrative.

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

I had a lecture about Romanticism in Music today and especially Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, Unendliche Melodie and Durchkomponiert Form and more specifically literature's role in shaping Romanticism in music. After that my mind wondered off into video game territory and how interactivity can be used in video game narrative the same way Folklore is used in music and literature and is a defining point in Romanticism as a whole.

I started a "debate" (more realistically me talking and he listening) with a colleague of mine on this topic and the only truly right example I could think of was Planescape Torment, because it is masterfully written and how much of the story unfolds is based on your own exploration of the game. But I feel that even this argument is a bit flimsy, because you can say for most games that unfold after digging deeper, but I don't know where to even begin with this topic. This also brings into question the characters within the narrative and how different you may perceive them whether you've stumbled upon something specific which I think is a plus. I count not only interactivity, but non-linearity as well because it's also a unique thing to games (since choose-your-own-adventure is a game). The potential philosophical and literary depths of these unique features of video games is staggering.

Like all great works of art it depends on the context how a certain thing is used (since Goethe's work on Faust is not something original, but the context in which he uses this well known story is original, or the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth is used as a choir within a symphony with the most simplest of melodies to reach all people and to invoke the titanic European Thought, but the musical language he uses isn't unique. etc etc.), so this is what I ask: How can interactivity and non-linearity be used in video games to further the art as a whole? Or be praised as an immense work of art like Heidegger's Time and Being or Wagner's Tristan and Isolde?

Also bonus questions: How can video games explore traditional concepts like those of Romanticism, Enlightenment, Classicism etc.? Can they bring about a new intellectual and societal movement?

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

You might simply be talking over most peoples heads, but I guess the big thing interactivity adds is ownership responsibility? When you look at a painting, that is someone else work entirely. You have no input into it and no responsibility for how it ends up being. When you make a choice in a video game, (real or imagined) you have ownership over that choice and in a way your responsible for the outcome. I'm not a lit major though.

 

[tippy2k2]

Uh....what? (Sorry, I've been out of school for a while )

To put it in idiots terms so that I can understand it, you are asking how does interactivity affect a story and can it affect it more? Correct? I hope so because that's what I'm answering...

For question 1 (my idiot version that is), I feel that games are already there. One could argue that it's not because you usually don't have a choice in the game but if Spec-Ops: The Line taught us anything, it's that you ALWAYS have a choice (even if the alternative choice is to turn the game off).

I choose to have Joel crush that man's head open to protect someone I love. Would "The Last of Us" be a powerful movie without the interaction? Undoubtedly. However, I have never connected with a set of characters in any other piece of media like I did those two. At the end of the game, I was legitimately was afraid of what happened and angry at what I thought might have happened. While there are other pieces of media that have made me afraid/worried about a fictional character, the feelings I felt for Joel and Ellie would not have been anywhere near as strong if I had just watched the game in TV form.

As to the second part, I think there are games that make decent use of pushing it but there seem to be a lot of missed opportunities. The best example I've thought of is this (the game is four years old, if you haven't played it by now you probably won't but I'll respect the spoilers just in case):

Spoiler: Assassin Creed Brotherhood

At the very end of the game, Desmond is forced to stab Lucy after a supernatural being takes over his body. To do this in the game, you basically tap X a couple of times until the stabbing occurs. However, I thought that was a blown opportunity to make the game-play work with the context.

Desmond is not in control of his body in this situation but is fighting it. The perfect game-play spot I thought to do this would be to force the player to repeatedly tap X to slow down the stabbing and try to stop it. The twist is though...you can't. No matter how much you mash on the X button, Lucy WILL be killed here. You don't have control; you are merely delaying the inevitable just as Desmond has no control of what he is doing

So hopefully I understood your question right but if not, feel free to disregard this man's silly opinion

 

[Racecarlock]

Interactivity is the most important thing about a game bar none. Because how one interacts with the game is critical to whether or not you feel like you have an effect.

