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Don't Run into the Woods

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Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#31

Post by falcolas »

doodpants wrote: post #9

I grew up playing Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and the like. For me, the whole point of a video game is the gameplay, not some story that the creator wants to tell. I barely tolerate narrative in video games, and mercilessly skip cutscenes whenever possible. I have no interest in playing any of these so-called "walking simulators". But maybe that's just me.

> I have no interest in playing any of these so-called "walking simulators".

Yeah, they're a fairly niche method of storytelling, just a bit more involved than Visual Novels (which themselves are roughly a choose-your-own-adventure comic book). Their gameplay focuses very heavily on exploration.

But some of those stories are really well told using these mediums.

Having to use my player "agency" to re-enact the deaths of family members in Gone Home was really hard in some cases.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#32

Post by ncr100 »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #2

there’s something about this writing style that really annoys me and detracts from the message. if you’re going to ignore the rules the payoff needs to be worth it otherwise you’re just being… self-indulgent?

TL;DR this complex reaction of annoyance shared here is perhaps the most valuable piece of information in this article to you, and is potentially beneficial insight to you.

> ... you’re going to ignore the rules

Why share a nearly entirely unconstructive critical, mocking, and shaming discussion point in a public forum? To be clear, it's okay by me to do so .. it's just odd to me. It stands out as unhelpful, unexpected, and confusing and so to dig into what's interesting about it, it makes me wonder what's going on for you personally, and so I'm asking about it.

About the article: everybody is different. How people express themselves differs widely. What they are saying however approaches reasonablely concrete shared meaning based on context. In this case there is a writer who is talking about conveying emotion in the challenging medium of video games / interactive entertainment software, overtly for the purpose of being helpful supporting scriptwriters engaged in that field. Through the blog in question, they effectively express a meandering open-minded approach to eliciting one's own thoughts and feelings, as a writer, in whatever genre the game itself ends up being in order to appropriately honor the characters of the game. Their use of white space and lack of punctuation suggests this openness, to me.

You, here, implicitly state that you know or have decided what 'the rules' are for other people who are writing their own missives.

Some provocative thoughts for discussion: Is this criticality really neuroticism? Are your comments reflecting society's recently hot-topic flirtations with authoritarianism? Are your habits influencing this criticality: what are your personal habits towards socialization trending towards, in-person to see people's faces or are you primarily using communication techniques that don't offer you the opportunity today to experience other people's emotions?

There seems to be a lot of similarities between the few criticisms (especially self-indulgence) that this hacker news comment lodges against the author and your own comment. That makes this a fascinating piece of art.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#33

Post by LegibleCrimson »

itishappy wrote: post #7
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #2

there’s something about this writing style that really annoys me and detracts from the message. if you’re going to ignore the rules the payoff needs to be worth it otherwise you’re just being… self-indulgent?

I'm in the opposite boat. This style nicely mimics how I think. I find the types of fragment in the article align with the boundaries of each unit of thought in a manner that quite clearly approximates my internal dialog. I think your examples does a disservice, as your breaks do not follow such rules.

This style mimics how I think, but my thinking is a disorganized mess. Before giving my thoughts to somebody else, I usually consider them, sort them, and put them into a form that is easier for somebody else to understand. Usually, this includes a reread and editing.

I agree that this writing style mimics thought. I don't want to read disorganized thoughts, though. It's not a huge issue, because the length of this piece is quite short, but if I were to do several minutes of reading this style of writing, I would find it very exhausting, and I probably wouldn't retain most of it, because the lack of organization inhibits my ability to fully internalize it. Most of my disorganized thoughts that I don't really mull over (ie. thinking the same thoughts repeatedly in different orders, and considering many different aspects of them) or organize into a written form, I also don't retain. I lose them forever. If I was sharing them with somebody else, I don't think I'd keep them in the format that's most easily forgotten.

For personal journaling, it's fine enough, but I don't find it really a compelling write-up of the age-old premise "Don't overthink it, just get started. If you overthink it, you might never finish, or might even never really start." It's not really much different from the famous "Shitty First Drafts" paper[0].

[0]: https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%...

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#34

Post by bee_rider »

galangalalgol wrote: post #30
bee_rider wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t really enjoyed the actual plot of very many video games at all. When I have tried to watch cutscenes and dialog, it has typically been pretty shallow stuff. In my head, the plot of the game is the imagined story of my guy. The cutscenes and whatnot, that’s just somebody else’s fanfic about my guy, a much better character that exists in my head. Environmental storytelling can be pretty good, though. The From…

I concur, I'm not sure I could even tell you the plot of many of the games I've played, even solid crpgs ostensibly based on plot like the bioware games. They had great stories everyone agrees, but I mostly was just playing for the meta game. But item descriptions and dialog, good writing there can totally make or break a game for me. A whole coherent story is second to the texture of the world that interactions crea…

KOTOR 2, a buddy comedy about an assassin drone and his sidekick (an overwhelming psychic monster called the exile) has all these scenes where meatbags try to threaten our protagonists or tell them to do things. And, completely uncharacteristically, these meatbags are for some reason allowed to get a whole sentence out before being blasted.

It is unrealistic writing, but the game is fun.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#35

Post by ncr100 »

LegibleCrimson wrote: post #33
itishappy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the opposite boat. This style nicely mimics how I think. I find the types of fragment in the article align with the boundaries of each unit of thought in a manner that quite clearly approximates my internal dialog. I think your examples does a disservice, as your breaks do not follow such rules.

