I'm am the Dark Souls type of gamer. I love playing the game which it challenge me to be better and at the same time the world is telling me his story without any narration. Silent Hill is one my favorite series, even the game have cutscenes, I'm more in love with the world itself and then what the character MEANS to the world/town. I want game that make me feel i'm part of the world not being a spectator, I did feel that with the last of us a lot. it take my controls away to create story, or just move slowly all the time. i din't like that, I love replaying games and the last of us is a game that is hard to replay because the first hour and half you are Spending your time walking while people talk. When the game really felt you are playing IS when you are in the hotel, and that is far from the start of the game. Another thing i love is level progress where you feel you are getting bigger and better. resident evil (and i mean the classics ones) is a game that you really need a big weapon to go trough the tougher enemies because the pistol will not help much. I want love a game which make me feel smart of what it do (castlevania). I love a game where memorization let me speed trough level easier and faster (Sonic the hedgehog) I love a game where is your fall in that pit is your fault. (super mario) see a trend... Most my favorite games are mostly classic games and even 6th gen. I love playing games, and problem today is THAT there game that ARE TRYING TO FEEL like a game (Saint row 4) but fail bad because they are trying to hard. And if narration based game, my favorite game is Shenmue, which narration and exploration is strong but still creating an immersing world to explore.
Beware: the use of English might not be perfect and consider slandering this after thinking if there was a typo or lack of the English language. To anyone reading this, I give you a game, where the gameplay supports the the game's story, since it's a part of the video's topic: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997) What I mean by gameplay supporting the story, is that the gameplay portrays the themes of the story. And what I mean by the "themes of the story" is, that the characters and the setting, everything in the story, serve a purpose to the author as means to communicate with the audience as a tool to discuss certain topics. I give you lengthy piece of text where I deconstruct (or at least try) Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee into gameplay and story. On the second paragraph I put numbers inside brackets at the end of sentences; I will deconstruct those sentences into the themes the story has. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is a 2D stealth cinematic platformer. You can walk, run, sneak, jump, throw and interact with objects, possess guards occasionally and talk to your kind of people and lead them to safety. Abe has infinite lives, so you can play the game casually. As of failure states, there are two: dying from a hazard or not rescuing the fellow slaves thus getting the bad ending. Next piece is a synopsis of the story. Abe in Oddworld is a slave and decides to get himself free from the evil factory (1). As he escapes he is given the chance to save his fellow slaves on the way (2). It's Abe's choice, if he wanted to save his fellow slaves, and Abe will be punished in the end, if he decided to abandon them (3). Saving everyone will be a tough job since the hazards and guards guarding the slaves kill Abe very easily (4). After escaping the factory, Abe takes part in some trials in the wilderness for the acquiring power to shut down the factory (5). After the trials and acquiring the power, Abe heads back to factory (6). In the end, the player gets the good ending or the bad ending depending on their actions (3). 1. Themes of work safety and slavery. The factory is a grim place and there will be hazards that will kill you if you are not careful. 2. Theme of choice. You have the choice to save your buddies and you will be judged by your actions. 3. Theme of consequence. According to your actions you get a bad ending or a good ending. 4. Theme of how poorly the slaves are treated and the emphasis on how brain beats brawn. Abe and his buddies die in one hit and the guards are heavily armed. However you can occasionally possess the guards to infiltrate the enemy ranks. 5. Theme of how nature can be deadly, yet beautiful. The environments the people crafted look great even by today's standards and you cannot possess the wildlife to make things easier. 6. Theme of growing up. Abe gets the power to shut down the factory and shows character growth. All of the six themes of the story I listed have a common thing: everything is portrayed 95% of the time through gameplay and 5% through cutscene (assuming the full length of playing the game is 4 hours; there are only 10 minutes of cutscenes). Everything in the factory and the wilderness tries and will kill you if you are not careful. You are given the choice to save the slaves and the game will punish you for letting them die. Abe may be a flimsy guy, but he is more agile and can possess guards to get around. As the game goes on, Abe learns the ultimate power and is ready to face the hazards of the factory, this time for good. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like TotalBiscuit said about Bioshock: Infinite, about how the gameplay and the story are in conflict, Abe's Oddysee doesn't have that problem or in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to that matter. What these two titles do, is that the gameplay supports and enforces the themes of the story as I mentioned earlier. To me, such adaptation of gameplay and story, where they support each other, makes the game as much art as any movie, book, music or picture. And that's what I'm looking for from the new games I play these days, instead of a game and a movie in two different packages.
Personally, I think there's plenty of room in the entertainment industry for more walking simulator type of games like Dear Esther and What Remains of Edith Finch, so long as it has a good story to tell. As TotalBiscuit kind of brushes upon in this video, the real problem is games that try to have it both ways. They'll give you the faintest hint of real action by letting you shoot some guys but then it grabs you by the wrist and has scripted sequences throughout most of it. When I play What Remains of Edith Finch, I'm perfectly fine with the protagonist sounding somber and reminiscing but, when Blaskowitz does it on MachineGames' Wolfenstein games, it kinda ticks me off because I just spent the last hour or so gunning down human soldiers by the dozens and BJ randomly decides now it's a good time to act all somber and mopey?
I apologize for the wall of text, but I honestly disagree with TB, games do not have to have failure states to be a game. I realize that the way TB describes failure states are obstacles or things that impede progress. He has previously said a game cannot be a game if it does not have a victory status, and for that to happen, it must have some way for the player to fail. I don't think games have to have these states to be considered gameplay. Games that give you sandbox tools to create whatever you want, such as simulators or construction games, do not have to have a fail state. I realize TB's term for "fail state" is thankfully very loose, but I am not referring to unlockable content or gameplay elements such as spending money which impede progress, I am simply referring to the game laying out all of its tools for you to mess around in without fear of a failure state. From what I'm hearing according to TB, those are not games because they do not require you to overcome challenges or obstacles. I honestly and respectfully disagree. Maybe the obstacle or challenge is to create whatever you want. The challenge is to simply finish something. However, I do not count this as a failure state because the game does not have to present this challenge for the player to enjoy a simulator or sandbox construction game. The challenge is whatever the player comes to mind, and while the game does allow that sort of freedom of challenge, I do not think that this is a challenge that the game presents because this is not a challenge the player MUST overcome to enjoy the game. Both the player and the developer must recognize that there is a certain set of rules, and those rules do not require you to finish anything, just enjoy the product however you wish. Here's how I see it: to me (and wiki helped me a bit here and there), a video game is simply an interactive piece of digital media which requires a player to interact through a user interface and an input device. A game must also require gameplay, and as I've said, I see gameplay as a set of rules in which a game presents a player for the purpose of recreational enjoyment or otherwise fulfillment of their product. A mouse on a computer screen is not a video game. Some people might enjoy just moving a mouse around (albeit very bored people), but it is not created for recreation. However, a set of rules in which you must navigate through a maze of websites to find something specific I feel is a video game. We've seen it in the likes of Geoguessr or Hypnospace Outlaw. Those are both video games. I also don't consider Microsoft Paint or Photoshop video games either, because they are not made solely for recreational purposes, they are made to create other products in the hands of professionals and would therefore be applications. They could be used recreationally (as they often are), but that is not their sole purpose and their reason for existing. Mario Paint, however, is a video game. It is not made to create a product, but to be completed recreationally for enjoyment. Completing a picture or song or animation is simply a byproduct of the game itself and not a requirement for enjoying the game. There is a game mode by clicking the coffee button, but the minigame is not a requirement for enjoying Mario Paint. Living Books, an edutainment series in which you simply explore an illustrated kid's story, is also a video game, despite not having fail states. The player is entertained, and therefore it's a video game. In that sense I would also consider, maybe controversially, that Visual Novels are indeed video games even if it could be just flipping through pages of text. That is because they are interactive, require digital input, and made for recreation. They are video games. The things TB said were absolutely needed to be said and discussed. Even today, so many people are just okay with games giving you less choice and freedom, and even worse, consider them to be excellent examples of how games should be made. I agree with TB that these games are not the pinnacle examples of how to present narrative in video games as people have often said of Dear Esther, we've seen other games present this much better. However, I most definitely disagree with TB on the subject of what makes Dear Esther a video game. While I think that it is not the best way to present a narrative in video games, it is absolutely an option for players to enjoy story. It is in a similar way with how Visual Novels are presenting their story by sacrificing a ton of their gameplay with a way to advance the story. While TB may not consider either genres video games, they are nonetheless options for players to play. More options are always good and we should let these genres flourish in however people see fit rather than condemn them. I love this video and TB makes a very compelling argument, but it is very easy to fall into purity and gatekeeping, and I hope that when viewers watch this video, they do not condemn other games like Dear Esther. Even TB wishes that in this video.
