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Why Should Game Stories Make Sense?
An anonymous reader writes "An opinion piece at Polygon raises an interesting question about how we perceive video games: why does so much effort go into having the plot make perfect sense? Think about games you've played that have a story. How much do you actually remember? You can probably name the protagonist and antagonist, but do you really know what they were fighting about? The article says, [Developer Jake Elliot] talked about the difference between a puzzle and a mystery. He argued that a puzzle has a solution, while a mystery may never be solved. A puzzle must make sense, but a mystery may well not. In the context of a game, the mechanics are the puzzle, while the theme is the mystery. The game play must be predictable, or the player will never master it. But the theme can be evocative and open-ended. A theme evokes the horrors of war; the mechanics remind you to reload your gun. The plot is stuck in the middle. It wants to make sense of a game, but the game play is already doing that. If we were watching a movie, the plot would provide the backbone, but games don't work like movies, and the plot can get in the way. It can feel awkward and unwelcome, while a looser thematic layer can be the most memorable part of the game.'"
The real plot problem is that not enough effort goes into game plot development.
Its not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind.
They don't need to make sense in a universal fashion, they can be completely unrealistic/unbelievable. However they should make sense internally. Whatever rules are laid out in the game universe, it should make sense within that setting.
Most people can easily suspend disbelief and accept another world. However that suspension can be shattered if nothing makes sense, the rules keep changing, and there's no internal consistency.
That was, for example, one of the big problems in the Mass Effect games. I won't go in to details to not spoil it but the ending of the trilogy was bad in a large part because it had no internal consistency. It didn't make sense in regards to the narrative that had been going on in the games up to that point. It was a deus ex machinia kind of event that just shattered the story for many.
So no game stories don't need to make sense in terms of the real world, but if they are to be good they should make sense in terms of themselves.
Is not a reputable source at all. The entire site is based on click baiting articles and opinion pieces.
You're new here, I take it.
This was what was so great about Lost. There were so many mysteries, yet every time a mystery was solved, it just raised yet more questions. Many viewers still didn't get it by the time the finale was long over. A game where you're always in medias res and constantly being surprised by new revelations could be even more fantastic! Come to think of it, that's what makes life so cool.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Think about games you've played that have a story. How much do you actually remember? You can probably name the protagonist and antagonist, but do you really know what they were fighting about?
Yes? I consider myself to have below average memory for plots and characters in stories in general, including books and movies, yet I can remember more than two characters from most stories, video game or not, that I've paid any attention to in the last 10+ years. Even stuff I was exposed to before that in high school I could at least give a quick paragraph summary. What if someone said:
Think about fiction books you've read. How much do you actually remember? You can probably name the protagonist and antagonist, but do you really know what they were doing?
Just because you and some other people have bad memory or don't pay attention doesn't mean such things can be ignored. Hell, even if you have bad long term memory, doesn't mean you don't notice when you are in the middle of playing or reading the particular work.
In the games that were AWESOME, I do. And you know what made those games awesome in my opinion? Internally consistent plots (along with good gameplay).
Simple question, simple answer. Games are about satisfying desires. Whether that means the satisfaction of overcoming challenges or the satisfaction of bringing a story to a fitting conclusion doesn't matter. If the story didn't make sense it wouldn't be satisfying, and so the satisfaction would have to come from some other element. If the game failed to be satisfying in that aspect as well it would be bad and no-one would play it.
Portal / Portal 2 : Great games with both fantastic gameplay AND brilliant writing.
What makes something "a mystery" isn't the fact that it doesn't make sense, it's the fact that it doesn't deliver a definitive answer.
Far too many TV shows and "beach thrillers" rely on nonsense to move the plot along (internal contradictions, characters acting completely out of character and against their own interests to make some plot twist possible, deus ex machina "solutions" to holes the script writers dug themselves into, etc.).
And, sadly, game writers tend to be recruited from, those ranks (i.e., people used to linear writing), which removes the only thing they might be good at (control over the story's flow). In a non-linear medium like a game (and even more so in shared-world multiplayer games, like MMORPGs), the result is frequently cringe-worthy. All the plot holes and nonsense stand out, and makes you wish the game didn't try to have a "story" at all.
So yes, game stories (like every other story) do need to "make sense", regardless of any mysteries. And they need to make sense not just in terms of the plot itself, but also in terms of the game universe, player actions, and interaction between players. If you can't write a story that makes sense, don't write a story at all, just create an interesting game world and let the players make up their own stories.
Game writers need to be more like J.R.R. Tolkien and less like Dan Brown / J. J. Abrams.
Anyone who remembers Half Life would probably understand the importance of a story within a game.
...real somehow. I wish games where that awesome, but somehow...the sequels plus a lot of other games have failed to pick up where Half Life left of, but I personally feel THIS IS THE WAY TO GO!
