Gameplay and Immersion

[archangelmorph]

That's part of the medium. If you're 100% focussed on story, you're not going to make a video game. You're going to write a book. So, when I'm playing a game, I'm hoping I'm not just going to be sitting and watching cutscenes or reading through hours and hours of dialogue, because the quality just isn't up to par.

I'd put that down to the limitations of previous hardware though to be honest..

I think with greater depth of scope with the new hardware platforms developers can now obtain a new level human expression and emotion (which is vital to any good plot I reckon) which is more believable than ever before.. With enough financial investment of course..

(thats the difference between movies and films.. Films have to pay more for spectacles (cgi fx) and get the human element free (since thats what actors inherently provide).. whereas games get the spectacles free and have to pay for the human element (since you have to "fake" the human actors to get the same level of believability..) )

I agree about GTA having a great style and a lot of humour, which means they have some decent writers on hand. Final Fantasy, on the other hand, is a groan inducing boredom fest for me.

Never heard it described in that way before.. very poetic..

Well I guess growing up with the old animes and mangas, there's a special place in my heart for the Final Fantasys', MGSs, DMCs and ZOEs of this world..

 

[Gubbi]

Well I guess growing up with the old animes and mangas, there's a special place in my heart for the Final Fantasys', MGSs, DMCs and ZOEs of this world..

That would probably help. I have a hard time getting into stories in Japanese produced games.

I tried watching the Lost Planet cutscenes, the game is one big fight for survival in a very hostile environment, yet all the cutscenes are about a bunch of people acting like presumptuous spoiled teenagers, - it's migraine-inducing dumb. Last time I tried before that, was Panzer Dragon Orta, which is completely nonsensical.

How come there aren't any Kurosawas in the game-industry? The only one I can think of that actually tries is Tim Schafer.

Cheers

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'd put that down to the limitations of previous hardware though to be honest..

I think with greater depth of scope with the new hardware platforms developers can now obtain a new level human expression and emotion (which is vital to any good plot I reckon) which is more believable than ever before.. With enough financial investment of course..

(thats the difference between movies and films.. Films have to pay more for spectacles (cgi fx) and get the human element free (since thats what actors inherently provide).. whereas games get the spectacles free and have to pay for the human element (since you have to "fake" the human actors to get the same level of believability..) )

Maybe in the future the gaming industry will be able to attract better writers. Right now, I don't think the writers come anywhere close to the best screenwriters, and fall leagues behind the best literary writers.

Edit: Oh, and emotional connection is not a technological limitation. I don't believe films are superior to the novel on an emotional level, even though technologically they are more advanced.

 

[archangelmorph]

Edit: Oh, and emotional connection is not a technological limitation. I don't believe films are superior to the novel on an emotional level, even though technologically they are more advanced.

Sorry I didn't mean to restrict it to just technical mechanisms.. I guess it's just a limitation of all those mechanisms fullstop..

Games and movies have a hard time immersing you in the plot from a singular perspective because they don't have the capacity for expression that books can give (in areas like expression thought.. intention.. motivation.. and all those subtle elements that influence a character's actions in the world..).. Then there's the descriptive mechanisms of which, books can express in a form so vivid and lucid that it rivals that of a complete physical experience in terms of expressive power..

Books are hard to beat.. But games are fast approaching movie quality storytelling this gen..

 

[Scott_Arm]

Sorry I didn't mean to restrict it to just technical mechanisms.. I guess it's just a limitation of all those mechanisms fullstop..

Games and movies have a hard time immersing you in the plot from a singular perspective because they don't have the capacity for expression that books can give (in areas like expression thought.. intention.. motivation.. and all those subtle elements that influence a character's actions in the world..).. Then there's the descriptive mechanisms of which, books can express in a form so vivid and lucid that it rivals that of a complete physical experience in terms of expressive power..

Books are hard to beat.. But games are fast approaching movie quality storytelling this gen..

Ok, i'd agree with that, to an extent. I think it will be a while before we have movie quality story telling, but I can see story telling improving significantly this gen.

