For video games I almost always find myself much more drawn to good world building instead of a good story. Even for games where I come to be interested in the characters and story, it often doesn't happen til a good 10-20 hours into the game.
I think video games best when they focus less on story than on world building and atmosphere. The stories of Dark Souls and Elden Ring and especially Bloodborne are nonsense, but the visuals and the vibes are so overpowering that they are remarkable works of visual art.
Very well said, and you’re right, I’ve played your games for 20+ years because you write a compelling story that’s integrated with fun gameplay. Like reading a novel but more fun for me 😂
I am presently playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous while I take a break from ping-ponging between Avernum and Queen's Wish. It has a very good "therefore/but" chain of activities in the first act but has become "and then" as you clear the map of hotspots.
However, it's also supremely guilty of "Games Have Too Many Words". Too many times, I've pleaded, "Please stop talking..." but more screens of dialog continue until I've realized I've spent the last hour reading the life story of every NPC in sight and full backgrounds of every location they've ever travelled... ... and immediately remember none of it since it has nothing to do with what I really want to do next (kill things and take their stuff).
Thank you for being concise and also entertaining. And I don't mind "and then" when it's MY "and then" story (and then I did this, and then I did this, etc.). I think open-world RPGs with interesting this-es are fine when I control the story.
My other law of storytelling, which will be in the next post, is "Players will forgive your game for having a story as long as you allow them to ignore it."
Almost all writing can be improved by trimming it.
Or course I don't think that. I certainly wouldn't call it a platonic ideal. (Strong stuff!) If I felt that way, I wouldn't have written what I did. :-)
It's very important to understand the distinction.
The monster in the trash compactor isn't a character. It wasn't placed there by someone. Since it's in a room that routinely gets compressed into a cube and shot into space, the monster arguably shouldn't be there at all. That is why they are all so surprised when it appears.
It's not there to serve any overall plot purpose. It's there because the screenwriter thought it would be fun to have a little fight with a monster that has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING going in.
The magic of the movie is that this works. But 99% of the time, when people try this, it doesn't. So my advice: Be a genius.
I guess maybe we're using similar language to describe different things. I did not mean ideal in "greatest piece of art", but rather in the sense of "fully representative of this type of storytelling beat."
I don't think it's genius storytelling, but I DO think it's a strong (maybe textbook) example of a particular type of story beat--a "but" where the outcome of an action is specifically inverse to the desired result by the actor because of an outside circumstance. Whether it's used or executed well, and whether the use of that type of story beat elevates the movie, I would leave to a viewer's discretion. I personally think star wars is a pretty fun movie, but not fine art.
Conversely, I would define an "and then" progression as one in which a subsequent scene is unrelated to a previous one entirely (vs the inverted result of a "but"). An example there would be the dumb submarine sequence in Episode 1. They're in a submarine, and then there's a fish that tries to eat them, and then there's another fish, and then they're outside.
I'm running out the door so I'm afraid I can't fully answer to this, but I DID consider using examples from Episode 1 for this article. ESPECIALLY the submarine sequence.
Regarding "and then"... my magic 8-ball technique for storytelling.
To (literally) shake things up a little, when my character has a choice, I won't choose. I'll shake a magic 8-ball (in my head, or what the heck, a real one) and let it decide. Then I try to make my character justify it.
For example, sometimes she'll say "yes" or "no". Sometimes she'll say "nuh-uh, I'm not choosing anything right now". Sometimes "your momma". Now I need to get creative and try to make her make sense and stay in character.
This comes from free-form (tabletop) role playing games, but probably applies to anything with a plot.
One thing I like about this approach is that it allows a character's reaction to be illogical or wrong. It's ok for characters to react in a way that's weird or dumb, as long as it's a reasonable reaction to events.
One of the principles of manga storytelling, and the reason people like it so much, is that the story advances the way characters want it to, not the way the author wants it to. (Exception being when their editor makes them turn the story into a team-based fighting tournament again.)
The other being that dialogue is mostly used to express character emotions about something (usually anger at another man so female readers can pretend they're secretly in love), where Western comics sometimes fall into that extremely wordy dialogue where people just say what's happening to them as it happens.
For video games I almost always find myself much more drawn to good world building instead of a good story. Even for games where I come to be interested in the characters and story, it often doesn't happen til a good 10-20 hours into the game.
