The thread linking the games Mr Lee praises is that they are, to a large extent, sandboxes. Yes, some of them have endings, but they get the player there by dumping them in a world and letting them do what they like.<p>Portal is the least sandboxy of the games mentioned (maybe apart from Tetris!), in that it has highly structured, intentionally designed levels with well-defined goals, but it still manages to give the player a huge amount of the responsibility for getting through them.<p>A weaker thread is procedural generation. Dwarf Fortress and Brogue have procedurally generated levels. Journey doesn't, but probably could have done. Portal doesn't, and i doubt could. Tetris kind of does. But that's a higher incidence of procedural generation than in the general population of games. Is there something about procedural generation that intrinsically puts narrative responsibility back in the hands of the player? That seems plausible; a game designer who gives up the power to shape levels explicitly gives up some power to shape stories explicitly. Think also about Civilisation and SimCity; the software is entirely story-free, but any given game of either of those is bursting with stories.<p>What tests of this hypothesis are coming down the pipe? No Man's Sky is the one that springs to mind.
An interesting article, gave me much to think about as I'm planning out a game to make.<p>My thought on it tho, I think the article misses a GOOD use of cutscenes: A good story is all about tension and release, and a cutscene can provide a necessary release from intense gameplay (not that it's the only way).<p>Am I wrong on this? I'm sure there are differing opinions on this depending on what game genres you enjoy (I'm quite a fan of traditional RPGs).
Half-Life 1 did this so well. It was primarily a shooter, but if you followed closely you could get a story arch. You never lost control of you character and every cutscene was optionable( except the very first and last, you still need some pacing ). This is why I consider Half-Life 2 an inferior game, even though it does everything else better, you constantly get into situations where the main characters talk for several minutes and you can only watch and wait. HL1's gameplay flows, HL2 is a stop-and-go.
Dark Souls and Demon Souls, two games normally only noted for being extremely difficult, are some of the best examples of ludonarrative assonance I've ever seen. The mechanics of the games not only reflect the events of their plots cohesively, but also serve as metaphors towards larger aesthetic and philosophical themes shared by the stories and settings.
I find it rather strange that the author asks for open mindedness but seemingly dismisses the whole idea of the cut scene narrative. On the other hand he praises the generated, "natural" narrative of Dwarf Fortress, Brogue and Journey. One of his remarks about Journey is rather interesting:<p>> When you find another player, there are visual cues that underscore their presence and introduction. When you communicate with them through singing and body language, all sorts of imagery forms in your mind about the other player’s personality (that’s character development!)<p>The character development part is a very important part of a narrative, and is in its way, only possible because of other, real players. His other two examples, Brogue and Dwarf Fortress, have huge short comings in this regard. A true, emotionally deep and complex character development and interactions between those characters is only possible if the other characters are played by humans, the characters are predefined or if there would be a sophisticated AI. The first variant is used in Journey, the second is used in "cut scene" type games and the latter is currently not technically possible. So when the author claims:<p>> At least silent films are excused by their technical limitations – no comparable excuse exists for games.<p>I take that with a grain of salt. Dwarf Fortress, Brogue and Journey are great examples of how to expand the narrative experience and where games could be heading to in the future. But in my opinion, they are an addition to, rather than a replacement for cut scene narrative games.
I loved the contrast of Tomb Raider and Portal - interactive, fast thinking rather than "press X to not die" nonsense during a "cutscene".<p>I also really love the way they break down storytelling axes - dungeons and dragons adds the "interactive" axis without the "AV" one, which presents its own challenges. (if you want a good example of this, I recommend the "critical hit" podcast[1], although be warned you'll need to listen to literally hundreds of hours of people playing D&D, which is not ideal if you're only interested in the story's interactivity.)<p>I thought they missed a trick not analysing Dishonoured a bit more though, as the game world reflects your playing style (high/low chaos). Which reminds me, I should probably play that game in kill everything/high chaos mode at some point.<p>[1] <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/critical-hit-dungeons-dragons/id327725953?mt=2" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/critical-hit-dungeons-dr...</a>
Author here! Dang, I browse HN daily and didn't notice when my own article gets posted until it's too late. Anyways, glad you guys liked it. One thing that I want to clarify is that the examples and analogies I give are just to help illustrate points. A lot of people have read too much into them, and that's not my intention.<p>Also, I don't mean to disparage any particular game, or style of games. My goal is to show that video games are a very unique medium for presenting narrative, and so far we have mainly just tried to emulate cinema. There's a lot of experimentation out there, and still more that needs to be done, before we can say we've really understood the medium.
Books have more senses than movies and games, because in books, you can describe touch feelings, smells, temperatures, etc., thus giving readers a multisensorial experience. In movies you can only rely on sound and image. Zero other senses. Smell in books is superior to smell in movies.
Here is a nice and deep analysis of Prince of Persia narrative: <a href="http://www.thewhitereview.org/features/turning-the-game-around/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thewhitereview.org/features/turning-the-game-arou...</a>