Tag Archive for 'Conference/Expo'

Braid Developer Criticizes Interactive Plots

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on November 21, 2008
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In his closing address at the 2008 Montreal Games Summit, philosophizing Braid developer Jonathan Blow summarized the obstacles that keep games from telling meaningful, profound stories, reported Gamasutra.

Blow described the dynamic stories of games as “pretend stories, poorly structured, poorly delivered and they will always be an awkward second fiddle to linear medium.”

For the keynote lecture, available in full on Blow’s blog, the independent developer reduced his argument to three conflicts of design and storytelling: story meaning vs dynamic meaning, challenge vs progress, and interactivity vs a pre-baked delivery.

Industry conventions such as interactivity and the necessity for fun and challenging gameplay, said Blow, prevent games from telling a touching story, which is necessarily linear.

“Pac-Man is about taking drugs and going on a rampage,” Blow jokes. “But that’s a completely valid interpretation… In games, interpretation extends past the visual art — the dynamic system communicates something to the player, whether that is intentional or not.”

Even serious games must make things fun, distorting the themes with complex gameplay that offers alternate interpretations.

Blow cited BioShock’s Little Sisters as a “supposed moral quandary” undone by game balance, since you end up with the same amount of ADAM power-ups whether you save or slay the girls.

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AGDC: ‘Tomb Raider: Underworld’ Developer Pushes Refined Storytelling

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on September 19, 2008
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In a presentation at the Austin Game Developers Conference, Eric Lindstrom, creative director of Tomb Raider: Underworld, pushed for new storytelling techniques and more emphasis on story during development, reports Gamasutra.

Lindstrom doesn’t mean to tackle the problem of innovative interactive storytelling — because others are working on that. He’s talking about using the basic tools that have been used in other media, which “are not being used at all, or not being used effectively, and there’s no reason why they can’t.”

Here’s his mini-manifesto:

Stop saying that storytelling is less important than game mechanics. “There are lots of people who say this, but they don’t really mean it.”

Start putting storytelling on par with other pillars of game creation. “There are plenty of people out there who say this is true, but when push comes to shove, it’s not true.”

Stop hiding behind the word “interactive”. “If there’s really one thing to take away today — it’s that ‘oh, but it’s interactive’ is used as an excuse for bad storytelling all the time, and it just doesn’t wash.”

Start training and employing storytelling experts. “Hollywood knows how to write dialogue more than anybody in the industry on average. The last 10 movies I saw, seven of them had pretty crappy dialogue — so it’s not going to be perfect on average. But you’re going to find more people who understand storytelling.”

These points are good ones, but, as Lindstrom admits, these goals are really only ways of perfecting current storytelling techniques rather, which have not advanced much since the big games of the 1990s, and they don’t progress new strategies. A good Hollywood writer could work out the plot holes and cliches and help put together a satisfying climax, but only someone with writing and game development experience can integrate story into gameplay, so the two work together rather than being seperated into the game and the ensuing cut scenes.

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AGDC: Sterling’s Keynote Address Calls For Creativity

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on September 16, 2008
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The Austin Game Developer’s Conference kicked off today with a future-thinking keynote address by author Bruce Sterling that urged creative, iconoclastic approaches to game design.

Sterling’s credentials as a writer of science fiction and one of the prime movers behind the cyberpunk genre lent themselves to his unusual speech, where he posed as a student of his 89-year-old self who had traveled back in time from 2043 to tell us where gaming was headed.

After showing off his nanotechnology and General Electric Pocket Mediator, Sterling described an intensely dystopian future for the video gaming industry, run by money, for money, and with no potential for risky ingenuity or real creative development among the factories of nameless developers. Games in 2043 are trite and consumer friendly with simple, boring gameplay lodged in the real world.

To prevent this future, said Sterling, the industry needs “creative disruption, radical innovations, provocative cultural change.”

Sterling called for visionaries, revolutionaries and auteurs from among the developers gathered in Austin. “This is your great struggle, and that is what you face,” he said. “That is what you owe to your predecessors and those who will come after you. You’ve got your place in the great parade and it’s all yours.”

Look forward to more news from the Austin GDC as it pertains to creative storytelling in games.

‘Chrono Trigger,’ ‘Final Fantasy,’ And More At E3

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on July 17, 2008
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SquareEnix spilled some juicy news at this week’s E3 with heavy implications for the console front. Their game line-up indicates a shift away from Sony and the Playstation consoles. AgtFox at Evil Avatar has the press release.

