Truths about video game stories • Hacker News Board

Re: Truths about video game stories

#261

Post by hypertele-Xii » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

bujak300 wrote: post #144

aynsof wrote: post #5

I remember all the press praising the original Half Life for its story. I was really surprised - it was the same story as all first person shooters going back to Doom: Bad guys spawn across an inter-dimensional portal and start wreaking havoc. Protagonist has to kill them all, crossing the portal in the process to go destroy the alien leader. There were some cool extra details - the G Man, the marines entering as a t…

And now that lame video game storytelling style is bleeding into cinema

I think it's the other way around. Lame cinema bleeding into video games. How many games are just glorified movies? With more cutscenes than gameplay?

Print bleeds into video games and movies as well. How many movies start with a text blurb? How many games literally just tell you what happened, instead of showing, instead of doing.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#262

Post by slightwinder » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #216

danielvaughn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our standards for story telling in video games are really low. At the same time, the upcoming Uncharted movie is looking to be substantially less interesting than Uncharted 4.

I find it interesting that there are a lot of articles bashing videogame stories yet nobody is making these points about the movie industry. The fact that the movie studios are now looking at videogames for inspiration is very telling IMO.

> I find it interesting that there are a lot of articles bashing videogame stories yet nobody is making these points about the movie industry.

What do you mean? People complain about movies all the time. Even Blockbusters, or especially braindead blockbusters, are being trashed everywhere. Marvel-Movies, as beloved as they are, are often bashed for how bad and generic they are. Hollywood for many people is synonymous for bad storytelling.

> The fact that the movie studios are now looking at videogames for inspiration is very telling IMO.

Because that's where the customers are. Gaming is primary a thing of younger people, and to bait them you need stuff that they know and love.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#263

Post by lukaszkups » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

One of the greatest game stories I've ever encountered is the one without any words- Hyper Light Drifter.

The way the Heart Machine decided to tell it (images only) still amazes me. It totally opened interpretation for the players.

And you didn't have to click through tons of dialogs to dive into the lore.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#264

Post by hypertele-Xii » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #58

aynsof wrote: post #5

I remember all the press praising the original Half Life for its story. I was really surprised - it was the same story as all first person shooters going back to Doom: Bad guys spawn across an inter-dimensional portal and start wreaking havoc. Protagonist has to kill them all, crossing the portal in the process to go destroy the alien leader. There were some cool extra details - the G Man, the marines entering as a t…

> our standards for story telling in video games are really low. Nah, the standards are just different because of the medium. Just like you wouldn't write a book where people sing for 10 minutes every time they talk, and you wouldn't write opera that lasts for 40 hours and has realistic acting and dialogs - you can't compare stories between different media ignoring the differences. And the difference that interactivi…

> The more detailed and intricate a story of a game is - the less freedom of choice the player has.

That's merely an economic decision by the industry. You can make a game with detailed and intricate stories while simultaneously allowing full player freedom. It's just difficult and expensive to do so!

Consider something like Dwarf Fortress. It's detailed down to the alcohol content of the dirt under the cat's third left front paw nail. And the cat has its own will and you are permitted to do pretty much anything to the cat. But it's taken two people years to make it without much/any profit.

The state of affairs is simply that we are limited only by our imaginations and our economic utilities. We carry supercomputers in our pockets. Few have any idea what to do with them.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#265

Post by worrycue » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

Merad wrote: post #112

worrycue wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> top #1 for me as far as story goes - ignoring the game play completely - was Horizon Zero Dawn I watched people play it to the end - mostly. I played it when it came out on PC - never completed it; the combat didn’t work for me. Personally I think it has a cool sci-fi premise but that’s it. I found the characters … stiff, shallow, and pretty cliché. Aloy is yet another messianic player character that we have seen a…

> I’m going to get skewered for saying this … but the story feels like it’s pandering to current social political trends - i.e. the obsession with diversity. How do you think HZD pandered to diversity? The main point that I have heard brought up is the wide variety of ethnicities in secondary/background characters, but IMO that is completely consistent with the game's setting and story. The game takes place in a worl…

> is completely consistent with the game's setting and story

That’s true but I can’t help but feel it’s deliberately written this way to score points.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#266