I watched a let's play of beyond two souls because I don't have a ps3 and even if I did I wouldn't waste money on david cage games. The whole thing is basically an extra complicated DVD menu where you choose alternate endings at the end of the game. The rest of the time your choices don't mean shit. At all. You can have jodie take her teddy to CIA camp, but that choice effects fuck all. You can choose to whore for money or not whore for money, and the only thing that changes is when jodie turns the guy down. This isn't a video game, it's a DVD menu with more options than usual. Or rather it is a video game I guess because everything's a game now because otherwise I'm just limiting the medium or some bullshit. I don't know where david cage got the idea that making an entire game out of Quick time events was just the best thing, but I think he was high at the time.

I prefer sandbox games because in between the main story, you can write your own story. Skyrim has a lot of scripted main missions, but you can always run 70 miles in the opposite direction and have a chance encounter with a god damn elder dragon at level 22. Good thing I'm good at save scumming. These games are where truly anything can happen, and an endless amount of stories of random adventures can come from. My kind of game. Especially since I feel like what I'm doing actually affects the people and towns around me. It isn't just some one off QTE sequence or a choice that determines fuck all, you know?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

So you're asking how video games can influence art like music, literature, film etc? I'm not really sure. Its not like they can make movies where the viewer simply decides what happens (inb4 modern AAA games joke). And choose your own adventure books and role playing games like dungeons and dragons existed before video games. But if you want to talk about the kinds of stories and ideas video games can convey...

I count not only interactivity, but non-linearity as well because it's also a unique thing to games (since choose-your-own-adventure is a game)

I personally think linear stories in games get way more shit than deserve. Think about it, games can let us experience someone else's story and let us feel their decisions and perspective. It reminds me a certain game I love that got shit because it doesn't let the players chose the ending

I choose to have Joel crush that man's head open to protect someone I love. Would "The Last of Us" be a powerful movie without the interaction? Undoubtedly. However, I have never connected with a set of characters in any other piece of media like I did those two. At the end of the game, I was legitimately was afraid of what happened and angry at what I thought might have happened. While there are other pieces of media that have made me afraid/worried about a fictional character, the feelings I felt for Joel and Ellie would not have been anywhere near as strong if I had just watched the game in TV form

I slightly disagree with you're opening sentence. Its not that the game lets you choose, but that it makes you want to crush that man's head open. Its not that there was simply a button prompt on the screen, but because you had to kill him to protect the one you love. While some felt the ending was overall "negative" I kind of liked it from Joel's perspective

Spoiler: obviously spoiler territory

From the outside its obvious that Joel's decision to save Ellie and fuck everyone else was selfish. But I couldn't help feel that he made the right choice. There isn't a single person in the game who convinces Joel that things can magically go back to the way they were before the outbreak. The fireflies come off as just another group of thugs who would use the cure to forward their own wants and influence. The only one who seems to have the right idea is Joel's brother who wants to make new society that can live in the new world. Ellie's just a 14 year old so even if she was given the choice, how could she have made the right one? But then game flips on the player and suddenly you're Ellie and now Joel's hopeful lines about their new future and his daughter seem a little creepy. And a binary choice ending would have messed up the whole game's theme which that mankind are the real monsters and they don't deserve to be saved

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Well - there's Interactivity and then there's Interactivity. Yeah, I'll explain that.

Interactivity is a spectrum concept - there are degrees of being interactive. Obviously games meet a basic threshold for Interactivity in that they are played by a person in all cases that the entire medium has been deemed "Interactive" - and justly so. However, you're talking about a specific area of Interactivity as it relates to involvement in the game's narrative - thus relegating Interactivity as it relates to game play to a lesser degree of importance in the discussion - which is an easy mistake to make. For it is by gameplay that the person engages the story in the first place.

Of course you have your layer of classical understanding of the audience as participant based on oral tradition readings, readings of written literature (huge in the period you were referring to), etc. There is an anticipation of those types of reactions tabulated - an assertion which I base on the data taken at demo-plays, focus groups, and other forms of research we know of's purpose.

I would say that Interactivity in the narrative is necessarily limited by 1) the current technology and 2) the limited resources companies are willing to devote to narrative elements (integration into the game/gameplay/world/etc., quality of the narrative, character creation/inclusion/development for npcs, and on). However, there are some good and clever tricks that exist to give the illusion of more choice and impact to players within those limitations - that, while they don't change anything, appear to or give the feeling of agency, saving resources yet delivering an experience of being active within the narrative.

