Fuck me, I came here just as the board kinda died. Sucks as this place actually seems to be about game design rather than shit posting unlike /v/.
My question is, how do you tell a story in a video game without having to resort to cutscenes or turning your game into a walking simulator? Or without having to do pseudo cutscenes parts in your game like half life 2 did where you'd stand and do nothing while npcs talked. How do you get player driven games to tell a cohesive story while not resorting to using different mediums like films and literature.
Keeping in mind that games are player driven, is it possible to convey emotions on the same level as a book or movie? With a book, the story can be conveyed through description and usage of words and sentence format. With movies, scenes can be portrayed through the usage of the camera, how a shot moves and can be viewed, and through actors, while a game uses player input, and how well the player can be guided while also challenged and invested in gameplay moments. What's tough about video games is that the player is involved with making a moment. This stems from the fact that video game are still partially toys, no matter how you look at them. While other forms of artistic entertainment really only require the audience's attention, vgs need player input. The problem is, the artist/designer then doesn't have 100% control over how certain events line up. How do you balance player involvement/interest with what the designer wants the player to do.
For me, there are 4 major genres of entertainment that can be mixed together, and are usually set and stone for each artistic medium. That is horror, drama, comedy, and action. With video games, I think we got horror and action to be fairly decent. Don't get me wrong, both of those genres need a shit ton of work still, but for now, they show signs of being on a semi decent track in terms of being interpreted in a video game format. It's drama and comedy that concerns me a bit.
More so comedy than drama. With drama, it takes traditional character development for a player to care about an npc or even the main character. The thing is, that really only works for rpg games, where traditional character/story development is more sensical and focused on. How would you get a player invested in a story while still keeping things player driven, and without resorting to cutscenes? How do you strike a balance between player involvement and story? With comedy, that shits even worse. Comedy usually requires strict timing and delivery. In a game, the player's playthrough varies upon whose playing, making the designers job a bit of hell to know how to implement comedic antics. Making jokes through dialogue doesn't count, as that's really just literature/radio form. How do you tell a joke, or even have a comedic moment in video games without having to have, LOLSORANDOM or SoStupidWackyorBadThatItsFunny moments?
Do we have to have completely rethink how to convey drama and comedy to fit into video games? Cause the way things are going on right now, both triple A high budget games and indie games are failing to not only innovate, but also finding a way to get video games their own identities. Meanwhile, the "gamer" community is to busy trying to turn gaming culture into a fashion to notice that they're eating shit. Sorry if this mini blog went in all directions, but I'm tired as fuck and I wanted to sperg out my opinions somewhere were hopefully people truly take game design seriously and not just jack off to the idea of video games. Anyways, I could go on for literally pages on game design, but I want you guys to discuss.