Edit: I think they'll still have a lot of trouble attracting high-profile writers, only because of the stigma of games. Movies reach a broader audience and I think some writers shy away from the freedom a player has in gaming. It does limit them, to an extent.

 

[archangelmorph]

Edit: I think they'll still have a lot of trouble attracting high-profile writers, only because of the stigma of games. Movies reach a broader audience and I think some writers shy away from the freedom a player has in gaming. It does limit them, to an extent.

True.. but it depends on the game to be fair..

The openness of a game like Crackdown would cause more problems for a movie writer than a game like very linear like tomb raider..

I think the biggest constraint is really the lack of character depth and personality they are "allowed" to flesh out in the game because of the lack of human expression..

After all, most gamers hate cut-scenes enough as it is even though you have explosions and action blowing up all over the place.. Imagine having to sit down and watch a cut scene/or play a story element of a character having a fight with his wife about their financial situation...

Not everyones cup of tea [when they pick up the controller after a hard days work] i'm sure..

 

[Arwin]

Computer games are a far better story telling medium than books. They can display text at the same user dictated speed as a book can, but then you have everything from the realm of cinema and games to enhance the experience in terms of interactivity and presentation. For a minimalist example of how this is proven, see Zork.

So if computer games fail at presenting a story, we have to simply conclude that most of the time, the story telling sucks. That's ok though, because often gameplay will be the main priority. And to be fair, if you want to keep the realm of gameplay and story paired to a similar and integrated experience, that throws up some limitations.

Nevertheless, there have been a couple of games with decent enough storylines. Most of these were in the classic adventure game arena however, and since that genre is currently pretty much dead, we haven't seen a big production picking up the slack. i think Final Fantasy's type of presentation is the closest to that genre we have today. A mix of that and GTA's interface could produce an environment that gets pretty close to the way many stories are currently told in the cinema.

Incidentally, I think that film has become a superior medium to a book narrative wise also. The only downside in it is that there are no real moments where you can leave the speed of the story up to the player. Imagine that you have a computer game version of the Lord of the Rings, and think of the following two moments:

- you enter the beautiful forest of Enduin for the first time. You can stay around admiring the scenery and thinking about what lies ahead for 5 minutes, or for 30 minutes, or for 24 hours, depending on your preference.

- you are climbing Mount Doom. If you don't make it to the top within a certain time, first Gandalf and Aragorn are killed, and if not shortly afterwards you make it still, then you are discovered, and you have a limited amount of time before the Nazgul attack you.

One of the powerful aspects of books is that the reader's imagination is sometimes more powerful. If you think your story is going to suffer because you cannot beat the reader's imagination at that point, there are several things you can do. You can stop showing anything on screen, or make everything vague, or ask the player to close his eyes (and black out the screen) and rely on sound only, or just display pages of a book, and so on.

Narrative Technique was one of my majors in university when I studied English (lit). If a games company wants to seriously spruce up their story telling, just drop me a line. I'll gladly do some free consultancy for the greater benefit of good stories in games and even sign an NDA.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I guess video games have the most freedom of any story telling medium. It has interactivity, movie sequences and text. One big thing to point out, is it costs a hell of a lot more money to make a game than to write a book. That, in itself, will prevent a lot of people from stepping into the field of writing for games. With so much money invested in these games, financial risk has to be a consideration and the writers will be given less freedom. That, and there is less original IP and more and more sequels nowadays, and who really wants to write Halo4? There are definitely pressures on authors from publishers and editors, but I have a feeling those pressures are greater in the film and game industries. There are just a lot of types of stories that people do not want to "play."

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This interview with David Braben is primarily about games as a story medium.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6566&Itemid=2

 

[T Ghost]

It's really two problems here: Story and story-telling.

You're right that the quality of stories in games are generally pretty poor, when they are good they are around B-movie quality.

A story still helps to immerse you in a gameworld, the biggest problem IMO is the story-telling, - the mechanics used to convey the story to you. Far too many fails on this point and resorts to cutscenes to glue various segments of the game together. The story should unravel around you through the gameplay, NOT through cutscenes.

