/lit/ - Literature

Video games are an inherently poor medium for storytelling. As their stories get more involved, they become less and less like games.

>>868331

That might be the case today. It'd be nice to find innovative ways to break through limitations, i.e, scripted events or speech.

>>868333
Metal Gear mean anything to you

>>868331
I point you to Shadow of the Colossus.

>>868335

It's the next best step. This is good: Go from here. Is it better to focus on world and setting or to have a storyline and dialogue with numerous outcomes and possibilities that deliver something fresh and intriguing each time?

>>868336
SotC: best story, very few words.

from what I've seen, there is basically 3 ways to tell an interesting story in a videogame:
- long cutscenes
- long screens of text
- small fragments and clues everywhere about the story being told

From these 3 approaches, I fin the third the most interesting.
VG are all about interaction and entertainment... if I'm going to just see a cutscene after a cutscene, I'd be better watching a movie. If I'm reading loads of text on a screen, I'd be better reading a book.
So, for me, stories in VG aren't to be 'told'. but 'figured out' by the user while playing. Give them plenty of clues and fragments of the story, but keep some of them out of the players reach... and you can create a great game.

>>868337

I think it's better to focus on the world, as the latter forces limitations today towards production costs, and companies have to take shortcuts that ultimately feels half-assed.

Warhammer games have a good story

>>868347

nicely put. That's the way I like to play games. It's like TV is passive, but games are active. The Story in a book is given to you. The story in a game is something else for the player to create - or it should be, rather than final fantasy type linear movie stuff.

That said, I did enjoy the Resident Evil remake for GC. Haunted mansion, old documents. Horror Genre worked well. And SystemShock was great too, best FPS ever. And Fallout3, cos the world was so huge, and you had to piece the story together yourself.

Planescape: Torment is yet to be surpassed when it comes to stories in video games (and honestly, it's looking less and less likely to be topped every year). More writers should look to it for inspiration - especially in regards to how some of the sections were told. The memory gem scene utilized the medium so perfectly - they pulled off something that would be impossible in any other medium. Torment is, in many ways, the Watchmen of the video game world.

>>868371

>Planescape: Torment is yet to be surpassed when it comes to stories in video games

And yet it's still no better than a mediocre fantasy novel.

>>868371
>Implying watchmen isn't self indulgent childish nonsense

>>868378
>implying video games aren't self indulgent childish nonsense

Portal is perhaps the best case of storytelling in a game. It is remarkable in that it never gives up being a game in order to tell its story: there are no cutscenes, no log files you have to read, nothing like that. However, Passage, being entirely non-verbal, might be an even better example of pure story-thru-gameplay. See http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/ for details.

>>868395
>Pretentious hipster faggot

>>868314

You're only evaluating one aspect of video games. Consider researching game theory. Further, focus on scholarly debates over the idea of "play".

Video games are a different art medium than literature, so don't pair apples with oranges.

Do we evaluate graphic novels the same way we read literature? No.

>>868397
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Portal fan, but Portal isn't /lit/. Braid would be a better example of a /lit/ game that is still a game.

[Final Fantasy]

Final Fantasy

>>868408
Comics and manga are exactly the same as literature except for the fact instead of descriptions they have drawings. To me they are the superior medium, so much detail can be hidden in the background

>>868409
The thing is that, by my theory, a /lit/ game or a /tv/ game (i.e., the cutscene-heavy type) is not a good case of _game_ storytelling. Portal is great precisely because it avoids the trap of imitating a medium it's not.

Text frames the Braid experience in a key way. While I like the result, I can't really deem that a success for games themselves.

>>868415
0/10

Depends how much effort and money the developers/producers are willing to put in.

Problem is, there's not much money in brilliant video game story-telling the same way there is for, say, a strong multi-player mode.

Art is, and will be for the foreseeable future, a sideshow in video gaming. Making video games is just too expensive in time, money, people, and so forth for stuff like literary brilliance to really be explored and developed.

>>868433
there's always indie

>See http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/ for details.

What is the point of this?

>>868433

That and some people fall into a narcoleptic coma if they don't have at least 5 aliens worth of blood on their screen at any given point.

Items with some deeper artistic meaning are going to struggle to do well in an environment like that. That isn't to say that it isn't possible, its just way fucking harder than making Yet_Another_Generic_FPS_Game_That_Is_A_Direct_Ripoff_Of_COD4.exe

also... fuck cant find the comparison shot. Modern Warfare 2 and 2 other games released recently. They are so similar it's hard to tell the difference, especially with the HUD disabled.