Two videos from Extra Credits talk about this at some length and looking into those might shed some light on your own thoughts or inspire clarity for you - Agency and Illusion of Choice are probably the key words you want to tack on your EC Google search.

When it is possible to engage the narrative and change the story's path in some way - I find it very enjoyable, to the point that I've written papers on it and want to study those stories and those types of stories in a more officially academic capacity. There's a lot of growth that still needs to happen in the industry and its allocation of priorities and resources to really grow this storytelling method as something that might be legitimized like the novel and other "fringe" areas before it. I think they are moving towards becoming the "literature" of our time, but I think that movement requires encouragement and an infrastructure of support - like colleges teaching courses on narrative writing for video games, same as a "short-story writing" already is a course, like literary studies that return to myth making and crafting cultural stories for those who are looking to be narrative creators rather than trying to wedge that in a unit in a "critical thinking via close reading" curriculum, etc. First steps on that path are serious discussion, studies, and dissemination of those studies for yet more discussion and study.

There's so much to cover - some of which have been brought up here: stories that are somewhat passive but show a clear impact of the player on the world sticking to a mainly game play + moving through a set piece narrative, stories that are more interactive maybe with some branching decision trees in a main narrative for greater intellectual and emotional investment beyond game play concerns, stories that are waiting to be activated and set into motion around you at your choosing where you can be selective about what you engage and what you ignore in an open world, and a few in between.

Each one offers different levels of Interactivity in different formats, and so each one employs different tactics to do so while offering an experience similar in its concept enough that they can all share a medium and be called video games. But it's hard, then, to talk about them without making subdivisions first and defining some terms - or risk such generalizations that all conclusions become suspect.

 

[ChristopherT]

I really enjoy when a game can change even the next five to ten minutes through something simple like a branching path, I cannot think of too many games that do this, one however is Dino Crisis. From time to time throughout the game you are asked to pick between two courses of action suggested by two NPCs, your choice dictates how the next segment of the game goes. For instance - at one point in the game Regina is in a room, and can hear dinosaurs in the halls outside, Gail wants to fight through them, just grab your guns and go, Rick advices it would be safer to try to escape through a locked hatch. So through a select screen you choose, either go out the door guns blazing, or turn around go to a security console and play around hoping to open the hatch. It's nothing major, but these little things change the next few minutes each time, making for a little variation every now and then.

While game play wise nothing really changes (that I recall) the Walking Dead game (season 1 haven't started season 2 yet) did enough for me to smile when certain choices lead to characters getting a second chance, and some getting their moment to shine.

Another nice form of interactivity can be found in point and click adventure games, where you can examine items in your inventory closer, turning them over and finding new things to help on your way. Example being The Longest Journey and the ducky tube. Similar idea of searching objects as some Resident Evil games, and Gone Home (is what I hear, haven't played that one).

 

[MrDumpkins]

Best example of interactivity being ingrained into the story would be Brothers: A tale of Two Sons. It's got some wonky mechanics to learn at first but it really makes it feel like you are guiding them on your journey. However it's not the control scheme that makes it so special, it's how they use it in the game, each brother is controlled by one analog stick and the trigger button on that side. To tell you how they use it would spoil the entire game, but if you don't really want to play it see the spoiler below.

Spoiler

At the end of the game you climb the tree to get the antidote but just before that your other brother got injured and stayed behind so you are only using half of the controller. Once you return down from the tree you see your brother dead and have to bury him using just that brothers half of the control scheme. You return to your house on a griffin ride and find yourself at the start, where you needed your older brother to swim across the river (little brother lost his mom in water so is scared of swimming) so when you reach that point your holding in the trigger for the little brother and trying to move but you can't. Once you press the older buttons trigger in you can suddenly move. It shows that his older brother is in his heart and that he can continue on, there are maybe 1-2 more things you do alone that you needed both to do and then the game ends. But man those last few sequences were powerful. It used gameplay to invoke a change in the little brother no other medium could replicate. You really felt like he had grown stronger. A great game and worth every penny despite it's 2-3 hour run.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

I personally think linear stories in games get way more shit than deserve. Think about it, games can let us experience someone else's story and let us feel their decisions and perspective. It reminds me a certain game I love that got shit because it doesn't let the players chose the ending

The reason I don't include linearity in this discussion is because a book or a movie is linear while games are unique in this aspect and I only want to focus on non-linearity. Of course there are very powerful games with a linear storyline System Shock 2, Bioshock 1, Beyond Good and Evil, Knights of the Old Republic 2 etc.

