Gaming World Forums
Creativity => Game Design & Demos => Topic started by: The One on February 03, 2010, 01:44:13 pm
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I'd like to hear all your opinions on this. I thought we had a topic like this before, but because I cannot find it I thought I would make a new one.
What is your opinion of a narrative story in a game? Is it necessary? Is it more important then the gameplay or not?
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most games: not really, but it helps a lot.
rpgs: yes it is pretty much essential, really
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dwarf fortress.
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dwarf fortress is a game where you make up your own stories tho ;D
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i'm not really sure what this topic is asking. it's never essential. it's up to the people making the game to decide how much they want some sort of story to propel the type of experience they're trying to make.
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Personally, I'm tired of narration, background or whatnot I like it to be shown through moving graphics and dialogue.. However being creative on narrating so it would be interesting would be cool as well, there are games like that.
wait, is that what you meant by narrative story? or is this about linearty of plot
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Well, if you look at Square's games for example. Dialogue dialogue dialogue. Is it all really necessary or could it do with less text and more gameplay? If you look at different games such as roleplaying games or flash games, which is more enjoyable? Flash games usually don't have great stories but they do have fun / addicting gameplay. Does that make a game better then a game with a good story?
I suppose, the big question is... Which is more important for a game? A deepgoing story or fun gameplay?
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We've had this topic before, and it all boils down to the fact that it depends on the game. Some games can pull off being entirely story-driven, some can pull off having no story at all, some can't do either properly. There is no answer to this question.
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if you are asking this question, though, your game probably does not need a story
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if you are asking this question, though, your game probably does not need a story
This is pretty true, if you're looking for an excuse to not have a story you shouldn't bother.
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dwarf fortress is a game where you make up your own stories tho ;D
Emergent narrative as opposed to an embedded narrative. :fogetcool:
I mean, this is a subject that interest me a lot and I could spend a long time quoting books, texts, and master thesis on the subject but I'll cut it short.
Every game is more or less narrative. The difference is between, like I said earlier, emergent and embedded narrative. Like other people said, it all depends on the kind of game you are making. RPGs and other story driven game will need (as a general rule) a bigger narrative drive to get the player going and invested in the game world you created. On the other hand, a puzzle game probably won't need a strong embedded narrative to get you playing, it's more about the system of rules, the gameplay. The experience you are having and that you will be retelling is the emergent narrative, it's your experience with the game as an object. Depending on the genre and the gameplay, you need to gauge how much of the player's experience will come from either type.
After that, we can go and look at how we can pass that embedded narrative, be it through cinematographic language with the use of cut-scenes, through the environment (a good example is the iPhone game Spider) and the use of space (one of my ideas for my master thesis), or through gameplay as some more experimental games tried to do.
This is a more complicated issue than what you think. It's more than a story of "have it or not", it's about how to do it while using what the videoludic and the cinematic (since movies can be integrated in games) language.
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Emergent narrative as opposed to an embedded narrative. :fogetcool:
I mean, this is a subject that interest me a lot and I could spend a long time quoting books, texts, and master thesis on the subject but I'll cut it short.
man can you recommend me some books/websites/essays/whatever on this because this is a cool subject
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man can you recommend me some books/websites/essays/whatever on this because this is a cool subject
There's a bunch but I'll start by pimping my University a bit :fogetcool:
Dominic Arsenault's Master's Thesis (http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/374/masters_thesis_narration_in_the_.php) (and a bunch of other amazing thesis on that website)
Video Game Theory Reader 1 (http://www.amazon.com/Video-Game-Theory-Reader/dp/0415965799/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265236674&sr=8-1) and 2 (http://www.amazon.com/Video-Game-Theory-Reader/dp/0415962838/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265236674&sr=8-2), both edited in part and with texts by Bernard Perron, one of my teacher.
