Games don't need stories.

[richardhutnik]

alephnull said:

richardhutnik said:

 

Game creation is an art.  However, its focus historically has not been to provide a forced narrative on it that players ended up playing through (I would classify this as "interactive fiction").  The focus of game design historically had been to provide an environment that challenge players to use their skills to defeat others at them.  In this struggled a narrative would manifest itself that could be told in retrospect.  But it didn't have a forced narrative.

What would you call Zork and all the old text based adventure games?

The term "interactive fiction" is one of the terms used to label such games.  That came up, because it was observed that they didn't fit the classic definition of what a game is.  I happen to use the term "interactive fiction" and look to extend it to cover a wider array of things that are considered games now.