The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - ludonarrative dissonance begone

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yes, yes, and yes. Precisely nine years ago @JanetMurray said these words about video games: http://i.imgur.com/JFMHPza.jpg

Yes, it doesn't matter what we call shit games, the only important thing is to keep making them

 

[AstroZombie]

I've learned a lot from guys like Thomas Grip from Frictional Games, or even David Cage," who he says "is a genius".

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Fuck, this is the guy who made Painkiller. How the mighty have fallen...

You mean the game where you're funneled into one uninteresting square box after another to shoot hordes of the same one or two enemies, and you're not allowed to leave until they're all dead?

I hated that game.

C'mon bro, try a bit harder.

 

[shihonage]

IMNSHO, the fact that so many story-based/world simulator games focused on killing is a damning sign of just how juvenile the medium still is - both in terms of programming and direction.

Killing is the easiest thing to program. It's a binary state - an actor is either active, or inactive, and your interaction with them amounts to a variety of methods of whittling down their health bar.

It is such a staple mechanic, it's been so overused, that everyone became completely desensitized to it. It's not thrilling, it's not exciting, it's just... there. We expect it to be there, and there it is, and that's all there is to it.

When new mechanics show up, the sense of wander returns. It's just most games completely failed to grow up with us. Like high school girls, they remain the same age.

 

[Cassidy]

"I call it the Citizen Kane of gaming," he says. "It's a really boring movie that's incredibly important for movies.

Oh hell no, fuck this guy. No wonder it was boring for a guy who worked on Bulletstorm, Painkiller, Bears of War, Necrovision.. why a guy at his public status can say something so fucking ridiculous and not get any shit thrown in his face.. I'm so fucking ashamed of this country on so many occasions and shit like this only assures me that I have to emigrate out of here ASAP.. I mean c'mon - even Kieslowski said in his autobiography that he watched Citizen Kane over 100 times and Orson's excellence and brilliance at 25 was something that he knew he won't achieve in his entire life.. Maybe he thinks Kieslowski was boring too.

Poor Ed Wood...

Poor Ed Wood...

Were him born some decades later, he would have been hailed as an artistic genius in videogames and gotten rich instead.

 

[DragoFireheart]

IMNSHO, the fact that so many story-based/world simulator games focused on killing is a damning sign of just how juvenile the medium still is - both in terms of programming and direction.

Killing is the easiest thing to program. It's a binary state - an actor is either active, or inactive, and your interaction with them amounts to a variety of methods of whittling down their health bar.

It is such a staple mechanic, it's been so overused, that everyone became completely desensitized to it. It's not thrilling, it's not exciting, it's just... there. We expect it to be there, and there it is, and that's all there is to it.

When new mechanics show up, the sense of wander returns. It's just most games completely failed to grow up with us. Like high school girls, they remain the same age.

Stop playing Bethesda games for combat.

 

[Borelli]

'Dff dff dff dff dff [a machine gun noise, obviously]

...
It's ratatataratata

 

[Arkadin]

"I call it the Citizen Kane of gaming," he says. "It's a really boring movie that's incredibly important for movies. I'm not a big fan of Dear Esther as a game, as an experience, but to me, that's one of the most important games in the history of gaming.

Citizen Kane, for what bad things might be said about it, is not boring. Yet this guy is unwilling to take a firm stand on that even, and is taking the lukewarm, feminine route of "I appreciate it but don't like it." What a tool.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

So, realistic-looking shooter games should have mechanics like in Operation Flashpoint, while more gamey games should strive for more stylized and kinda archaic graphics?
It makes sense.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

IMNSHO, the fact that so many story-based/world simulator games focused on killing is a damning sign of just how juvenile the medium still is - both in terms of programming and direction.

Killing is the easiest thing to program. It's a binary state - an actor is either active, or inactive, and your interaction with them amounts to a variety of methods of whittling down their health bar.

It is such a staple mechanic, it's been so overused, that everyone became completely desensitized to it. It's not thrilling, it's not exciting, it's just... there. We expect it to be there, and there it is, and that's all there is to it.

When new mechanics show up, the sense of wander returns. It's just most games completely failed to grow up with us. Like high school girls, they remain the same age.

