Okay, so here is my concept for a game that I am thinking about making, tell me if you it would be plausible to make if it would be fun to play, if there are other games like it, and any other thoughts you might have.

So, I was watching Alien the other day, and I was thinking as I watched it, what if this were a video game? Now I know that loads of Aliens games have been made in the past, but I wasn't really thinking about Alien in particular, but more about the concept of a video game that was basically a movie, but with you as a character in it.

This got me thinking about ways of implementing full immersion into a game, and I came up with a list of features needed to make my game.

The game would be first person.

The game would have absolutely no HUD, subtitles or anything on your screen. Not even "E to pick up" or anything like this. Escape key would maybe pause the game and bring up the menu, but apart from that there would be no indicator that this was actually a game.

Pacing would be a huge part of the game. The game might last around from two to three hours, with a recommendation that you play the game from start to finish. If the game was about an assassin you might only assassinate someone two or three times. If the game was based around say Aliens, the Aliens might only start attacking halfway through the game. This isn't to say that you wouldn't be doing other things during the rest of the game, just that the game would be paced like an old school movie. This would mean that when you do get into combat for the first time it has so much more meaning to the world that you are invested in.

You cannot die. One of the big ideas for this game is a completely fluid story that feels extremely real. Anything that happens in the game cannot be undone, there is no retry screen, you will never do the same thing twice in a row because you failed it the first time. That isn't to say that you wouldn't be able to fail at tasks given to you by the characters in the story, but rather the consequences for failing would be apparent in the story, as your friends end up dead, or the enemy is closer to achieving their goal.

The game will never wait for you to do something. If some one tells you to do something, you don't have all the time in the world to do it. The world that you are in with constantly progress whether you do anything or not. This means that if you don't preform a task, then the story will progress without you, for example, getting someone else to do it, or some one ends up dead because you weren't watching their back.

Player choice would be completely dynamic, instead of being presented with a obvious choice by the game, you could be given a choice by the characters. For example, the party you are with could split up, one going down into the sewers, and one up into a building. Depending on which group you follow in the game, you will be part of a different part of the story.

This idea of things going on whether or not you are observing them would make for good replay ability as well, as you could go with different characters, and engage in the story in different ways.

So guys, what do you think? I was thinking about Alien when I came up with the idea, but I think It could work with a lot of other types of movie/game.

I think lots of people working on "dynamic narrative" (i think that's what they call it?) have had this same idea The project would largely revolve around your ability to make an AI that can direct a story in the face of a character that it can't directly control. As you said, if you don't pick up a clue, or stop the bad guy, then it's got to change the storyline now so that it still has decent pacing, and still follows a dramatic structure that we recognize as "a story", and is interesting enough to keep you engaged for 2 hours.

If someone makes such a thing, it would be an awesome game, because despite only being 2 hours long, it would have amazing replay value.

Another issue is that if you tried to make a film following the structure you've set out, it would be very hard. When was the last time you saw a 2 hour film where 1 particular character was the centre of every scene? Now out of those, how many of them were shot in the first person from that character's point of view?

I think to pull off being able to tell a film-worthy story, you'd probably have to have more than one central character, and/or use other points of view.

Games like Fahrenheit did this fairly well, where at the beginning of the game you alternate between controlling two detectives hunting a killer, and controlling the killer himself. It allowed much more flexibility in the storytelling, and would probably allow things to be more dynamic as well. e.g. if you refuse to pick up a keycard off a table, and instead just stand in the corner, the "AI director" can just cut to the next scene, which is about other people. Later on, the "director" can explain that the keycard was picked up off the table after the scene that you saw. It also means that you can die; if you make stupid decisions that gets your current character killed, the "AI director" still has options to keep the story going, by using other characters. It might have to re-work it's dramatic structure quite a bit, hacking a tragedy plot into the story, or any number of appropriate tropes -- e.g. if your character is a thief and he dies defending someone who's being robbed, then some kind of redemption theme could be woven in at that point...

In gamedev there is this saying: "Do it". It is used whenever someone comes up with an idea that is either impossible to implement or harder to implement than it's worth.

This idea is really nice if someone actually was able to make it, but nobody is a fan of producing content that barely anyone will see, and there would be lots of content like this in this kind of game. Some games might sooner or later evolve into experiences like the one you are describing, but right now they are between Heavy Rain and Skyrim stage. Since an edeavour like this requires massive amounts of work (read: massive budget) it is also highly risky and I don't think anyone will go that far soon without clear indication of demand from the market.

In gamedev there is this saying: "Do it". It is used whenever someone comes up with an idea that is either impossible to implement or harder to implement than it's worth.

Sometimes simply discussing an idea without the relevant "do it" is also nice. The OP is thinking about making the game - (the technical realities of doing this to the complexity that has been described being put to one side) - the OP is asking what do we think of the concept itself and not the inherent technical processes. The reply as provided by Hodgman is in my opinion a far better example the type of information we should provide, as well illustrating some of the issues that would need to be addressed in translating this concept to something more concrete. We are in the Creative forums and as such must give an allowance to the expression of creativity without simply saying "do it". I am not saying we should fall over backwards and worship idea's willynilly, I merely want to reinforce the idea that responses provided like Hodgman's are more likely to be beneficial to the OP as well other readers.