If you want to get nitpicky, Dear Ester actuallly HAD a small failure state. If you wander off too much in the water, you could drown and it would reset you. But still the argument still holds up.
I'd be interested to hear what he thinks about Proteus, it's certainly not linear yet no there isn't a failure state but then again there's no narrative to it. It's just wandering around in a beautiful virtual world, but he seems to imply that it's therefore interactively worthless...
You know tb, what I love is whenever you release a vlog, it becomes extremely evident just how passionate you are about the medium and evolution of it. I really enjoy them and I hope you get more chances to release more.
I'm glad that you turned me onto Campster in one of your podcasts because I love to hear these type of discussions. He's opened the door, for me at least, to many concepts along with making this video a very enjoyable one.
For the life of me, I still can't understand Biscuit's rationale against Bioshock: Infinite. The "shooting guys in the face" aspect of the game complements a powerful feeling that game, Bioshock and System Shock evoke: fear of being the outsider. In all of those games, you enter a strange foreign culture and have to defend yourself when it turns on you (that makes the "Bioshock" title make sense to me). So, the character and the player must frantically struggle to make sense of their situation while making their way toward their original ultimate goal. That shock we feel in Jack's and in Booker's shoes makes it easier to lose track of our circumstances as they shift around us and we learn that our original mission was doomed to disappoint us in the end. However, I'm with him on the value of marrying gameplay with storytelling. Most recently, I would put Infinite and Outlast in the top tier of that marriage-type game. The Mass Effect trilogy was also a really impressive example of that.
TB, we don't give a shit what some snarky hipster assholes said about your opinion, we are you fans and we want to hear it. Bring the "WTF is...mountain" video back.
I will admit, there are a few ideas that TotalBuscuit expresses that I would say could certainly be argued. Surprisingly, though, I find that instead of wanting to argue I am just so proud to see how far games have come that I can see thoughtful discussions taking place just as one sees these discussions in literature or fine art. It's amazing to think that just 20 years ago we have gone from an 8-bit plumber breaking blocks to these questions as to what makes a game in the first place.
I strongly agree with TB's sentiments here. I work as a writer, and one of the most important things is to understand your medium, and more importantly...what it's like for your audience when using different media. Not enough people in any creative endeavour seem to understand this. Thanks for vid TB.
I don't want to sound butt hurt know but, you said in a previous video that you never finished the last of us because you didn't like the controls (which is a fair critique on the game) however you said the story wasn't very good without giving a specific reason. I agree with most of the stuff you say here but you can't expect people to take your argument seriously if your just going to make claims why you dislike something you really need to go into more depth about it. Especially when your going against the grain others wise people are just going to dismiss what you say.
I really enjoyed Dear Esther. But looking back, I did not enjoy the experience in the same way I'd enjoy anything else. I am a lover of poetry and found that I liked the idea of "exploring" the landscape while having lines of prose read to me (by exploring, I mean the progression forward to experience what while come up next in the environment). But looking at it now, I agree with TB's point in saying it would be enjoyable to watch, rather than "play". Dear Esther is an enjoyable experience for certain individuals, but I would have to say that it is far from being a "game", in my honest opinion. If a game has no "gameplay", then was set's it apart from a book or a movie? The ability to "move" the character? That is worthless and tiresome. Why would I want to, and TB says, hold down the W button for an hour. It's pointless. Games have character development. Games have plot lines. Games have visual and aural experiences. But so do movies, books, and plays. What separates games from the rest of the story telling mediums is the ability to involve the player. I know that this is repeating much of what other people have said in their comments, but take this from a guy who genuinely enjoyed Dear Esther. I found it worth the ~$5 I spent on it. I just agree in saying it is not a game.
10:40 Hell yeah last of us is compared to the best hollywood movies. I mean, it`s far beyond most of them. To add on, it does not have those shitty obligatory elements: love story, funny sidekicks, happy ending, pop songs - non of this BS is in there. I have honestly never seen better post-apocalyptic "on the road" movie or book. A GTA V`s plot, dialoge and performances are combined into a great criminal comedy/drama film. Again, better then half the stuff hollywood produses. (It seems like TB never played those two)
Can I just say that I enjoy these discussion videos more than anything else you do. Even at times when I may not agree with some opinions, it interests me incredibly and I like hearing what you have to say. Please keep doing this! :)
Since gaming became mainstream and big business, games have become about attracting huge player bases instead of just the "nerds" and you can only achieve that by dumbing things down. Your average gamer today isn't a gamer in the old sense of the word. He's just a guy looking for quick entertainment without requiring much effort. He just happens to prefer the games over watching TV and reading books. Very few games today require any actual skill or learning. Sure, they may be hard to master (ie. esports-levels), but a brain damaged chimp could play them at the same levels as the average gamer. Since 'challenging' has somehow become a negative description of a game in recent years, there's not much room to set yourself apart in the industry. So many games today share 99% of their content. Look at the recent COD and BF titles. COD went full kiddie tard years ago, and now BF seems to be moving in that direction as well. If BF keeps at it, they may as well just merge and make Call of Battle: Bad Ghosts 2 next time. None of them can even compare with their own predecessors. It's tragic. The non-games mentioned in this video are probably a result of passionate indie devs trying to do something new. Try not to simply be another meh clone on the market, and since the dumbest and easiest AAA titles seem to be the biggest sellers these days, why not try making a game where you can't fail and don't need to be good at anything? It seems like a logical next step to me. It's sad if that's the way we're going, but it does seem to make sense from a popularity perspective. People like winning without any effort and they don't like having to learn or hell, even remember anything. Success on rails. That could be what Dear Esther were going for, I suppose.
Thus the gamer and nerd was drowned in the mainstream. Sad to watch something get trambled to point of the difficulty of eating a marshmellow. I liked what you said and think it was said well.
Maybe the point of the game was not to give someone a challenge but instead tell a story. Other wise I'm sure they would have just made a game like Tetris if their goal was to challenge you. Not all games have to be what you want them to be.
So people like winning without any effort? Heh what kind of people do you know? Also, I don't think generalizing a certain smaller group of people makes any valid point.
DjNj23 Most of the actual gamers I know gave up on video games years ago. There are very few challenging games these days. It's entertainment on rails and the people love it. Especially the younger crowd.
You people are focused too much on what a game is and are confusing your opinion of what a game has to have from what a video game actually is. Instead a video game is in fact a program ran on a computer in which the player has any sort of interaction with. Stop trying to stifle game developers creativity and allow all types of games to exist. More than likely if someone has a vision of something they think they would enjoy there is probably someone else who would want to play it. It is not your say whether or not something can be considered a game just because you didn't enjoy it or find it engaging.
***** TV and movies are both sub categories of non interactive visual media. And yes, it is vague which is why the term category, sub categories, and sub sub categories and et cetera exist. It is also offensive to consider a video game not a game simply because it doesn't qualify to your opinion of what a video game must contain. Even if you play a shit flash animation in which you only tap one key any number of times to end the game it is still technically a video game (be it a pretty shit one but a video game none the less).
You hit the nail on the head. We should focus more about how interactivity with a medium can be done better, rather than squabbling about how the sub categories of interactive media should be sorted. Many places throughout the video TB actually mentions this. Being able to interact (as we do in interactive media) is better than passively receiving the story (as you do with a book or movie). If you push the discussion too far the other way, I've heard some claiming that the newest Battlefield or Call of Duty are not games, because they do nothing new, and are just clones of themselves (I disagree. I like them both.) There is no damage being done when Dear Esther is called a game, but as TB mentions, there is damage done when interactive media is treaded as passive media: Max Payne trying to be a movie.
Marius Alsén Here's the thing though. Although interactivity can be used to tell a story in a very unique way, a very different way to passive visual medium, by saying that this is is what all games should strive for, we actually limit art by the same amount as saying games should be like films. Let's say a developer wanted to produce a piece of art that was had some interactivity, but was mostly non-interactive. For example, it was basically a first person film, but you had some limited control over the camera man, and your input was required to make him look around. By saying that interactivity is the thing you should strive for, we make it seem like this piece of art is somehow a failure. Now, some people would complain saying "what's the point, you're basically watching a film, while others who wanted a film may not like it because of the interactivity. When it comes to art, lines that divide one form from another don't really exist.