I would say that Interactivity in the narrative is necessarily limited by 1) the current technology and 2) the limited resources companies are willing to devote to narrative elements (integration into the game/gameplay/world/etc., quality of the narrative, character creation/inclusion/development for npcs, and on). However, there are some good and clever tricks that exist to give the illusion of more choice and impact to players within those limitations - that, while they don't change anything, appear to or give the feeling of agency, saving resources yet delivering an experience of being active within the narrative.

This is mostly what I've been thinking - that technology is a main factor in limiting our creative work in this medium. There is also the collective creation of video games which is mostly unique in the arts, because very few books are written, pieces composed or paintings painted by 2 or more people. I feel that this somehow obstructs the freedom that an art needs to surpass its imposed limitations. But you are absolutely correct unfortunately - that the industry simply isn't interested in furthering the narrative potential of games, simply because business is more important to AAA publishers and developers.

When it is possible to engage the narrative and change the story's path in some way - I find it very enjoyable, to the point that I've written papers on it and want to study those stories and those types of stories in a more officially academic capacity. There's a lot of growth that still needs to happen in the industry and its allocation of priorities and resources to really grow this storytelling method as something that might be legitimized like the novel and other "fringe" areas before it. I think they are moving towards becoming the "literature" of our time, but I think that movement requires encouragement and an infrastructure of support - like colleges teaching courses on narrative writing for video games, same as a "short-story writing" already is a course, like literary studies that return to myth making and crafting cultural stories for those who are looking to be narrative creators rather than trying to wedge that in a unit in a "critical thinking via close reading" curriculum, etc. First steps on that path are serious discussion, studies, and dissemination of those studies for yet more discussion and study.

There's so much to cover - some of which have been brought up here: stories that are somewhat passive but show a clear impact of the player on the world sticking to a mainly game play + moving through a set piece narrative, stories that are more interactive maybe with some branching decision trees in a main narrative for greater intellectual and emotional investment beyond game play concerns, stories that are waiting to be activated and set into motion around you at your choosing where you can be selective about what you engage and what you ignore in an open world, and a few in between.

But what does changing the story by branching paths mean? That is simply a choose-your-own-adventure game with nothing truly thoughtful behind it. It is simply the most obvious and widely used form of interactivity, but isn't this more like non-linearity than interactivity? Although I don't think you can have non-linearity without interactivity, but you can have interactivity without non-linearity which is also an interesting observation. For games to shine as a legitimate, influential and, most importantly, equal to the other arts form it need to use its 2 unique qualities - non-linearity and interactivity. Choosing a "path" is simply switching from one corridor to another, but what does that mean for the world or the characters in it? What is the philosophical scope of one (your) choice bringing about a whole different scenario and what does it mean for the other scenarios? And is this even important or games should try a different route to literary heights?

snip

This is actually a very interesting thing and I wish we could see it used for something even grander.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

When it is possible to engage the narrative and change the story's path in some way - I find it very enjoyable, to the point that I've written papers on it and want to study those stories and those types of stories in a more officially academic capacity. There's a lot of growth that still needs to happen in the industry and its allocation of priorities and resources to really grow this storytelling method as something that might be legitimized like the novel and other "fringe" areas before it. I think they are moving towards becoming the "literature" of our time, but I think that movement requires encouragement and an infrastructure of support - like colleges teaching courses on narrative writing for video games, same as a "short-story writing" already is a course, like literary studies that return to myth making and crafting cultural stories for those who are looking to be narrative creators rather than trying to wedge that in a unit in a "critical thinking via close reading" curriculum, etc. First steps on that path are serious discussion, studies, and dissemination of those studies for yet more discussion and study.