First on the list is a re-release of the RPG classic Chrono Trigger for the Nintendo DS, with a new dungeon and wireless play. That game never gets old, and I look forward to playing it when its released towards the end of the year. SquareEnix is also porting Dragon Quest IV to the DS in September.

The release also provides more information on the strangely titled Infinite Undiscovery, an Xbox 360 exclusive tailored to more Western RPG sensibilities. The game, to be released in September, boasts a medieval setting and real time combat, as well as a dynamic world and situational battles that change depending on player choice, an unusual feature for SquareEnix.

The Last Remnant also differs from the classic RPG formula and centers around large-scale battles. This game will come out on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, although the PS3 release date has yet to be announced.

Two Star Ocean games appeared in the missive with 2009 release dates: Second Evolution for the PSP and The Last Hope, a prequel that sticks to the franchise’s traditional mechanics and is exclusive to the Xbox 360.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Final Fantasy XIII will be released on the Xbox 360, and on the same day as the Playstation 3 release. There has been no other news about the upcoming game so far. The loss of exclusivity is a severe blow for Sony, for whom Final Fantasy has been a core franchise since the birth of the Playstation.

With major releases scheduled for the DS, PSP, and especially the Xbox 360 and an absence of Playstation 3 news, other than the loss of exclusivity, SquareEnix appears to be moving away from their classic ally, or at least going multiplatform. This is good news for anyone who wants to enjoy J-RPGs without a Playstation.

Warren Spector Sees Shorter, Creative Games in Industry’s Future

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on June 18, 2008
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“100 hour games are on the way out,” said Warren Spector at last week’s Game Education Summit, reports Gamasutra.

How many of you have finished GTA?” asked Spector, of Wing Commander, System Shock, and Deus Ex fame. “Two percent, probably. If we’re spending $100 million on a game, we want you to see the last level!”

Spector and Mark Meyers of Disney Interactive were keynote speakers at the summit and discussed changes in the industry and the new role of game education programs in entering it.

“Up until five years ago most people got into the game industry by accident,” commented Myers, who began working as an engineer.

The game industry is growing up, getting more high tech with top-notch facilities and training programs replacing ramshackle buildings and self-trained amateurs. Both speakers grew up alongside the ever-enlarging business.

“Building a game is as complex as making as a Hollywood movie,” said Spector. “Do we have the right people and how do we harness creativity without crushing it?

“We are in a business that is both software engineer and entertainment, and we have to balance it,” Spector continued. “It used to be that you could trade off gameplay for graphics, but you can’t do that anymore.”

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Saber CEO Matthew Karch Adds to Debate On Story In Game Design

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on April 16, 2008
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Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch, just done with last year’s time-bending shooter “TimeShift,” had some interesting comments about the role of story in game design in an interview with 1UP.

The conversation began at the “Future of Story in Game Design” panel at the Game Developer’s Conference in February. At that panel, Karch argued against Silicon Knights’ Denis Dyack, saying that story should serve the gameplay and was relatively trivial.

Dyack expanded on his original arguments in a recent interview with 1UP’s Philip Kollar, and Karch asked to do the same. “My attitude about story is that it’s important, but how important depends upon what the player is doing,” said Karch in this latest interview.

Karch clarified that the importance of story depends on the game’s genre. In first-person shooters, “story is important to give the player motivation and to immerse him in the game world, but I don’t think it’s the most important aspect of the game. If you have a great story but the shooting feels lousy, the animation is bad, and the AI is average, no one is really going to care.”

“Fallout 3″ is an example of a shooter where story will be essential, said Karch, while “Gears of War” and “Call of Duty 4″ are less dependent. “Look at ‘Call of Duty 4,’” he added. “It’s a great game, but do you really care about the story? I didn’t. No one else did, but it didn’t matter.”

Unlike Karch, I was into the stories of “Call of Duty 4″ and “Gears of War,” and was disappointed that the “Gears” story was so cursory and incomplete. I think that, if a game wants the player to invest himself in its world, story is always important. If the narrative is ridiculous or nonexistent, then it’s much more difficult to become immersed, no matter how good the mechanics are.

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GDC: Panels Discuss Story in Game Design

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on February 22, 2008
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Two panels discussed the importance and state of storytelling in video games at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The first covered the place of story in the developing medium of games, and the second looked at examples of good storytelling in games.