***** I'm pretty sure Notepad is free with every version of the Windows OS, so it's not technically "sold." Then again Wii Sports is the considered the highest selling console game of all time so....
Biscuit makes a lot of good points. Older games, notably Mario 3 or Sonic, didn't have large Game Tree Complexities but made use of branching pathways and physics engines to add the illusion of branching paths to their simple level designs. Modern games are moving ever closer toward beautified high-poly rail shooters such as were common on any old arcade machine back in the day.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about David Cage, he wanted to take a fresh approach to making a game, he wanted to make gaming more than it currently is. You don't watch a cutscene in any David Cage game, you don't put the controller down and have a sip of tea, you hold the controller closer than you would with any other game, you are taught to always be aware as anything can happen and you will need to react to it otherwise, you won't fail per se, but you will miss out on something.
Yeah! It's pretty much spot on. Especially if you look into board games on the other hand. Video games have mostly developed in terms of technology for the last decades. In terms of system design, of actual concepts, not too much has happened (again, as opposed to board gaming). I'm really excited to be part of a slowly rising movement of actual interest in game mechanics and design innovation and really getting at what makes games special and fundamentally different than movies.
Actualy, MGS4 did a similar thing to what you described in Brothers about the pain derrived from holding on the button to do an action, in one sequence where I think you had to do something with either the buttons or rotating the thumbstick(s?) rapidly in order to get Old Snake to escape out some microwave room alive or something. It hurt your fingers, but it was also a deliberate attempt to get the player to feel snake's pain.
I agree completely with the challenge and failure points, however when it comes to the player feeling involved, that's really a personal thing, rather than something that is completely and directly controlled by the developers. Another thing I would like to add is that a game must exist (at least supposedly) to provide some sort of entertainment or stimulant to the player.
Yeah, thats the thing. Games like Proteus and Dear Esther strip first person adventures down to the most basic form, i.e. simple experience, dispensing with gamey mechanics like puzzles, overt narrative, inventory etc. which often get in the way anyway. The best comparison I can think of is a novel vs a poem, if Skyrim is an epic novel then proteus is a one page poem, both delivered in the same way but providing very different things to the consumer, yet both equally valid and important.
What I think is a symptom of the problem I think TB is talking about is the trailer for Assassin's Creed 4. The trailer is solely CGI cut scenes that completely turned me off. Then I watched the 13 minute game play video on RUclips and thought that was amazing. The trailer was not targeted at gamers, it was pointed at the masses.
To me the Mass Effect Series is to this day the game that tells it's story interactively and does it well and on a Blockbuster scale. You change entire parts of the galaxy yourself with your decision. They might have sliped on the final ending a bit but the overall experience of that game is incredible and I really want to see more of those and those kinds of games evolve.
Very true. It's pretty tricky when you get right down to it, communicating on the internet. Most of the things we take for granted in common conversation are so hard to do in pure text.
I love games with story and failure that blocks you rather than makes you replay. Take puzzle games like amnesia or portal 2. It has some replay of failures but most of the time its just a road block due to needing to figure the puzzle out. I love the feeling of achievement which is the premise in my opinion of what a game is. I enjoy dynamic storyline's, clever mechanics, and memorable moments that make me the player feel important in the story.
Journey, Shadow of the Colossus and Flower (though a little more abstract than the other two) are three great examples of games that tell their stories almost exclusively through gameplay since there are very few cutscenes. I personally would also put Bastion under this category as well, but I'm not quite sure if that one falls under what you're looking for since there are few cutscenes (if any from what I remember) but there is a lot of narrative in the game. :)
10 years ago I wouldn't have EVER even considered the questions posed by TB in this video. The ideas would never have even occurred to me, nor would I have thought to apply any more intelligence and criticism to a game other than "Did I have fun playing it?" Granted, that is a POWERFUL measure of a game. But all in all, after listening to TB since Blue Please, I have to say I'm grateful for the increased critical thinking about games that listening to this channel has given me.
"Interactive films" is my description for those games that capture controls from player often and give him extremely linear path to move on. Even if those have some kind of "failure states" they are more like movies (one can still immersed in those but in a passive or empathic kind of way) than games (active immersion) or exhibitions (where some feelings emerge from just watching the game flow but it gives absolutely zero immersion).
Oh right. And interesting to hear about Visual Novels being games. I was a bit unsure about them, too. I always wondered if they're games, but I know recently there was the talk of an AOT game being announced, but there were also going to be visual novels. When some people said 'the game is only a visual novel' many replied with 'no those are separate, there is going to be an actual game' which led me to believe the two were different.
This has to be one of the best metaphors I have seen to explain shallow mechanics as a reason for questioning the 'gamey'ness of a title. Even a linear game like monkey island actually engages the player with assignments and collecting essential items. Now I'd love to see some eccentric rich guy open an art gallery in the form of a maze, and you're required to find keys hidden in paintings in order to open doors to other sections of the gallery.
Personally one of my favorite things with a game is being more of the world rather than an actual story. I enjoy looking for tiny pieces of a world that stand out, observing side NPCs, seeing new species in fantasy/sci-fi worlds, and seeing creative worlds in gaming. Movies and books just can't pull that off as well since a movie is too linear and books are too.... wordy, but a game puts you in that spot and lets you look around and find and interact with the world yourself.
I strongly agree with your opinions on narrative in games. As a writer, it physically pains me to hear people saying that mass effect has some of the best story of all time. What is really strange to me is amazing narrative is not a new thing. What kept us playing those amazing jrpgs is exactly what you are discussing, an incredible marrying of game mechanics and story. Legend of dragoon's setting is probably my favorite example. It is conveyed almost entirely via game mechanics.
Dear Esther does have a failure state though, it even has autosaves which it loads, as opposed to restarting the entire map. You just have to try a bit harder to get it because most of the stuff is covered with triggers that teleport you back up.
Spot on, it is all about the game play. Too many cut scenes spoil a game. I bought The Witcher 2 because of the good reviews it got, but the first half an hour or so of game play was cut scene after cut scene. Apparently the cut scenes do get infrequent eventually, but initial impressions have put me off and I'll probably not play it again.
I just played 'The Stanley Parable' yesterday. It's really short (You will hardly get more than 5 hours out of it if you replay enough it to see all of it) but it is the best way gameplay and story have been married together in a game I have ever played. I won't spoil anything here but if you are interested in ways games can tell a story (of sorts) than you have to check this out.
I dont really have anything to add, but I really wanted to say thank you for an excellent reply that is actually making me think about the issue. Carry on sir.
I totally agree. And digital distribution platforms should as well. These types of virtual experiences enrich the industry and create new forms of entertainment, which can lead to even greater benefits. People who play action games tend to have better reaction times than those who don't, and strategy gamers tend to be better at critical thinking. New kinds of experiences open up new possibilities and new potential benefits to be explored by interactive entertainment.
I agree completely with you TB. I believe you best said it in the ending with the movie analogy. I'd like to add that it's actually the same with video games. As games, the core of them is in the mechanics and gameplay. What makes a bad game is the same for what makes a bad movie, and it's the core. For movies it's the story, for games its the gameplay. Stories are secondary in games, and that should be obvious in every proper game that advertises as being a video game.
TB Thank you for bringing us an intelligent argument about what is gaming. i loved the metaphor about the game industry in its teenage years because it is very accurate.
Dear Ester still has elements of choice even if its as minimal as choosing how long to spend in a particular area or how much detail of certain scenery to take in. In this sense it wouldnt have been the same if it was a machinima that you watched completely passively.It highlights the most basic levels of interactivity and how they affect your experience even of a narrative "installation". That makes it important. Consider the giraffe scene in TLOU, you choose when to move on from taking it in.
Game Tree Complexity is integral in the replay value of a game. Chess, Go, and Stratego have very large Game Trees in that the number of possible games you could play can only expressed with exponential values like 10^360. This is why so many new games are implementing multiplayer (like GTA Online), because other players + a physics engine = infinite tree complexity. It keeps players around long enough to get DLC and expansions when the interest in story dries up.
Probably the best video TB has ever done. I finally understand why I didn't like Bioshock: Infinite and lots of other games as well. I really need that immersion for a good gaming-experience which I really liked with The Wolf Among Us.
I suppose the cop-out answer (though maybe the only real one) is that the definition varies depending on the player, and that if it fulfils what the consumer expects out of it it qualifies. Which is probably the widest possible definition, but hey, I like the concept of dynamic meanings and personal subjectivity.