I didn't include it in my last post because I'd forgotten the name of it, but you should look at facade. It's just a short drama instead of a complex feature-length action movie, but it is a dynamic story presented in first-person, just like you're describing.

It must've been incredibly complicated to make, and I'm guessing that the only reason the author managed to finish it is by constraining it to just a few scenes...

They've published several papers/presentations on the technology behind it too.

I stumble over the idea of telling a dynamic story with a game, especially when based on a movie. A movie is an optimized visual media to tell a story, each shot, each emotion highly polished to tell a story and lead the audience, yet a game (not an interactive movie) with freedom of decision is the wrong media, IMHO a reason that we encounter often very crude stories in games compared to movies or books.

The issue is, that you interact with an world. What will the player feel like, if he watches a shimmering monitor for 3 minutes in a small office while the world around him delivers the greatest drama. Once he went out and missed the shuttle to the next stage, he just get bored and quits.

There's a difference to tell a dynamic story and to generate a story dynamically. The latter would suit more a game, in which the story starts to evolve around the player himself, whereas the former is really difficult in a game, to tell a story you need to take away decision from the player, you need to direct him.

I agree, that making this game say in third person with multiple view points would help with the overall feel of a movie, and It would certainly make player dead a possibility (other than say at the very end of the game), but I was going for complete immersion in a story as a character, and a first person perspective makes you feel like you yourself are in the game.

it's definitely an interesting possibility, but multiple characters and third person would give you the sense of watching a movie as opposed to actually being in one. As you say, movies usually aren't from one characters perspective and are almost never from a first person perspective, but I'm not trying to recreate the concept of watching a movie much like heavy rain or the like, but rather the idea of you yourself being a character in a movie.

Sometimes simply discussing an idea without the relevant "do it" is also nice. The OP is thinking about making the game - (the technical realities of doing this to the complexity that has been described being put to one side) - the OP is asking what do we think of the concept itself and not the inherent technical processes.

This is partly true, in that the game is quite hypothetical at the moment, but I am actually considering attempting a small scale version of my idea, so constructive feedback of any kind is always welcome.

I stumble over the idea of telling a dynamic story with a game, especially when based on a movie. A movie is an optimized visual media to tell a story, each shot, each emotion highly polished to tell a story and lead the audience, yet a game (not an interactive movie) with freedom of decision is the wrong media, IMHO a reason that we encounter often very crude stories in games compared to movies or books.

The issue is, that you interact with an world. What will the player feel like, if he watches a shimmering monitor for 3 minutes in a small office while the world around him delivers the greatest drama. Once he went out and missed the shuttle to the next stage, he just get bored and quits.

There's a difference to tell a dynamic story and to generate a story dynamically. The latter would suit more a game, in which the story starts to evolve around the player himself, whereas the former is really difficult in a game, to tell a story you need to take away decision from the player, you need to direct him.

I disagree, in that you seem to be inferring that a movie is the best way to tell a visual story as compared to a video game. I think that the reason most game's story seems terrible and bland is because usually it is worked around the game play, rather than the other way round.

You make a good point however, about the possibility of the player getting bored or not knowing what to do. A huge priority to get right in a game like this would be to make sure that the player knew exactly what the immediate goal was, so that they were never left wondering what was going on. There's a reason we have quest markers and little arrows on mini maps, but I think that if you made everything clean enough to players, then they would know what they were trying to do in the game.

A way of doing this is to make directions to the characters more and more directed the longer they take to do something, so that if they can't find say a spanner to fix an engine within a certain time, one of the characters will point it out to them... extra.

Hello everyone, I've been subscribed to GameDev for one year+ and never posted, just to give you an idea of how this post intrigued me. I am just an amateur programmer (very old-school) and my real interest is music, but this made me tick.

I suppose that the main issues for a game like this are two: an AI programming and a financial one.

Such a tree-like structure, would be a massive workload, even for a restricted game play of only a few hours, in terms of programming all the different choices and doing separate animation and storylines for each ramification.

What made me think is that a game like this should consider applying a model similar to the orbitals in atomic physics: what is the probability of a certain event happening? This would create (welcomed) limitations to the amount of choices, creating comfortable "bottle-necks" to more or less direct the story in just a few directions.

I hope it's clear. :)

Hello everyone, I've been subscribed to GameDev for one year+ and never posted, just to give you an idea of how this post intrigued me. I am just an amateur programmer (very old-school) and my real interest is music, but this made me tick.

I suppose that the main issues for a game like this are two: an AI programming and a financial one.

Such a tree-like structure, would be a massive workload, even for a restricted game play of only a few hours, in terms of programming all the different choices and doing separate animation and storylines for each ramification.

What made me think is that a game like this should consider applying a model similar to the orbitals in atomic physics: what is the probability of a certain event happening? This would create (welcomed) limitations to the amount of choices, creating comfortable "bottle-necks" to more or less direct the story in just a few directions.

I hope it's clear.

I agree, infact, this is why a film like alien would work so well, becouse it all takes place in one location.

Having a story unfold in different parts of the same building, space ship...etcetera would mean that the entire game would be the bottle neck. There's no possibility of you getting left behind by the game characters, becouse no matter where you wonder off to you will witness and iteract with a different part of the story unfolding in a different part of the location.