SHADOWTEXT'S PROFILE

Orson Scott Card, a famous science fiction writer whose Ender's Game is being made into a movie (and a couple of video games, apparently) has recently weighed in on stories in video games, and said something that goes contrary to a lot of thinking in the RPG Making Community:
"Games CAN'T have the kind of storylines that movies and books have, or they wouldn't be playable. You are correct to skip the tedious, badly written "scenes" that are usually a pathetic job of trying to paste story on top of a game."

Now like I said, a lot of us would probably get furious at this remark. But I'd like to provide a counterpoint and support what Card is saying here. Games are, at their hearts, an exercise in interactivity. The entire point of a game is to put someone into a situation, present them with rules and give them a goal. Sometimes they're competing against other people, sometimes they're competing against the computer, but it's basically always just a challenge to overcome. Anything that gets added on top of that is just garnish, so to speak. We add graphics so the player can see what he's doing, and sound to keep him from getting bored (and to help him get in the right mood, on occasion). And in recent years, stories have become a major part of that.

Now that's all well and good. Card isn't saying games shouldn't have any story, and I certainly wouldn't support him if he was. Stories can be very helpful for getting the player invested in the goal that's being presented, thus making the eventual goal that much more tantalizing.

The problem arises when the story becomes the driving force in the game. When the writer on a project becomes too tied up in a game's "canon" plot, and in forcing the players to go through the game in a certain way, the game begins to suffer and edge towards that unplayable situation Card has been talking about. Compounding that fact is that, even in the professional sphere, almost no games have really good writing. I can think of a handful--the Phoenix Wright series and the Lucasarts Adventure games come to mind pretty quick--but not very many. Most people who I see on the internet are not as good at writing as they think they are. I'm not trying to be mean here, but if you find yourself thinking "Well he's just talking about all those other people. They do suck!" It might not hurt to really examine your work. Get people outside of the community to read it....but be careful who you choose. A lot of people will just pretend to like it because they assume you're sensitive about your work (And a lot of people are. More than they think.), or they'll find some totally inconsequential thing to criticize because they assume it'll get them out of having to say anything that actually matters and might hurt your feelings, like "I think Soufflé would've been more entertaining if she had a French accent." (I speak from experience, here. It's one of my favorite tricks for commenting on other people's stuff.)

So anyway, yeah. If you're focusing on story, sit down and reassess your game. What are its strengths as a game? Why would people want to play it? Why does it work better as a game than a novel, or a film? Is my writing really good enough to make people trudge through it to get to the scraps of gameplay I'm willing to throw their way?

A few closing thoughts:
1.) Games that don't take themselves seriously often seem to be the ones that have the better writing. Phoenix Wright and the Lucasarts Adventure games, which I mentioned above fall under this heading, for example.
2.) This doesn't apply to machinima or whatever we decide to call those non-game film-y-thingies made in gaming engines like RPG Maker. Probably Visual Novels don't count either, since they're barely even games to begin with.
3.) I encourage discourse here. I know this is likely to be a somewhat controversial stand for me to make, so I fully expect arguments. Make them, but make them good!

The full text of the Orson Scott Card interview can be found here, by the way: http://news.filefront.com/gaming-todays-exclusive-interview-with-author-orson-scott-card/

Yeah, but not YOUR nudity, Sei. No fatties.

I think it's obvious that a decent review needs at the very minimum 12 words. Unless they submit it in haiku form, in which case there should be no minimum.

Réve is full of angst
And Sei has worked hard, too bad
It won't be finished.

My haiku had sixteen, so it would work either way.

author=The Real Brickroad link=topic=50.msg666#msg666 date=1181932617

author=Shadowtext link=topic=50.msg665#msg665 date=1181932144
And even though the personalities stay roughly the same, I'm not sure whether or not they're supposed to be the same Gilgamesh. But it'd be pretty awesome if it was.

Gilgamesh gets the ability to transcend universes from his desire to own every fruity-looking sword in existence.

Man, I have that desire too! Why can't I transcend universes?

Is my desire just not STRONG enough?!

Would they count as machinima? Or does that term only apply to 3D movies made in game engines?

The presentation being so much more minimal than those, if "machinima" doesn't work, maybe you could call it minimachinima! Not only is it a DOUBLE portmanteau, but it's also very funny to say out loud.