I very much enjoyed this. I do find it odd that you didn't mention Spec Ops: The Line at all. That game has the best (or at least most powerful) story in a game I have ever played. It really plays with the idea of having a story told to you versus unfolding the story yourself. I highly recommend SO to everyone that wants to see what a story could be in a "modern militairy shooter".
On the topic of story driven games, I'm surprised that TB didn't mention Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward, a game on the 3DS that gave a narrative reason for why your character can experience multiple "endings". A good example from early on in the game (very minor spoilers ahead) is in one ending your character finds out about a virus that causes those who contract it to commit suicide by finding a book about it in one of the areas. In a different ending when another characters corpse is...
Very powerful video TotalBiscuit. I'll be honest, I don't watch your channel much, at least not the WTF series (i do watch the Terraria vids with you and Jesse Cox), but I have to say very well said points, and well presented indeed. If there is anything us as viewers can do to help, please feel free to let us know, I know myself and others I'm sure who'd love to help.
13:11 there is.. and it's actually quite a while ago ICO I really hope he'll see this somehow... Brothers reminded me a lot of ICO and if I'm not mistaken Shadow of the Colossus did it aswell... not sure about this though
An older game that I think did narrative really well was Metroid Prime. Everything was pretty much told through interacting with the environment, either by scanning or just noticing things in the world. I wish more games would try out this approach, which is like telling story through gameplay.
an unwitting cameraman. =) god i feel like so many games are just that it seems, with some button pushing from time to time, or some traveling in between. so well put
I totally agree. Tha's what I mean by "dynamic storytelling". Which to me is really the only way storytelling in games makes sense, because they're non-linear interactive systems with themselves. Movies and novels have a huge advantage in terms of linear(!) storytelling on the other hand. Nobody should force that kind of story upon a game, I think. And many people in the industry actually agree. Even the Valve writer said there's a fundamental conflict. They just have to do it these days.
A game is where there is a challange to overcome, but not just that, but also involvement of the player and other characters/people or else it is a puzzle.
Mostly out of philosophical interest or for potentially opening up new terminology so that new (sub)genres of interactive entertainment may form. In that way, some people might find it useful to be able to distinguish interactive experiences such as Dear Esther apart from "games," because they may not like games but enjoyed Dear Esther and wish to experience more stories/interactive experiences like it. Or interrogating societal constructs can just be interesting in and of itself.
If for you, playing is the same as "giving an output to a software" , or "If it's in a digital platform", you should consult the broad of games that the internet has to offer, such as the Adobe Master Collection/ IDEs/ Music making software/Video making softwares....and so on.
Good points. Coming to computer games from a table-top RPG angle, I often find the limitations of games vis-a-vis the story very annoying - especially when the rail-roading is obvious, which, bizarrely it often is in narrative-heavy games.
Dear Esther does what it's trying to do incredibly well, and I think it deserves some praise for that. Which it doesn't get. It just gets bashed over and over because it isn't a game, even though it's not trying to be a game. It's not like TCR wanted to create an awesome FPS, but failed and then decided to make DE. They did what they set out to do, and that's great. I love Dear Esther for what it is. Not as a game, but as an experience and as a story.
Yes, I believe it would, because you make choices, you somewhat decide where your character goes and what he does. If it forced you down one path then no it wouldn't be.
actually this is why i still love nintendo games, they're just games, they're not trying to be a movie and thats why i search in video games, just play a good game, movies are a totally different area. i love games like skyrim or half life ,that type of games almost don't use cutscenes(because they don't need it) , maybe they not have the best storyline, but the gameplay is so satisfying that compliments the storyline. sorry if my english sucks.
Types of Games (by play theorist Roger Caillois) 1. Agon or competition. Where there are winners and losers. The outcome is determined by the skills and/or strength of the players. 2. Alea or chance: Where fate, luck, or grace determines the winner. 3. Mimicry or simulation. Playing within an imaginary make-believe or illusory world. 4. Ilinx or dizziness. Playing to induce a disorienting experience or state of mind. TB is talking mostly about 1. Dear Ester is 3/4. Still a game tho...
In hindsight, perhaps I'm focused on general RPGs because they're almost entirely about the narrative. Much like fictional or adventurous books being a lasting form of conveying a story regardless of perspective or structure, RPGs have a similar method of achieving the same ends with the player dictating the flow of the general gameplay while the story elements (generally) would be otherwise told outside of the player's control. Its not so much the evolution of narration, but instead, story.
The story of Biochock 1-2 was better from a videogame standpoint than Biochock Infinite because it wasn't to much of it. But I think some of the best twists in a videogame comes from F.E.A.R 2 because it's the environment that surprises you without unnecessary exposition. I just love the reveal of "The Hospital" and "The Nurses Office" in F.E.A.R 2 because it gave me nostalgia to a time where logic and realism wasn't so important. It reminded me of Doom and Quake.
(continued) .... found your character remembers the book from the other timeline. I can't comment on the games Voice Acting because the UK and EU version didn't have the US voice acting (only the JP voice acting with English subtitles was available). The Plot was very solid and the fact you used information from other endings made going between the game's different endings fell like you were the character searching for answers instead of felling like a frustrated gamer trying to get a good end
Atruly great and interesting discussion indeed.Although you are right in the fact that Last of Us does take the choice away from you it doesn't seem to be a problem.For me,the focus in the game lies in the relationship between Joel and Ellie.How THEY grow and experience the world together. The ending is a perfect example,you had to kill them all,lieto Ellie and take away humanity's last hope for selfish reasons. That gets you to deliberate over HIS choice and that's why the ending is so special
Yes, that is the conflict between freedom X story, that happens in some games. AFAIK GTA is one of the best in this regard, because it gives you a sandbox kind of game with an awesome story. So they really managed to create something good, and that is why they are so sucessfull.
I loved Dear Esther for the experience. The visuals and the story it told with them were astonishing, and it was a great thing to walk through. However anyone that expects a game is going to be disappointed. It's not a game, and it isn't supposed to.
Yeah, there really isn't a right or a wrong most of the time, just different players to cater towards. TB prefers mechanics over story. I prefer story over mechanics. You appear to prefer games which allow you to create your own story. And none of us are wrong! And even better there are games that cater to each of our preferences. That's why I'm glad to see a lot of the old school game styles get kickstarted. More options, more variety!
I concede that there is a categorisation problem, there isn't really a genre tag for these games and I think its important that people can make an informed choice about their purchase. Currently on steam it is very easy to mistake products like 30 flights of loving or Dear Esther for a more traditional mechanic based computer game, which they are not. However I want to be clear that I do think these are valuable products which absolutely should be sold on distribution platforms like steam.
Some people say that video games are are not art. I agree: Video games are the combination of various art forms and, thus, much more than art. Video games are the next chapter in art, linking the audience to the performance at a level that that none of its predecessors (and fundamental part simultaneously) ever achieved.
Exactly, there is a valid and enjoyable product there, it may not have overt gameplay mechanics and it certainly isn't for everyone, but imo it definitely has the right to exist as it is. The only thing I would say is that we need clearer genre tags so people know exactly what they're buying. Buying Dear Esther thinking you're getting a traditional game could clearly be disappointing, but if you know what it is in advance and its something you're interested in... then where is the harm?
Yeah I have to agree with you on that one. Those freaking vehicle battles were a nightmare especially when trying to get to the monster hunter missions.
I love TB's reasoned, logical, and yet respectful opinions.
I'm am the Dark Souls type of gamer. I love playing the game which it challenge me to be better and at the same time the world is telling me his story without any narration. Silent Hill is one my favorite series, even the game have cutscenes, I'm more in love with the world itself and then what the character MEANS to the world/town.
I want game that make me feel i'm part of the world not being a spectator, I did feel that with the last of us a lot. it take my controls away to create story, or just move slowly all the time. i din't like that, I love replaying games and the last of us is a game that is hard to replay because the first hour and half you are Spending your time walking while people talk. When the game really felt you are playing IS when you are in the hotel, and that is far from the start of the game.
Another thing i love is level progress where you feel you are getting bigger and better. resident evil (and i mean the classics ones) is a game that you really need a big weapon to go trough the tougher enemies because the pistol will not help much.
I want love a game which make me feel smart of what it do (castlevania).
I love a game where memorization let me speed trough level easier and faster (Sonic the hedgehog)
I love a game where is your fall in that pit is your fault. (super mario)
see a trend... Most my favorite games are mostly classic games and even 6th gen. I love playing games, and problem today is THAT there game that ARE TRYING TO FEEL like a game (Saint row 4) but fail bad because they are trying to hard.
