Jaffe: ’storytelling not cracked properly yet’

[Profcrab]

WereKitten said:

Profcrab said:
Reasonable, it is easy to fall into the narrative trap in video game storytelling. There are and have been whole genres of games that live in the narrative world.

Heavy Rain is a poor example when talking about storytelling in games because it isn't really a game. Heavy Rain is, as they say, interactive fiction. Some people say this is new but it isn't. The precursors to this type of game are the text story games. For those of you that have never played a Zork "game", they were simply interactive fiction. You had limited control but essentially you were just unlocking a story by properly exploring, collecting items, and using them. Now, Heavy Rain is certainly not a dungeon exploration game, but it is a game with a ridged story that you explore though limited controls. The "gameplay" elements are just like the old "examine desk", "talk to man" of the old text games but now much of this is handled more real time with quicktime events taking the place of text decisions.

None of this is bad, in fact, I loved the old Infocomm games. If I stop thinking of Heavy Rain as a game, I'll probably enjoy it too (since I think quicktime events are the bane of gaming). But, to get back to the point here, as these interactive mediums evolve, be careful how you do your comparisons. ME2 and Heavy Rain comparisons fall apart quickly. ME2 is operating in game RPG space where game play elements are still very important and story must be worked in and Heavy Rain is a story with some limited choices to make the experience somewhat customized to the viewer.

When I look at Heavy Rain, I think, if I considered it as a game, it would be a very shitty game - crappy controls, quicktime events out the ass, etc. (kinda like being forced to play Simon Says in order for the DVD player to keep working). Now, if I take it as interactive fiction, like the old text games, then it might be very good. Taken that way, I am playing a story in which I can cause the actors to do a few things differently along the way and feel that I brought about one of the several ending options. Like Dragon's Lair with more options, and more endings or if Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books were a few hundred pages thicker to allow for 20 extra endings. Still not really a game, but an expanded form of an old concept.

So, when talking about storytelling in games, I think Heavy Rain should be left out.

I give this thread a 9.6.

Uhm, I can't agree. The question of what really is a "game" is sort of tangential here, so let's agree to call a videogame what is sold in videogame stores and reviewed on videogame magazines, just for the sake of (temporary?) clarity.

The gist of what Jaffe was saying is not about the quality of the story or storytelling in a technical sense, but more about how much your gameplay builds a story per se, and how much it builds a story only as an artificial prop, a narrative equivalent of the sound effects. Some of what Reasonable said was about this too: in SH2, completely ignoring how good the plot or characters were, the way you played inconsciously determined the resolution of the story. As such, you built the narrative in this very limited sense indipendently from the immediacy of gameplay goals.

On the other hand, the example of Jaffe is that when you, say, slap someone in the face instead of answering them with line A or with line B you're just "trying the third option" more often than not. Your decision is not about building a narrative (you feel that you despise the guy, so you instintively slap him) but usually a self-conscious decision aiming for a game goal.

The fact that Heavy Rain is indulgent with some of your choices, that it can wrap a different story around minor changes of your behaviour, that you keep playing even if some character dies is in this sense a better integration than your typical binary karma options, where the result of your action is immediatly available in game terms, or at least the knowledge of their effect is.

At least that's how I read it: if story unfolding is cuffed too tightly to the urgency of gameplay perspective, then it's not true storytelling. It's only the sequence of your strictly game-rooted decisions under different clothes. In a way, it's like taking a chess match report and paraphrasing it into a tale (it can be done, of course... Carroll did it).

Again, this is totally independent from how good the plot or the narrative devices are, I'm only talking about interaction with the known vs discovery of the unknown.

No, lets not agree on that definition of a game.  Several workout aids are sold in video game stores also, but we don't call them games.  Just because a videogame magazine says something, doesn't mean we shouldn't take a moment to consider the nature of the product in question.  Classifiying simply by virtue of venue is inappropriate.  The developer terms it "interactive drama" and that is a better description of Heavy Rain than "game".  Videogame mags review what their audience is interested in for the platforms that they cover, but they are not peer reviewed journals that deeply examine the nature of games.  They are advertisments and purchasing tools with some editorials.  The danger in missclassifying is that you begin to make poor comparisons and analogies.  My issue was not with what Jaffe said, just with Reasonable's mention of Heavy Rain.  It truely is an apples to oranges comparison.

Maybe Heavy Rain will open the door for more exploration into the old concept of stories that are interacted with simple controls.  I wouldn't mind seeing more of it.  But what does this mean for games?  Very little.  The danger of bringing Heavy Rain into the argument is that you start asking that games include more elements that make Heavy Rain what it is and you just can't.  It is certainly possible to have games have choice, but that is nothing new at all.  Think of Fable or most WRPGs with multiple endings.  Choice is there.  You can't tell story like Heavy Rain though in those games just because story is all Heavy Rain is.  Story with some direction choices from the viewer.  For the purposes of comparison of storytelling in games, it isn't one.

I give that post a 9.3.