Avatars of Story (http://www.amazon.com/Avatars-Story-Electronic-Mediations-Marie-Laure/dp/0816646864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265236830&sr=1-1) by Marie-Laure Ryan
Game Design Fundamentals (http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265236882&sr=1-1) By Salen and Zimmerman. That book is a fucking bible of game design and touches the subject of narration in video games. It was, like Ryan's book, on the narratology side during the academic debate a few years ago between narratology and ludology in video games.
Half-Real (http://www.amazon.com/Half-Real-Video-between-Fictional-Worlds/dp/0262101106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265237042&sr=1-1) by Jesper Juul for the ludology side of the argument.
As for websites, there's a few good blog posts on the subject that come up at Critical Distance (http://www.critical-distance.com/) once in a while. And for a more academic website, you can always dig through Game Studies (http://gamestudies.org/).
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What's videoludic mean?
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I'll definitely read through those, thanks man.
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What's videoludic mean?
It's another term for video games, often used in academic researches.
Also The One, your question is weird. By saying "Is a narrative story important in a game", it implies that there are non-narrative stories, which is an oxymoron.
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I think by narrative story he meant one with characters and progression over the course of the game as opposed to something like YOUR HOME IS INVADED BY THE DEADLY ZORG DESTROY AL THE BLOCKS TO WIN in the topic or something.
I am pretty indifferent to the emergent/embedded thing (although I do wish people would see it as always being something of a compromise rather than write off anything linear or embedded as just trying to be a movie). I wrote an article about it for the mainsite once that got cited in some dude's term paper on the metal gear solid series (!!!).
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I am pretty indifferent to the emergent/embedded thing (although I do wish people would see it as always being something of a compromise rather than write off anything linear or embedded as just trying to be a movie). I wrote an article about it for the mainsite once that got cited in some dude's term paper on the metal gear solid series (!!!).
Well yeah. Mario and Zelda both have a pretty linear progression and but they do not try to be movies because they focus on gameplay over story. Maybe less on the latest Zelda games but that's another story.emergent/embedded has little to do with being or not like a movie. It's more about the delivery of the narrative.
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We've had this topic before, and it all boils down to the fact that it depends on the game. Some games can pull off being entirely story-driven, some can pull off having no story at all, some can't do either properly. There is no answer to this question.
Mm yeah this is pretty much the conclusion I came to as well. I guess if you buy Mario you're not expecting an epic story, and if you buy Final Fantasy you're not expecting to be dropped somewhere and told "Go save the princess".
The thing is my teacher gametheory asked me to find out other people's opinions on the subject, so I just started a topic here.
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What's videoludic mean?
It's another term for video games, often used in academic researches.
i pprefer the academic term "vidcon" myself
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Mm yeah this is pretty much the conclusion I came to as well. I guess if you buy Mario you're not expecting an epic story, and if you buy Final Fantasy you're not expecting to be dropped somewhere and told "Go save the princess".
The thing is my teacher gametheory asked me to find out other people's opinions on the subject, so I just started a topic here.
Out of curiosity, what's your teacher's background.
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Show, don't tell. The golden rule of storytelling.
I find that good character building is often the key factor towards moving the plot forward succesfully in RM-type games.
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Out of curiosity, what's your teacher's background.
Also gamedesign, he said his role in designing games is also mainly writing story and dialogue, which is why we were on this subject in the first place.
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There's a bunch but I'll start by pimping my University a bit :fogetcool:
Dominic Arsenault's Master's Thesis (http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/374/masters_thesis_narration_in_the_.php) (and a bunch of other amazing thesis on that website)
Tried this link, but I can't seem to open the PDF version of this guy's work (it doesn't load, is it a huge file?). Hopefully it's just a case of bad connection and not some virus..?
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Tried this link, but I can't seem to open the PDF version of this guy's work (it doesn't load, is it a huge file?). Hopefully it's just a case of bad connection and not some virus..?
It opens in Foxit Reader, which is a freeware PDF viewer:
http://download.cnet.com/Foxit-Reader/3000-10743_4-10313206.html?part=dl-116442&subj=dl&tag=button
And I scanned the PDF with Avira and MalwareBytes; it's not a virus.