And if narration based game, my favorite game is Shenmue, which narration and exploration is strong but still creating an immersing world to explore.
Beware: the use of English might not be perfect and consider slandering this after thinking if there was a typo or lack of the English language.
To anyone reading this, I give you a game, where the gameplay supports the the game's story, since it's a part of the video's topic:
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997)
What I mean by gameplay supporting the story, is that the gameplay portrays the themes of the story. And what I mean by the "themes of the story" is, that the characters and the setting, everything in the story, serve a purpose to the author as means to communicate with the audience as a tool to discuss certain topics.
I give you lengthy piece of text where I deconstruct (or at least try) Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee into gameplay and story. On the second paragraph I put numbers inside brackets at the end of sentences; I will deconstruct those sentences into the themes the story has.
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Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is a 2D stealth cinematic platformer. You can walk, run, sneak, jump, throw and interact with objects, possess guards occasionally and talk to your kind of people and lead them to safety. Abe has infinite lives, so you can play the game casually. As of failure states, there are two: dying from a hazard or not rescuing the fellow slaves thus getting the bad ending. Next piece is a synopsis of the story.
Abe in Oddworld is a slave and decides to get himself free from the evil factory (1). As he escapes he is given the chance to save his fellow slaves on the way (2). It's Abe's choice, if he wanted to save his fellow slaves, and Abe will be punished in the end, if he decided to abandon them (3). Saving everyone will be a tough job since the hazards and guards guarding the slaves kill Abe very easily (4). After escaping the factory, Abe takes part in some trials in the wilderness for the acquiring power to shut down the factory (5). After the trials and acquiring the power, Abe heads back to factory (6). In the end, the player gets the good ending or the bad ending depending on their actions (3).
1. Themes of work safety and slavery. The factory is a grim place and there will be hazards that will kill you if you are not careful.
2. Theme of choice. You have the choice to save your buddies and you will be judged by your actions.
3. Theme of consequence. According to your actions you get a bad ending or a good ending.
4. Theme of how poorly the slaves are treated and the emphasis on how brain beats brawn. Abe and his buddies die in one hit and the guards are heavily armed. However you can occasionally possess the guards to infiltrate the enemy ranks.
5. Theme of how nature can be deadly, yet beautiful. The environments the people crafted look great even by today's standards and you cannot possess the wildlife to make things easier.
6. Theme of growing up. Abe gets the power to shut down the factory and shows character growth.
All of the six themes of the story I listed have a common thing: everything is portrayed 95% of the time through gameplay and 5% through cutscene (assuming the full length of playing the game is 4 hours; there are only 10 minutes of cutscenes). Everything in the factory and the wilderness tries and will kill you if you are not careful. You are given the choice to save the slaves and the game will punish you for letting them die. Abe may be a flimsy guy, but he is more agile and can possess guards to get around. As the game goes on, Abe learns the ultimate power and is ready to face the hazards of the factory, this time for good.
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Like TotalBiscuit said about Bioshock: Infinite, about how the gameplay and the story are in conflict, Abe's Oddysee doesn't have that problem or in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to that matter. What these two titles do, is that the gameplay supports and enforces the themes of the story as I mentioned earlier.
To me, such adaptation of gameplay and story, where they support each other, makes the game as much art as any movie, book, music or picture. And that's what I'm looking for from the new games I play these days, instead of a game and a movie in two different packages.
Personally, I think there's plenty of room in the entertainment industry for more walking simulator type of games like Dear Esther and What Remains of Edith Finch, so long as it has a good story to tell. As TotalBiscuit kind of brushes upon in this video, the real problem is games that try to have it both ways. They'll give you the faintest hint of real action by letting you shoot some guys but then it grabs you by the wrist and has scripted sequences throughout most of it. When I play What Remains of Edith Finch, I'm perfectly fine with the protagonist sounding somber and reminiscing but, when Blaskowitz does it on MachineGames' Wolfenstein games, it kinda ticks me off because I just spent the last hour or so gunning down human soldiers by the dozens and BJ randomly decides now it's a good time to act all somber and mopey?
I apologize for the wall of text, but I honestly disagree with TB, games do not have to have failure states to be a game.
I realize that the way TB describes failure states are obstacles or things that impede progress. He has previously said a game cannot be a game if it does not have a victory status, and for that to happen, it must have some way for the player to fail. I don't think games have to have these states to be considered gameplay. Games that give you sandbox tools to create whatever you want, such as simulators or construction games, do not have to have a fail state. I realize TB's term for "fail state" is thankfully very loose, but I am not referring to unlockable content or gameplay elements such as spending money which impede progress, I am simply referring to the game laying out all of its tools for you to mess around in without fear of a failure state. From what I'm hearing according to TB, those are not games because they do not require you to overcome challenges or obstacles. I honestly and respectfully disagree.
Maybe the obstacle or challenge is to create whatever you want. The challenge is to simply finish something. However, I do not count this as a failure state because the game does not have to present this challenge for the player to enjoy a simulator or sandbox construction game. The challenge is whatever the player comes to mind, and while the game does allow that sort of freedom of challenge, I do not think that this is a challenge that the game presents because this is not a challenge the player MUST overcome to enjoy the game. Both the player and the developer must recognize that there is a certain set of rules, and those rules do not require you to finish anything, just enjoy the product however you wish.
Here's how I see it: to me (and wiki helped me a bit here and there), a video game is simply an interactive piece of digital media which requires a player to interact through a user interface and an input device. A game must also require gameplay, and as I've said, I see gameplay as a set of rules in which a game presents a player for the purpose of recreational enjoyment or otherwise fulfillment of their product. A mouse on a computer screen is not a video game. Some people might enjoy just moving a mouse around (albeit very bored people), but it is not created for recreation. However, a set of rules in which you must navigate through a maze of websites to find something specific I feel is a video game. We've seen it in the likes of Geoguessr or Hypnospace Outlaw. Those are both video games.
I also don't consider Microsoft Paint or Photoshop video games either, because they are not made solely for recreational purposes, they are made to create other products in the hands of professionals and would therefore be applications. They could be used recreationally (as they often are), but that is not their sole purpose and their reason for existing. Mario Paint, however, is a video game. It is not made to create a product, but to be completed recreationally for enjoyment. Completing a picture or song or animation is simply a byproduct of the game itself and not a requirement for enjoying the game. There is a game mode by clicking the coffee button, but the minigame is not a requirement for enjoying Mario Paint. Living Books, an edutainment series in which you simply explore an illustrated kid's story, is also a video game, despite not having fail states. The player is entertained, and therefore it's a video game. In that sense I would also consider, maybe controversially, that Visual Novels are indeed video games even if it could be just flipping through pages of text. That is because they are interactive, require digital input, and made for recreation. They are video games.
The things TB said were absolutely needed to be said and discussed. Even today, so many people are just okay with games giving you less choice and freedom, and even worse, consider them to be excellent examples of how games should be made. I agree with TB that these games are not the pinnacle examples of how to present narrative in video games as people have often said of Dear Esther, we've seen other games present this much better. However, I most definitely disagree with TB on the subject of what makes Dear Esther a video game. While I think that it is not the best way to present a narrative in video games, it is absolutely an option for players to enjoy story. It is in a similar way with how Visual Novels are presenting their story by sacrificing a ton of their gameplay with a way to advance the story. While TB may not consider either genres video games, they are nonetheless options for players to play. More options are always good and we should let these genres flourish in however people see fit rather than condemn them. I love this video and TB makes a very compelling argument, but it is very easy to fall into purity and gatekeeping, and I hope that when viewers watch this video, they do not condemn other games like Dear Esther. Even TB wishes that in this video.
If you want to get nitpicky, Dear Ester actuallly HAD a small failure state. If you wander off too much in the water, you could drown and it would reset you. But still the argument still holds up.
YAY a COMMENT on a TB Vid!!! FFFREEEEEDOOOOOOMMMM!!... Also, a very though provoking analysis!
I'd be interested to hear what he thinks about Proteus, it's certainly not linear yet no there isn't a failure state but then again there's no narrative to it. It's just wandering around in a beautiful virtual world, but he seems to imply that it's therefore interactively worthless...
You know tb, what I love is whenever you release a vlog, it becomes extremely evident just how passionate you are about the medium and evolution of it.
I really enjoy them and I hope you get more chances to release more.
I'm glad that you turned me onto Campster in one of your podcasts because I love to hear these type of discussions. He's opened the door, for me at least, to many concepts along with making this video a very enjoyable one.
