They like to talk about video games as an interactive form of presenting a story, they say the player himself chooses the direction of the plot development. This means he experiences the fate of the game characters on his own. However, this is not entirely true. In this video I would like to recall my experience of interactive solutions in different games and simply try to analyze this gaming component.
Star Wars: Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy
Mass Effect 3
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Life is Strange
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To be fair, developing a plot that, say, at the very beginning diverged into two independent branches, is very difficult and, in fact, does not make much sense (the reasoning is just below). This can only be done by text RPGs, where you don’t need to spend money on artists and composers, and the author of the script can act as a programmer. But in the vast majority of text RPGs, the very quality of the text, its depth and “literariness” are far from ideal. And the choice in them often comes down to the phrases: “America attacked China, and the whole world was destroyed by nuclear war” versus “America did not attack China, and the world prospered”. Yes, to a first approximation, the fate of the world is decided in these phrases, but what depth can we talk about here if we dig a little further, right??
Another way: this is the most imaginary interactivity, where the scriptwriters rely not on really significant choices, but on nuances and details that do not radically change the story, but at the same time, the plot develops in its own way in the player’s head. And this method is extremely difficult for screenwriters, but at the same time more realistic than a game with radically different choices. In the end, if the plot branches at the very beginning, and its branches do not intersect, then these are already two games for one price. This is not beneficial for both the developers and the players themselves, because not everyone can complete one playthrough, let alone two or more? Therefore, I would not be, like many players, categorical towards The Witcher 3, where the real choice is quite lackluster, and towards Telltale games, in which everything is also decided in advance. Moreover, the literary level of both of them is kept at a high level.
And your analysis, author, is good. George Lucas exposed :3
They like to talk about video games as an interactive form of presenting a story, they say the player himself chooses the direction of the plot development
Participation in this very story is implied. The story is told through the player’s actions and implies that the player is given goals in the form of interacting with an object to advance the plot.
Of course, I’m getting to the bottom of this, and we can also say that this interactivity also means the ability to change the course of the plot, but this is a possible element, not a mandatory one.
It’s really great when “choice” is able www.casinopalm.org/ to influence the development of the plot to some extent, but its function is not limited to this, and if we consider CI a form of art, then it would be at least unfair to evaluate each case with general templates.
In many places, moral choice is used as much more complex variations of the classic “trolley problem” and in this use case the consequences are not as important (after all, there is no trolley) as obtaining a certain cognitive experience, for example, introducing the player into a state of cognitive dissonance in which he will experience constant discomfort, doubt the correctness of his decisions and worry about the consequences, even knowing for sure that no consequences are provided for in the scenario. This is who we are, and it is mercilessly exploited. 🙂
A much simpler, but no less important function is to make the player associate himself with the hero of the story for a better perception of the plot, increasing emotional response, developing empathy, etc.d. For these purposes, it is not even necessary to have at least some minimal consequences, but rather the very presence of a “pseudo-choice”, for example, from a stupid line in a dialogue and an even more stupid. This approach can be criticized as much as you like for unjustified expectations, but nevertheless it copes with its main function perfectly.
In Season 2, Clem quotes Lee several times with lines we picked in Season 1. This is certainly not enough, but it’s nice nonetheless.
In Mass Effect, for example, choices affect each game individually; you don’t have to transfer saves to see this. Telltale doesn’t have that.
Telltale portrays the concept of "The Illusion of Choice" most accurately, especially the first season of Walking. In words, the choices affect the plot, but in reality you can remain silent the entire game or choose your lines at random and nothing will change.
If interactivity is the future, how will a developer or publisher make money from it?? Let’s look at this from a financial point of view, increasing the staff of screenwriters or encouraging them to write more branched plots + increasing development time. And what in the end, if sales are good then ok, but if not everything goes down the drain and huge losses in money. It’s a different matter with games services, they are cheap to implement, but the profit is noticeable. And even if the entire Internet is against it, people will still grab it. Recent investor reports from EA and Activision support this idea. Of course, I am against this system, but this is the world we live in. Either accept it or play Japanese games.)))
I didn’t port the save, so I can’t judge. In the second season, at least it was possible to influence the ending, which is already a big step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the lack of the ability to change the plot affects not only the game itself (at least in the first, most informative playthrough, we can’t even judge this possibility), but also other games from the same studio. Seriously, after a couple of playthroughs of The wolf of among us, I just don’t believe it when Telltale writes “The game will adapt to your playstyle” or “The character will remember this”, and this is very upsetting.
How can you say "Telltale" most accurately display the concept of “Illusion of choice”, while playing without porting saves?
And, that is, within one game the elections do not affect anything, but when transferred to another part they have a significant impact?
Carryover is a significant factor in the decision "Is it true or not". In the same Mass Effect, the impact of the transfer is large
I think the video is good, enough for an introduction to the topic, but too superficial.
1. The choice was made long before the Jedi Academy; the RPG genre in the video is represented only by the new Witcher. Back in Might n Magic, 7 or 8 there was a choice of sides in the conflict after receiving your castle. In Fallout there were various ways to solve quests and endings that were formed from the actions of the player. And so on.
2. The "entry point" problem exists for such games. If this is a sequel, then it’s too expensive to make 7 starting points for it that not all players will see. It’s basically the same with quests. This is actually why simplifications are made, when your loop of consequences still leads you, for example, to city B, like 3 other choices, only the filling with forks differs, and not always.
And the Witcher, which you praise so much, shows the same “dirty” game as Mass Effect. From one piece to another, almost all of our elections were thrown into the trash. The first Dragon Age created the illusion of different game starts, but they all led to the same place. And by the way, the second act of The Witcher 2 is a better example of interactivity.
For now, the industry can only give us a superficial illusion, the maximum is to save the scientist in Mass Effect 1 in order to meet her in the 3rd part. We won’t save – there will be some unknown woman or no one.
It’s not at all profitable to make truly branched games now, because there is Skyrim and other open worlds, where the user himself creates his own story, although not so literary.
After Yorvit did not appear in The Witcher 3, I was extremely upset. We were promised that the choice in the second part would influence the third, but in reality nothing significant.
Uh… no. There is no need to invent the word interactivity with a meaning that is more convenient for you. Use the established definition and dance from it.
Examples of “punishments” in the video are not punishments at all. It’s worth conducting research on this matter as well.
In the end, if the plot branches at the very beginning, and its branches do not intersect, then these are already two games for one price