Examples of games that did a decent job are Halflife 2 (overhearing conversations, radio chatter etc) and Doom 3 (video sequences on in-game monitors, messages on PDAs etc).

Examples of games that have a potential good story, but fail miserable at story telling are Lost Planet (complete disconnect from the game) and just about any Final Fantasy game out there, which in essence is just doing chores between (gorgeous) cutscenes (IMO, I know a lot of people disagrees violently).

And then you have games like Gears of War which has essentially zero story and doesn't bother to pretend to have one.

Cheers

Well, I do violently agree with you about the Final Fantasy storytelling technique.

About Gears of War, it's Unfair to say Gears has zero story because it actually has story. Gears story is the Marcus Phoenix's Story. He was in Prison for disobeying orders in combat, was taken out to help when his nation was losing a war, fights his way back into action trying to stay alive, the hate towards the enemy and need to eliminate the enemy to avoid extinction and the death of a beloved comrade motivates and gives him a personal and secondary goal (to kill Raam) and the game ends when he completes the secondary and the primary goals. That's when the final cut scene comes in and we know the primary goal is not completed at all which leads to a obvious conclusion that there will be Gears of War 2 with humans versus locust again.

I agree that is not a literature classic but there is a story there. And look down on me how much you want, but Gears of War was able to create an emotional connection with me. Not a very strong one, but way, way more than crackdown. It's what I said, that a game need not to be perfect in every aspect, especially writing, to become a special and unique experience to players. As long as the game has a perfect chemistry between writing, storytelling and soundtrack, it will make a emotional connection with the gamer as longs as it has no serious flaws on all the other game aspects like controls, gameplay, etc. The better those other elements are, the easier is for the game with perfect chemistry between writing, storytelling and soundtrack to create an emotional connection.

Play Gears of war again on casual, pay attention on the details that I outlined and check it out the "amazing" Gears of War story!

But again, about the storytelling style of stopping all the action to tell the story exclusively of in its majority by the way of a cut scene I also thinks it's a very outdated and poor way to do so. But it's easy for not so smart gamers to grasp the story this way. The Halo formula of telling the majority of the story within the game action is amazing but too complex for some gamers that are too used to stop all the action every time the story advances.

 

[T Ghost]

That would probably help. I have a hard time getting into stories in Japanese produced games.

I tried watching the Lost Planet cutscenes, the game is one big fight for survival in a very hostile environment, yet all the cutscenes are about a bunch of people acting like presumptuous spoiled teenagers, - it's migraine-inducing dumb. Last time I tried before that, was Panzer Dragon Orta, which is completely nonsensical.

How come there aren't any Kurosawas in the game-industry? The only one I can think of that actually tries is Tim Schafer.

Cheers

OMG! I found my gaming opinion soul mate!!!

Genius the question of why there's no Kurosawas in the game industry? Japanese produced games are a pain for me to follow and a roll eye fest at every cut scene.

 

[NRP]

A story still helps to immerse you in a gameworld, the biggest problem IMO is the story-telling, - the mechanics used to convey the story to you. Far too many fails on this point and resorts to cutscenes to glue various segments of the game together. The story should unravel around you through the gameplay, NOT through cutscenes.

I think this is it in a nutshell. For me, the most immersive games are those where everything just unfolds around what I am actually doing as a player and I don't even notice the graphics, controls, physics, cutscenes, etc. It's a shame that the overwhelming majority of them fail to pull it off.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I know someone that did a Phd in psychology and they told me that one of their classmates went on to be hired by a game publisher. Their job is basically to play a game, determine the psychology behind that game and whether it would appeal to the gaming demographic. Has anyone ever heard of this? With that kind of business, it's no wonder there is little risk-taking and a lot of derivative games released. Even if a good is really well made, sometimes there is too much of a "been there, done that," feel, which really takes you out of the experience.

 

[Sonic]

Thank you all for your posts and contributions in this thread. Thank you for staying on topic also!

Keep it coming, I love reading the replies so far.

 

[Readykilowatt]

If you have or played a Wii, does its controller bring you deeper into the experience?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The Wiimote solves this problem.