For the life of me, I still can't understand Biscuit's rationale against Bioshock: Infinite. The "shooting guys in the face" aspect of the game complements a powerful feeling that game, Bioshock and System Shock evoke: fear of being the outsider. In all of those games, you enter a strange foreign culture and have to defend yourself when it turns on you (that makes the "Bioshock" title make sense to me). So, the character and the player must frantically struggle to make sense of their situation while making their way toward their original ultimate goal. That shock we feel in Jack's and in Booker's shoes makes it easier to lose track of our circumstances as they shift around us and we learn that our original mission was doomed to disappoint us in the end.
However, I'm with him on the value of marrying gameplay with storytelling. Most recently, I would put Infinite and Outlast in the top tier of that marriage-type game. The Mass Effect trilogy was also a really impressive example of that.
TB, we don't give a shit what some snarky hipster assholes said about your opinion, we are you fans and we want to hear it. Bring the "WTF is...mountain" video back.
I'm surprised he didn't mention Silent Hill 2.
I will admit, there are a few ideas that TotalBuscuit expresses that I would say could certainly be argued. Surprisingly, though, I find that instead of wanting to argue I am just so proud to see how far games have come that I can see thoughtful discussions taking place just as one sees these discussions in literature or fine art. It's amazing to think that just 20 years ago we have gone from an 8-bit plumber breaking blocks to these questions as to what makes a game in the first place.
I strongly agree with TB's sentiments here. I work as a writer, and one of the most important things is to understand your medium, and more importantly...what it's like for your audience when using different media.
Not enough people in any creative endeavour seem to understand this. Thanks for vid TB.
This is why i have started to hate pretty much all AAA titles. All games are trying to be movies instead of being GAMES.
I don't want to sound butt hurt know but, you said in a previous video that you never finished the last of us because you didn't like the controls (which is a fair critique on the game) however you said the story wasn't very good without giving a specific reason. I agree with most of the stuff you say here but you can't expect people to take your argument seriously if your just going to make claims why you dislike something you really need to go into more depth about it. Especially when your going against the grain others wise people are just going to dismiss what you say.
I really enjoyed Dear Esther. But looking back, I did not enjoy the experience in the same way I'd enjoy anything else. I am a lover of poetry and found that I liked the idea of "exploring" the landscape while having lines of prose read to me (by exploring, I mean the progression forward to experience what while come up next in the environment). But looking at it now, I agree with TB's point in saying it would be enjoyable to watch, rather than "play". Dear Esther is an enjoyable experience for certain individuals, but I would have to say that it is far from being a "game", in my honest opinion.
If a game has no "gameplay", then was set's it apart from a book or a movie? The ability to "move" the character? That is worthless and tiresome. Why would I want to, and TB says, hold down the W button for an hour. It's pointless. Games have character development. Games have plot lines. Games have visual and aural experiences. But so do movies, books, and plays. What separates games from the rest of the story telling mediums is the ability to involve the player. I know that this is repeating much of what other people have said in their comments, but take this from a guy who genuinely enjoyed Dear Esther. I found it worth the ~$5 I spent on it. I just agree in saying it is not a game.
What an amazing analyst. Thank you sir for your services.
These discussion videos are always such a treat to listen to, thank you so very much.
pluse there's that there's no challenge. Seriously what's a game without challange?
A bitch game
Mrhawk105 its not a game
Biscuit says Brothers is good. Yahtzee says it's mediocre. Who do I trust?
10:40 Hell yeah last of us is compared to the best hollywood movies. I mean, it`s far beyond most of them. To add on, it does not have those shitty obligatory elements: love story, funny sidekicks, happy ending, pop songs - non of this BS is in there. I have honestly never seen better post-apocalyptic "on the road" movie or book.
A GTA V`s plot, dialoge and performances are combined into a great criminal comedy/drama film. Again, better then half the stuff hollywood produses.
(It seems like TB never played those two)
TLOU is awful. GTA 5's story is pretty poor.
I really like these kinds of videos from you TB. It would cool to see discussion videos from you once a week or every other week.
Can I just say that I enjoy these discussion videos more than anything else you do. Even at times when I may not agree with some opinions, it interests me incredibly and I like hearing what you have to say. Please keep doing this! :)
A game without cake is a game thats a lie.
dark souls.Dark Souls. DARK SOULS.
Since gaming became mainstream and big business, games have become about attracting huge player bases instead of just the "nerds" and you can only achieve that by dumbing things down.
Your average gamer today isn't a gamer in the old sense of the word. He's just a guy looking for quick entertainment without requiring much effort. He just happens to prefer the games over watching TV and reading books.
Very few games today require any actual skill or learning. Sure, they may be hard to master (ie. esports-levels), but a brain damaged chimp could play them at the same levels as the average gamer.
Since 'challenging' has somehow become a negative description of a game in recent years, there's not much room to set yourself apart in the industry. So many games today share 99% of their content. Look at the recent COD and BF titles. COD went full kiddie tard years ago, and now BF seems to be moving in that direction as well. If BF keeps at it, they may as well just merge and make Call of Battle: Bad Ghosts 2 next time.
None of them can even compare with their own predecessors. It's tragic.
The non-games mentioned in this video are probably a result of passionate indie devs trying to do something new. Try not to simply be another meh clone on the market, and since the dumbest and easiest AAA titles seem to be the biggest sellers these days, why not try making a game where you can't fail and don't need to be good at anything? It seems like a logical next step to me. It's sad if that's the way we're going, but it does seem to make sense from a popularity perspective. People like winning without any effort and they don't like having to learn or hell, even remember anything.
Success on rails. That could be what Dear Esther were going for, I suppose.
Thus the gamer and nerd was drowned in the mainstream. Sad to watch something get trambled to point of the difficulty of eating a marshmellow. I liked what you said and think it was said well.
Maybe the point of the game was not to give someone a challenge but instead tell a story. Other wise I'm sure they would have just made a game like Tetris if their goal was to challenge you. Not all games have to be what you want them to be.
So people like winning without any effort? Heh what kind of people do you know? Also, I don't think generalizing a certain smaller group of people makes any valid point.
DjNj23 Most of the actual gamers I know gave up on video games years ago. There are very few challenging games these days. It's entertainment on rails and the people love it. Especially the younger crowd.
I miss you doing content like this. I really felt like that's what the daily mailbox provided and I'm happy to see you doing something in this vein.
i love someone well known still can clearly think and share his toughts with so much other (REAL) passioned gamers. much appreciated!
You people are focused too much on what a game is and are confusing your opinion of what a game has to have from what a video game actually is. Instead a video game is in fact a program ran on a computer in which the player has any sort of interaction with. Stop trying to stifle game developers creativity and allow all types of games to exist. More than likely if someone has a vision of something they think they would enjoy there is probably someone else who would want to play it. It is not your say whether or not something can be considered a game just because you didn't enjoy it or find it engaging.
***** TV and movies are both sub categories of non interactive visual media. And yes, it is vague which is why the term category, sub categories, and sub sub categories and et cetera exist. It is also offensive to consider a video game not a game simply because it doesn't qualify to your opinion of what a video game must contain. Even if you play a shit flash animation in which you only tap one key any number of times to end the game it is still technically a video game (be it a pretty shit one but a video game none the less).
You hit the nail on the head. We should focus more about how interactivity with a medium can be done better, rather than squabbling about how the sub categories of interactive media should be sorted. Many places throughout the video TB actually mentions this. Being able to interact (as we do in interactive media) is better than passively receiving the story (as you do with a book or movie). If you push the discussion too far the other way, I've heard some claiming that the newest Battlefield or Call of Duty are not games, because they do nothing new, and are just clones of themselves (I disagree. I like them both.) There is no damage being done when Dear Esther is called a game, but as TB mentions, there is damage done when interactive media is treaded as passive media: Max Payne trying to be a movie.
Marius Alsén Here's the thing though. Although interactivity can be used to tell a story in a very unique way, a very different way to passive visual medium, by saying that this is is what all games should strive for, we actually limit art by the same amount as saying games should be like films. Let's say a developer wanted to produce a piece of art that was had some interactivity, but was mostly non-interactive. For example, it was basically a first person film, but you had some limited control over the camera man, and your input was required to make him look around. By saying that interactivity is the thing you should strive for, we make it seem like this piece of art is somehow a failure. Now, some people would complain saying "what's the point, you're basically watching a film, while others who wanted a film may not like it because of the interactivity. When it comes to art, lines that divide one form from another don't really exist.
Sooooo.... the best-selling computer game of all time is MS Word?
