This thread is for ideas of story elements and emotions that could only be conveyed in video games. __ I had a dream last night that was strikingly similar to Left 4 Dead. Essentially it was a first person nightmare. At one point, an ally I was forced to abandon approached me and started asking me why- why I had let him get turned into a zombie. When I woke up I began to think how this would work in the actual video game. Imagine while playing Left 4 Dead you are faced with a horde of zombies so intense you had to leave one of your allies behind. This happened a while ago and your ally will re-spawn and rejoin the group, but instead, imagine this scenario: you casually approaching the re-spawn closet. You're about to release your trapped teammate from the closet so that they can once again assist you on your journey. But instead of your able bodied ally walking out, they stumble out and fall to the floor, horribly wounded. Having apparently escaped the horde, they look up at you with glassy eyes and ask- "Why did you leave?". They cry out and hold their vicious gaping injuries. They start to beg you "shoot me". They beg for the mercy you wouldn't give them before. The reason I've decided to write all this strangeness down in a post is because I've realized something vital. This whole scenario would make me feel extremely guilty. A video game would cause me to have survivors guilt. And this is something no movie, book, play, story or any other media has ever done to me. Perhaps I've felt bad for someone or sympathized with a character- but it would be nothing compared to suddenly see a teammate (even an AI one) before me, dying, asking why I had just let her suffering happen. The new heavy rain game apparently has a scene where, while playing as a undercover female character you're forced to strip for a local crime boss. I've seen this female character and despite the dire situation, I don't think it would be all that bad to see her naked. Apparently however, men who have played this segment of the game described it as being awkward, not sexy at all. (http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/112658-the-gleam-of-electric-sex-what-video-games-might-or-might-not-teach-/) They didn't like stripping for the fat greasy mafioso. I believe this is because of role placement- games have a way of forcing a player into the shoes of somebody else. Games have a significant advantage over other media. Movies, while being one of the most popular methods of conveying an emotional story these days, can only allow you to look into a persons life. Video Games allow you to BE a person, allowing a creator to elicit a much wider range of emotion. Consider this example as well: In the original Kingdom Hearts while in the first world, your island home, you are able to fight against your allies as an optional tutorial. Most of these fights are rather simple but when fighting the main character's best friend Riku there is an extremely steep difficulty curve. Even if you were to get good enough to beat him, he keeps track of your wins and losses. It was nearly impossible to have more wins than he did. Veterans to the game have a difficult time beating him so why present this challenge to a beginner? Because they weren't meant to win. The player is meant to start viewing Riku as a rival, someone they would have to work to beat. The player unknowingly began to sympathize with Sora (the game's playable main character) who also saw Riku as a rival. By the time you were forced to leave the the island you left it with a feeling of regret- most players had to leave without ever evening the score. They were left with a desire just like Sora's- to go out and find Riku once again. Let's explore this idea. I think we've finally nailed what makes games so much more emotionally stimulating than other media. In what other ways have we seen this? More importantly, what other ways can we use this? Could a game inspire compassion as well a competition? Could it create hope as well as hostility? Let's step back and look at games as more than just a recreation for a moment and realize what else they are capable of.

There is a similar situation in Deux-Ex. The scene where you are in the hotel with your brother and lots of agents start comming in and there is no way of stopping them from inside the room, so you gotta leave or be killed. Quite a few scenes later you find you brother corpse in a lab. I personally felt quite guilty of having left him behind, actually to the extent of going back to the hotel scene (through a saved game) and do everything in order to save the guy.

To my surprise it was possible to save him and he would appear later in the game 'alive' instead of dead and the story would get slightly modified because of that.

That game is so great.

Personally, I would be really displeased by a game that tried to make me feel something as unpleasant as survivor's guilt. But I agree with the basic idea, that games have a unique power to connect with the player's emotions by presenting true interactive fiction, 1st person stories where the player's actions have actual consequences rather than the game proceeding on rails and the player's own morality not having room to influence the player's choices about what actions to take within the game.

What I personally want to see is a video-game that's basically a romance novel and a bildungsroman; specifically the kind where the main character is dropped into a new fantasy or sci-fi world and has to really come to an understanding of this world so they can make a life within it, a life measured in social relationships and goals of influencing the community, not monsters killed, and no going back to normal life at the end.

To invoke an emotion similar to survivors guilt would be terrible, but from an artists perspective could you imagine how powerful of a tool that would be? Imagine telling the story of a WWII veteran. Or a 9-11 survivor.

