Games that emphasize emergent narrative • Hacker News Board

Re: Games that emphasize emergent narrative

#41

Post by hoseja » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #40

hoseja wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the gameplay suffers greatly for it. If he strove to build a good game first, the stories would eventually be much more robust.

I'm not sure I agree with this, I had a great time playing Rimworld. It might not be to your taste, but it doesn't feel like there's any objective sacrifice to gameplay just for the sake of making the stories better - are there particular design choices you're thinking of?. Although I do get a nagging feeling that I would get more out of playing Dwarf Fortress instead every time I play Rimworld, and usually end up bi…

Say, the forced attacks even in the most inaccessible places whose size is directly determined by "colony wealth".

Re: Games that emphasize emergent narrative

#42

Post by ekianjo » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 12:41 PM UTC

kharak wrote: post #35

ekianjo wrote: post #24

Surprising that the author completely "missed" sports games. Sports games (like soccer or other team sports) are by nature "emergent" as every single game is different. Trying to narrow down the definition to everything that's like Dwarf Fortress and Rim World is incredibly reductive.

I have to say that even after reading your post, I don´t understand how sport games could offer any narrative. But I´ve disliked every team sport I´ve encountered and never gotten the appeal at all. Maybe the author is the same.

> I don´t understand how sport games could offer any narrative

The narrative is what happens during the game and how each team reacts to the present situation by adjusting their strategies and actions.

Re: Games that emphasize emergent narrative

#43

Post by p1necone » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

hoseja wrote: post #41

p1necone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree with this, I had a great time playing Rimworld. It might not be to your taste, but it doesn't feel like there's any objective sacrifice to gameplay just for the sake of making the stories better - are there particular design choices you're thinking of?. Although I do get a nagging feeling that I would get more out of playing Dwarf Fortress instead every time I play Rimworld, and usually end up bi…

Say, the forced attacks even in the most inaccessible places whose size is directly determined by "colony wealth".

True, I guess I never really associated that with the storytelling aspect - it just feels like a poor design decision.

Re: Games that emphasize emergent narrative

#44

Post by hoseja » Tue, Sep 21, 2021, 7:59 AM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #43

hoseja wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say, the forced attacks even in the most inaccessible places whose size is directly determined by "colony wealth".

True, I guess I never really associated that with the storytelling aspect - it just feels like a poor design decision.

A decision to cause storytelling drama. The whole storyteller concept just throws random events at you without any deeper connection to any other systems, just to force strife for the sake of a "story".

Re: Games that emphasize emergent narrative

#45

Post by Werewolf255 » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #14

Rd6n6 wrote: post #10

Personally, as a writer and game designer, I find most emergent narrative is actually simulation, and the ones that work depend on the players imagination injecting meaning into the game events. Another version is basically just social media, with game rules and a sandbox aspect. That’s cool, and it can pay off massively, but narrative just feels like a strange word for it. World of natural consequences without impos…

Tynan Sylvester (creator of Rimworld, and author of "Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences") has some great thoughts on this in the early part of his GDC talk on building a 'story generator' rather than a game. He talks about 'apophenia' - the propensity of players to ascribe narrative meaning to events - and the way in Rimworld they strive to create simulation systems that facilitate that kind of playe…

Tynan is a great example, as well, of how your own biases will influence the emergent properties of the game. This aspect may have been changed, but when it was first implemented, male colonists were either exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual (straight or gay) while female colonists were inherently bisexual. In addition, there was a ten year biological age band where no colonist would pursue a romantic relationship with somebody who was ten years their senior/junior.

It's a great game otherwise, and I'm absolutely plugging it for a recommendation, but like with the systems that cause attacks and assaults only based on colony wealth at that time (and at times encompassing visiting trader wealth too), the emergent systems are a product of the author's ideas and biases, like any other creative work.