Well, we could try torture and rape.

 

[shihonage]

Stop playing Bethesda games for combat.

Huge fan of Bethesda right here

Well, we could try torture and rape.

Yes. We could try mechanics that elicit more complex reactions from the game's actors, in both short- and long-term gameplay. Torture would be one of them.

 

[Tehdagah]

So, realistic-looking shooter games should have mechanics like in Operation Flashpoint, while more gamey games should strive for more stylized and kinda archaic graphics?
It makes sense.

Why we can't have "gamey games" with realistic graphix?

 

[Damned Registrations]

People talking about designing gameplay around the story vs story around the gameplay are fucking morons missing the point, as usual.

You don't write a (good) book or movie by picking a grab bag of ideas and saying "teenagers, fantasy, evil empire, old wise man... guess it'll be a coming of age story!" You have to have specific themes in mind while you make the story. The same is true for games, which are part story and part gameplay. They should both be built up around basic elements and reinforce this idea and eachother. Starting from one or the other and stumbling across the theme in between is like trying to build a house by starting from one end and working to the other instead of building a fucking foundation then frame and so on.

Most game developers and nearly ALL players wouldn't know good design if it bit them in the ass, and just want to mix together common elements from their favourite games without regard for how they interact. It's like watching a retard try to make an original dish by combining cheese, chocolate, gravy, pork, barbequeing and deep frying, because he's eaten food made by those things that he enjoyed. It's the most obvious fucking observation to make that the whole is more than the sum of it's parts but it's a lesson that goes over the heads of nearly everyone, because the industry is so new and so many utterly shit games are out there that aren't a coherent combination of anything at all, but just random fucking shit thrown together. And it can even be successful, even a fan favourite due to marketing or novelty, despite it's utter shit design that could be massively improved upon.

 

[Lancehead]

People talking about designing gameplay around the story vs story around the gameplay are fucking morons missing the point, as usual.

You don't write a (good) book or movie by picking a grab bag of ideas and saying "teenagers, fantasy, evil empire, old wise man... guess it'll be a coming of age story!" You have to have specific themes in mind while you make the story. The same is true for games, which are part story and part gameplay. They should both be built up around basic elements and reinforce this idea and eachother. Starting from one or the other and stumbling across the theme in between is like trying to build a house by starting from one end and working to the other instead of building a fucking foundation then frame and so on.

How is what you said different from what I wrote earlier?

 

[Lagole Gon]

Fucking attention whore. Why are why talking about him anyway? This guy is no one.

Oh, and Teenagent was shit. : x

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Why we can't have "gamey games" with realistic graphix?

Because it creates ludonarrative dissonance.

 

[circ]

'Dff dff dff dff dff [a machine gun noise, obviously]

...
It's ratatataratata

Oh hey. It's dakka dakka dakka.

 

[Tehdagah]

Why we can't have "gamey games" with realistic graphix?

Because it creates ludonarrative dissonance.

This is why gameplay/story segregation exists.

 

[Grunker]

Fuck, this is the guy who made Painkiller. How the mighty have fallen...

You mean the game where you're funneled into one uninteresting square box after another to shoot hordes of the same one or two enemies, and you're not allowed to leave until they're all dead?

I hated that game.

C'mon bro, try a bit harder.

 

[Cassidy]

Why we can't have "gamey games" with realistic graphix?

Because it creates ludonarrative dissonance.

This is just a bullshit buzzword invented by idiots pretending they are intellectuals. [/captain obvious]

Games are about gameplay, about playing the game, how is it so hard to understand? They should go watch Transformers which fits perfectly in the grade of "masterwork narrative" these cretins desire.

 

[pan]

People talking about designing gameplay around the story vs story around the gameplay are fucking morons missing the point, as usual.

You don't write a (good) book or movie by picking a grab bag of ideas and saying "teenagers, fantasy, evil empire, old wise man... guess it'll be a coming of age story!" You have to have specific themes in mind while you make the story. The same is true for games, which are part story and part gameplay. They should both be built up around basic elements and reinforce this idea and eachother. Starting from one or the other and stumbling across the theme in between is like trying to build a house by starting from one end and working to the other instead of building a fucking foundation then frame and so on.

