I''ve seen Mulholland Drive, last David Lynch''s movie six times now, and I must say, it''s the best quest I''ve played in years. This film has tens of hours of game-play in it, and even spoilers on the internet can''t spoil it entirely, because there is no clearly correct interpretation of the movie. How has David Lynch pulled this one off? How can a film riddled with contradictions and apparently unrelated scenes make sense in the end? Well, most of the movie''s scenes are not real (perhaps excepting five minutes). Presumably, they are dream sequences or flash-backs in the mind of one of the characters. Just like any person''s thoughts wander more or less randomly, just like everything in a dream can suddenly change in bizarre ways, with little respect to accurate time succession, the scenes in the movie go back and forth in time, start new narrating threads or abandon unfinished old ones. Leaving the poor dazzled viewer faced with a million questions. What is dream? What is reality? What is wishful thinking? What are distorted memories? Or even, who is dreaming? Or is the dream world real somehow? A different realm? How much of a dream comes from reality? True, David Lynch places lots of obscure hard to notice clues here and there, some helping the viewer sort the timeline of different scenes (missing objects, clothes the characters wear, light), some only making things more confuse. I didn''t see Memento (yet), but reviews describe it as a movie showing a man''s quest of finding the killers of his wife. His problem is he has no long term memory, so he must take notes and pictures to supplement his disability. Because all the movie''s scenes are cleverly showed in reverse time ordering, the viewer has just as much information about what happens as the character has from his notes. So coming back to game design, can a game use similar techniques as the previous films to blur the line between reality and fantasy, past and future, to hopelessly confuse the player while not blowing the rest of the game away?

Max Payne''s dream sequences took a large step in the right direction, poking fun at FPSes while disorienting the player and forcing him to make a paradigm shift. Good edginess.


Don''t listen to me. I''ve had too much coffee.

Silent Hill I believe was inspired by many such works, Twin Peaks had a big influence in it, or so I readed on the Silent Hill Plot Analisis (or was it the Plot Guide?) So I am sure you are not the first or the only one inspired by Lynch I wish there were more psicological games like Silent Hill.

Hm... non-linear narrative and game design. Interesting. Definitely worth further thought. Another well known cinematic example is "Pulp Fiction". Well known examples from American literature are "Catch-22" and "The Sound and the Fury". There are many others as well.

The choppiness of "Memento" evokes saving a game at key points and returning to play later - however - starting at the end of a game and working towards the beginning seems rather awkward. Imagine jumping into Quake at the final level and working backwards? Perhaps it''s just as simple as incorporating a "random level" option for more advanced players.

Not to mention.... if you successfully complete the last level of a game, logically you can''t then die in the second-to-last level.


Don''t listen to me. I''ve had too much coffee.

I think it totally can, i think done correctly, leaving the player alittle dazed or confused, and having to retrace or find out what is goin on, i mean that would be interesting would it not?

to some it may be annoying though.

I think it opens up a lot of possiblities. You could design a bunch of semi-unrelated levels, have to player go through them in a non-linear order (something like Megaman except a lot more complex than "choose the next level") and then tie everything up (based on what the player did in the isolated levels) at the end. It seems like a good way to give the game continuity without having to worry about a complex branching story.

Impossible, exactly, it brings in a whole different way of telling a story in a game. Instead of the player following the story in a linear fashion. the story still unravels but now the levels are mixed around, and the interest level to the player will be heightened cause now they are trying to figure out the story as well as what is going on in the game. and how it all goes together.

I''ve always wanted to see a game with Lynch''s imagery. Imagine having a conversation with an NPC while a man dressed in a bunny suit hops around on a pogo stick nearby, saying "Olives are Killers" every once in a while...

My all time dream-game would be one written by David Lynch, directed by Lynch and David Cronenberg, with art direction by Tim Burton (and music by Danny Elfman). Honestly, though, I think it would be nearly impossible for anyone to capture the "Am I awake or still dreaming" vibe for a game, riddled with puzzles that require abstract thought and memory of minor details.

Take Mulholland''s Blue Box for example. The only way to get to the next level is to open the box, and the only way to open the box is to convince an NPC that they''re not real. Love the idea though.

Wyrmwood Sound

Sacrifice''s story line was, IMHO, somewhat like the previous suggestions. In case the reader is not familiar with the story I will summarize:

You are a ''wizard'' from another world that suffered a terrible end that you had some hand in and were ultimately unable to prevent. You come upon a new world governed by a series of "Gods" that prevail over specific territories. Each God has his own way of doing things, Persephone is a do-gooder, Charnel is sort of a witty Satan, and the other Gods fill the personality gaps in between. You have complete control over which "God" you do favors for. In return, you are granted spells and incantations for summoning creatures. In addition, the story changes depending on whom you side with as well as who will accept your help depending on who you side with and when.

The beginning of the story has you walking through the land with dead things everywhere and then recanting the details of how you got to this point with a blind seer that you find. No matter how you proceed and which gods you "banish" you will come to this same point in the story. I have played the game through about 5 times and the different angles do change the stories perspective.

In answer to the, "But I died on level 4, so how can I be alive in the end" question: I thought the designers had a brilliant idea. While you are loading your last saved position, after you have died, the dialog declares, "Well, that''s not exactly what happened..". Indicating that you got off on a tangent while describing this particular battle to the seer. An elegant, simple and *very* clever solution.

Anyhow, I agree that both these movies were great ideas and the stories were well told, especially in Memento''s case as trying to tell the story in any other way would have the viewer bored as he waited for the characters to "get it". By moving backward through the story the viewer was able to experience the disjointed story and be involved at a deeper level. Bringing this into a game would be challenging but not impossible, as I think Sacrifice was a step in that direction. Sacrifice also allowed the storyline to change depending on player choices. The end is the same but how you get there is different, an interesting design decision that simplifies the idea but keeps a lot of flexibility in the game. I would think that these ideas could be built on to achieve a Memento/Mulholand Drive type game.