There's so much to cover - some of which have been brought up here: stories that are somewhat passive but show a clear impact of the player on the world sticking to a mainly game play + moving through a set piece narrative, stories that are more interactive maybe with some branching decision trees in a main narrative for greater intellectual and emotional investment beyond game play concerns, stories that are waiting to be activated and set into motion around you at your choosing where you can be selective about what you engage and what you ignore in an open world, and a few in between.

But what does changing the story by branching paths mean? That is simply a choose-your-own-adventure game with nothing truly thoughtful behind it. It is simply the most obvious and widely used form of interactivity, but isn't this more like non-linearity than interactivity? Although I don't think you can have non-linearity without interactivity, but you can have interactivity without non-linearity which is also an interesting observation. For games to shine as a legitimate, influential and, most importantly, equal to the other arts form it need to use its 2 unique qualities - non-linearity and interactivity. Choosing a "path" is simply switching from one corridor to another, but what does that mean for the world or the characters in it? What is the philosophical scope of one (your) choice bringing about a whole different scenario and what does it mean for the other scenarios? And is this even important or games should try a different route to literary heights?

snip

This is actually a very interesting thing and I wish we could see it used for something even grander.

I wouldn't categorize branching story paths as "choose your own adventure" per se - although that's the handiest comparison so I fully understand why it is so often used. The reason being that the written CYOA books were so severely limited in comparison to what video games can offer in the same vein that they are a little like the old "chalk and cheese" type comparison.

For instance - and I apologize for grabbing something standard like a Bioware game for this example, but it was a recent discussion I had with someone - I recently found a person who has had a completely off-norm Mass Effect experience - to the point where we vehemently disagree about not only the interpretation of the story but the meanings in it and the motives our character should feel as "assigned" and "normal." She kills Wrex, she thinks the Genophage is spot-on and should continue, she hates Tali's arrogance (can you believe it?), and on and on - the world and the story is entirely different for her than it is for me - polarizing level different.

If we were both talking about the same CYOA book, that variation is just not possible. So many additional elements come into play on the differences between one player's experience and another that they really can be experiencing different stories. What the player brings to the story themselves by their own interpretation is one of the chief elements, but there's also the style of gameplay (are you a get-everything all the time do all the quests type or are you a follow the main story and screw off to the small stuff I'm busy type? - that's going to have a major impact on the story you get), DLC vs. no DLC access? (that's whole chunks of story you can take into YOUR story or leave on the table), how much do you talk to your npcs / what dialog choices do you make with them - which leads into what type of relationship you have with them and thus changes all the elements of the story. If you hate Tali - are you at all invested in her trial in ME2, do you out her father to the crowd to take her down a peg because you think she's haughty -- or if you love her do you take care to put things under the rug and get her out of trouble? That is a big difference in the story - and YES I realize everyone will start going on about how it doesn't impact anything, the ending doesn't change, she's still in ME3 in virtually the same capacity - but the story has changed. The narrative for Tali isn't the standard "How I got my shipmate out of trouble" for this girl I spoke to - it's "How I taught Tali a lesson in dealing with consequences of her actions" which is a different story even if the game resource allocation doesn't change on account of it.

Having that narrative branching option is a part of how the player then is Interactive in creating the narrative.

Now, a lack of devotion of resources (voice acting budget springs to mind, as does motion capture cost, etc.) to the modules that compose the overarching narrative (or "main plot") causing consequences like fully diversified endings hampers the potential of this format for now, but it is my hope that positive feedback and devotion of the fans of this format will encourage the business decision of exploring it more fully. I mean - yeah we all scoff at the fan fiction community and swear we're not part of it and wouldn't even look at it but? c'mon - there are REAMS of testimony to how involved in the narrative some players have become that they want to spin off it, extend it, and tinker with it themselves beyond the gameplay realm.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

snip

Bioware have nothing truly to offer video game narrative, or even literature if the Mass Effects were books. They are simply boring and bland with cookie cutter "writing", I like to compare them to the authors who write romance books en masse or composers of entertaining music like Johann Strauss and other composers of little Waltzes or Polkas or other such light music. It's simply inconsequential and easily forgotten in the annals of history. (the enduring popularity of Johann Strauss doesn't say anything about his skills as a serious composer, just his abilities of mass appeal like Bioware's)

