An old Lucas Arts game, OUTLAWS, uses very long and tedious cut scenes to tell you whats going on.
While they are, by nature, long, you sure know whats going on.

Its done very well, like a movie scene...
You begin with a long view of a homestead and a house, child on swing set, etc... the dad (you) is talking to the wife and kid, etc...

unfortunately, evil train guy wants your land for his tracks, so he kidnaps your kid and kills your wife and you hunt them down... etc, etc

you certainly know whats going on if you have the patience

In an entry (a friend and my entry) to the 4Elements3 contest, ''Elementum'' we intended to have a cut scene where the mayor of the town explains how the 4 elements have been stolen by the evil Ruhdlahnn and how you, Seoirse, must save the elements - it is your destiny, etc, etc.
it is a pretty good speech, it just didnt get into the game.

this is always a good approach, it gets away from the annoying ''amnesia'' idea.

-geo

i am sick and tired of contrived amnesia plots. there are countless alternatives.

how about a botched brain transplant, growing up blind-and-deaf then getting surgery, or reincarnation?

were not writing for bad afternoon dramas, we CAN be creative once in a while!

********


A Problem Worthy of Attack
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Theres always the Jeckle and Hyde way of doing it, though it requires a different air about a story. I forget the Lawyer''s name, but the story was narrated by a character whose past and involvment in the story was pretty arbitrary. Jeckle didn''t have amnesia or nothing, he just had secrets. To think about this in gameplay terms, this narrator as part of the story could be one of many things. Like I say in my earlier post, a complementary character focused on revealing the character''s past. Or, a historian narrating entirely in 3rd person. A detective investigating the actions of the protagonist/antagonist.

As a gameplay mechanic, it gets a bit difficult figuring out how to play one character and have another one narrate. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2) does this (raiden as the narrator). If you play the narrator, his past has to be relatively uninteresting and therefore unexplored. The game goes chasing around the interesting character, which, I think Vagrant Story (PSX) does this to some extent.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

Ok, let me have another stab at this, although I still think that a well-written introduction can work wonders. Don''t make things harder than they need to be.

Anyway... let''s imagine a largly story-driven RPG such as one of the Final Fantasies or Ultima, or maybe an adventure game like the Lucasarts one.

You could begin in your home, or workplace. All around you would be items and clues hinting at the context. Maybe you start at a computer desk, upon which sits a half-eaten pizza, a can of cola, a copy of "Game Programming for Dummies", and a college timetable. On the wall behind the desk is a Pamela Anderson poster. And finally, on the floor by the door, is a sealed envelope with a standard suburban address crossed out, with "please redirect to:" followed by a university student residence address. In the envelope is a handwritten letter from a friend in need...

All these clues tell you - or hint at - the character''s:
- age
- educational level and intelligence
- career / occupation
- interests
- gender
- and ''the quest''... or at least the start of it.
- and more.

Yet not once did you have to ''leave the game'' to tell the player these things; they were evident from the context.

I made the above up in 5 minutes. A good writer with a couple of days to think it through, could probably pack a hell of a lot more clues and symbolism into the first few screens/rooms, leaving the player in no doubt as to who the player-character is. A couple of conversations with nearby NPCs could help too.

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ok, I am tired and I only read the first couple posts on this topic, but I wanted to mention this before I go sleep. So, sorry if this has already been brought up here.

Final Fantasy Tactics used a very unique way of introducing the player to the character and world. For anyone who hasn''t played it, the game is divided into chapters, the first chapter is basically the player''s intro to main characters, and the player''s character. The thing I find most intersting about the way this game introduces you to a lot of stuff, is that it basically gives you an encyclopedia of the world''s history which you can browse through at your leisure. During various scenes, different historical events are mentioned, so it helps to do your research. Anyway, in essence, you are quickly introduced to who you are in the world, but your knowledge as the player may help you better role-play as the character.

Hmm... I probably could have explained myself better if I wasn''t so tired. Well, I hope this helps you with some intro ideas.

other people have been grappling with this problem in films for decades, often they have an opening sequence of eg a man being released from prison. with a few simple details such as the way they look at the guards, how they dress or what they had confiscated and returned you can easily show quite a lot of information as in the example a couple of posts up.

the good storytellers take it one step further and arrange them so the audience can fill in the blanks themselves and by presenting them with an attitude that sets the mood of the film (or game).

i think it''s quite possible to introduce a character with virtually no backstory and it wont matter as long as that character matches the environment eg fat middle-aged cop has fallen asleep in front of the tv surrounded by junk food wrappers.

immediately and without warning throw that character into the initial situation (eg suicidal man on a ledge) and watch how they react (casually grabs his leg and cuffs him) which is a lot more interesting than panning across posters and envelopes

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A Problem Worthy of Attack
Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back

ACtually, leaving people to fill in the blanks usualy just makes people go insane. Take a look at shadow in ff6. They hint at him being relms father, but you never really get told if his is or not. This leaves most people guessng, and ends up being the topic of flamewars.

I agree that anything that is hinted at in a game should be fully revealed by the end of the game. It''s good to keep the player wondering, but don''t keep them wondering after the game is over.

i disagree. I think that the character should only be able to learn this if he chooses to. I like the idea of freedom of thought in games. Anyways, where is the replay value in a game that tells you everything at the end?

But wouldn''t you find it weird if the game didn''t tell you the ending to the story at the end. If you don''t know all the parts of the story you should know by the end of it, then the story wasn''t written well. For stuff like the shadow thing mentioned above, the game doesn''t need to tell you speciically at the end of the game exactly what is and what isn''t about all these little details, but it''s a loose end in the game''s world that the player should be able to find an answer to somewhere in the game if they really want to know.