Don't get me wrong, I love my FPS games, but adding some deep artistic meaning to them can be difficult at best.

>>868457
I think you've get it if you play it through. Just don't give up. It only five minutes.

>>868457
I think you'll get it if you play it through. Just don't give up. It only takes five minutes.

>>868470

Know, I did play it through. Is there any actual... game, here? I just walked to the right for five minutes. The characters meet, get old, and die. And that's neat, I guess, but it's not really much of a game.

>>868474

>No*

Oops.

Wonderful. A discussion!

Today's games are all wrong in how they approach storytelling. Chris Crawford's writings really drive this point home.

I'd suggest that you either read
http://www.erasmatazz.com/page78/page31/page303/page311/DragonSpeech.html
or listen to his original "dragon speech" at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_04PLBdhqZ4

>>868474
It is a game and your choices shape the character's "life". To me it was really obvious after a few play-throughs and I'd suggest that playing until you get it is a more rewarding way to understand the game, but if you want it explained just read the author's statement (http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/statement.html).).

>>868347
You forgot about telling the story in the manual......alot of old game you didn't realise had a story till you flicked through the manual years later

up

>>868314
>Q: What is your view, and how can these be improved, based on our experiences from Greek tragedies to e.g, ICO.
You want better storylines in games? Write to the big companies and tell them you want something more than the formulaic shit they keep selling people.

>>868736

No, not "better" per say, just a more merged experience for the player without the necessary use of cut scenes or dialog. How it can be innovating.

OP here.

Don't overlook the provided criteria, people.

>>868347

I've always loved that third approach. Metroid Prime does an excellent job with this. And you don't even have to read all of it, it's just there for those who want it. Lost Odyssey also does a good job with this, you can read all those memories or not depending on your preference. If you want to read them, there's a hell of a lot there.

Shadow of the Colossus has already been mentioned.

Final Fantasy Tactics is my favorite fantasy novel.

Story isn't necessarily the problem in today's games - it's how to get the player to feel involved with the game beyond the level of "I guess that means I kill the bad guy now". I think GTAIV had the right idea - get the player emotionally invested in the characters around them and then introduce decisions that have an impact on the in-game world.

is there a final fantasy tactics (classic) port for anything besides ps1? such a pain trying to play it

>Q: What is your view, and how can these be improved, based on our experiences from Greek tragedies
Linear plots are generally the only way to create a straight drama, but it is very tricky because if it's too linear then the player is alienated. Gameplay type also has a strong influence on how a designer may tell a plot.

Use psychology tricks. I remember seeing a student game where the player is continually greets the character when he performs an action, no big deal. This happens about six times. When on the seventh time the player performs the action and the character does not appear, there is a feeling of loss- emphasized by a change in scenery and some other stuff.

This brings me to a point, you should not be trying to force drama directly/narrowly on a audience too much as a designer, because you run the risk of alienating players who will feel the action is forced. Good game drama often happens in real-time on the screen, but with things like this you must be careful not to distract the player.

But the tendency by developers to emphasize open-ended "plots" that do not force the player to do anything also is a bit of a pitfall. The player may simply never create drama in a plot while playing- it will be utterly meaningless, and as a result designers focus more on material aspects to try and make it more interesting for the player when in fact they could have simply reworked the plot a bit and had something far better even with all the material extras.

Drama in the theatre relies as much on tense execution as on plot. You should always consider this when creating something. But in a game, the additional factor of congruency with gameplay must be considered.

>>868840
> How does the player become part of the immersion
Real-time events in combination with cutscenes create immersion, but this must be used in moderation. A game saturated with dialogue which forces the player to pause every 2 minutes or so for 3 minutes of dialogue is not too fun.

>how can freedom adapt to a sense of rewarding irresponsibility through actions and progression without being tied down by scripted events.
Freedom is not really free if players are rewarded. It is a balancing act really, player freedom vs. storyline. If you want a feeling of irresponsibility not tired to scripted events, you’ll have to rely on player feelings of morality- but this is very loose ground for gameplay.
/opinion

Because of the nature of games, it's difficult not to be tied down to scripted events.

If you have an assload of scripted events, though, you can give a slight illusion of an actual world you're free to interact with and shape. See Mass Effect. The number of possible paths through this game is enormous. It allows you to create the main character for yourself, while developing the other characters through their reactions to you. It really does a fantastic job of this, in my eyes.