Tali's quests are inconsequential even within the narrative of the Mass Effects although there is the bit about the Quarians and Geth and how you can't do it when she's dead, and that's great, but that's just a one-time fluke. And even then the Quarian and Geth thing goes nowhere. Her trial is completely arbitrary to the game as a whole and even to her as a character. The only credit I give Bioware is their ability to semi-decently build worlds, but then they fail to populate that world with meaning.

The other things you explain is equally true of books and movies. You don't perceive Tali any differently no matter what you do, because she's the same character always. You just perceive her one way because you see her filtered through the lens that is you and your friend sees her filtered through her.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Best example of interactivity being ingrained into the story would be Brothers: A tale of Two Sons. It's got some wonky mechanics to learn at first but it really makes it feel like you are guiding them on your journey. However it's not the control scheme that makes it so special, it's how they use it in the game, each brother is controlled by one analog stick and the trigger button on that side. To tell you how they use it would spoil the entire game, but if you don't really want to play it see the spoiler below.

Spoiler

At the end of the game you climb the tree to get the antidote but just before that your other brother got injured and stayed behind so you are only using half of the controller. Once you return down from the tree you see your brother dead and have to bury him using just that brothers half of the control scheme. You return to your house on a griffin ride and find yourself at the start, where you needed your older brother to swim across the river (little brother lost his mom in water so is scared of swimming) so when you reach that point your holding in the trigger for the little brother and trying to move but you can't. Once you press the older buttons trigger in you can suddenly move. It shows that his older brother is in his heart and that he can continue on, there are maybe 1-2 more things you do alone that you needed both to do and then the game ends. But man those last few sequences were powerful. It used gameplay to invoke a change in the little brother no other medium could replicate. You really felt like he had grown stronger. A great game and worth every penny despite it's 2-3 hour run.

THIS. This is how stories in games should be told. Through interactivity.

OT: Here is a simple test - if I can watch a playthrough on YouTube, and my experience with the narrative is the same as when I actually play the game, then it's not a story worth praise, IMO.

Halo:Reach's ending is kinda fantastic in that way.

 

[Avaholic03]

I don't really have time right now to answer the whole question. But I will say that I think the exploration of the interactivity of video games has only scratched the surface. There's a lot more that can be done than simply telling a story, as always it just depends on the game creators to involve the player in new and interesting ways.

Can they bring about a new intellectual and societal movement?

I would argue that, at least in some circles, they have already.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

snip

Bioware have nothing truly to offer video game narrative, or even literature if the Mass Effects were books. They are simply boring and bland with cookie cutter "writing", I like to compare them to the authors who write romance books en masse or composers of entertaining music like Johann Strauss and other composers of little Waltzes or Polkas or other such light music. It's simply inconsequential and easily forgotten in the annals of history. (the enduring popularity of Johann Strauss doesn't say anything about his skills as a serious composer, just his abilities of mass appeal like Bioware's)

Tali's quests are inconsequential even within the narrative of the Mass Effects although there is the bit about the Quarians and Geth and how you can't do it when she's dead, and that's great, but that's just a one-time fluke. And even then the Quarian and Geth thing goes nowhere. Her trial is completely arbitrary to the game as a whole and even to her as a character. The only credit I give Bioware is their ability to semi-decently build worlds, but then they fail to populate that world with meaning.

The other things you explain is equally true of books and movies. You don't perceive Tali any differently no matter what you do, because she's the same character always. You just perceive her one way because you see her filtered through the lens that is you and your friend sees her filtered through her.

I think we're working on different definitions. You seem to be focusing on the ability to direct the story where I am limiting myself to a basic level of being able to interact with the story and engage it from different angles.

I don't think we're anywhere near actual story direction from the player's side technologically, philosophically, or financially. It is still very much a medium of a story being issued by the creators to an audience and allowing them no more say in it's narrative than non-consequential modules within the main-narrative. Far from a build-your-own narrative with these elements provided approach that would permit actual construction and direction by the player.

