Narrative/Dramatic Gameplay

Oluseyi Sonaiya · 2005-01-30T15:42:38

Preamble Please feel free to slap me about (with a large trout, as necessary) if my ramblings make no sense, as I have proven myself a game design theory incompetent. I'm mostly asking questions, free associating and brainstorming here. Prologue The majority of gaming genres are predicated on doing - swashbucking combat, stealthy pilfering, white-knuckled strategizing, athletic competition - in large part, I suppose, because of the fact that such active interactions with other people or with objects are very well regulated. It is comparatively trivial to delineate between valid and invalid interactions, and thus provide structure for the challenge or set of choices that comprise the core of the game. Trivial, that is, when compared to the complex interactions, rules, heuristics, intuitions, emotions and other factors that influence dialog and drama. Mary J Had It Wrong We want more drama! I'll be honest, twitch reflex games and obsessive micromanagement simulations simply hold little appeal for me, and even my trusty old sports games have gotten rather stale. They're fun for playing with other people, but sometimes I want relatively short, engrossing games that I can play alone in arbitrarily-sized increments, like owning a DVD of a good movie. I want great stories and characters, but not just as the backdrop for a bunch of running and gunning or hacking and slashing, nor as "mind candy" for puzzle gameplay. This being GameDev, there are no provisions for aimless "I want" rants, so I decided to set about trying to figure out how to make what I'd like to see. What I'd Like to See I've been watching a lot of old movies recently, and one thing I consistently marvel at is how taut stories and tight narrative direction create just as exciting and visceral experiences as an explosion- or effects-laden "blockbuster." Violence and sex are powerful elements, but they motivate, create and alter the situations in these films, not resolve them as in modern films and games. I'd like to see exactly that sort of approach to a game. As I mentioned earlier, I'd prefer a compact narrative. I find most contemporary games too long. "40 Hours of Gameplay!" is a heck of a lot of time, especially when you factor in all the dying and loading, and it is frequently achieved through repetition of an action. I like games where I can play through the entire narrative in a single sitting without raising the ire or suspicion (that I'm a hopeless geek) of a significant other: we're talking three hours, tops. Obviously, I'd also like a design that awards penalties without forcing repetition or precluding resolution/success. Clearly this requires a fair amount of dynamism in both design and implementation, such that each play through is sufficiently unique. "Step Right Up On The Platform, Sir" The target audience for this would be casual gamers or other gamers taking a break. The objective would be pick-up-and-play simplicity, which precludes gamepads, complex keyboard maps or cluttered interface. We have a two-button mouse on a personal computer, with a keyboard for auxilliary input. In addition, it'd be nice to have greater depth that simple dialog trees (match-the-response-to-the-prompt). Somehow, using that mouse and a simple interface design philosophy, we want to be able to move the protagonist/avatar, speak to others, observe surroundings and specific objects and so forth. We also want to stay away from Lucas Arts-esque use-object-with-other-object-or-action-in-thoroughly-nonsensical-and-non-intuitive-fashion gameplay. Epilogue As I said at the top, feel free to slap me in the face with a smelly fish if I'm making no sense. Also feel free to point my ignorance in the direction of any games that implement these features. Finally, feel free to ignore me. It's late and I'm sleepy, so I'll stop right here and hope/wait for feedback.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Oluseyi December 26, 2004 01:08 AM

51 comments, last by Madster 20 years ago

superpig

1,826

January 25, 2005 07:47 AM

Woo, it's back!

I just made a post in my journal that puts forward some more ideas on the subject... and then I come in here and find this O_O

Richard "Superpig" Fine - saving pigs from untimely fates - Microsoft DirectX MVP 2006/2007/2008/2009
"Shaders are not meant to do everything. Of course you can try to use it for everything, but it's like playing football using cabbage." - MickeyMouse

Madster

242

January 27, 2005 06:59 PM

hey nice post... yeah what you'd do is to run the situation trough the model and see if it fits. If it doesn't fit its a surprise,and ... well, you act surprised. =)

Working on a fully self-funded project

Madster

242

January 30, 2005 03:42 PM

I thought about it better, and with short term- long term memory separated, what you'd do is first look short term for matches, if none (above threshold) is found then look long term for matches, if none is found then add to short term and decrease dominance level =)

The markov toolbox is in a hiatus while i get other stuff done. Will go back to it, im quite sure.

Working on a fully self-funded project

Narrative/Dramatic Gameplay

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Narrative/Dramatic Gameplay

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