Narrative Driven Games Aren't Games

[The Boston Crab]

Yes, in the same way that A Lucky's Tale is Super Mario Bros 3.

[Blue Jam]

I hate them. Apart from Soma on Wuss Mode. That's good. Probably because it was never intended to be played as a walking sim.

[Ferris]

I really like them.

I'll do my usual plug for my favourite one; Contradiction: Spot The Liar! which is a bonkers piece of British surrealism, set in a small town. Great fun, but totally mad.

[Zetetic]

Probably because it was never intended to be played as a walking sim.

Wasn't it?

Horror games are interesting attempts to marry story and 'mechanics' after a fashion (although SOMA perhaps isn't the best example of this) although they - like most horror - are often eventually let down by how stupid the stories.

Arkane's stuff - Prey, Dishonored - are quite good at layering plot (world) on top of mechanically-focused games that makes them more fun, I think, even if they don't express anything of particular interest by the marriage of the two. At least that's my experience - I'll enjoy thinking about fictions in those worlds, but they've not made me reflect much on my own.

[bgmnts]

I just finished Dead Space and it's survival horror done right, story wise.

Bad things happen all over the ship and you have to walk there and fix them. The story is just done via little communication vids, there isnt one cut scene or anything like that.

[Zetetic]

Oh, and I wouldn't give that farmer the time of day either, TBC.

[Zetetic]

Played Tacoma last night, which was alright and I quite enjoyed (despite getting the idea extremely quickly and thinking that the very ending is a bit of a cop out).

Very reminiscent of 'promenade theatre' or maybe 'immersive theatre', which I don't think has ever occurred to me before. I'd be glad to see more stuff built in that vein given that computer 'games' open up quite a bit of possibility without massively changing the concept (noting that Tacoma's 'mechanics' are pretty silly but excusable).

(I guess Her Story is something of that ilk as well? Although the process of discovery and understanding more clearly a 'game' to 'win' there. I note once I'd got the idea of what I was supposed to do and how I'd need to do it, I couldn't be fucked to actually unpick the thing.)

[garbed_attic]

(I guess Her Story is something of that ilk as well? Although the process of discovery and understanding more clearly a 'game' to 'win' there. I note once I'd got the idea of what I was supposed to do and how I'd need to do it, I couldn't be fucked to actually unpick the thing.)

I liked Her Story well enough... but felt it did very well off the back of the indie gaming scene's general unfamiliarity with text-only IF since it was mechanically just early 90s hypertext with video. Indeed, Sam Barlow himself had already used much the same mechanic way back in 1999 with Aisle.

Being allowed to play guitar during a confession tho :p

[Sebastian Cobb]

What about the point-and-click stuff like Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and Monkey Island? They were pretty 'narrative driven' or 'told a story' as we used to say back then.

Or even text-based adventures? Before people could tell a story through pictures on computers?

[Zetetic]

That's what gout_pony means by "text-based IF [interactive fiction]".

just early 90s hypertext with video

That's fair enough I suppose. 'Visual novels' are pretty much this as well, right? Although there's probably a breadth of mechanics there I don't appreciate.

The only one I can think of right now is Analogue: A Hate Story and that's another "understand what happened" game. Any recommendations of games that are just "dig through some people's lives"?

I think the thing I liked least about Tacoma was having any kind of role in events. (Either the one you're presented with, or the sort-of twist one.)

[Bhazor]

Can't stand visual novels mainly for the content rather than the actual genre. Every single one I've tried is high tier American weeabo shit. At least Bible Black had some sodomy and magic dick girls.

Hotel Dusk and 9 Hours could have been good but were so filled with repetitive redundant dialog, especially 9 hours where a simple puzzle is explained like 6 fucking times in a row in the first room.
Played a little of the last Dagan Ropa game but the tutorial for the interrogation sections just pissed me off.

[marquis_de_sad]

Bible Black

A masterpiece.

[Z]

What about the point-and-click stuff like Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and Monkey Island? They were pretty 'narrative driven' or 'told a story' as we used to say back then.

Or even text-based adventures? Before people could tell a story through pictures on computers?

I'd say Grim Fandango in particular is even worse than a narrative driven game. It's a narrative driven game with some obtuse puzzles (several of which depend on mastering a notoriously difficult to manoeuvre character) thrown in purely to pad the length a bit.




Is Tacoma any good at all then? The move into sci fi was basically the last thing I wanted from Fullbright so I stopped paying attention once I heard it was set in 2100.

[Zetetic]

It's alright.