***** I'm pretty sure Notepad is free with every version of the Windows OS, so it's not technically "sold." Then again Wii Sports is the considered the highest selling console game of all time so....
david cage makes the bad games
Biscuit makes a lot of good points. Older games, notably Mario 3 or Sonic, didn't have large Game Tree Complexities but made use of branching pathways and physics engines to add the illusion of branching paths to their simple level designs. Modern games are moving ever closer toward beautified high-poly rail shooters such as were common on any old arcade machine back in the day.
Once again a very nice discussion, TB! Love these kind of videos!
I agree with you wholeheartedly about David Cage, he wanted to take a fresh approach to making a game, he wanted to make gaming more than it currently is. You don't watch a cutscene in any David Cage game, you don't put the controller down and have a sip of tea, you hold the controller closer than you would with any other game, you are taught to always be aware as anything can happen and you will need to react to it otherwise, you won't fail per se, but you will miss out on something.
Yeah! It's pretty much spot on. Especially if you look into board games on the other hand. Video games have mostly developed in terms of technology for the last decades. In terms of system design, of actual concepts, not too much has happened (again, as opposed to board gaming). I'm really excited to be part of a slowly rising movement of actual interest in game mechanics and design innovation and really getting at what makes games special and fundamentally different than movies.
Actualy, MGS4 did a similar thing to what you described in Brothers about the pain derrived from holding on the button to do an action, in one sequence where I think you had to do something with either the buttons or rotating the thumbstick(s?) rapidly in order to get Old Snake to escape out some microwave room alive or something. It hurt your fingers, but it was also a deliberate attempt to get the player to feel snake's pain.
I agree completely with the challenge and failure points, however when it comes to the player feeling involved, that's really a personal thing, rather than something that is completely and directly controlled by the developers. Another thing I would like to add is that a game must exist (at least supposedly) to provide some sort of entertainment or stimulant to the player.
The end of the video was really deep and emotional. Thank you for your work :)
Yeah, thats the thing. Games like Proteus and Dear Esther strip first person adventures down to the most basic form, i.e. simple experience, dispensing with gamey mechanics like puzzles, overt narrative, inventory etc. which often get in the way anyway. The best comparison I can think of is a novel vs a poem, if Skyrim is an epic novel then proteus is a one page poem, both delivered in the same way but providing very different things to the consumer, yet both equally valid and important.
What I think is a symptom of the problem I think TB is talking about is the trailer for Assassin's Creed 4. The trailer is solely CGI cut scenes that completely turned me off.
Then I watched the 13 minute game play video on RUclips and thought that was amazing.
The trailer was not targeted at gamers, it was pointed at the masses.
Absolutely ADORE your take on this
To me the Mass Effect Series is to this day the game that tells it's story interactively and does it well and on a Blockbuster scale. You change entire parts of the galaxy yourself with your decision. They might have sliped on the final ending a bit but the overall experience of that game is incredible and I really want to see more of those and those kinds of games evolve.
This video should have more views, TB should make more videos like this,it's the very reason why I watch his videos
Very true. It's pretty tricky when you get right down to it, communicating on the internet. Most of the things we take for granted in common conversation are so hard to do in pure text.
Videos like this one are the reason that I am subscribed to TB's channel.
I love games with story and failure that blocks you rather than makes you replay. Take puzzle games like amnesia or portal 2. It has some replay of failures but most of the time its just a road block due to needing to figure the puzzle out. I love the feeling of achievement which is the premise in my opinion of what a game is. I enjoy dynamic storyline's, clever mechanics, and memorable moments that make me the player feel important in the story.
Journey, Shadow of the Colossus and Flower (though a little more abstract than the other two) are three great examples of games that tell their stories almost exclusively through gameplay since there are very few cutscenes. I personally would also put Bastion under this category as well, but I'm not quite sure if that one falls under what you're looking for since there are few cutscenes (if any from what I remember) but there is a lot of narrative in the game. :)
10 years ago I wouldn't have EVER even considered the questions posed by TB in this video. The ideas would never have even occurred to me, nor would I have thought to apply any more intelligence and criticism to a game other than "Did I have fun playing it?"
Granted, that is a POWERFUL measure of a game. But all in all, after listening to TB since Blue Please, I have to say I'm grateful for the increased critical thinking about games that listening to this channel has given me.
Absolutely spot on in suggesting that the games industry is in it's adolescent phase. Very well said TB. Great video in general.
"Interactive films" is my description for those games that capture controls from player often and give him extremely linear path to move on. Even if those have some kind of "failure states" they are more like movies (one can still immersed in those but in a passive or empathic kind of way) than games (active immersion) or exhibitions (where some feelings emerge from just watching the game flow but it gives absolutely zero immersion).
Such an honest, articulated insight into the modern games industry with some well placed whit. Consider me a new subscriber!
Oh right. And interesting to hear about Visual Novels being games. I was a bit unsure about them, too. I always wondered if they're games, but I know recently there was the talk of an AOT game being announced, but there were also going to be visual novels. When some people said 'the game is only a visual novel' many replied with 'no those are separate, there is going to be an actual game' which led me to believe the two were different.
This has to be one of the best metaphors I have seen to explain shallow mechanics as a reason for questioning the 'gamey'ness of a title. Even a linear game like monkey island actually engages the player with assignments and collecting essential items.
Now I'd love to see some eccentric rich guy open an art gallery in the form of a maze, and you're required to find keys hidden in paintings in order to open doors to other sections of the gallery.
Personally one of my favorite things with a game is being more of the world rather than an actual story. I enjoy looking for tiny pieces of a world that stand out, observing side NPCs, seeing new species in fantasy/sci-fi worlds, and seeing creative worlds in gaming. Movies and books just can't pull that off as well since a movie is too linear and books are too.... wordy, but a game puts you in that spot and lets you look around and find and interact with the world yourself.
I strongly agree with your opinions on narrative in games. As a writer, it physically pains me to hear people saying that mass effect has some of the best story of all time. What is really strange to me is amazing narrative is not a new thing. What kept us playing those amazing jrpgs is exactly what you are discussing, an incredible marrying of game mechanics and story. Legend of dragoon's setting is probably my favorite example. It is conveyed almost entirely via game mechanics.
Dear Esther does have a failure state though, it even has autosaves which it loads, as opposed to restarting the entire map. You just have to try a bit harder to get it because most of the stuff is covered with triggers that teleport you back up.
Spot on, it is all about the game play. Too many cut scenes spoil a game. I bought The Witcher 2 because of the good reviews it got, but the first half an hour or so of game play was cut scene after cut scene. Apparently the cut scenes do get infrequent eventually, but initial impressions have put me off and I'll probably not play it again.
I just played 'The Stanley Parable' yesterday. It's really short (You will hardly get more than 5 hours out of it if you replay enough it to see all of it) but it is the best way gameplay and story have been married together in a game I have ever played. I won't spoil anything here but if you are interested in ways games can tell a story (of sorts) than you have to check this out.
I dont really have anything to add, but I really wanted to say thank you for an excellent reply that is actually making me think about the issue. Carry on sir.
I totally agree. And digital distribution platforms should as well. These types of virtual experiences enrich the industry and create new forms of entertainment, which can lead to even greater benefits. People who play action games tend to have better reaction times than those who don't, and strategy gamers tend to be better at critical thinking. New kinds of experiences open up new possibilities and new potential benefits to be explored by interactive entertainment.
I agree completely with you TB. I believe you best said it in the ending with the movie analogy. I'd like to add that it's actually the same with video games. As games, the core of them is in the mechanics and gameplay. What makes a bad game is the same for what makes a bad movie, and it's the core. For movies it's the story, for games its the gameplay. Stories are secondary in games, and that should be obvious in every proper game that advertises as being a video game.
Judging by these comments, TB needs to bring them back.
NEVER turn off your comments.
TB Thank you for bringing us an intelligent argument about what is gaming. i loved the metaphor about the game industry in its teenage years because it is very accurate.
Dear Ester still has elements of choice even if its as minimal as choosing how long to spend in a particular area or how much detail of certain scenery to take in. In this sense it wouldnt have been the same if it was a machinima that you watched completely passively.It highlights the most basic levels of interactivity and how they affect your experience even of a narrative "installation". That makes it important. Consider the giraffe scene in TLOU, you choose when to move on from taking it in.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video as well as your opinion, TB. I look forward to more like it in the future. Keep doing what you do. I'll keep watching.
This was an excellent discussion video. Thank you for taking the time to deliver it to the world.