Still need to play ME2 and Dragon Age, but I'd bet they're very similar.

>>868839

Play the PSP remake, it's better.

There are only three ways that the old version has anything over the new one:

1. Battle Quotes "Raze all greenery with flame!" and all that. I miss them, why did they take them out?
2. A slight lag issue. Barely noticeable, at least to me.
3. Nostalgia.

The Lion War's cutscenes are gorgeous, the battle is re-balanced, there're new classes, a far superior translation (no one telling you to kill people you're actually supposed to save and all), and you can take it with you wherever you go.

I'm bumping this because I find the subject interesting. I see no reason why games can;t become a respectable media, and don't see why they haven't yet.

I mean, I guess it took comics a while, but I figured we had learned our lesson.

>I'm bumping this because I find the subject interesting. I see no reason why games can;t become a respectable media, and don't see why they haven't yet.

>I mean, I guess it took comics a while, but I figured we had learned our lesson.


Like the retarded gaptooth morons who clapped at MOVENG PACTURS, most gamers today are idiots who only want to shoot each other in simulated enviroments

>>868977
>implying motion picture did not grow to become a respectable medium even with the hollywood bullshit

0/10, a little less arrogance would suit you nicely

>>869002
>implying post-70s Hollywood hasn't completely abolished any semblance of artistic value from film

>>868977
this is true.

>>869018
>implying 70's hollywood isn't fuckawesome
>implying hollywood is the only place that makes films

>>869044
>I have the reading comprehension of a toddler

>>869051
>implying you have the reading comprehension of a toddler.

[Jumping off the trolo-coaster]

>>869044
Who's this pink guy I keep seeing everywhere?

>>869093

Iron Giant

>>869093
He's /mu/.

ITT: pretentious assholes who think books are the only way to tell a story.

Sure, only a few games take advantage of a game's interactive medium to create an interesting story, but when it does, it's pretty brilliant. Its a new art form, it'll take some time to really perfect. Especially when people keep buying horrible games.
Imagine if, instead of Dostoyevsky, 90% of readers read Forgotten Realms or something. It's kinda like that.

You guys should try Passage or Braid before you say a game can't have a good story. Even without dialogue. Passage is the Kafka of games.

>>869202
Have you actually read this thread? Passage has been mentioned as one of the few cases of successful video game-specific storytelling.

>>869202
i enjoy games and gimmicky crumbs of stories as much as you do, but let's not pretend that most of them are not products of crass commercialisation

if you are going to mention japan i will strangle a cute bunny

>>869202
it appears that gamers are terribly insecure about their pastime

>>869215

Well I mean yeah, it's basically de rigeur to earn quick, cheap internet "intellectual" cred by hating on them

(which kind of disgusts me, because I think that shit should be harder than just yelling "nerds" and waiting for applause)

>>868408

Not the guy you were talking to, but I recently started reading a bit of game theory, seeing what was up. I was unimpressed. I've just finished an English degree at a good university; I had to read a lot of theory, criticism and academic writing. Some of it was good, some of it was bad, some of it was simply uninteresting. But I had never encountered any grounding for the idea that crit is just jargon and buzzwords manipulated in fashionable formations without content or argument. Never, that is, until I read game criticism.

So far, it has been, by and large, kind of crap. Can anyone make recommendations or illuminate/summarise the key critical debates?

>>869234
>game theory
>unimpressed

>>869234
About the only interesting debate around there:
http://www.insertcredit.com/wiki/ludology_vs._narratology
>>869233
That _is_ sad, but it's not like gamers aren't helping it.

>>869246
i dont think they are talking about game theory, as in, you know, the math

>>869254
Why not, though?

>>869264
Cause it's pretty hard to find a Pareto optimum for TF2.

Metal Gear Solid 2's codec sequences.

>>869271

Then maybe you'll need to try harder.

I don't play vidya for story, I play it for action.

>>869358

good for you

>>868418


I can't read

There was nothing more soul-crushing in a video game than finding out what the shadows you've been fighting in ICO really are. There were no words at that scene, and yet it was the most depressing moment in a video game ever.

bump

>>869407
But how does that compare to a good movie?

Any story longer than 2 lines deters from the game. RPG are my favourite genre and they are simply too long to have a cohesive sensible plot. Overall the story in them is terrible but this does not mean they have their moments.

>>872235
don't have their moments.

I seems that tragedy of the form modern video games have taken that it makes any effort to tell a story detrimental to the game itself. New forms of gameplay that would benefit from storytelling must be invented and/or popularized in order to have this changed.