I think video games best when they focus less on story than on world building and atmosphere. The stories of Dark Souls and Elden Ring and especially Bloodborne are nonsense, but the visuals and the vibes are so overpowering that they are remarkable works of visual art.
Very well said, and you’re right, I’ve played your games for 20+ years because you write a compelling story that’s integrated with fun gameplay. Like reading a novel but more fun for me 😂
I am presently playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous while I take a break from ping-ponging between Avernum and Queen's Wish. It has a very good "therefore/but" chain of activities in the first act but has become "and then" as you clear the map of hotspots.
However, it's also supremely guilty of "Games Have Too Many Words". Too many times, I've pleaded, "Please stop talking..." but more screens of dialog continue until I've realized I've spent the last hour reading the life story of every NPC in sight and full backgrounds of every location they've ever travelled... ... and immediately remember none of it since it has nothing to do with what I really want to do next (kill things and take their stuff).
Thank you for being concise and also entertaining. And I don't mind "and then" when it's MY "and then" story (and then I did this, and then I did this, etc.). I think open-world RPGs with interesting this-es are fine when I control the story.
My other law of storytelling, which will be in the next post, is "Players will forgive your game for having a story as long as you allow them to ignore it."
Almost all writing can be improved by trimming it.
Wouldn't you say the trash compactor scene is almost the platonic ideal of a "but"?
"They characters are penned in by storm troopers coming through the door, so they find an escape hatch and slide down...
...but...
...the hatch leads to a trap, and they're in an even worse predicament than before...
...therefore...
...they need the assistance of characters who were sidelined in the previous sequence."
Or course I don't think that. I certainly wouldn't call it a platonic ideal. (Strong stuff!) If I felt that way, I wouldn't have written what I did. :-)
It's very important to understand the distinction.
The monster in the trash compactor isn't a character. It wasn't placed there by someone. Since it's in a room that routinely gets compressed into a cube and shot into space, the monster arguably shouldn't be there at all. That is why they are all so surprised when it appears.
It's not there to serve any overall plot purpose. It's there because the screenwriter thought it would be fun to have a little fight with a monster that has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING going in.
The magic of the movie is that this works. But 99% of the time, when people try this, it doesn't. So my advice: Be a genius.
I guess maybe we're using similar language to describe different things. I did not mean ideal in "greatest piece of art", but rather in the sense of "fully representative of this type of storytelling beat."
I don't think it's genius storytelling, but I DO think it's a strong (maybe textbook) example of a particular type of story beat--a "but" where the outcome of an action is specifically inverse to the desired result by the actor because of an outside circumstance. Whether it's used or executed well, and whether the use of that type of story beat elevates the movie, I would leave to a viewer's discretion. I personally think star wars is a pretty fun movie, but not fine art.
Conversely, I would define an "and then" progression as one in which a subsequent scene is unrelated to a previous one entirely (vs the inverted result of a "but"). An example there would be the dumb submarine sequence in Episode 1. They're in a submarine, and then there's a fish that tries to eat them, and then there's another fish, and then they're outside.
Edited for some clarity.
I'm running out the door so I'm afraid I can't fully answer to this, but I DID consider using examples from Episode 1 for this article. ESPECIALLY the submarine sequence.
I don't think David Lynch would ever punch anyone in the face. He practices Transcendental Meditation for a reason.
Regarding "and then"... my magic 8-ball technique for storytelling.
To (literally) shake things up a little, when my character has a choice, I won't choose. I'll shake a magic 8-ball (in my head, or what the heck, a real one) and let it decide. Then I try to make my character justify it.
For example, sometimes she'll say "yes" or "no". Sometimes she'll say "nuh-uh, I'm not choosing anything right now". Sometimes "your momma". Now I need to get creative and try to make her make sense and stay in character.
This comes from free-form (tabletop) role playing games, but probably applies to anything with a plot.
One thing I like about this approach is that it allows a character's reaction to be illogical or wrong. It's ok for characters to react in a way that's weird or dumb, as long as it's a reasonable reaction to events.
One of the principles of manga storytelling, and the reason people like it so much, is that the story advances the way characters want it to, not the way the author wants it to. (Exception being when their editor makes them turn the story into a team-based fighting tournament again.)
The other being that dialogue is mostly used to express character emotions about something (usually anger at another man so female readers can pretend they're secretly in love), where Western comics sometimes fall into that extremely wordy dialogue where people just say what's happening to them as it happens.