Before Half Life, I played 2D console games like Pac-Man, Asteroids, Space-Invaders and other today classics, followed by 3D games like Wolfenstein, DOOM, The QUAKE series etc... no one of them had any decent stories IMHO. Then Half Life came along, it was a milestone in video gaming. Video games and actual VIDEO now merged into one, and games never felt this immerse and exciting. I remember literally jumping in my chair when the onslaught of surprises came to life in that game.
When introduced as a worker in the Black Mesa research facility - I actually FELT like I was really working there, just to face a day out of the ordinary. We could walk around and "sort of" talk to people, and it felt
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Ultima 4, 5, 6, 7, 7-2 (even the bad one 8,9), I remember the protagonists background and motivation. Heck Planescape torment, who can even forget that ? "What can change the nature of Man ?". I disagree that the story is not important. The story as a motivation well done IS important. The problem is that since the game are sold globally now, and the cultural difference between market are so huge, it is increasingly difficult to come up with a story sensitive to all cultures.
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If they continue that, they will eventually reach the level of TV. That one I have up a decade ago, because I could not stand the stupidity any more.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I'm not quite sure what the argument that's being made here is.
Games are an audio/visual medium that involves user interaction, there are many paths to take from that point and many of them may harken back to media that came before.
Some people may enjoy more the challenge of the mechanics, or the challenge of playing against other people, or art style, or the story, or the general ambiance.
So it seems to me that it's a rather limited way of thinking to try to make some sort of sweeping statement about what games should and shouldn't be.
They should make sense because I like stories that make sense, and I buy video games with stories I like.
You can have an entertaining game without any plot or with extremely little (eg. Super Mario Bros.), but a plot that actually doesn't make sense is going to bother me exactly as much as a movie that doesn't make sense, and the fact that "games don't work like movies" is an additional obstacle to writing a coherent plot, not an excuse for not trying.
I also suggest that he's probably talking to people who don't care about plots. The plot is the main thing I remember from most games. I can absolutely tell you what the characters were fighting about in any of my favourite games. I can list sideplots. I can't necessarily tell you what buttons you press to do certain actions.
I also suggest that the "looser thematic layer" is important to movies, too. The Matrix didn't get by on the strength of its plot, and the early "twist" that they were all living in a computer simulation was absolutely not novel. But it had a strong themes and, at the time, a unique artistic stance that is often summarized with reference to "bullet time". How many people remember why Neo went to see the Oracle?
Adventure games are nearly all plot. A strong subset of RPGs are like that too -- the Elder Scrolls games not so much, they are about theme, and I don't like those games and they bug me at every release by overshadowing all the RPGs I like. The Infinity Engine games had better plots, but not necessarily strong themes, although Planescape had both and is well-loved. The original Fallout also had strong theme & plot elements, but it strayed further into theme and away from plot as time went on, culminating in Fallout 3 (New Vegas backtracked a bit, to my delight).
Mass Effect tried for both too, and with the controversy over the ending you can absolutely see how important plot truly was.
I kept waiting for the reveal of the Plan the Cylons supposedly had.
a mcguffin doesn't mean there isn't a plot. there are some great movies that have mcguffins. off the top of my head, the suitcase in pulp fiction (the one that glowed gold when they opened it). it was an important item that everybody wanted but you never found out what it is. The second is the "rabbit's foot" in mission impossible III. Everybody wants it but you never find out what it is. I don't remember if they ever even uncover it!
point is, you can have rich plots even with a mcguffin.
for the purpose of video games, I'm a huge fan of assassin's creed, and am currently kicking pirate ass in ACIV. at first i was disappointed in the story, because it appears to be not directly tied to the whole assassin/templar thing and just a tacked on pirate adventure. but now I'm completely embracing it. I'm thinking of it as "Assassin's Creed Caribbean Vacation". And it's fscking awesome and fun.
President Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie?
... it's about setting the tone for a story and then radically breaking from it. We saw this in mass effect 3's ending and Mass effect 2's ret-conning. ME3's ending was just fucking awful for all the amazing shit they set up in Mass effect 1. The reapers had a real mystery and atmosphere and that was slowly deflated by mistakes made in ME2 (aka the human abuction to create a human reaper, like wtf?) and then totally screwed over by ME3 with star child stupid ass choice ending.
If a game gives gamers the impression of being a serious story they set up those expectations. No one playing say Saints row 3 or SR4 is going to have serious expectations about the story. But it's different for RPG's like mass effect, etc. When you give the story a serious tone and show serious effort and then start phoning it in that's when gamers get pissed off. You need to decide from the start whether your story is going to be a serious effort or a half assed one and don't give gamers the impression otherwise.
Theres arcade games like hoops around a cone, but for games that require me to invest more than the few minutes of screentime i give them, i need something to help me keep the suspension of belief. This is where a story that keeps me interested is required.
But there are exceptions. The story may be cheesy, like C&C:Red Alert 2 where its just mechanism to explain the next mission. So either the story is informative, or the story is required to keep me interested.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
From what I understand about Pulp Fiction, the glowing suitcase is supposed to contain a human soul. Now maybe someone was joking when I heard it, but it kind of makes sense.
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