Game Tree Complexity is integral in the replay value of a game. Chess, Go, and Stratego have very large Game Trees in that the number of possible games you could play can only expressed with exponential values like 10^360. This is why so many new games are implementing multiplayer (like GTA Online), because other players + a physics engine = infinite tree complexity. It keeps players around long enough to get DLC and expansions when the interest in story dries up.
Probably the best video TB has ever done.
I finally understand why I didn't like Bioshock: Infinite and lots of other games as well.
I really need that immersion for a good gaming-experience which I really liked with The Wolf Among Us.
I suppose the cop-out answer (though maybe the only real one) is that the definition varies depending on the player, and that if it fulfils what the consumer expects out of it it qualifies. Which is probably the widest possible definition, but hey, I like the concept of dynamic meanings and personal subjectivity.
I very much enjoyed this.
I do find it odd that you didn't mention Spec Ops: The Line at all.
That game has the best (or at least most powerful) story in a game I have ever played. It really plays with the idea of having a story told to you versus unfolding the story yourself. I highly recommend SO to everyone that wants to see what a story could be in a "modern militairy shooter".
On the topic of story driven games, I'm surprised that TB didn't mention Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward, a game on the 3DS that gave a narrative reason for why your character can experience multiple "endings". A good example from early on in the game (very minor spoilers ahead) is in one ending your character finds out about a virus that causes those who contract it to commit suicide by finding a book about it in one of the areas. In a different ending when another characters corpse is...
Very powerful video TotalBiscuit. I'll be honest, I don't watch your channel much, at least not the WTF series (i do watch the Terraria vids with you and Jesse Cox), but I have to say very well said points, and well presented indeed. If there is anything us as viewers can do to help, please feel free to let us know, I know myself and others I'm sure who'd love to help.
THANK YOU! i'm glad i can finally agree w/ someone on a very important point such as this. I especially agree w/ you on your opinion of mass effect
13:11 there is.. and it's actually quite a while ago
ICO
I really hope he'll see this somehow... Brothers reminded me a lot of ICO
and if I'm not mistaken Shadow of the Colossus did it aswell... not sure about this though
An older game that I think did narrative really well was Metroid Prime. Everything was pretty much told through interacting with the environment, either by scanning or just noticing things in the world. I wish more games would try out this approach, which is like telling story through gameplay.
an unwitting cameraman. =) god i feel like so many games are just that it seems, with some button pushing from time to time, or some traveling in between. so well put
I loved TBs metaphore about the video game industry being in its teen years. Very well said.
I totally agree. Tha's what I mean by "dynamic storytelling". Which to me is really the only way storytelling in games makes sense, because they're non-linear interactive systems with themselves. Movies and novels have a huge advantage in terms of linear(!) storytelling on the other hand. Nobody should force that kind of story upon a game, I think.
And many people in the industry actually agree. Even the Valve writer said there's a fundamental conflict. They just have to do it these days.
A game is where there is a challange to overcome, but not just that, but also involvement of the player and other characters/people or else it is a puzzle.
Mostly out of philosophical interest or for potentially opening up new terminology so that new (sub)genres of interactive entertainment may form.
In that way, some people might find it useful to be able to distinguish interactive experiences such as Dear Esther apart from "games," because they may not like games but enjoyed Dear Esther and wish to experience more stories/interactive experiences like it.
Or interrogating societal constructs can just be interesting in and of itself.
If for you, playing is the same as "giving an output to a software" , or "If it's in a digital platform", you should consult the broad of games that the internet has to offer, such as the Adobe Master Collection/ IDEs/ Music making software/Video making softwares....and so on.
Good points. Coming to computer games from a table-top RPG angle, I often find the limitations of games vis-a-vis the story very annoying - especially when the rail-roading is obvious, which, bizarrely it often is in narrative-heavy games.
I LOVE WHEN TB DOING THIS KIND OF VIDEO
Dear Esther does what it's trying to do incredibly well, and I think it deserves some praise for that. Which it doesn't get. It just gets bashed over and over because it isn't a game, even though it's not trying to be a game. It's not like TCR wanted to create an awesome FPS, but failed and then decided to make DE. They did what they set out to do, and that's great. I love Dear Esther for what it is. Not as a game, but as an experience and as a story.
Yes, I believe it would, because you make choices, you somewhat decide where your character goes and what he does. If it forced you down one path then no it wouldn't be.
actually this is why i still love nintendo games, they're just games, they're not trying to be a movie and thats why i search in video games, just play a good game, movies are a totally different area. i love games like skyrim or half life ,that type of games almost don't use cutscenes(because they don't need it) , maybe they not have the best storyline, but the gameplay is so satisfying that compliments the storyline. sorry if my english sucks.
Types of Games (by play theorist Roger Caillois)
1. Agon or competition. Where there are winners and losers. The outcome is determined by the skills and/or strength of the players.
2. Alea or chance: Where fate, luck, or grace determines the winner.
3. Mimicry or simulation. Playing within an imaginary make-believe or illusory world.
4. Ilinx or dizziness. Playing to induce a disorienting experience or state of mind.
TB is talking mostly about 1. Dear Ester is 3/4. Still a game tho...
In hindsight, perhaps I'm focused on general RPGs because they're almost entirely about the narrative.
Much like fictional or adventurous books being a lasting form of conveying a story regardless of perspective or structure, RPGs have a similar method of achieving the same ends with the player dictating the flow of the general gameplay while the story elements (generally) would be otherwise told outside of the player's control. Its not so much the evolution of narration, but instead, story.
The story of Biochock 1-2 was better from a videogame standpoint than Biochock Infinite because it wasn't to much of it. But I think some of the best twists in a videogame comes from F.E.A.R 2 because it's the environment that surprises you without unnecessary exposition. I just love the reveal of "The Hospital" and "The Nurses Office" in F.E.A.R 2 because it gave me nostalgia to a time where logic and realism wasn't so important. It reminded me of Doom and Quake.
(continued) .... found your character remembers the book from the other timeline. I can't comment on the games Voice Acting because the UK and EU version didn't have the US voice acting (only the JP voice acting with English subtitles was available). The Plot was very solid and the fact you used information from other endings made going between the game's different endings fell like you were the character searching for answers instead of felling like a frustrated gamer trying to get a good end
Atruly great and interesting discussion indeed.Although you are right in the fact that Last of Us does take the choice away from you it doesn't seem to be a problem.For me,the focus in the game lies in the relationship between Joel and Ellie.How THEY grow and experience the world together. The ending is a perfect example,you had to kill them all,lieto Ellie and take away humanity's last hope for selfish reasons. That gets you to deliberate over HIS choice and that's
why the ending is so special
Yes, that is the conflict between freedom X story, that happens in some games.
AFAIK GTA is one of the best in this regard, because it gives you a sandbox kind of game with an awesome story. So they really managed to create something good, and that is why they are so sucessfull.
I loved Dear Esther for the experience. The visuals and the story it told with them were astonishing, and it was a great thing to walk through.
However anyone that expects a game is going to be disappointed. It's not a game, and it isn't supposed to.
We miss You Tb. I know you'll never read this. But I love you man. And we need you more than ever in the year 2023
Yeah, there really isn't a right or a wrong most of the time, just different players to cater towards.
TB prefers mechanics over story.
I prefer story over mechanics.
You appear to prefer games which allow you to create your own story.
And none of us are wrong! And even better there are games that cater to each of our preferences.
That's why I'm glad to see a lot of the old school game styles get kickstarted. More options, more variety!
I concede that there is a categorisation problem, there isn't really a genre tag for these games and I think its important that people can make an informed choice about their purchase. Currently on steam it is very easy to mistake products like 30 flights of loving or Dear Esther for a more traditional mechanic based computer game, which they are not.
However I want to be clear that I do think these are valuable products which absolutely should be sold on distribution platforms like steam.
Some people say that video games are are not art. I agree: Video games are the combination of various art forms and, thus, much more than art. Video games are the next chapter in art, linking the audience to the performance at a level that that none of its predecessors (and fundamental part simultaneously) ever achieved.
Exactly, there is a valid and enjoyable product there, it may not have overt gameplay mechanics and it certainly isn't for everyone, but imo it definitely has the right to exist as it is. The only thing I would say is that we need clearer genre tags so people know exactly what they're buying.
Buying Dear Esther thinking you're getting a traditional game could clearly be disappointing, but if you know what it is in advance and its something you're interested in... then where is the harm?
Yeah I have to agree with you on that one. Those freaking vehicle battles were a nightmare especially when trying to get to the monster hunter missions.