Post by krisgenre » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

I am not sure if there were any before but Max Payne was the first game that I had every played with an intriguing storyline and an awesome haunting music. I believe those guys invented 'bullet time'.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#267

Post by Sharlin » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #54

There are several games I’ve played where I remember playing racing through the action to get further into the story, or games that put storytelling at the center. In no particular order: - Bastion - The Stanley Parable - Bioshock Infinite - The Elder Scrolls series - GTA: V - Control - Sam and Max Sure this isn’t high art, but often is deeply compelling regardless. The possibilities of the medium are still yet to be…

Planescape: Torment, of course, in which combat is rare, often optional, and doesn’t net you much XP compared to story milestones and noncombat quests. Also, probably the only D&D based computer game where it’s a better idea to max Cha/Int/Wis than Str/Con/Dex. (Although unfortunately the third act devolves into a much more linear dungeon crawl, probably due to the devs running out of time.)

Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines, with its infamously janky combat but incredibly memorable characters and some superb storytelling moments. Unfortunately, the third-act degeneration is very much a thing here as well.

The original Deus Ex, again with rather janky combat and emphasis on stealth and nonviolent problem-solving. Exploration and finding out more about the world is much more rewarding than killing enemies. But the third act… Uh, I think I’m starting to repeat myself here :(

Re: Truths about video game stories

#268

Post by AlbertCory » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

BashiBazouk wrote: post #204

I'd be in the opposite camp. Video game stories are those things I have to quickly click through to get to the next bit of action. Ya, ya, ya, bla, bla, bla, click, click click, don't care. My ideal is to create my own story rather than have it spoon fed to me. Let me roll a character then let me do what I want in an interactive open world. Sure, some curating and minor direction is OK, but the less the better. I don…

Never being one to avoid shamelessly plugging my book ("book" -- see what I did there?)

We played MazeWar at Xerox in the late 70s. The guy on the cover of my book is Jeffrey Smith, the son of Dave Smith, the inventor of icons. The story ("story" -- see? I did it there again) is that Dave and his wife Janet, 2 weeks overdue with Jeffrey, went to PARC to kill some time, she saw the bloody eyeball on the screen, and the adrenaline made her go into labor and deliver Jeffrey.

I found a working Alto, and shot the photograph in Nov. 2020, using the real MazeWar software. He loved reenacting the family legend.

[1] https://www.albertcory.io

Re: Truths about video game stories

#269

Post by markus_zhang » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

I tried to develop a small RPG and immediately realized that the most difficult thing to get right is the story, and the second difficult one is the arts. And no wonder most of the Indie RPG (that I know) are of roguelike/roguelite. It's a blood sea.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#270

Post by jbarrs » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

015a wrote: post #252

BashiBazouk wrote: post #204

I'd be in the opposite camp. Video game stories are those things I have to quickly click through to get to the next bit of action. Ya, ya, ya, bla, bla, bla, click, click click, don't care. My ideal is to create my own story rather than have it spoon fed to me. Let me roll a character then let me do what I want in an interactive open world. Sure, some curating and minor direction is OK, but the less the better. I don…

I'd tend to agree. I think games need to be better about "picking a camp". Many games try to force a strong narrative into an open world design, and both qualities end up faltering because of it. Examples: Mass Effect, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, most Ubisoft games. The best open world games tell very light narrative. They may have tons of lore to fall upon and discover, but there's otherwise very little arc to th…

>People have expectations going into a game, that it won't be a movie...

As a counter-example, we have series like Metal Gear Solid, which are renowned for the huge use of cutscenes (MGS4 having an ending cutscene that's practically feature-length). Admittedly, this style of in-depth storytelling is not everyone's cup of tea (especially those for whom the second point made by the OP applies), but it is a very effective storytelling tool that works well in the series. The games are predominantly not, however, open-world, unlike the other games you mention. The cinematic storytelling would probably not translate well. Indeed, MGSV, which was open-world, mostly used in-game audio tapes to be played at the player's discretion, with any cutscenes being mostly contained to specific missions. So I think the exact requirements for good storytelling really depend on the style of game and on what your players expect from it. But much of what the OP says about good writing still stands, such as finding a Whedon-esque sweet spot of serious/comedy and using original jokes.