>>868314
Well, I'm certainly on board with your pic OP. ICO is the perfect example of a game/story that works. All other games with a story are worse and the vast majority are just plain bad. GoW, for example, is a piece of shit and each sequel is the same shit molded into a different form and consistency but its still shit.

I don't trust game developers to handle a plot well.

bump, again

Some arthouse games sacrifice gameplay in order to deliver their content in a certain way. The Path and Passage were alot like this. Some people rage at it for not being fun, but I guess it's a certain kind of fun not everyone loos for in games. Some have fantastic story but supbar mechanics that often alienate players. Arcanum and Pathologic were like this, though at least progressing in Arcanum didn't feel like a chore you had to do to progress the plot.
Loved, Psychomnium, The Majesty of Colours, You Only Live Once and similar games are like one shot experiments, a few stanzas of poetry, and for a short experience many work really well.
So sure, a fantastic game might balance between gameplay and artistic expression, a brilliant game would USE mechanics for artistic expression, which only really seems to happen slightly and incidentally from what I've seen.

I always liked how Bioshock and System Shock 2 molded their plots. I actually cringed a couple of times during them both, especially at the mad doctor NO DOCTOR STOP CUTTING.

I'm curious though, what are /lit/'s favorite games? Sorry if I'm derailing the thread, but I'd love to know. To keep it on topic state how your favorite game delivered its plot.

Rockstar games in particular leads the way in 'sandbox' open ended games. GTA 1-4 certainly broke ground for the latest incarnation of stunning open ended play. 'Red Dead Redemption'.

>>874677
>Some arthouse games sacrifice gameplay in order to deliver their content in a certain way. The Path and Passage were alot like this. Some people rage at it for not being fun, but I guess it's a certain kind of fun not everyone loos for in games. Some have fantastic story but supbar mechanics that often alienate players. Arcanum and Pathologic were like this, though at least progressing in Arcanum didn't feel like a chore you had to do to progress the plot.

I'm sorry but the Path was just bad. It's main flaw was simply because it was a game with no action, no puzzle-solving, no little plot details for the player to find out, it was simply Point A-B with nothing inbetween. I'm pretty sure that if it was written in a less interactive format, say as a book or a little arthouse movie, then it would have conveyed a sense of tragedy much better.

>>874712
Bioshock, TF2, Guilty Gear XX ^ Core RELOAD, Left 4 Dead, Braid. Those are some of my favorites

>>874726
The Path was the most miserably pretentious game I've ever played in my life.

>>874739
>The Path was the most miserably pretentious game I've ever played in my life.

I think you mean the Graveyard, made by the same developer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Graveyard_(video_game)

It's both boring and shallow, all while putting on airs of being artistic. Durr hurr the path is the path of life, fuck even a 5 year old could figure that out.

wow, almost 100 replies and no one's mentioned catharsis yet. /lit/, i am disappoint.

>>874677
"Loved" was the only game you mention that I haven't heard of or played before. Now that I've finished it a few times I can say that it's pretty interesting but suffers from the common ailment of 'artistic' indie games: the relationship between the theme (i.e., obedience & freedom vs. love) and the mechanics is not one of mutual reinforcement. That is to say, while interactivity is fundamental to this kind of exploration of the theme (justifying "Loved" being a game in a satisfying way), I can't say same for the particular kind of gameplay chosen. I understand that a platforming game is easy to program and seems to be the default for the indie community nowadays, but does the kind of choice mechanism employed for "Loved" work best in a platformer? I don't see that.
>>874762
Coundn't find it. Where can I play it?

>>874712

dragon age, pokemon, ddr, and jrpgs.

>>874712

The Longest Journey, Dreamfall, Fable, and Mass Effect 2.

>>875867
>Dreamfall
>my face when Faith fades away

also, I'm surprised nobody but you's mentioned Tornquist's games

>>875878
forgot pic

DERP

>>875878

I'm a big fan, that's why. And most people don't like point and click puzzle games like TLJ.

>>874762
Funnily enough, "catharsis" was the first word to pop into my head.

Except that, video game players are generally very BAD at being anything that the player can sympathize with. We understand that they have problems; but they never feel like OUR problems.