Which is not entirely a bad thing either. I mean, more interactivity and even some direction would be enjoyable for me as a player, personally, but I'm not sure about the majority opinion on that course of development. There are still many many players who seem to prefer being issued a narrative through which they play and are told a story that they do not modulate themselves - look at the popularity of The Last of Us which permits virtually no player agency outside of level-navigation tactics in gameplay.

Additionally, there's an argument to be made (though I'm not sure I'd be the one to make it) for the idea that a medium to strongly structured main narrative is an essential element of a video game as a piece of art or literature that's been created for an audience - rather than a LEGO type product tool-kit for end-user creations.

 

[Callate]

The current state of video games is still largely dependent on the patterns of other media for narrative structure. Either one extended movie-like tale or a branching structure that amounts to multiple versions of a similar tale. Interactivity shapes how the player engages with the game, but is frequently an illusion as far as how much actual impact the player will have on the "world"; the player may have the option of one ending, or two, or six, but when the conclusion is reached, the player will see what the game's writers wrote for them to see, and whether the player opened a particular door or killed a particular enemy will ultimately be irrelevant.

Many of these experiences are very well-written and envisioned. I don't mean to belittle them; I've had very real emotional responses to such games, and some have had an impact on changing the way people think about video games. Yet a part of me thinks that those changes are mostly along the lines of thinking about video games in a comparatively favorable way versus movies or books, not about how the structures and experiences of video games are or could be different than those other media.

At present, embracing interactivity and non-linearity means embracing ways games are alien from other media. A game like Minecraft simply doesn't have an end, and the story is what the player chooses for it to be. An old game called Shogun on the C-64 charged the player with becoming Shogun by gaining twenty of the forty or so characters as followers, but left how those followers were obtained up to the player- offering them bribes, beating them into submission, assassinating the lord they were currently following, etc. It was a very, very crude simulator of a social web, but with the exception of perhaps a few games like The Sims, I haven't seen many games that made serious attempts to engage such a thing, even at a similarly abstract level.

I've harped on the point perhaps to the point of tedium, but I suspect that fostering a more unique sense of interactivity is going to fall upon independent game developers. In pursuing blockbuster-level profits (made necessary by AAA games accruing blockbuster-level costs), the large publishers have largely locked themselves into creating products that share movies' DNA. With a burgeoning independent scene and the possibility of functional, low-cost Virtual Reality technology bringing new things to the playing field, however, I think there's a real possibility that video games will, in fact, start engaging players in new and unusual ways, ways that other media are less capable of emulating or likely to emulate. The player who feels they are in the middle of a world may resist being railroaded narratively in the way that a player who feels a sense of separation from their "avatar" does not.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

snip

A tightly structured narrative is not bad, quite the opposite and is the staple of *all* other arts, and it's not going to go anywhere ever. Video games have already proved that they can be a vehicle for thoughtful introspection and exploration of life with games like Knights of the Old Republic 2, System Shock 2 and Bioshock 1, Mask of the Betrayer (NWN2), Planescape Torment etc. And that's great. I'm sure there are going to be many more shining examples of this in the future, maybe some rivaling even the old masters of the arts and even produce something of immense artistic meaning and philosophical approach.

This is where the whole thing has a crisis though - in the only thing that makes video games what they are e.i interactivity and non-linearity. The comments and dialogues I'm trying to gouge is how these 2 unique features can be used to convey something that the other arts can't and that is what is important when we are talking about video games' interactivity and non-linearity.

I'm painfully aware that our technology isn't advanced enough to actually create your own narrative, but it's not that that is generally what I'm talking about or even the highest form of interactivity - quite the contrary it creates something unstructured and without form which can not be truly used to explore difficult questions.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

snip

A tightly structured narrative is not bad, quite the opposite and is the staple of *all* other arts and it's not going to go anywhere ever. Video games have already proved that they can be a vehicle for thoughtful introspection and exploration of life with games like Knights of the Old Republic 2, System Shock 2 and Bioshock 1, Mask of the Betrayer (NWN2), Planescape Torment etc. And that's great. I'm sure there are going to be many more shining examples of this in the future, maybe some rivaling even the old masters of the arts and even produce something of immense artistic meaning and philosophical approach.