 

[lauris71]

Computer games are a far better story telling medium than books. They can display text at the same user dictated speed as a book can, but then you have everything from the realm of cinema and games to enhance the experience in terms of interactivity and presentation. For a minimalist example of how this is proven, see Zork.

Unfortunately it does not work that way.
Different mediums have enormously different cognitive intensities.
To read a good book you need silence and tranquility. You have to concentrate, your mind has to become active, recreating the image of reality from text.
Movie immerses you into itself much more forcibly, switching many outside stimulations off. But it forces you into passive mode with much less imagination happening - after all, you do not have to recreate the visual reproduction of situation yourself.
Video game needs completely different type of active participating. Becuse of constant feedback system you are not worried about the story anymore - all that matters is the feedback system itself.
Now, if you try to mix different mediums, people just get bored. No one want to watch movie, where half of the story is presentd in book-like text. Switching requires too much effort and kills the enjoyment of both movie and book.
The same happens with videogames. Even the few cutscenes in games like final fantasy cause people to complain. You can only imagine, how playable would be game, where the time would be divided equally between text, movie and game. To convey any reasonably good story you have to pull player out of feedback loop - i.e. kill the very essence of gameplay. To make game enjoyable, you have to put player to feedback loop - i.e. switch his attention and imagination off from narrative, thus eliminating any possibility for anything deeper than the most banal stories.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Definite 'yes' to that post lauris71. All too often, whatever the story is of a game I or friends are playing, we don't care. However, I think going forwards emotional response from characters will enable story. If instead of being told what's happening on an emotional level, players get to see it (show don't tell), they'll naturally, fingers crossed, become emotionally involved.

 

[Arwin]

Unfortunately it does not work that way.
Different mediums have enormously different cognitive intensities.
To read a good book you need silence and tranquility. You have to concentrate, your mind has to become active, recreating the image of reality from text.

And? I read all of Heinlein's the Moon is a Harsh Mistress on my PSP's screen. Worked much better than I imagined, really. Also, the silence and tranquility thing is personal and a matter of how well you can concentrate.

Movie immerses you into itself much more forcibly, switching many outside stimulations off. But it forces you into passive mode with much less imagination happening - after all, you do not have to recreate the visual reproduction of situation yourself.

You're taking each medium to its extreme, making a caricature out of all of them. There is no such thing as a fixed line that divides the three. All of them can display a poem, for instance. And if on a DVD, you could put a whole book in frames and advance frame through the whole thing and read it. Less extreme example, take some of Hitchcocks best work. Is it effective because it shows every aspect explicitly, forcing its story upon you? Or is he leaving things to your imagination, effectively making them scarier? Even Jaws did that effectively.

Video game needs completely different type of active participating. Becuse of constant feedback system you are not worried about the story anymore - all that matters is the feedback system itself.

That's still depending on the game you are playing. To play the extreme game, something like Chess on the computer, or even computer fishing, or something like Flight Simulator, are also games, but they don't require active participating or constant feedback.

Now, if you try to mix different mediums, people just get bored. No one want to watch movie, where half of the story is presentd in book-like text. Switching requires too much effort and kills the enjoyment of both movie and book.

What if you were playing a detectice game and it came with a real library where you had to look up stuff in real books in order to figure out some of the clues. Would that kill the enjoyment? I think that very much depends on your personal taste rather than an inherent flaw in the concept of mixing genres.

The same happens with videogames. Even the few cutscenes in games like final fantasy cause people to complain.

A small correction here: some people. Personally, I have always seen the cut-scenes as rewards that I was working towards when I was playing the game, and they helped set the story. The only thing that bothered me about them really was that initially the difference between the quality of presentation in the game and in the cut-scenes diverged too much.

You can only imagine, how playable would be game, where the time would be divided equally between text, movie and game. To convey any reasonably good story you have to pull player out of feedback loop - i.e. kill the very essence of gameplay. To make game enjoyable, you have to put player to feedback loop - i.e. switch his attention and imagination off from narrative, thus eliminating any possibility for anything deeper than the most banal stories.