>>868314
I think this depends on your perspective. The actual 'story' that a video game tells is different from it's 'storyline' and in many cases very different. I'll point you to Halo. Before you laugh, think about this: The world of Halo is about what you would find in any other run of the mill scifi thriller novel. But the 'story' in Halo is a story about the player, a story of you. The storyline makes no allusion to the time you ran out of ammo, wrecked your warthog, and took down that last phantom with a plasma nade, or to the Brute that beat the shit out of you, etc. Video games are a different kind of entertainment that is focused squarely in a viewpoint that lit can't seem to even compare, 2nd person narrative.

>>874762
Ha ha, so much did I not expect the term "catharsis" to be used in this discussion that I actually thought it was a name of a video game.

On a semi-related note, why are indie game developers so fucked up? I mean, look.

>>876397

Think about all the time they have to invest just to make some mediocre sidescroller. The job is tailor-made for creepy shut-ins.

>>876420
But almost any artistic accomplishment requires prolonged periods of solitary work. How come writers don't usually turn out this bad?

Here are some of the top of my head. Note that I'm kind of disillusioned with the current generation, both on the account of me not owning a current gen system (lol, poverty) and my general distaste of the current trends in gaming.

-Alpha Centauri: It's like playing trough the best hard-sci-fi series never written.

-The Gabriel Knight series: Like playing trough an a-class thriller horror novel. The first two were transcribed almost verbatim into novel format and they worked, so lit related.

-Planescape: Torment: Lol, fantasy can' be art.

-The Secret of Monkey Island and its two sequels: The first two were brilliant dark but humorous takes on the pirate genre (Insult Sword Fighting written by Orson Scott Card himself in the first) and the third one played like the best Saturday morning cartoon ever written. Avoid Escape like the plague. Play Tales only if you're already a fan.

-X-Com: Not even the X-Files could match its success at conveying Paranoia and dread.

-Syberia 1&2: Sad that these rarely get a mention. Absolutely beautiful and better than The Longest Journey series which I also like.

-Shadow of Memories/Destiny: The storyline is a bit clunky due to localization/interface issues but you got to love a game that channels Goethe's Faust.

-Scratches: That terrifying point-and-clicker Lovecraft never wrote. See also: Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder

>>876430
>The Gabriel Knight series: Like playing trough an a-class thriller horror novel
Oh, come on!

>>876397
He looks pretty normal to me, even if overweight. Could have been a picture of a musician or a novelist for all I know. Point is, it takes all sorts to make creative things. Some look like models, others like manchildren.
Pic related.

>>876435
...adapted into a cheesy tv-series.
I'm sorry, but the games/novels are FUN and Jensen did more research for them that 10 Dan Browns in 10 different vatican libraries.

>>876443
Look at the name. It's a she.

boomp

video games and literature are two totally different mediums although they're both art imo.

video games have story, visuals, music and gameplay. everything is given to you as with movies. with good literature when an author describes a "blond girl with brown eyes with tanned skin" you're not seeing what the author saw when writing it. that sentence appeals to your memory or idea of such a person. when people read that description the character will be slightly different to all and thus more personal. literature appeals to your brain to create the images and sounds. and moreso taste, touch and other emotions that can't be showed visually.

this is why literature is a stronger medium for art IMO than video games, movies and television.

>>876451
I only read Sins of the Fathers, and tbh it felt a little bit too much like reading a walkthrough to the game. All those obtuse puzzles so typical of point-and-click adventures don't carry well into prose, so if they're all translated this literally I'd rather actually be playing the games (you even get Tim Curry being a dick for an added bonus)

>>876397
Toady one is mai waifu.

>>868408
Half Life series?

>>868361
As does Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

>>876430
>and my general distaste of the current trends in gaming.

As you should be, it's shit.

>>869264
Who is that?

>browsing /v/
>get bored
>come to /lit/
>see a thread about /v/
>have to look back up at the top of the page to make sure I'm on /lit/
>wat

>>876720
>Realize every other board can discuss video games far better then /v/
>/v/ is just the halfway house for people going from /b/ to the other boards/chans
>This will never change
Feels bad man.jpg

>>874712
Fallout 3, The Orange Box (the 1st 4 games, not tf2), GTA SA (exile creates such a cool storyline in many games), TimeSplitters Future Perfect (good humored and fun gameplay), The Jak and Daxter series (1-3, never played X), Killzone, Mercenaries (fun gameplay at first and good soundtrack and pretty good story), Fable, Destroy All Humans 1 and 2 (pretty good story, funny, good gameplay, I like history), The Saboteur (I like GTA and history), These are not all my favorites, I'm listing games I enjoy. My favorites are among the listed, though.

