Heh, the title says it all.[smile] Is this true? For most games, is it enough to have misison scripting / activity placement backed by what the game's characters or the event logs say, in terms of what happened, what will happen, and why it happened or is happening? If not, considering the active nature of games (which are all about "doing"), what else is needed?

I couldn't help but think of "Quest for Fire".

In other words, the gameplay itself should help push the story along as well, if not most of it. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.

I don't think I made this topic very clear (maybe the title didn't explain it all![grin])


2nd Try:

How much exposition / explanation do you need for your actions in order to create a story? Is it enough to have mission briefings telling you what to do, and then what happened?

Take Starcraft as an example: The entire story was told only through mission briefings and somewhat predictable changes to the world state via scripting. You knew that units/buildings could be added or taken away, and that units could be moved to a certain locations (where they'd naturally fight, flee or perform their unit function). That's pretty much IT!

But the story arose ONLY through the process of you being told why a unit/building was added/removed or why a unit was moved to a location. Does this constitute a memorable story, or is the story lost in all the missions and actual game playing?

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Original post by Jiia I couldn't help but think of "Quest for Fire". In other words, the gameplay itself should help push the story along as well, if not most of it. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Sorry, I lost track of this post. I meant to ask: Are you saying that the actions are the story or that the actions should reflect whatever the story is?

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Original post by Wavinator Sorry, I lost track of this post. I meant to ask: Are you saying that the actions are the story or that the actions should reflect whatever the story is?

Just that it's rare that actions you take or choices you make in the heat of the game effect the story. Dialog options occasionally do, but that's also rare. It's obviously very difficult, considering every choice crates a new sub story. If your story is detailed, it could easily become a nightmare.

A good example of gameplay changing the story is the ending of Deus Ex. You have three possible goals, if I remember correctly. No one asks what your intentions are, but it would have seemed more meaningful if all three of the NPC's weren't nagging at you through the mission :P - Puting the story branches at the end of the game was pretty slick, but the result was also less powerful.

edit - Imagine if you didn't quit UNATCO.

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Original post by Jiia Puting the story branches at the end of the game was pretty slick, but the result was also less powerful.

If they hadn't put them at the end of the game, people might not have noticed that they had the choice of different endings, which would be a waste of effort. (or they'd be frustrated because they had to start if they don't like the branch they picked ages ago).
I believe they did try having the choice earlier in the game, but decided to move it to the end of the game, because it just worked better.

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Original post by Spoonbender If they hadn't put them at the end of the game, people might not have noticed that they had the choice of different endings, which would be a waste of effort. (or they'd be frustrated because they had to start if they don't like the branch they picked ages ago). I believe they did try having the choice earlier in the game, but decided to move it to the end of the game, because it just worked better.

I was speaking more generally towards the fact that placing a twist near the beginning would have produced two different games. For example, if Denton decided to ignore his brother and worked against the NSF until the end. And if those divergences had more choices, you could have quite a mess of work to do as the developer. So placing choices at the end is a much cheaper solution, but it doesn't really have an impact on the game, just the ending.