Games and stories

[myth]

Lately I've been putting a lot of thought into the relationship between games and stories. I was once heard to remark that "The plot is the single most important thing in a [...] game." I ardently believed this at the time, but in my defense I was like 12 and that ellipsis was filled with the letters Z, Z, and T.

This post, entitled "Ze Story

Comments

[casey]

Man, Planetfall is awesome. I haven't played that game in years, but it was probably one of the first PC games I ever played. That, Zork III, and the HHGttG Infocom game.

[myth]

I'm enjoying Planetfall quite a bit. At first I was having trouble visualizing the space (remember what was north of who and which room was south of whatever) but it's getting progressively easier. (Doesn't hurt that all the invisiclues are online, either ...)

Anyway, after Planetfall, it's on to Wishbringer, which, for me, is "that Infocom adventure that I played as a kid but couldn't finish because my copy was pirated and I didn't have the documentation." This is apparently something that everyone has (my girlfriend's is Trinity).

[harvey]

Watched Brick tonight; it was pretty awesome.

No, stories aren't necessary, really - they work for some games, and don't for others. Why would Bejeweled need a backstory? For those with tales, though, what gets me is the telling. You've got your RPGs like Golden Sun (didn't like it) and Dragon Quest (dug the ones I played), where the story is advanced in expository cutscenes, in-between long bouts of dungeon-crawling and monster-battling. Half-Life and its sequels are much the same, though its gunplay and puzzles are arguably more enjoyable and less tedious. Then you've got a game like System Shock, where its story is mostly told through random audiologs that are found across the station, and partly because of this the game ends up being ridiculously absorbing.

I need to play more Infocom games, maybe.

[lipid]

I can't tell if Patrick Dugan's comment is meant to be serious or not :(

[myth]

Reminds me of this. "I start out by reinventing, and then I disinvent it. I swim in the realm between panels, what I call the... Imaginarium?"

[rushnattack]

Yeah, seems like too many games try to shoehorn a big complicated story, unskippable cinemas, and tutorial levels, onto games that don't really need them. I appreciate a good story in something like an RPG, or the Metal Gear series, but when I'm playing an action platformer, or vertically scrolling shooter, I'll tend to just skip it.