>>874712
morrowind (and oblivion)
shenmue (both 1 and 2)
romance of the three kingdoms x
deus ex
capcom vs. snk 2 (broken but my fave)

>>874712
sc1
仙剑奇侠传
dota
homm3
super robot wars

>>876776
>仙剑奇侠传

Imo video games should be all about gameplay. Fuck stories and pretty pictures.

>>876885
Stories and pretty pictures enhance gameplay. I probably wouldn't dig Shadow of the Colossus so much if I was climbing up 16 big hairy squares.

>>876892

well, as long as the pretty pictures are relevant to the gameplay I don't mind.

>>876885
well this is true, but only partially
story isn't a big component in some of the best games ever made (ghouls n' ghosts, mario, basically every non-rpg up to the 16-bit era which hold up purely on gameplay and level design) but there are also some awesome story-heavy classics (Fallout 1&2 - the ones worth shit, I mean -, Planescape: Torment, basically every RPG and adventure ever, etc)

>>876874
what of it!

Going to offer my two cents in saying that while it is in fact possible to tell great stories in video games, many of the concepts, plots, settings, and archetypes are continuously rehashed and recycled, something that pisses me off to be quite frank.

There needs to be fresh new material in the industry. Okami for instance was a game that broke from the mold. The gameplay was very similar to Zelda games but its art and storyline were original and a breath of fresh air in a climate of sequels and continuous emphasis on technology rather then content.

I personally would like to see video games dealing in other cultural myths and legends such as the Aborigine Dreamtime or the Orisha of Yoruban mythology or stuff concerning Vishnu and other Hindu deities. There's so much out there to work with and yet the industry now is full of developers afraid to take risks.

>>876963
I'd like to see non-western mythologies more often in games. As much as I love Greek myth, it's been done to death.

kind of sad when the best thread on /lit/ is a vidya one.

>>877498
Well, as a medium books have already been discussed to death.

>>877498
kind of sad that whenever i'm on /lit/ you've posted in every thread

also stop posting you're a bad tripfag and the images you use are retarded

>>877535
I grew a moustache while you were away

>>877548
Shave it. Dean looks better sans mustache.

Maybe we should turn this discussion on its head to try and determine if the two mediums really are that different.
For instance, can you recommend me any books in the same mold as Killer 7?

>>877535
I like him, but you make a good point: Dude is, like, always on /lit/

The thing that makes video games so hard to understand as a text is the fact that primary agency in previous mediums have all been in the hands of the creator. Now, I believe that everyone here assumes that the "player" (or the better term "operator," as the player is more like the person responsible for moving forward the narrative) is in control of the video game. This alone means that the medium of the video game transfers agency from the creator to the player, giving the player freedom to forge the narrative in whichever way he wants.

This does not apply to "sandbox" games, however. The operator is free to kill his avatar, to not destroy an enemy, to not succeed the mission. Since these works are games, we usually interpret these as a reward system. Failure results in a discontinuation of the narrative. Success results in narrative completion. But the point still stands: The narrative changes immensely with the choices (or more accurately, the inability of a player to perform) demanded by the creator.

Now, this means that we need a completely new way to approach video games if we want to even consider it as an art. The question is, do we look at the player (which is what ludologists mainly focus on) or the creator (which is what narratologists focus on)? I reject both of these and propose a (not new but very much overlooked) third approach.

As I said earlier, I see players more as operators, since without their presence there can be no narrative at all. The creator gives the operator all she needs to create the narrative, but it can never come into fruition without the operator. However, without the creator, the operator has no world to navigate through, no rules to negotiate. At their very essence, games are a string of rules with a graphic user interface. The key in understanding video games lies in how creators decide what rules to use, and how players negotiate these rules.

Relevant to discussion, from the "Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic" book by Terry Jones, this bit written by Doug himself:

>In the mideighties I did a text-only computer adventure game version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide" with a company called Infocom. I had a lot of fun working on it. The player gets caught up in a virtual conversation with the machine. In writing such a thing you are trying to imagine and prepare for the reactions of a virtual audience. There's a lot you can do with text, to which several thousand years of human culture can attest, but it seemed to me that what the computer enabled us to do was to reach back to the days before printing and recreate the old art of interactive storytelling. They didn't call it interactive in those days, of course. They didn't know of anything that wasn't interactive, so they didn't need a special name for it. When someone stood up and recounted a story, the audience responded. And the storyteller responded right back at them. It was the coming of print that took away the interactive element and locked stories into more rigid forms. It seemed to me that interactive computer-mediated storytelling might be able to combine some of the best of both forms.

