HOUSEKEEPING'S PROFILE

I was hoping Cash's post was sarcastic. I'm still hoping.

@Miz:

Golden Sun was terrible; the characters were boring, the systems all towed the line, the story was stock, and the puzzles were cool but too easy to be really enjoyable.

Metroid Fusion's the best game on that list, but Advance Wars has the most bang for your buck. I haven't played Wario 4, though, so no opinion on that one. Just, God, don't support Golden Sun. We can do BETTER than that.

author=RyaReisender
How exactly can you be against plot-twists, though?
I mean - the important thing is that you as a player want to know how the story continues, right? I mean unless you only play for gameplay.

The big question that needs to be answered here: what do I want from a story? For me, the answer is that I want to reflect--I want to see myself, humanity, and the world in a unique perspective. I want to see what other people value and understand why they value it. I want to see life through someone else's eyes. To do this, a writer has to develop characters that feel real and are grappling with relevant issues.

Now, when I think of plot twists, I think of pulling the rug out from under the player/reader/whatever. This is a parlor trick of fiction. This is "let's fuck with the player." Twists tend to fall into two traps: they're either so easy to predict that, when the twist occurs and you're supposed to be in awe, you just think, "I caught it, I'm smarter than the writer--I won" (I'm looking at you, Shutter Island) or they're so obtuse that there's no way you could have predicted it, and it feels like you've been cheated (I think most cases of last boss switcheroo are guilty of this).

That said, again, you can play with audience perception in interesting ways that are integral to the plot and further develop characters. I mentioned David Lynch in my last post because of Mulholland Drive, which has a very well-placed and effective twist. However, I say that I'm against plot twists because coming at writing with the explicit intent of creating a plot twist is a recipe for melodrama.

Edit: Man, you guys post fast, haha.

author=masterofmayhem
In fact one of the worst things you can do is have a twist for absolutely no other reason than to have a twist.

I've been avoiding saying anything in this topic because I really, really hate plot twists, and I know that a lot of people love them (if one more person tells me that Bioshock blew their mind I'm going to lose it). Like master of mayhem said, don't just go to your writing desk thinking, "I'm going to put such a SWEET twist in my game!" You're going to play with gamer expectations, so some twists are unavoidable and can add to the experience, but there's a difference between a game built around character development that uses a twist artfully and a game built around a premise in which the twist completely nullifies everything that's happened, e.g. the "it was all a dream" ending we all hate. Then again, David Lynch can play with dreams in a way that gives meaning to characters, so even that tired trope can work if handled deftly.