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Original post by sunandshadow What I personally want to see is a video-game that's basically a romance novel and a bildungsroman; specifically the kind where the main character is dropped into a new fantasy or sci-fi world and has to really come to an understanding of this world so they can make a life within it, a life measured in social relationships and goals of influencing the community, not monsters killed, and no going back to normal life at the end.

Somehow I feel that the option to leave in the end is important - choosing to stay indicates a level of emotional involvement in the community more than just the desire to further the storyline. Something like the ending of Outlander comes to mind...

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Original post by swiftcoder Quote: Original post by sunandshadow What I personally want to see is a video-game that's basically a romance novel and a bildungsroman; specifically the kind where the main character is dropped into a new fantasy or sci-fi world and has to really come to an understanding of this world so they can make a life within it, a life measured in social relationships and goals of influencing the community, not monsters killed, and no going back to normal life at the end. Somehow I feel that the option to leave in the end is important - choosing to stay indicates a level of emotional involvement in the community more than just the desire to further the storyline. Something like the ending of Outlander comes to mind...

If there were several possible endings it would make sense that leaving be one of them. That was how Xenallure's plot was structured (if anyone remembers Xenallure besides me, lol). The design had ending modules, some were relationship ones and some were plot ones, and several could be combined and shown as the game's ending depending on what the player had achieved.

But, the game definitely should not push the players towards leaving - leaving almost can't be a good/success ending because choosing to abandon that world devalues the time and effort the player has spent within that world. Stories where the main character leaves fantasyland at the end do that to put emphasis on the fact that the main character learned a valuable lesson they must now take back to real life. But that's not the point of a romance novel at all, romance novels basically always have the moral that love conquers all and by being resilient, ethical, kind, etc. she earns the happy ending of a secure and prosperous family life with her chosen love interest. In that sort of situation, the only reason to go back to the real world is if she could take both the love interest and some sort of wealth back with her, and her life in the real world would then for some reason be happier than it would have been had she remained in the other world.

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Original post by sunandshadow Personally, I would be really displeased by a game that tried to make me feel something as unpleasant as survivor's guilt.

I can't say I agree,

A game that's able to make me feel such strong emotions would probably be the best game i've ever played, even if the emotions are mostly unpleasant. If you get emotions like guilt it means the game succeeded in really pulling you in.
There are parts in books that make me feel really sad (not very manly I know) but that doesn't make the book bad just because it made you experience negative emotions, it makes it great because the book managed to make you sympathize with it.

I would rather be happy than sad, but books or games that are just a bunch of happy, feel-good moments don't tend to be much fun, you know what i'm saying? (talking about emotions is so difficult...)
If there's a game that's able to make me cry like books can I will consider them equal in their ability to tell stories.

Bjorn Dingeldein

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Original post by Bjorn Dingeldein Quote: Original post by sunandshadow Personally, I would be really displeased by a game that tried to make me feel something as unpleasant as survivor's guilt. I can't say I agree, A game that's able to make me feel such strong emotions would probably be the best game i've ever played, even if the emotions are mostly unpleasant.

Survivors' Guilt isn't just some feeling/emotion of regret - instead it is a subcategory of PTSD, which can lead to depression, suicide, etc. Above and beyond any percieved 'unpleasantness', the release of a computer game capable of causing such a condition would be criminal.

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Original post by swiftcoder Quote: Original post by Bjorn Dingeldein Quote: Original post by sunandshadow Personally, I would be really displeased by a game that tried to make me feel something as unpleasant as survivor's guilt. I can't say I agree, A game that's able to make me feel such strong emotions would probably be the best game i've ever played, even if the emotions are mostly unpleasant. Survivors' Guilt isn't just some feeling/emotion of regret - instead it is a subcategory of PTSD, which can lead to depression, suicide, etc. Above and beyond any percieved 'unpleasantness', the release of a computer game capable of causing such a condition would be criminal.

I see, even so I don't think the guilt you get from leaving your virtual teammate behind will cause any mental trauma. (The game would have to be quite realistic if it was able to) But I still think that if a game makes you feel guilty or sad (And I don't mean to the point of depression) its a great game. Take Mass Effect for example, there were plenty of moments where i felt guilty of my actions or sad and that only adds to the believability of that game you get my point? I didn't mean emotions THAT extreme but rather a healthy amount.

Bjorn Dingeldein