This is where the whole thing has a crisis though - in the only thing that makes video games what they are e.i interactivity and non-linearity. The comments and dialogues I'm trying to gouge is how these 2 unique features can be used to convey something that the other arts can't and that is what is important when we are talking about video games' interactivity and non-linearity.

I'm painfully aware that our technology isn't advanced enough to actually create your own narrative, but it's not that that is generally what I'm talking about or even the highest form of interactivity - quite the contrary it creates something unstructured and without form which can not be truly used to explore difficult questions.

I'm not, actually, getting your idea. I'm not trying to be rude - just saying I'm having a harder time inferring your intentions than you might imagine. Could you clarify or elaborate?

Speaking to what I'm reading, what my current perception of it is now anyway, before clarification: I don't think video games can "be used to convey something that the other arts can't" at all. I think they convey the same things other arts do in a different way. I mean to say that there are no new motivations to create art of any kind simply because a new art has arisen. Engaging our cultural, political, religious, social, etc., etc., perspectives and concerns is still the goal of Art - in all its forms. You could certainly say that video games are just beginning to engage these or that they will have interesting things to say as they continue, but to speculate that they will find something entirely new to say or say something about something the other arts can't/haven't attempted to engage is an entirely separate issue from examining in what important ways video game's delivery of their narratives and the motives and concerns of those narratives to their audience are different from other methods used by other forms of art.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

snip

I meant the way in which video games convey meaning, not that they can be used to surpass other arts in their ability to explore themes that are impossible for them (other arts).

 

[MrDumpkins]

Best example of interactivity being ingrained into the story would be Brothers: A tale of Two Sons. It's got some wonky mechanics to learn at first but it really makes it feel like you are guiding them on your journey. However it's not the control scheme that makes it so special, it's how they use it in the game, each brother is controlled by one analog stick and the trigger button on that side. To tell you how they use it would spoil the entire game, but if you don't really want to play it see the spoiler below.

Spoiler

At the end of the game you climb the tree to get the antidote but just before that your other brother got injured and stayed behind so you are only using half of the controller. Once you return down from the tree you see your brother dead and have to bury him using just that brothers half of the control scheme. You return to your house on a griffin ride and find yourself at the start, where you needed your older brother to swim across the river (little brother lost his mom in water so is scared of swimming) so when you reach that point your holding in the trigger for the little brother and trying to move but you can't. Once you press the older buttons trigger in you can suddenly move. It shows that his older brother is in his heart and that he can continue on, there are maybe 1-2 more things you do alone that you needed both to do and then the game ends. But man those last few sequences were powerful. It used gameplay to invoke a change in the little brother no other medium could replicate. You really felt like he had grown stronger. A great game and worth every penny despite it's 2-3 hour run.

THIS. This is how stories in games should be told. Through interactivity.

OT: Here is a simple test - if I can watch a playthrough on YouTube, and my experience with the narrative is the same as when I actually play the game, then it's not a story worth praise, IMO.

Halo:Reach's ending is kinda fantastic in that way.

While I thought Halo 2 had the best campaign out of all the Halo series (knowing that 3 made up for the cliffhanger) Reach had by far the best ending. I was so positive I would survive but they just kept coming, once I died after like 10 minutes I was like damn I didn't get a checkpoint. When the end scenes started playing it hit me different. It didn't feel like you were watching an ending, but that you came to that ending because of your performance. It was great.

 

[Bad Jim]

Interactivity and narrative are opposing concepts unfortunately. Interactivity lets the player decide what happens. Narrative lets the dev team decide.

They only really come together in scenes like that one in Spec Ops: The Line. You know the one. If you don't, buy it and play it. I won't spoil it, except to say that it relies on the player deciding to do what the narrative demands. If the you do, then it touches you in a way that is impossible for passive media. Unfortunately, if you try to do something else and only follow the narrative when you realize you are being railroaded, it loses its' effect.