I don't think it really manages the suspense that I think it's attempting, and I don't think that there's much depth to the story. I suspect I may have enjoyed it more for observing the artistry than because it moved me at all.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I thought DOTT and Grim Fandango were fantastic, especially the latter which was really brilliantly noiry.

What you describe of Grim Fandango is exactly like my experience of the x-files game though. That fucker was spread over 7 cd's.

[garbed_attic]

I thought DOTT and Grim Fandango were fantastic, especially the latter which was really brilliantly noiry.

What you describe of Grim Fandango is exactly like my experience of the x-files game though. That fucker was spread over 7 cd's.

DOTT has excellent puzzle design. The changing the past to impact the future puzzles are gorgeous. Grim Fandango's puzzles are far less elegant... but it's such a bloody charming world to inhabit it's pretty damn easy to forgive imho. Still, there is part of me that thinks it'd have been even better as a Henry Selick stop-motion film.

As for visual novels... I'm not wholly convinced by the medium - the weird static nature of the characters and the need (?) for loads of slice-of-life dialogue often takes me out of the experience, though I do believe that even limited interactivity and shifting an experience from 3rd to 2nd person alters one's relationship to a story. Umineko is certainly very good in terms of character development and interesting, compassionate unpacking of moral and philosophical ideas - but part of me feels it should really be an 8-season live-action television series with quality acting. Ebi-Hime (who admittedly was a uni mate) sometimes does interesting things with the form, especially in her shorter free games. Once on a Windswept Night is pretty clever and must have taken some tricky coding in Ren-Py and I really liked Lynne for the aesthetics.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/585880/Once_on_a_windswept_night/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/885640/Lynne/

[Clownbaby]

Absolutely agree about Bioshock Infinite. I thought that game was crap. It was counting way too much on its own plot, which was twee and naff and a weird confusing U turn given the first 2 games.

[Consignia]

Umineko is certainly very good in terms of character development and interesting, compassionate unpacking of moral and philosophical ideas - but part of me feels it should really be an 8-season live-action television series with quality acting.

I'm afraid I must disagree with this point strongly. I've mused about how you would approach Umineko as a live action series. But there's just too much that leans on the medium in which it's presented. It's been a failing of nearly every adaptation of it. Specifically for live action, the meta-narratives would look silly and there's one particular plot point which could never convincingly be portrayed in live action medium. Otherwise, you've got very particular points were text is different colour which has quite important effects on the narrative. Both the anime and the manga adapations never really addressed this well, not without making a mess of it or giving the game away. And you've got the fact that who's narrating a scene has massive effect on what's going on, and that can change without warning even within a scene. I felt there's too much that's just won't work in live action without really compromising what actually made Umineko. In contrast, I think Higurashi works better in nearly every adaption, bar perhaps the ropey live action films. Which is another problem, since Umineko works best if preceded by going through Higurashi in it's original visual novel form, since many of the twists (or lack of) are stark contrasts to how the first work handled them.

In related news there's going to be a new installment to Umineko at the end of the year, as well as a new When They Cry series:

I'm excited.

In general, I've really gone off visual novels. Too wordy and verbose, and not written well enough to justify such. Like I attempted Chaos;Child a while back, but it was so slow and full of needless detail which added little to anything. Also they take up so much time, since you are forced to read the pace it gives you and there is so much text. I don't I've ever finished a VN with multiple routes for more than two or three endings.

[garbed_attic]

I'm afraid I must disagree with this point strongly. I've mused about how you would approach Umineko as a live action series. But there's just too much that leans on the medium in which it's presented. It's been a failing of nearly every adaptation of it. Specifically for live action, the meta-narratives would look silly and there's one particular plot point which could never convincingly be portrayed in live action medium. Otherwise, you've got very particular points were text is different colour which has quite important effects on the narrative. Both the anime and the manga adapations never really addressed this well, not without making a mess of it or giving the game away. And you've got the fact that who's narrating a scene has massive effect on what's going on, and that can change without warning even within a scene. I felt there's too much that's just won't work in live action without really compromising what actually made Umineko. In contrast, I think Higurashi works better in nearly every adaption, bar perhaps the ropey live action films. Which is another problem, since Umineko works best if preceded by going through Higurashi in it's original visual novel form, since many of the twists (or lack of) are stark contrasts to how the first work handled them.

Ahhh maybe you're right. Maybe it's just the greatest work in a highly flawed medium.

That said, VNs are still a better medium than vhs boardgames and I love those!