Comments on Hit Self-Destruct: Repeat Forever If Necessary

Short post: Isn't a prescribed just another fo...

2009-07-17T07:06:46.598+12:00

Short post: Isn't a prescribed just another form of rule, if games are viewed from a purely ludic perspective?

@Charles: Guided interactivity could provide a me...

2009-07-15T11:54:18.863+12:00

@Charles:

Guided interactivity could provide a method to create an "interactive story" - there will always be some freedom when the player is allowed to do what he will, but it can be limited in ways that allows the story to play out as planned. Preferably, the necessary action would be something that the player would be inclined to do himself so that the player feels like he was the one responsible.

However, even if it was a requirement for completion, the interactivity wouldn't necessarily be trivial - after all, it's still the player doing it, which might have a different effect than that player watching or reading about someone else do it.

Some of the games I've replayed the most are P...

2009-07-14T22:35:43.738+12:00

Some of the games I've replayed the most are Portal, Luigi's Mansion and Resident Evil 4.

All of them relatively short, totally linear games, but I'd rather play a short punchy experience than spend months or years feeling obligated to find every side quest and hidden item in a game..

At the end of this piece to seem to be asking for ...

2009-07-13T08:58:58.351+12:00

At the end of this piece to seem to be asking for something that you've argued is impossible.

There is no non-trivial interactivity, more than just flipping pages for instance, without agency and choice; agency and choice mean that you can do things differently each time you interact, 'replayability' in other words; you say at the beginning that these are exactly the kinds of things that don't mix well with narrative.

How can you then call for something that might be called an 'interactive story'? Aren't you making a case that these are contradictory terms?

I'd think devs focus so much on replayability ...

2009-07-13T03:56:02.400+12:00

I'd think devs focus so much on replayability because it's one of the aspects a videogame could actually do that's different from other media, but the fact remains that it mostly isn't done very well.

I'm wondering if replayability should be less about the narrative side of the story and more or less about the actual gaming side. Or maybe the idea that story is something that happens inbetween shooting people. For me the story of a game is only partly the exposition and the dialogue, it's much more the experience of the game itself. What (perhaps seemingly) unique things happen to me on a playthrough? And if viewed like that, choice of, say, weaponry and/or special powers becomes part of a game's narrative as it will influence how encounters resolve.

This reminds me of the recent spats of permadeath playthroughs of Far Cry 2, which I'm also participating in (although personally I'm not blogging about it, just bothering people on Twitter). These playthroughs (which are essentially Iron Man playthroughs, where if your character dies you have to restart the game, although in a significant difference with other games, FC2 has buddies, who will try and save you from dying.. up to a certain point..) bypass the whole narrative aspect of the game and become more or less purely about the game itself (the permadeath thing itself is a metagame). Clint Hocking wrote a blogpost about this aspect of the permadeath trend - clicksomething

All of this doesn't ofcourse mean that people will want to be creative in switching playing styles. And I'm aware that the FC2 permadeath experiments are done by a relatively niche group of players. But it might also be about how we approach gaming - what if we saw games more as playgrounds that encourage us to switch playing styles, to experiment, instead of something to be victorious over?

Sorry, another long one.. I'm so ashamed.