I think games like Mass Effect are finally beginning to achieve this sort of idea.

Discuss.

>>878488
Mass Effect series is really my favourite sci-fi environment. More so than Dune and even Star Wars.

>>878488

Some people are going to say that Mass Effect and text based games are extremely different. But if we're going to go strictly narrative wise, they are extremely similar. Rather than navigating a list of predicted and stored text scenarios with keywords, players in Mass Effect perform hand/eye coordination tasks that simulate combat and navigate not only an environmental map but a text map.

The problem is that there isn't really anything novel about Adams' approach to video game narrative writing. He is simply giving different pathways depending on what keyword you give. This isn't different to multiple pathways in games such as Sonic 2 or Super Mario World.

However, just because it isn't novel doesn't mean it does not warrant analysis and studying. There's much to be said about the creator who anticipates certain choices. There is also much to be said about the player who decides to make such choices.

Another question I'd like to pose:

What if the visual novel format wasn't reserved almost entirely for porn games? Could it be a worthwhile vessel for something of literary value? Animu art isn't a necessity in this hypothetical situation.

>>878583
Yeah, I've played trough a few h-novels in my spare time, not because of the porn but because of the story. Even when badly localized, some of them can be vibrant and surprisingly light on cliches like my case in point, Divi Dead.

>>878583
VNs AREN'T entirely porn. They aren't all entirely about "bishoujo" (cute girls) either.

I think there are at least SOME VNs with literary merit, and even some erotic VNs with literary merit, just as some important books are rather smutty themselves.

>>878620

Could I get some examples?

Ico was boring.

>>878636
Eve Burst Error
Divi Dead
Type-Moon novels
Crescendo

None of these are masterpieces but they're a fun distraction for a few lonely nights and showcase a hint of the mediums true potential.

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>>878648

I'll admit I've enjoyed FS/N more than I thought I would.

Video games can't just be absorbed like movies, books, or music. narrative should be tied to game play.

Super Metroid is my favorite example. There are a few cutscenes that either set up imperative events that enhance the gameplay while delivering the narrative. It's much preferrable in a game than exposition-filled cut-scenes.

>>878663
as much as i dislike epic, gears of war does a great job of this as well.

>>878614
>>878583
"Literary value" is entirely subjective. Enjoy VN's for what they are and don't critize them for what they didn't do.

That said, I think they're all glorified choose your-own-adventure stories.

>>878663
I agree. I think games should be looked at more like music than movies or books.

Does every song need a strong narrative to be enjoyed? Of course not.

>>868314 ince no one can count on /v/ for some brain matter these days, I'll try here.

It's summer, and your on 4chan. No matter where you look, you're in the wrong place.

>>878583
I doesn't sell as well because vidya usually caters to ADD kids and manchildren.

That said, you can get some really cool games that use this approach

>>878695 Pretentious tripfag
Visual novels aren't really video games, but being dismissive of any medium is pretty silly.

While we're on the subject. Braid is a really bad example of how to tell a story in a video game.

Everybody praises it as some sort of artistis achievment, but the story was delivered in disjointed bits of text that were so ambiguous and unimportant to the gameplay that made it impossible to care about it at all.

It was still a fun platformer, though.

>>878710
You have to be realistic here. Violence sells: slow-paced visual novels are very hard to market to an audience buying first person shooters and the latest RPG ripoff.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying theres a reason why this kind of game is not being made by most of the big-name companies. Corprations make games for money, Indie groups are usually the guys who make games for art.

>>878749
or it might be that most people who make visual novels do it to recreate their own fantasies, which are often of the sexual kind.

>>878749
I think it's more of a cultural thing. VN's work in Japan because they have a culture that is more accepting of comics, games, and vn's as a legitimate means of expression and entertainment.

>>878723
Critics only think Braid had a good story because they confuse ambiguity with depth.

>>878763
Possibly, pity globalizations is kicking culture down the homogenization shitter

>>878755
EG: It sells because it's got the sex angle covered.

>>878815
a difference between demand led and supply led. not a big deal but they are different.

>>878636
Sorry for lateness anon, sure, I'll talk about VNs that either aren't porn or serve some purpose other than to be porn.

Higurashi and Umineko series are renown for their ideas, stories, and music, but their art is so terrible that you'd close your eyes if you didn't have to read the text. No ero whatsoever.