I have read otherwise. That is, it is not necessary to begin with a theme and build from there, or even to pay bother to themes at all. Think of the recurring theme in Lord of the Rings, that the smallest things can make big differences. Were the ring of power, the Hobbits and Gollum created by Tolkien with the intention of pushing that theme? Probably not, and I doubt that Tolkien was intent on pushing any other themes as well. You can find themes in any typical story --even if it means over analysis -- but they aren't always intended.

This is just a bullshit buzzword invented by idiots pretending they are intellectuals. [/captain obvious]

Actually, I think that terms like ludonarrative and Shadification are warranted, as they make discussing what they entail easier.

 

[Azarkon]

This is just another step in the Indie fad of reviving old genres, the genre being adventure games this time around.

 

[Damned Registrations]

People talking about designing gameplay around the story vs story around the gameplay are fucking morons missing the point, as usual.

You don't write a (good) book or movie by picking a grab bag of ideas and saying "teenagers, fantasy, evil empire, old wise man... guess it'll be a coming of age story!" You have to have specific themes in mind while you make the story. The same is true for games, which are part story and part gameplay. They should both be built up around basic elements and reinforce this idea and eachother. Starting from one or the other and stumbling across the theme in between is like trying to build a house by starting from one end and working to the other instead of building a fucking foundation then frame and so on.

I have read otherwise. That is, it is not necessary to begin with a theme and build from there, or even to pay bother to themes at all. Think of the recurring theme in Lord of the Rings, that the smallest things can make big differences. Were the ring of power, the Hobbits and Gollum created by Tolkien with the intention of pushing that theme? Probably not,

What makes you think this? Consider all the other things in line with this theme; the barrowblades in the hands of a hobbit causing the downfall of a nazgul, the relatively small gifts from Galadriel playing major roles for many of the characters, the omission/avoidance of many of the most powerful characters in the story, like Gandalf vs the Balrog being such a minor event covered by few pages, and the actions of kings and wizards and such being merely in the background, while the fate of the world routinely hinges of strokes of luck and coincidence. "What have I got in my pocket?". What could be more trivial than that, and where did it lead?

I don't think all of that came about as a coincidence. He knew what he was doing. And I don't think it'd be as good if he threw in some epic fighting of Gandalf vs a Dragon while the hobbits sit around slack jawed at their powerlessness.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

This is just a bullshit buzzword invented by idiots pretending they are intellectuals. [/captain obvious]

Games are about gameplay, about playing the game, how is it so hard to understand? They should go watch Transformers which fits perfectly in the grade of "masterwork narrative" these cretins desire.

I still see no point in realistic graphics outside simulations.

 

[taxalot]

I join the poster with hard to pronounce username. I do like my games to look like games. They were born with a unique art style , why give up on that ? ROI on graphics is getting lower and lower with each new generation of hardware anyway.

Anyway, about Ludonarratie Dissonance, I hate to go against my Ultima buddy, and against some of people in that thread but it is a real issue. Is it a big issue ? No.
I did notice it in Bioshock : Infinite . The best parts where the ones that received the less focus, the ones with no combat. It felt like the game designers had designed a good universe and an acceptable story yet picked the wrong game genre for it. Some say the medium is the message ; here, the medium ruined the message.

Is it happening in a lot of other games ?

Uh, no. Not at all. In fact, I do not seem to remember game other than B:I where it is so obvious ; the issue does pop out in Uncharted where Drake is fairly nonchalant after killing hundreds of people but it's still not enough for it to be a big issue, and yes, it's Indiana Jones like. It is handed fairly worse in the last Tomb Raider when they decided to go Popamole and disregard their character development.

But still ? Calling Dear Esther the Citizen Kane of gaming is absolute bullshit too. However, it is right in just making the assumption that Dear Esther is a game that is not to be looked down on, as long as people do not try to establish it as a new standard. The Dear Esther format would have worked better with Bioshock : Infinite, absolutely. But that's about it.

I am still sad though to notice that the genre that is the most accomplished in terms of narration still remain the Interactive Fiction. An Apple II can tell better stories than our powerhouses, and that is an absolute shame.