Let's just say that it depends very much on the game. Though even there you can do some pretty interesting things with the most simple of games. Take the Wargames movie, where a game of tic-tac-toe against a 'sentient' supercomputer becomes a crucial part of the movie. If you were to set up a story like that around a simple game like that, or pong, or whatever other simple game, you could still create an immersive story around simple game mechanics. Another good example of this effect is the movie Tron, which involves the basic gameplay of snake.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You're taking each medium to its extreme, making a caricature out of all of them. There is no such thing as a fixed line that divides the three. All of them can display a poem, for instance. And if on a DVD, you could put a whole book in frames and advance frame through the whole thing and read it.

That's hardly a movie though, is it!

That's still depending on the game you are playing. To play the extreme game, something like Chess on the computer, or even computer fishing, or something like Flight Simulator, are also games, but they don't require active participating or constant feedback.

Chess no, but the other two examples do, I think. Fishing depends on watching the float for a bite. Flight Simulator is presumably about watching dials. Both are about waiting for AV feedbacks before responding, like pretty much all games. Act > respond > react. That engages different bits of the brain to movies or books where there's no action. There's only emotional or intellectual involvement.

What if you were playing a detectice game and it came with a real library where you had to look up stuff in real books in order to figure out some of the clues. Would that kill the enjoyment?

That'd be okay in an adventure game, but 90+% of games are action oriented. Adventure games are even a dying breed. Reading text and working out clues was something we used to do. If you're interrupting the action sequences for intellectual sequences, you're asking the player to have two different cooperative tastes. Games that have tried to mix up thoughtful puzzles with action gameplay have often come a cropper too I think. Much depends on the genre.

A small correction here: some people.

I guess we'll never know what ratio it is. My anecdotal contribution is no-one values them. Some of us watch them, some of us always skip them, but no-one I know considers them reward or is interested in what they have to say. Personally I think that's due to lousy stories and writing as much as anything, but principally I think it's like trying to mix reading a book with watching football. If you're getting excited at the sport, reading a book in the middle of that is just a distraction. And if your reading a book, having to stop to watch 5 minutes of football is likewise. They're two different activities that require different degrees of involvement in different ways.

Let's just say that it depends very much on the game. Though even there you can do some pretty interesting things with the most simple of games. Take the Wargames movie, where a game of tic-tac-toe against a 'sentient' supercomputer becomes a crucial part of the movie. If you were to set up a story like that around a simple game like that, or pong, or whatever other simple game, you could still create an immersive story around simple game mechanics. Another good example of this effect is the movie Tron, which involves the basic gameplay of snake.

In all these cases, the requirement is emotional involvement with the characters. Tron was exciting because you were worried what'd happen and if they'd get away. Take away the rest of the story and just have bikes whizzing around, and few people would care to watch it. Tic-tac-toe is never going to become a spectator sport even if it's exciting seeing the computer thrash out games with itself.

If you can get the player involved in the story and care about the characters, you could go on to do interesting things. I wouldn't spend 15 minutes of game time wading through virtual microfiche looking for clues unless I was feeling there was a point to it. If I cared about the kidnapped virtual-person I was trying to save, it'd be less of a chore.

Although games are at a huge disadvantage because of save games. There's no risk. If the kid dies, reload. If you can't find the answer within 5 minutes, look it up on the web. Taking control away from the author and placing it with the player makes managing the players emotional roller-coaster nigh on impossible, I'd imagine.

 

[Tap In]

I'm not a big fan of games that try to be a movie in disguise. I prefer the cut scenes be left to a minimum and that the game PLAY is in my hands at all times.

Preferably I want my games to have wide and open choices of how I want to accomplish my goals. I prefer my immersion to come in the form of seamless graphics, sound and control with constant movement and interaction with the environment.

Mostly I prefer multiplayer games so story lines are moot to me and I prefer the action to be integrated into a tight online multiplayer experience with sound and visuals that captivate my senses.... including control.

so ...in a nutshell... exemplary sounds, graphics, interaction with the environment and other players online with pinpoint precision control, allowing me unfettered and decisive action is what I prefer.