Clannad is a glowing example of non-ero dating sims, showing that a romance story can be "cutesy", funny, and deep all at once, but perhaps this isn't exactly /lit/ material...

I for one am convinced that Saya no Uta is all about existentialism and can rival the works of Kafka or even Sartre himself in that regard, but I think I must be incredibly biased, because that seems kind of ridiculous, even to me. It happens to feature lolicon sex quite predominately, but so does /lit/'s favorite book, so come on, that can't count against it, right?

Ever17 is considered to be the greatest VN ever by a great many weeaboos, and it contains no sexual content at all. Supposedly it's DEEP and stuff, but I haven't played/read it so I don't really even know. It might very well be the single best answer to your query, though.

And, just so you know, Fate/Stay Night is childish and has an overblown reputation. Go read Ayn Rand if you like that kind of thing.

As others have mentioned, the best way to tell a story in a game is to have it flow with the gameplay instead of interrupting it. Super Metroid, Portal, Shadow of the Colossus have already mentioned, and are the best examples because they present the narrative without crippling the mechanics or disengaging the player.

Any developer who sacrifices gameplay for the sake of story or to be unique and artistic can go fuck themselves.

I have a stupid but awesome idea.

Why don't we just make a visual novel ourselves. Or at least get a rough plot outline for a plot and find some other poor fucks to do our work for us

>>878874

That's be kickass, but I doubt it would get off the ground.

>>868314
I recall playing that game but the title escapes me. Anyone recall?

I do remember it being more of a cinematic experience than literary one, FWIW.

>>878878
Yeah, but at least we could sit around and gloat about it

I really don't have the patience for visual novels. I know they aren't technically the same as video games, but if your going to sell me a product with interactivity as a feature, then make it fucking interactive.

The Higurashi and Umineko animes were much more engaging than the VNs. If I'm going to have the story delivered to me, I'd rather have it done as a show or a proper novel.

>>878874
It's called Katawa Shojou.

>>878874
Katawa Shoujo started as a thread in /a/. It's a completely separate project now, but that's proof that anons can make good VNs.

>>878885

ICO

Haven't gotten to play it, but since it's by the same people as SotC, I'd imagine it's good for this discussion.

They have something new coming, out, don't they?

Yume Miru Kusumi was literary, and it had a wonderfully subversive narration method during the sex scenes, with the prose intentionally distancing the reader from the action.

Fucking genius. Only VN I've ever played, though.

>>878895
I'm not talking about a H-game, please lets not have an H-game

wat's sotc

>>878914
Shadow of the Colossus

>>878907
KS isn't an H game.

>>878903
"Literary" is an empty term of appraisal. Everything that is written is literary.

>>878922
wat. Wasn't it a dating sim with eroge elements?

>>878929
Yeah, but there wen't any dirty pictures or suggestive passages in the text.

>>878907
What's wrong with H-games? Saya no Uta is an h-game, and I don't know anyone that hates Saya except for those that VNs in general.

>>878926
Literary as in it uses a wide array of vocabulary to describe setting as opposed to leaving it up to the visuals presented in the gameplay.

Some say that would be redundant, but it enhanced the experience

>>878936
yeah, but I thought the whole complaint is that most visual novels arel H-games.

I mean, we're /lit/. We should be thinking up something that is ungodly pretentious, H-game just feels like a waste of time really

>>878948
/lit/ can't even collaborate to make a pdf zine worth reading.

>>878952
How about we don't start this debate again. I like this idea, proceed

A /lit/ vn would just be a big name-dropping circle jerk.

>>878967
>nobody has suggested a premise yet
>big circle jerk

>>878974
It is inevitable.

>>878976
Maybe, but can we at least have an idea for starters?

>>878990
Joyce's sexual adventures, drawing primarily from his love letters

>>878723
The story of that game was about the creation of atomic bomb and only small part of the text mattered. You had to collect 8 well hidden stars to get the real ending.
I enjoyed the game for both the gameplay and the story.

>>878990
Narcolepsy

>>878995
that is just one interpretation of many, asshole

I like this tread, so I'm bumping it again.

>>880175
>>880175
agreed, good chap

Every game with a good story that I have played didn't forget its medium. In other words it remembered it was a game, and the story was being told through a game.

>>868331

Not neccesarily. Obviously some games get so bogged down in plot and stuff that it's like wtf and the game just doesn't work as a game. BUT on the other hand I think that some manage to make a decent balance.