The Future of Story in Game Design

A panel Thursday discussed the future of story in video game development, reported Gamasutra. Deborah Todd led the panel, which included Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights and Saber 3D’s Matthew Karch, as well as Tim Willits from iD Software and Matt Costello from Polar Productions.

“I think story should serve the gameplay, and not the other way,” said Karch. “In the shooter genre, which I’m in, I don’t think anyone really cares about the story. I don’t think in some genres it’s especially important.” Karch’s team recently released “Timeshift.”

“In 5 to 10 years I don’t think there’s going to be a shooter genre. It’s going to be more literary,” argued Dyack. “A shooter would just be ‘action’.”

Dyack said story will become the dominant element in game design. “Games are the eighth art form: the glue is interactivity, and that aspect is something that makes our industry unique and there’s a huge misconception at this industry is that gameplay is everything. These people are going to be mistaken,” he said. “And as this industry matures content and story, as it did in the 30s and 40s with cinema, will become dominant.”

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GDC: Portal Named Game of the Year

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on February 22, 2008
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Valve’s “Portal” earned game of the year at the 8th annual Game Developers Choice Awards last night, as well as Best Game Design and Innovation, reports gamesindustry.biz. The awards were announced last night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

2K’s “Bioshock,” nominated for five awards, won three for for Best Audio, Best Visual Arts and Best Writing. “Crackdown,” generally neglected by 2007 lists that focus on fall releases, won best premiere game. “Halo 3″ was quietly nominated for one award, Technology, and won nothing.

Sid Meier earned a Lifetime Achievement Award for his library of open world games. Since the 1980s he has created classics like Civilization, Railroad Tycoon and Pirates!

It’s good to see a small game like “Portal,” a fantastic game like “Bioshock,” and an older game like “Crackdown” get recognition from what I consider a very respectable group.

A full list of Game Developers Choice Awards winners and nominees follows.

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‘The Outsider’ Takes New Approach to Storytelling

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on October 29, 2007
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At last week’s GameCity event, David Braben of Frontier Developments hosted a panel on storytelling in games, Gamasutra reported.

Braben’s The Outsider uses a contextual plot and conversation system in which the player, accused of murdering the President, plays off rival factions. Your reputation with these factions allows unique options in different situations.

Braben showed a short segment of the game in which a policeman bursts through a door to discover the player and immediately shouts at the fugitive main character to freeze for an arrest. At the same time, a rival faction comes in through another point in the room and pins both down with gun fire.

Using the contextual system, which gives players a quick choice of words snippets and phrases, Braben convinced the policeman to help fight the rival group. Now, because the encounter has made him friendlier with the police, they might, in later sections of the game, be persuaded to let the character slip by, or help him chase down other fleeing enemies.

Braben hopes that this realistic behavior, combined with the realistic physics that only motion sensors can provide, will draw the player deeper into the experience and relate him more with the characters and story.

Adding to the great “games as art” debate, Braben commented that games continue to be second-classed by mainstream media, under film and literature and alongside “action figures and cuddly toys.”

Braben called for a genius of this generation to move the industry forward in creative areas outside of graphics, adding, “We have a much more interesting medium for getting a story across.”

Lost Odyssey to Have 20 Hours of Cutscenes

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on October 3, 2007
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At a pre-Tokyo Game Show conference, Mistwalker’s Hironobu Sakaguchi revealed new information about the developer’s upcoming Xbox 360 JRPG Lost Odyssey.

One of the most surprising details Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, mentioned pertains to game length. He estimated that Lost Odyssey will take 40 hours to beat and includes 20 hours of event scenes. Essentially, it’s Xenosaga on steroids.

The game has a deep backstory, with the cursed main character having lived for no less than 1,000 years, and many event scenes explore his accrued memories. Interestingly, much of the backstory is explored via passages written by Japanese author Kiyoshi Shigematsu.

According to Sakaguchi, there are 34 written passages, and each takes between 5 and 10 minutes to read. That means as much as 6 of the game’s 20 hours of event scenes are reading.

I understand that a good story needs depth, and many a good game employ writing to explore it, including the recent Oblivion with its library of history books. But Sakaguchi may be going to far with this, entirely divorcing gameplay from what may be necessary developments in the story. It will be interesting to see how this game is received.

Lost Odyssey will release in Japan this December.