This style mimics how I think, but my thinking is a disorganized mess. Before giving my thoughts to somebody else, I usually consider them, sort them, and put them into a form that is easier for somebody else to understand. Usually, this includes a reread and editing. I agree that this writing style mimics thought. I don't want to read disorganized thoughts, though. It's not a huge issue, because the length of this p…

> my thinking is a disorganized mess

Ouch!

The expectation that your thinking is encyclopedic in its comprehensiveness and structure is a pretty tall standard to live up to in my opinion.

I feel empathy for you.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#36

Post by RugnirViking »

falcolas wrote: post #29
RugnirViking wrote: post #19

There is a fun to be had with games divorced almost entirely from any storytelling though. For example various abstract strategy games I play like rule the waves, or games like rocket league. The fun there is not largely enhanced by the fantasy of it, I think. The mechanics themselves are the challenge, and overcoming them and creating things using them is the fun, something that is more abstract with books (you'd ha…

I love stories, and I love games which tell good stories. More specifically, I prefer good stories over gameplay. Most games which focus only on deep gameplay mechanics rarely stick to me. I'll play them until I'm competent, and then I lose interest without something else to keep me attached to them. Honestly, if you took my favorite games and stripped them of their stories, they would be mediocre games at best. Yet…

Hey thats totally fair, like I think I said, there is a split amongst gamers. As another point of data people may find interesting, I dont really watch movies or tv shows or whatever. I dont think I find fiction that compelling? I much prefer being creative myself. Is that common among strategy gamers etc? I don't know?

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#37

Post by ncr100 »

Alifatisk wrote: post #4
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #2

there’s something about this writing style that really annoys me and detracts from the message. if you’re going to ignore the rules the payoff needs to be worth it otherwise you’re just being… self-indulgent?

Also, the writer chose to start a new sentence without capital letter.

Do you think they're doing this for a purpose? Why would you think that they chose to write like that?

From what I gather reading the footer of the web page they are a trained writer. Like they have potentially a degree in the English language from a school.

What are you getting at with your pile on criticism? Tell us what you really think...

About what is acceptable,

about what your expectations are,

about effectiveness of eliciting and guiding emotional expression.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#38

Post by ncr100 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #14
gherkinnn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thought per line. A few notes on a topic without the in between words. Works for me.

why not start with a linear narrative? use all the techniques we already know and feel them in video game form? have you heard of walking simulators? They're just that, with one or two twists. Yet... I'm not saying you should show it to anyone if you're not ready. This sounds like ... rambling. There's no connection between any of the lines. If you're brainstorming, brainstorm. I suspect that's what this is.

Wow that's harsh. I don't understand why you're saying that, here.

Is this a backhanded compliment? Do you think they're being particularly effective because they're trying to evoke crackheads?

I don't think that piece of writing is intended to be a technical treatise on creative writing. Instead, it to me reads as a tool to help technical writers for games to elicit effective story content that has an impact on the player. So I do think their prosaic poetical style intentionally evokes wandering, in order to encourage the reader to mentally wander as a part of their own creative exploration process when writing story content for video games.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#39

Post by LegibleCrimson »

falcolas wrote: post #29
RugnirViking wrote: post #19

There is a fun to be had with games divorced almost entirely from any storytelling though. For example various abstract strategy games I play like rule the waves, or games like rocket league. The fun there is not largely enhanced by the fantasy of it, I think. The mechanics themselves are the challenge, and overcoming them and creating things using them is the fun, something that is more abstract with books (you'd ha…

I love stories, and I love games which tell good stories. More specifically, I prefer good stories over gameplay. Most games which focus only on deep gameplay mechanics rarely stick to me. I'll play them until I'm competent, and then I lose interest without something else to keep me attached to them. Honestly, if you took my favorite games and stripped them of their stories, they would be mediocre games at best. Yet…

My conclusion is that different people take different things from games, so the idea of making a "perfect" game or even an "ideal" game is nonsense. It's the same premise as "There's no such thing as an average pilot"[0].

So, how do you make a game that's just "good"? Not "good for some players", but just "good"? Logically, the only way to do this is to make the game customizable and configurable, so that every player can choose to make the game their own perfect game. This isn't possible, so the next best thing is to make a game that is perfect for some people, and the ideal is to have a wide variety of different kinds of games.

I'll also note that having every game configurable would be a downfall as well. A big part of connecting to other people over a game is knowing that you played the same game. If everybody tweaks every game to their liking (or in some future we just use AI to generate our perfect games), then we lose the ability to connect meaningfully to one another over shared experiences.

So love what you love about games. Don't let anybody tell you that you're wrong, as long as you accept that what you love about games is wrong for very many other people as well. Personally, I love a good story, but it's entirely secondary to gameplay for me. If a game is mediocre with a good story, I simply can not play it. I'd rather read a good book, because I've never played a game with a story as good as most books, movies, or even TV shows that I've enjoyed. If I'm ranking quality of story out of all stories I've experienced, the top video game probably comes quite far down on the list, beyond 30 or 40 books, movies, and shows.

[0]: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#40

Post by justinator »

ncr100 wrote: post #37
Alifatisk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the writer chose to start a new sentence without capital letter.

Do you think they're doing this for a purpose? Why would you think that they chose to write like that? From what I gather reading the footer of the web page they are a trained writer. Like they have potentially a degree in the English language from a school. What are you getting at with your pile on criticism? Tell us what you really think... About what is acceptable, about what your expectations are, about effective…

One can do a lot of good in the World just by reading Strunk.
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